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Old 01-31-2012, 11:04 AM   #11
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What is a major detail? How is it distinguished from a minor detail?
IIRC, one of the details that changed over time (that both Evans and Erhman agreed to) was the bit about Jesus sweating blood. I think this is supposed to have fulfilled OT prophecy (not sure though).

Erhman's point in their initial debate, IIRC, is that the closer we get to the original material, the more errors/changes there were.

I guess the conclusion is, if we can trace some embellishment to fulfill OT prophecy that occurred later, then how much of the NT can we actually trust?
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Old 01-31-2012, 12:17 PM   #12
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IIRC, one of the details that changed over time (that both Evans and Erhman agreed to) was the bit about Jesus sweating blood. I think this is supposed to have fulfilled OT prophecy (not sure though).
Then surely one must find out before posting such a thought, not rely on memory or on the comments of others, who may have an agenda.

There does not seem to be any evidence for prophecy about this, nor any claim for it. Some have seen allusion to the sweat of the man thrown out of Eden, but this is neither prophecy nor part of prophecy (though it seems theologically dubious, anyway).

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Erhman's point in their initial debate, IIRC, is that the closer we get to the original material, the more errors/changes there were.
This is a debate. Posters must prove what they write, not assume it.

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I guess the conclusion is, if we can trace some embellishment to fulfill OT prophecy that occurred later, then how much of the NT can we actually trust?
That was always true. One first has to demonstrate embellishment. The world did not begin with Ehrman.
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Old 01-31-2012, 12:52 PM   #13
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You are quoting an admittedly snarky, biased account of a different debate.
But there is self-contradiction in the comment, whether or not it is representative.
The contradiction belongs to the Christian blogger, not to Ehrman.

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What is a major detail? How is it distinguished from a minor detail?
That's how Christians try to weasle out of facing up to the errors in the Bible.
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therefore it is not inerrant and cannot be used as a source for history without some major analysis.
But who uses it for historical purposes?
Academics who claim to study the historical Jesus, and archaeologists who claim to use it for archaeology

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It's not so far from saying that a recipe book that mistakenly reports the history of, say, tarte tatin should not be used to make this dish. As it happens, the NT has been used by historians as a valid source, and has been shown to be correct even when for years it appeared to be incorrect.
Nope. The Bible is used as a historical source by Christian apologists and theologians, and has not been shown to be correct (except for one minor archaeological detail that has no theological significance.)

Quote:
Ehrman makes the claim that the Bible is not inerrant. That is not the same as proving it. What he has noted is nothing new, afaik. These supposed conflicts were noted and chewed over (with no ill effect on belief) long before there was an internet, but the current broadband-enabled generation seems to think it discovered them.
Of course it's nothing new. And nothing can penetrate some believer's bubble of certainty.
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Old 01-31-2012, 12:54 PM   #14
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Shortly after the 2 hour mark, an audience member poses a question on whether Jesus really existed, and Ehrman says to read his book coming out in March, available in bookstores.
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Old 01-31-2012, 02:05 PM   #15
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Originally Posted by Toto View Post
Quote:
Originally Posted by sotto voce View Post
Quote:
Originally Posted by Toto View Post

You are quoting an admittedly snarky, biased account of a different debate.
But there is self-contradiction in the comment, whether or not it is representative.
Quote:
The contradiction belongs to the Christian blogger, not to Ehrman.
Who knows who is a Christian? But there is, as yet, no reason to believe that the skeptical position is misrepresented.

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What is a major detail? How is it distinguished from a minor detail?
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That's how Christians try to weasle out of facing up to the errors in the Bible.
There is, as yet, no reason to believe that the skeptical position is misrepresented.

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therefore it is not inerrant and cannot be used as a source for history without some major analysis.
But who uses it for historical purposes?
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Academics who claim to study the historical Jesus, and archaeologists who claim to use it for archaeology
... who do so because of its universal religious value.

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It's not so far from saying that a recipe book that mistakenly reports the history of, say, tarte tatin should not be used to make this dish. As it happens, the NT has been used by historians as a valid source, and has been shown to be correct even when for years it appeared to be incorrect.
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Nope. The Bible is used as a historical source by Christian apologists and theologians
But not as Christians.

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and has not been shown to be correct (except for one minor archaeological detail that has no theological significance.)
What is that?

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Ehrman makes the claim that the Bible is not inerrant. That is not the same as proving it. What he has noted is nothing new, afaik. These supposed conflicts were noted and chewed over (with no ill effect on belief) long before there was an internet, but the current broadband-enabled generation seems to think it discovered them.
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Of course it's nothing new.
Then why is Ehrman so central?

