Does Biblical Scholarship Destroy Faith?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 3 ก.ค. 2023
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Biblical scholars who approach the Bible from a historical perspective are often accused of working hard to deconvert the faithful. Is that true? Do undergraduates widely abandon their faith once they learn the historical realities behind it? Are professors and authors generally interested in urging their students and readers to abandon their religion? And is there any positive result for faith that can come from understanding historical scholarship? Is it crucial to faith to understand the Bible, or just an unnecessary add-on?
This week, Megan asks Bart:
-It's probable that no Christian goes into biblical scholarship expecting to deconvert. They do it to deepen their understanding of their holy text. Why, then, do you think that deconversions do occur, and do you think it happens at a higher rate among biblical scholars than the rest of the population?
-What role do you think that a person’s understanding of the Bible before they embark on academic training has on the longevity of their faith? Do you think that someone with a more literal view of the Bible is more susceptible to deconversion?
-As someone who kind of bridged theological both worlds, an episcopalian who converted to evangelism, what impact, if any, did becoming a Biblical scholar have on Bart's faith?
-Does Bart feel like an outlier, in either your deconversion, or that you didn’t deconvert as a result of your scholarship?
-Do you think that some fundamental Christians are able to maintain their fundamentalism while in academia because they choose to go into adjacent fields - something like Egyptology, or Classics, where they aren’t confronted with the challenges that biblical scholarship can present, so they don’t have to adjust their worldview to account for them?
-Are there ways that biblical scholarship is actually helpful for people who want to understand the bible and maintain their faith?
I was actually a fundamentalist evangelical when starting to listen to Bart Ehrman but I listened to all of his debates and realised he was not the type of person I had been told he was. He just taught the facts. Now I love listening to these podcasts and Mythvision, Dale Allison and Cosmicsceptic. It is a radical change for me but I am so happy to have opened my mind. I haven't left my faith but I have changed much of my thinking. Thank you for your work Bart, it is truly inspirational.
How can u still believe that Jesus is God, part of God, that he died for your sins or in salvation by faith alone when most scholars say that Jesus never taught any of these doctrines? Or that no book of the Nt goes back to Jesus or that Paul taught something different than Jesus?
@@germanboy14 give the kid a break, this is all new to him!
Does Bart really teach a course called, "No Atheist Left Behind"? 😉😉. Bart hates Evangelical Christianity, but loves the Evangelical student. It's kind of like hating the sin, but loving the sinner. PTL. 😂
@mk05022
Christian theism in its pure sense stands apart from the Bible - even if literally everything was true re Bart's perspective - and, IMHO, most of it is, that has nothing to do with my Christian theistic faith - which was never based on the Bible.
In contrast evangelicalism has essentially CREATED their God - the Bible - though they would never formally state this - that is indeed the essence. Thus when one sees through that smoke and mirrors, God necessarily goes by the wayside as well... Evangelicalism is very devilish in that regard...😥😥
@@greglogan7706 I would suggest their conservative social traditions are their Sacred Cow, and these pull yourself up by the bootstraps, personal responsibility, sexual taboos, gender roles, etc are grounded in the Word of God which conveniently shared their desire for strict societal control by a religious class and preference for authoritarian rule which lacks any transparency or accountability.
It’s not the ‘scholarship’ part… it’s the ‘being lied to for a lifetime’ part.
Yes. The "being lied to for a lifetime" part was a real problem for me, too. And even if the ones lying to you didn't really KNOW for sure, if you're going to base your LIFE on a certain philosophy or religion, isn't it your RESPONSIBILITY to be damn SURE something is true before you go about ruining other people's lives with it?! I sure think so!
How have you dealt with the anger that comes with this? I still have it after many years. The thing is I really can't blame my parents because they really believe bible and all that.
@@Mysticpaw That's a good question. I've been listening to 'the atheist experience' and 'talk heathen' podcasts for years now, and listening to other people's experience helps. I also study a LOT of science.
