Didymus

FYI, from the transcript of the debate:

Question for Dr. Craig: Dr. Craig, we need to put Dr. Ehrman’s questions to bed of you [sic], which are: do you think there’s any problems, mistakes, or errors in the New Testament documents? And second, he’s suggesting that you say that because Mark is unembellished as a source, that Matthew did embellish as a source and you said that you think later sources like Matthew are embellished. So you need to answer that.

Answer from Dr. Craig: O.K., Dr. Ehrman is trying to play a little debater’s trick here on me, in which I simply refuse to participate. The criterion at issue is: if an account is simple, shows a lack of theological embellishment, and so forth, then it is more likely to be probable and credibly historical. And I think that’s true. But this isn’t a debate over biblical inerrancy. So my attitude toward whether I think there are any errors or mistakes in the Bible is irrelevant. That would be a theological conviction. Historically, I am using the same criteria that he is, and I am perfectly open to his showing that there are errors and mistakes in the narratives. That’s not the issue tonight. Biblical inerrancy is a big issue in his personal life that led him to abandon his Christian faith. But I am not presupposing any sort of doctrine of theological inerrancy or biblical inspiration–nor are those scholars who think these four facts are established by the criteria of authenticity that he himself champions. So my attitude theologically toward the reliability or the mistakes in the Bible is just irrelevant tonight. The question is, what can you prove positively using the standard criteria? And my argument is that when you use those criteria, you can prove positively those basic four facts about the fate of Jesus subsequent to his crucifixion.

Answer from Dr. Ehrman: So apparently it’s O.K. to have theological assumptions about the resurrection, but it’s not O.K. to have theological assumptions about the historical sources that the belief in the resurrection is based upon. If the belief in the resurrection is based on certain sources which are in the Bible and if these sources by their very nature have to be inerrant, then naturally you would conclude that the resurrection had to happen. But Bill refuses to tell us whether he thinks that the Bible has errors in it or not. He won’t tell us that because he teaches at an institution which professors agree that the Bible is inerrant without any mistakes in all of its words. And so he cannot believe that the Bible has any mistakes. If he does think the Bible has mistakes, then I’d like him to tell us two or three of them. If he doesn’t think the Bible has mistakes, I would like know how he can say how he’s using the Gospels of the New Testament as historical sources. He can’t critically evaluate these sources, and the one thing that historians have to do is be able to critically evaluate the sources that they base their claims on.

As to any acknowledgement of inerrantism and its implications by Craig, in quickly reviewing the transcript, I can find only the dodge quoted above.

Didymus

Merzbow42

Huh, my eyes deceived me... I guess he didn't admit it directly after all. But it can be inferred that he believes as much because of his refusal to discuss even a single mistake in the Gospels, which as historical documents (as he also claims them to be) they are sure to have.

Merzbow42

Well, it depends on degree of plausibility... for example, the chance of all of the atoms in a long-dead body spontaneously rearranging themselves in a way that brings the person back to life is so fantastically unlikely that if I saw it happen myself, with other eyewitnesses, I would probably conclude that there is a God after all.

In saying this, I think I'm in disagreement with Ehrman. He says that the supernatural explanation is the least likely of all. But I'd say that the hypothesis that there is an external intelligent entity manipulating the laws of phsyics is more likely than many purely naturalistic explanations, such as chance atomic rearrangement on a massive scale. Of course the only way I can assign a background probability to the existence of such a God is via philosophical means.

hallq

Does anyone have an audio of the debate? In the transcript, Ehrman comes off as relatively polite, in spite of the fact that Craig gave him plenty of reason to do otherwise in the form of obnoxious phrases like "Bart's Blunder" and "Ehrman's Egregious Error," as well as repeatedly committing fallcies such as appealing to authority. I want to hear Ehrman's tone of voice, though.

Toto

I've heard Ehrman on TV and other audio versions, and he comes across as relatively academic and unemotional.

