Bart Ehrman -- another instance of not reading what he cites

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
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neilgodfrey
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Re: Bart Ehrman -- another instance of not reading what he cites

Post by neilgodfrey »

Secret Alias wrote: Sat Sep 24, 2022 5:30 pm
It's apparent Neil just wants harmful anarchy
Accountability is the opposite of anarchy. (At least it is in the sense you are using the word "anarchy".) Think it through. Throwing dice is not holding anyone accountable for anything.

Why do you continue to twist and distort what I am saying into its opposite?
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neilgodfrey
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Re: Bart Ehrman -- another instance of not reading what he cites

Post by neilgodfrey »

Secret Alias wrote: Sat Sep 24, 2022 5:30 pm Give me a break. Authority is good. A chaotic free for all is bad for any serious study of anything.
Authority without accountability is never good. Authority is a potential evil if there is no accountability.

Accountability is the opposite of "chaotic free for all". "Chaotic free for all" means no accountability for anything.

I am an educator by profession. If your education has brought you to a point where you can only think in terms of such narrow black and white binaries (authority or chaos) then your education has been sadly lacking. It has not equipped you to be a constructively functioning member of a democratic society.
Last edited by neilgodfrey on Sat Sep 24, 2022 11:40 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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John T
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Re: Bart Ehrman -- another instance of not reading what he cites

Post by John T »

Chris Hansen wrote: Sat Sep 24, 2022 4:45 pm
Why is it that you insist on being a belligerent thorn in this forum's side?
Actually, I see myself not as a belligerent thorn but as a gadfly pestering the ignorant to think about their unfounded beliefs.

Why?

Because the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

That will be all.
Best of luck. :cheers:
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Joseph D. L.
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Re: Bart Ehrman -- another instance of not reading what he cites

Post by Joseph D. L. »

John T wrote: Sat Sep 24, 2022 5:51 pm

Actually, I see myself not as a belligerent thorn but as a gadfly pestering the ignorant to think about their unfounded beliefs.

Why?

Because the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

That will be all.
Best of luck. :cheers:
Returning briefly from my self imposed exile just to say this...

John, if you truly think this then you are out of your God damned mind. You are insane. You are delusional. You are a crazy person and should be barred from participation in any form of public, civil, and especially political discourse.

You say nothing worth hearing, you add absolute zero value to anything discussed on this forum, and everything you say can be boiled down to blithe and sarcastic remarks unbefitting a high school locker room. You are a carbuncle on this forum, on this society, and on this planet. You are not a good man, you are a fly buzzing around a dung pile of your own making. That is all will ever be.
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John T
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Re: Bart Ehrman -- another instance of not reading what he cites

Post by John T »

Joseph D.L.,

Thank you for validating my point. But unlike you, I think we need to hear more from you and your world view.
Perhaps you could tell us what your final solution is for the Christian problem?
Chrissy Hansen
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Re: Bart Ehrman -- another instance of not reading what he cites

Post by Chrissy Hansen »

It takes a special kind of antisemitism to appropriate Jewish suffering and the Holocaust to paint Christians as being victims, and meanwhile ignoring that the vast majority of people who perpetrated the Holocaust... were Christians.

Like, at least we know that John is a horrible person on virtually every level.
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John T
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Re: Bart Ehrman -- another instance of not reading what he cites

Post by John T »

Chris Hansen wrote: Sun Sep 25, 2022 7:02 am It takes a special kind of antisemitism to appropriate Jewish suffering and the Holocaust to paint Christians as being victims, and meanwhile ignoring that the vast majority of people who perpetrated the Holocaust... were Christians.

Like, at least we know that John is a horrible person on virtually every level.
Chris Hansen,

I knew I could count on you to make my point. That is, when the hypocrisy/deception of the neo-atheist and/or mythicist is exposed, they default to the dirty tactic of ad hominem attacks. So, please do go on. All you and Neil did was to validate Ehrman's conclusion in: Did Jesus Exist?

The Mythicist Agenda.

"It is no accident that virtually all mythicists (in fact, all of them, to my knowledge) are either atheists or agnostics. The ones I know anything about are quite virulently, even militantly, atheist. On the surface that may make sense: who else would be invested in showing Jesus never existed? But when you think about it for a moment, it is not entirely logical. Whether or not Jesus existed is completely irrelevant to the question of whether God exists. So why would virulent atheists (or agnostics) be so invested in showing that Jesus did not exist?...Their agenda is religious, and they are complicit in a religious ideology. They are not doing history; they are doing theology."... Bart Ehrman pg. 337-338.

The worse kind of hypocrite is one who falsely accusing others of what they themself are actually doing.
I now turn it over for snarky, smart-alleck comments by the usual suspects.