It's ironic that the best counter-apologists are often ex-evangelicals. I realize now a bubble is lifted by its own gas, and this is how all religions survive generation after generation. There is no blame here, it's the way of things, it's how culture operates. Any Christian, if born in Saudi Arabia would be a Muslim, any Muslim, if born in Texas, would be a Christian. Religion will never disappear, we can only hope the more harmful versions are highlighted and slowly evaporate over time.
@@wagsman9999 Yeah. Understanding that religions are part of culture has helped some. Thanks for answering 🙂
My amateur psychological evaluation of Dr Erhman: He has the courage to question his beliefs and seek out more information to confirm or deny. This is the sign of a healthy mind. We need more people to embrace their "agency" and seek for themselves rather than be led like a herd of domesticated animals.
I have the courage to question Bart Ehrman's interpretation of the facts and his motives.
Keep following Ehrman like a you're part of the herd of domesticated atheists.
It's the sign of closing your mind to the axiom of Scripture.
In the summer of my 18th birthday, 1961, I was considering seminary. In order to get a leg up, I read the KJV cover to cover. At the end of that reading I discovered (quite against expectations) that I was no longer Christian nor even Jewish.
Me too. But I was 55 when you finally chose to read the whole bible for myself. Now I don't believe in any man made religion. My faith is now different than most anyone I know.
"There is no better cure for Christianity than reading the Bible" - Mark Twain.
...
Personally, I could never get through the whole Bible. I'd always poop out around Judges or Kings. It needs a good editor.
How did you even understand it? It’s in 17th century English.
@@jefffarris9238 I have never been asked that question before.
The KJV is in Early Modern English. The language of Shakespeare. The language the Pilgrims would have used. The editors of my version included footnotes when they thought there was a chance of misunderstanding.
It's surprising that anyone who reads the OT can comprehend any of it since the average person has no knowledge of bronze age civilizations. Sadly, when they hear a mythicist or textual critic make a claim about the validity of Scripture they figure the scholar's point is valid just because the claim was made by a "scholar". Every claim by any critic or minister should be researched and challenged.
As an atheist since my early 20's who was raised Catholic, at least for me, I really never had a "de-conversion" experience. Growing up, I never really believed in the silly myths like Noah's arc, or Adam and Eve, or the virgin birth or even Jesus literally rising from the dead. My recollection from my Catholic experience is that there was much more emphasis on the moral teachings of Jesus, the sacraments, the rituals, and charitable experiences helping the poor. I think the issue with fundamentalist protestentism is, if your religion is SOLELY based on the inerrancy of the Bible, and then you learn the Bible is far from inerrant, you don't have a lot else to fall back on. It seems an all-or-nothing approach that inevitably leads to de-conversion.
Exactly!
This was my experience as well: the moral teachings and the ritual experience were the heart of my Catholic upbringing. The Bible itself was a source of wisdom and examples of how to live well (or not). It was not presented as a perfect and immutable historical account: the issue was not discussed. I suppose saying “This is the Word of the Lord” after each reading from the Bible was sufficient.
The Catholic Church also has an extremely long history of Bible scholarship and orders like the Jesuits that take rational discussion and study of theology very seriously.
@TJ-vh2ps What did they say about Jesus being a failed apocalyptic prophet?
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"Many passages attributed to Jesus have him predicting the end *within his generation* (“the time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Repent and believe the good news” (Mark 1:15); *“this generation will not pass away* until all these things take place” (Mark 13:30); *“truly I say to you, you will not finish going through the cities of Israel until the Son of Man comes”* (Matthew 10:23); “Truly I say to you, *there are some of those who are standing here who will not taste death* until they see the kingdom of God after it has come with power.” (Mark 9:1); "From now on, you shall see the *Son of Man* coming in the clouds..." (Matthew 26:64))."