A bit of trickery by Craig here. Craig cites John Earman’s book, Hume’s Abject Failure: The Argument Against Miracles (or via: amazon.co.uk) - or at least he shows a slide of the title. He obviously wants to create the impression that academic philosophers reject Humes argument against miracles, therefore miracles are possible - which is not what the book says. But from the Amazon reviews: As far as I have seen, all of Craig's arguments are this sort of sleight of hand debater's trick, delivered with smooth salemanship. The limited time in debate formats keeps his opponents from getting to the bottom of his invalid arguments, so he ends up impressing the believers in his audience. He has to be smart enough to know how dishonest he is.

RUmike

If the resurrection can be deemed a historical event, why on earth does every single historical Jesus scholar I've ever read NEVER deal with the resurrection in his or her book? In fact, they usually specifically state that they can do no such thing because it is not open to historical research.

I don't know if I agree with this. Ideally, historians from all walks of life should be able to reach the same conclusions. But only Christian historians could possibly reach Craig's conclusion based on what they hold by faith. A Buddhist or atheist historian cannot. Even if using the argument you present here, "the existence of a miracle-making God is a naturally implausible event" can only considered so by an atheist, agnostic, etc. Craig obviously would think the exact opposite. And that is based on what you and he holds by faith (or lack thereof), not historical data. I think this is why all HJ scholars I've read admit the resurrection has no place being discussed in a HJ book.

Merzbow42

Exactly. The worst is all that nonsense about probability equations, deliberately presented at too deep a level to be understood or discussed in a debate. He knows a guy who mathematically proved with 97% certainty that Jesus was resurrected?

Didymus

What "philosophical means" does one use to assign probabilities? Given that we know of not one instance of divine intervention, how is it possible to determine the probablility of such an instance actually occurring?

Didymus

JoeWallack

The Impossible Dream

JW:
In his Introduction Ehrman explains why the debate is over before it is started:

"What about the resurrection of Jesus? I’m not saying it didn’t happen; but if it did happen, it would be a miracle. The resurrection claims are claims that not only that Jesus’ body came back alive; it came back alive never to die again. That’s a violation of what naturally happens, every day, time after time, millions of times a year. What are the chances of that happening? Well, it’d be a miracle. In other words, it’d be so highly improbable that we can’t account for it by natural means. A theologian may claim that it’s true, and to argue with the theologian we’d have to argue on theological grounds because there are no historical grounds to argue on. Historians can only establish what probably happened in the past, and by definition a miracle is the least probable occurrence. And so, by the very nature of the canons of historical research, we can’t claim historically that a miracle probably happened. By definition, it probably didn’t. And history can only establish what probably did."

JW:
This is the correct approach in my opinion for a Skeptic, to clearly indicate at the start that the Impossible is either Impossible or extremely unlikely as Ehrman believes and therefore can Not be history no matter what the Evidence is. Any Possible Natural explanation must be more Likely than any Impossible explanation. The Skeptic should than make clear that the following debate is not needed to determine Historicity. It is merely a theoretical exercise where the Skeptic will point out other weaknesses in the Believer's argument.

As a side note the key to Apologetics is Expanding Definitions used by the Believer's argument and Contracting Definitions used by the Skeptic's argument. This Technique runs throughout Craig's argument. He refuses to be Limited by the normal Definition of "Impossible". His justification is that he has sufficient evidence indicating historicity. The Definition of Impossible here has been reduced to a Relative term Dependent on the amount of Evidence.

At the same time he refuses to allow Ehrman to use the normal Definition of "Impossible" regarding resurrections based on all known observation and experience. Ehrman's Absolute Definition of Impossible is Narrowed to every other instance except Christian miracles.