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And nothing can penetrate some believer's bubble of certainty.
One must find sharp points if one is to establish that.
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Old 01-31-2012, 02:28 PM   #16
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Originally Posted by sotto voce View Post
It's not so far from saying that a recipe book that mistakenly reports the history of, say, tarte tatin should not be used to make this dish. As it happens, the NT has been used by historians as a valid source, and has been shown to be correct even when for years it appeared to be incorrect.
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Originally Posted by Toto
...Nope. The Bible is used as a historical source by Christian apologists and theologians, and has not been shown to be correct (except for one minor archaeological detail that has no theological significance.)...
Of course historians like Ehrman use the NT as an historical source. The very claim by some historians that there was an HJ of Nazareth, that was Baptized by John and crucified under Pilate is DIRECTLY from the NT and found ONLY in the Gospels and Acts.

But, what is even more bizarre, Craig Evans does NOT even understand what is meant by the "historical Jesus".

Craig Evans believes his Jesus was RAISED from the dead.

What a joke.

Only Myth Jesus can resurrect.

Craig Evans supports the resurrected Myth Jesus and thinks he supports an HJ.
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Old 01-31-2012, 03:14 PM   #17
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.. But there is, as yet, no reason to believe that the skeptical position is misrepresented. ...

Quote:
And nothing can penetrate some believer's bubble of certainty.
One must find sharp points if one is to establish that.
You only have to listen to Ehrman to see that the skeptical position is misrepresented. But you are just building a thicker bubble to avoid that.
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Old 01-31-2012, 03:42 PM   #18
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Originally Posted by Toto View Post
Quote:
Originally Posted by sotto voce View Post
.. But there is, as yet, no reason to believe that the skeptical position is misrepresented. ...

Quote:
And nothing can penetrate some believer's bubble of certainty.
One must find sharp points if one is to establish that.
You only have to listen to Ehrman to see that the skeptical position is misrepresented.
If he can successfully explain the difference between a major detail and a minor detail he can at least begin to make a case.
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Old 01-31-2012, 04:49 PM   #19
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Originally Posted by sotto voce View Post
Quote:
Originally Posted by Toto View Post
Quote:
Originally Posted by sotto voce View Post
.. But there is, as yet, no reason to believe that the skeptical position is misrepresented. ...

Quote:
And nothing can penetrate some believer's bubble of certainty.
One must find sharp points if one is to establish that.
You only have to listen to Ehrman to see that the skeptical position is misrepresented.
If he can successfully explain the difference between a major detail and a minor detail he can at least begin to make a case.
It is most remarkable that you don't understand that the resurrection and post resurrection visits by Jesus in the Gospels are MAJOR details that simply cannot be historically accurate even if Jesus did exist.

It must be NOTED that the earliest Jesus story in gMark does NOT include any post-resurrection visits but the author of gJohn dedicated 2 chapters to the resurrection and post-resurrection visits of Jesus which are TOTAL fiction whether or not Jesus did live.
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Old 02-01-2012, 09:41 AM   #20
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Originally Posted by sotto voce View Post
Then surely one must find out before posting such a thought, not rely on memory or on the comments of others, who may have an agenda.

There does not seem to be any evidence for prophecy about this, nor any claim for it. Some have seen allusion to the sweat of the man thrown out of Eden, but this is neither prophecy nor part of prophecy (though it seems theologically dubious, anyway).
I qualified the statement and I referenced the debate. Here's a link to the debate.

As to the prophecy part, you might be correct, I don't know.

Quote:
Originally Posted by sotto voce View Post
This is a debate. Posters must prove what they write, not assume it.
?

This isn't a debate, it's a discussion board.

Here's some stuff from Erhman's conclusion:

Quote:
The originals were lost, the first copies were lost, the copies of the copies were lost, and the copies of
the copies of the copies were lost. What guarantee is it that the entire tradition goes back to some kind
of original rather than to a copy? What’s the argument for that? What’s the logic behind that? Most
scholars today simply don’t see that as a tenable point of view.
+

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If you think God inspired the originals, why don’t you have the originals? And why is it that we don’t
know what the originals said in places? The differences in these manuscripts do matter. It does matter
whether the Gospel of John calls Jesus ho monogenes theos, “the Unique God.” That’s very different
from that saying Jesus is divine; if Jesus is the Unique God, well, that’s a very high statement that you
find nowhere else in the Bible.
As to my summary of Bart's position on the earlier you go, the more mistakes, this is what he says specifically:

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We don’t know how often the earliest scribes changed their text. Let me bring up one datum that has not been brought up yet. The later scribes of the Middle Ages don’t disagree from one another very much because they’re trained scribes. The earliest copyists were not trained scribes. The fact that later manuscripts agree a lot don’t tell you what the early manuscripts did. Did the earliest manuscripts agree a lot, with themselves or with the originals? As it turns out, most of the variants that we have in our textual tradition are from the earliest manuscripts. That means that the earliest copies were the least— copyists—were the least qualified copyists. What about the copyists who were copying earlier than the
surviving copyists? Are we to believe that all of a sudden they were virtually perfect? I don’t think so. I think that in fact, they probably changed their manuscripts a lot. What’s the evidence? The surviving early manuscripts differ a lot.
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