John T is done with this thread. :cheers:
Chrissy Hansen
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Re: Bart Ehrman -- another instance of not reading what he cites

Post by Chrissy Hansen »

I'm not an atheist nor a mythicist. I am both a theist and someone who thinks Jesus existed. But please tell me what my agenda is.

Also, Bart Ehrman is just wrong. Thomas L. Brodie is a Catholic Priest... and a mythicist. And was a New Testament professor and highly respected and cited scholar in the field. Anyways, beyond that I can think of several others. Hermann Detering was a Lutheran Pastor. Eliza Sharples started her own movement of mythicist Christians.

Bart Ehrman can't think of any because Bart hasn't actually done any careful research on mythicism, and I doubt he read half the things he even cited in his "history" of the subject. Bart also couldn't think of any mythicist or agnostic historians working in the field, when Arthur Droge, PhD, had two peer reviewed papers on his doubts about Jesus' existence at the time, and also was an active teacher at universities still (he retired a few years ago). Also Hector Avalos at the time as well and I believe also Rod Blackhirst.

Ehrman's book was just poorly researched, so thank you for demonstrating yet another point on how Ehrman's book is fairly useless.

In fact... several of the very people Ehrman cited were not atheists. Arthur Drews, whom he cited in his history and later on in the book as well, was not an atheist. He was an idealist monist. So Ehrman's own statements show he probably did not even bother reading Drews' book Die Christusmythe (or The Christ Myth)... which he cited. If he had, he would have been familiar with the appended last part of that book which was basically an apologetic for his form of monism. He even cited Vladimir Lenin in his book and Drews' influence on him, but again... if he had actually read Lenin's article on the subject of Drews and mythicism, he would have been aware that Drews was not an atheist... because Lenin outright criticizes Drews' religious beliefs.

So either Bart didn't read what he cited, Bart didn't understand what he cited, or Bart is just lying.

And no matter what the option is, your very quote demonstrates that Bart is not a careful researcher. He *does* know of mythicists who were not anti-religious extremists. Drews was militantly pro-religion... specifically a militant monist.
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neilgodfrey
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Re: Bart Ehrman -- another instance of not reading what he cites

Post by neilgodfrey »

John T wrote: Sun Sep 25, 2022 3:53 pm
Chris Hansen wrote: Sun Sep 25, 2022 7:02 am All you and Neil did was to validate Ehrman's conclusion in: Did Jesus Exist?

The Mythicist Agenda.

"It is no accident that virtually all mythicists (in fact, all of them, to my knowledge) are either atheists or agnostics. The ones I know anything about are quite virulently, even militantly, atheist. On the surface that may make sense: who else would be invested in showing Jesus never existed? But when you think about it for a moment, it is not entirely logical. Whether or not Jesus existed is completely irrelevant to the question of whether God exists. So why would virulent atheists (or agnostics) be so invested in showing that Jesus did not exist?...Their agenda is religious, and they are complicit in a religious ideology. They are not doing history; they are doing theology."... Bart Ehrman pg. 337-338.


Bart Ehrman just made that up. As John Loftus -- an atheist who really is trying to undermine Christianity -- said, the absolutely worst way to try to undermine Christianity is to argue the Christ myth theory. And I long agreed 100%: https://vridar.org/2013/02/13/is-the-ch ... t-what-is/

John T wrote: Sun Sep 25, 2022 3:53 pmJohn T is done with this thread. :cheers:
promises promises!
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MrMacSon
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Re: Bart Ehrman -- another instance of not reading what he cites

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John T wrote: Sun Sep 25, 2022 3:53 pm
... Ehrman's conclusion in: Did Jesus Exist?

The Mythicist Agenda

"It is no accident that virtually all mythicists (in fact, all of them, to my knowledge) are either atheists or agnostics. The ones I know anything about are quite virulently, even militantly, atheist. On the surface that may make sense: who else would be invested in showing Jesus never existed?
  • That is just confirming the obvious: of course most outspoken mythicists would be atheists.

But when you think about it for a moment, it is not entirely logical.
  • a Bart brain fart

Whether or not Jesus existed is completely irrelevant to the question of whether God exists.
  • as far as the Christian manifestation of God it's highly relevant

So why would virulent atheists (or agnostics) be so invested in showing that Jesus did not exist? ...Their agenda is religious, and they are complicit in a religious ideology. They are not doing history; they are doing theology." (Bart Ehrman, pp. 337-338.)
  • That is mostly nonsense: the primary issue is a historical one. And saying atheist mythicists [primarily] have 'a religious agenda' or 'a religious ideology' is profoundly disingenuous.
Last edited by MrMacSon on Sun Sep 25, 2022 11:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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