Ehrman then lists the Attributes of Quality evidence:

1) Contemporary

2) Quantity

3) Independence

4) Corroboration

5) Objectivity

He does a good job of explaining how Christian evidence has none of these qualities:

1) Contemporary - The original Gospels are written 1 to 2 generations after Jesus died and not by Eyewitnesses. Jesus and his witnesses would have spoken Aramaic and the Gospels speak Greek. Subsequent Editors make significant changes. I especially enjoyed Ehrman's commentary on "Mark's" "The Disciples":

"One of Mark’s overarching themes is that virtually no one during the ministry of Jesus could understand who he was. His family didn’t understand. His townspeople didn’t understand. The leaders of his own people didn’t understand. Not even the disciples understood in Mark—especially not the disciples! For Mark, only outsiders have an inkling of who Jesus was: the unnamed woman who anointed him, the centurion at the cross. Who understands at the end? Not the family of Jesus! Not the disciples!
It’s a group of previously unknown women."

So not only are the Gospels not written by eyewitnesses but the original Gospel makes a point that The Disciples, taken by Craig as the witness, never understood Jesus!

2) Quantity - "Matthew" and "Luke" are dependent on "Mark" and "John" may be partially dependent leaving Christianity with at most two independent Gospels.

3) Independence - Again, "Matthew" and "Luke" are dependent on "Mark". This also indicates a lack of independent witness available to authors such as
"Matthew" and "Luke", a point which Ehrman should make.

4) Corroboration - Ehrman lists examples of significant disagreement amongst the Gospels. There is exponentially more disagreement when considering non-canonical Gospels, another point which Ehrman should make.

5) Objectivity - The Gospels are all written by Evangelists who's soul goal is to be an Advocate for Jesus.

Ehrman was limited by time here and therefore only covers it briefly but a proper discussion should Measure the Distance between what would constitute quality evidence and what the Christians claim to have.

Ehrman accurately points out that Craig is just a Theologian pretending to be a historian:

"I do think, though, that what we’ve seen is that Bill is, at heart, an evangelist who wants people to come to share his belief in Jesus
and that he’s trying to disguise himself as a historian as a means to that end.
He can’t critically evaluate these sources, and the one thing that historians
have to do is be able to critically evaluate the sources that they base their claims on."

Ehrman asks Craig if he is an Inerrantist and Craig refuses to answer saying it is Irrelevant. Obviously it's relevant to Ehrman if he's asking and Craig's refusal to answer just prove's Ehrman's above point.

In Summary, Craig's argument that the resurrection is Historical Fails according to Ehrman based on the following:

1) Any Impossible claim is not Historical. No further discussion required.

2) If you Assume that the Impossible is Possible you would need uncommonly Good evidence. There is an Infinite Distance between uncommonly Good evidence and the Christian evidence here.

3) Those who want to use the Christian Bible as their PriMary evidence here like Craig, must, for starters, be Objective regarding the Christian Bible as evidence. If, for Starters, you Assume that the Christian Bible is Impossibly accurate than by Definition you are not Objective about the Christian Bible.



Joseph

SCRIPTURES, n.
The sacred books of our holy religion, as distinguished from the false and profane writings on which all other faiths are based.

http://www.errancywiki.com/index.php/Main_Page

jjramsey

I'm sorry, but "X cannot be so 'no matter what the Evidence is'" is the statement of an ideologue, not a Skeptic.

One fundamental problem I see in this discussion is the idea that miracles are inherently improbable simply because they are contrary to natural law. If we had well-documented evidence that some people or some deity could on occasion suspend natural law, then the mere existence of natural law would hardly make miracles too improbable to be believed. The real problem is that when some people do try to track down the evidence for miracles, what is found is rumor, exaggeration, urban legend, misunderstanding, misinterpretation of natural phemonena, etc. Basically, then, when we see miracles reported in historical documents, we have good reason to suspect that we are yet again looking at rumors and tall tales, and for a historical document to be a good witness to a miracle, it needs to be established that embellishment, legend, and so on, is an insufficient explanation for the report of the miracle in the text. In short, it isn't that miracles are inherently improbable, but rather that human testimony has such a bad track record in regard to miracles that reports of miracles in the historical record are more likely to be just further examples of that poor track record than reliable evidence of a miracle.