DavidfromTexas

Thank you, Julian, for clearing up the matter... It appears that one of my quirks (or better, my ignorance) is that I mistake my quirks for quarks...

darstec

I honestly do not see where Craig clearly lost the debate. After reading this, I can only conclude that like all debates of this type, everyone went home holding the same views as when they arrived.

What was clear was that he used the typical apologist rhetoric and his answer to everything was their same goddidit, goddidit, goddidit. He did show a lack of understanding philosophy, particularly Hume and a lack of understanding mathematics when he confused simple ratios/algebra with calculus. Either he honestly believed his math presentation, or he hoped his audience would be too stupid to follow along.

Sven

Judging from the Q&A session, the audience seemed to be mostly on Ehrmann's side - critical, but the way the questions were worded, they lend not much credence to Craig's points. And all this despite the setting of the debate, which was clearly in favor of Craig.

So at least by using this for evaluating the debate, Ehrmann won.

Storm

Were they debating the same thing? The topic was:

Yet during the debate, and in the conclusion, Craig says:

I thought that was exactly what the debate was about. If a historian can't say professionally that there's historical evidence, what good is it if he tells his wife there is?

Dean Anderson

Craig started well, and in his first couple of rounds he was very strong - helped by his pre-prepared material.

Unfortunately, Ehrman simply didn't use the argument(s) that Craig had come pre-prepared against.

Whereas Craig took the Goliath position of the big untoppable "Scary Facts" and "Scary Math", Ehrman took the smaller - more agile - debating position of fluidly responding to Craig and (to continue the metaphor) slinging unexpected questions at him.

So Craig's position looked weaker and weaker as the debate went on - until at the end, he was reduced to feebly repeating that Hume had been rebutted despite the fact that Ehrman had repeatedly pointed out that he didn't agree with Hume.

Of course, the killer blows were when Craig repeated his factual errors (e.g. about Apollonius) despite Ehrman's correcting him on them, and when he so transparently tried to avoid answering Ehrman's questions that the audience just ended up point-blank demanding for him to do so.

It was at that point when Craig of Gath fell with a crash - his helmet of pre-prepared rhetoric falling cracked and useless beside him.

Diogenes the Cynic

Agreed. As soon as Craig admitted that it wasn't possible for historians "professionally" to find evidence for the resurrection, he was pretty much resigning his king. The rest of his statement was just vacuous proselytization.

I also agree with Pervy's analysis that Craig was apparently unprepared to argue against anything but his usual arrangement of strawmen.

I do wish that Ehrman had been more aggressive about pointing out the lack of primary evidence for the empty tomb/ physical resurrection. I see no reason to stipulate that any of the disciples (or anyone else who knew Jesus) ever made such claims themselves.

Guest21595

Ok so I had way too much time on my hands last night and read through pretty much the whole debate..... I have a question concerning the "calculation" of the probability of it being historically accurate that Jesus rose from the dead.... I believe he said in one place he said that it was calculated to be 0.97 percent. However, when it was referred to later, it was referred to as 97%. My question is -- is it 97% or 0.97%, as that is a huge difference!

-jonathan

Kosh

.97 is the estimate of probability, with 1 being absolute certainty.

97% is just another way of expressing it.

Kosh (who minored in statistics, and that's about all I remember)

madmax2976

I don't see how Craig got "spanked" in the debate. I certainly don't think he won, but I didn't see any "slam dunk" hits by Ehrman either.

I would have like to have seen Ehrman present more against Craig's oft-touted claim of numerous independent attestations. That is a claim for which the support is poor at best.

cognac

He demonstrates this sort of thing with infinities, general relativity and Big Bang cosmology. To believe what he believes about the nature of the world, he has to say Cantor is absurd, Einstein was wrong, and Hawking is an idiot.