The main problem with Ehrman is that he purposefully ignores the giant elephant in the room, which is that there are more and earlier copies of the various books of the New Testament than there are of any historical document from the ancient world. The Bible is extremely reliable by every secular standard for historical documents; it is arguably the most reliable ancient text in human history by those standards. If you're going to reject the historical veracity of the Bible - which has repeatedly proven to be more accurate than the contrary assertions of archeologists and historians - then you must likewise reject the entire written history of Man.
22 comments
What difference does "historical veracity" make? Let's face it, "The Origin of Species" has historical veracity, but that doesn't satisfy the god-botherers. Claims of the miraculous are exactly that, CLAIMS. The fact that Harry Potter referenced real, verifiable places does not mean that the magic is true.
The number of copies of New Testament books proves nothing. It only means that people believed the stories and wanted to spread them around.
Notice that Beale implies that Ehrman "reject the historical veracity of the Bible". He doesn't. Ehrman thinks most of the New Testament books, on which he focuses, are highly distorted versions of real events. The same is true, to a greater or lesser degree, of all ancient texts that purport to describe history.
The difference is that the other texts deal with politically important events that lots of people were involved in and left innumerable archaeological remains behind, making it easier to cross-check the texts with outside evidence. Jesus, in contrast, was insignificant in his own time. He is only important because people after his death came to believe he was important. We have no evidence of his existence except the texts, and that makes it harder to figure out what he actually said and did.
As for the Old Testament, if you think the first eleven chapters of Genesis are literally accurate, you are simply out of touch with reality. The rest of the Pentateuch either has a very slim basis in fact or none at all. The historical books from Joshua to Kings and Chronicles are a very mixed bag with some pretty accurate stuff near the end, most of the prophetic books were written when they say they were but don't contain a lot of historical information, Ruth is a folktale, Jonah and Daniel are flat-out pious fiction, and so on. Treating "the Bible" as a unit that can be given a collective grade for accuracy is just stupid.
@ 1936053
Actually, destruction of unorthodox texts probably didn't have very much to do with the disappearance of those texts. When unorthodox sects died out, their texts stopped being copied and were simply lost. On top of that, most of the unorthodox gospels were even wilder and less accurate than the canonical gospels (except John; as history, John is junk). The earliest and most accurate gospel is widely agreed to be Mark and in the oldest copies, it doesn't include the resurrection. It ends at 16:8, with the women fleeing from the empty tomb.
If you want to claim the Bible is a reliable historical document, answer this: how many people went to the Jesus' tomb, who were they, and who did they find there?
And there are more copies of the works of Stephen King than textbooks in schools. Which of those do you think are filled with factual information?
The Epic of Gilgamesh predates your Bible and I think the beginning of the universe by the latter's timeline.
Making a point of burning any other historical accounts not literally etched in stone as well as anyone who tries to write new stuff that doesn't jive with the establishment will have an effect on the available light reading.
The Bible is extremely reliable by every secular standard for historical documents; it is arguably the most reliable ancient text in human history by those standards
I wouldn't doubt the Bible is reliable, but the most reliable? Yeah, no. The Bible is to be taken like any other primary source of its era.
Yes, there was a person named Jesus, or Yeshua bar Yosef (or some variation of that). But I'd be amazed if he came up with even half of what the Gospels say he preached. The very fact that John the Baptist shows up in the Gospels makes it highly likely that there were multiple people preaching similar stuff in 1st century Judaism that in the end got warped into the figure of Jesus, with John the Baptist as secondary, and the other guys forgotten.
which has repeatedly proven to be more accurate than the contrary assertions of archeologists and historians
The good part about historical thought is that it evolves when we know more.
As for archeology, it sure is amusing how according to the Bible, millions of Jews wandered in Sinai for 40 years and yet we have absolutely no evidence for that when it should be everywhere. Same thing with basically the entire story of Exodus. And the same with Joshua, for that matter--for such a violent conquest with millions being killed (on God's orders, lol), where is the archeological evidence?
which is that there are more and earlier copies of the various books of the New Testament than there are of any historical document from the ancient world.
Ancient Egypt...
Those guys wrote down everything factual and mythical long before the NT was even thought about some 50 years later after the death of Jesus (provided he actually existed). As for the earliest copies, those don't show up until much later. By then it was copied several times over. There is no way of telling just how accurate the originals were.
So why isn't the Bible admissable as evidence in a court of law: the most rigorous crucible of secular standards: when - in certain states/countries - a defendant's life is at stake via the veracity of forensic evidence. Which is as secular as it can get.
Kitzmiller vs. Dover certainly executed Biblical 'Truth' when the Conservative Christian John E. Jones III found for the plaintiffs.
Ramses II - who was worshipped as a deity (and can you prove he wasn't one...?!) - is proven historical/archaeological/Egyptological fact. He having an actual DNA-analysable body did his existence case no harm, neither. Also, temples, stelae, papyrii etc.
So why isn't there one single artifact that can be proved to have been possessed by this 'Jesus': if he existed, that is.
Isn't the first problem with the accuracy of the Bible, that it had at first been orally passed on? Like the Iliad and the Odyssey?
Also, the Bible doesn't make ordinary claims. It makes extraordinary claims. If the ancients had written a book about hunting, and starting a fire, we wouldn't doubt it because it doesn't make extraordinary claims. Likewise, if someone said they built a time machine and hundreds of people said they saw it for themselves, but that's all the evidence provided, we wouldn't believe it because of the extraordinary claims.
It's why I don't believe in any other religious book.
I also don't see why this is an issue. All your God has to do is make himself known. It's that simple.
Parts of the bible, especially the old testament, are indeed useful historical texts, many verified by other sources.
Large parts of Pride & Prejudice also provide very useful historical information about the time and place they were written. Doesn't mean Mr Darcy is anything but fiction.
If you're going to reject the historical veracity of the Bible - which has repeatedly proven to be more accurate than the contrary assertions of archeologists and historians - then you must likewise reject the entire written history of Man.
Entire written history of Man - facts, figures, places, verifiable stories.
"Historical veracity" of the Bible - talking snakes, talking donkeys, an impossible global flood for which there's no evidence, people dying and coming back to life, miracles, a flat earth with a domed sky with a "firmament" above it, and accounts of hallucinogenic visions.
"More copies" is irrelevant.
Wrong. See the 1st century BC copy of Bibliotheca historica by Diodorus, chapter 17 on Alexander the Great. And then there are all those much earlier Egyptian manuscripts.
Your team doesn't have much going for it:
How does have more versions of a book prove it's accuracy? Wouldn't that make it harder to determine which was the original?
Unless you are dense enough to actually believe those extensive amounts of found books you cited have exactly the same text in all of them.
Yet Biblical Scholars say the opposite, the vast majority of Biblical Scholars favor the Allegory or fable aspect of the books. Since they don't agree, even within actual editions, they can't be anything else.
I'll remind anyone new to this dispute that there are no Fundamentalist Christian Biblical Scholars as all Fundamentalism is Dogma based and most are near illiterate, too lazy to read it or agenda driven.
"The Bible is extremely reliable by every secular standard for historical documents"
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
To post a comment, you'll need to Sign in or Register . Making an account also allows you to claim credit for submitting quotes, and to vote on quotes and comments. You don't even need to give us your email address.