@@epicofgilgamesh9964 i will not say he failed as an apocalyptic prophet, i will say the scriptures got it wrong and some of them are not the words of Jesus and so the scriptures have failed the test of being authentic and that is understandable! A copy of a copy of a copy and the source at least 50 years away from jesus time and never actually seen or heard jesus !
@@epicofgilgamesh9964 The Catholic Church doesn’t believe he was failed prophet, they believe the apocalypse hasn’t happened yet. As for the the timeline for the apocalypse in Mark and Matthew, in my experience, it isn’t usually brought up in Mass or if it is, it is interpreted as a sort of internal apocalypse: repent now because you never know when you will face judgment. Besides, later gospels go out of their way to push back the timeline of the apocalypse, so it’s easy to use them to reinterpret the earlier gospels.
There are two millennia of apologia written by very intelligent and devoted believers: I only discussed what I remember hearing or reading many years ago.
I lost my faith because of you. thank you. now my eyes can see
It did for me in reference to christianity for sure. Either its true or not. There is no middle path. Why would i be Christian if the Nt doesnt go back to Jesus or even contradicts the Ot? If for example someone believes that the Ot is inspired, then faith in Jesus as God would violate the first commandment. So for me personally, there is no reason to be Christian. Either its true or not.
If an adult with a brain persists in “believing” or professing to believe the particulars of Christian doctrine, no new information could possibly dissuade him. “Faith” in this sense is the antithesis of reason. In any case, the vast majority of those who say they accept this doctrine don’t really. This is not to suggest that they disbelieve. They’re too shallow for that..
I wasn't exposed to Church until about age 11 when my Dad decided to run for public office. The church was an attractive, new building that conferred social status to local businessmen and their families. The Pastor's rhetoric was performative, facile and vacuous. This experience was a blessing. It gave me a clear picture of what most churches were really about: social status, business contacts and a need to gossip and express ill-will toward others. This sad experience vaccinated me from any subsequent religious involvements. This was a "true blessing."
@@user-ne1ct2ev5z It's good to hear that!
@@user-ne1ct2ev5z I believe you and am very happy to hear that. I've had experiences that were different than yours.
😂
I see the contradictions and I believe in God. My mind and my faith are big enough to hold both ideas at the same time. If you believe the Bible has to be "flawless" or else it's false, then youre letting the hardcore evangelicals define the terms of the conversation --and most of those folks are bonkers nuts. I refuse to let them define me or what I believe.
Contradiction ,
_"I see the contradictions and I believe in God."_
But Jesus isn't God.
In fact, Jesus is a fictional character.
It's not only the contradictions, but the fact that these books don't go back to Jesus, Peter, Matthew etc
@twitherspoon8954. Even Bart, along with many other secular historians, will tell you Jesus was most likely a real, historical character. You can debate his divinity if you like, but you lose credibility if you call him fictional.
@@edmundschubert4963
_"Even Bart, along with many other secular historians, will tell you Jesus was most likely a real, historical character."_
"Mythicists' arguments are fairly plausible, Ehrman says. Jesus was never mentioned in any Roman sources and there is no archeological evidence that Jesus ever existed. Even Christian sources are problematic - the Gospels come long after Jesus' death, written by people who never saw the man."
“A further reality is that all the Gospels were written anonymously, and none of the writers claims to be an eyewitness. Names are attached to the titles of the Gospels ("the Gospel according to Matthew"), but these titles are later additions to the Gospels, provided by editors and scribes to inform readers who the editors thought were the authorities behind the different versions. That the titles are not original to the Gospels themselves should be clear upon some simple reflection. Whoever wrote Matthew did not call it "The Gospel according to Matthew." The persons who gave it that title are telling you who, in their opinion, wrote it. Authors never title their books "according to"."
Ehrman cites two reasons he believes Jesus existed. These are his reasons and my response to them:
1. EHRMAN: Paul is good evidence that Jesus at least existed because he knew his brother, James.
1. ME: Paul created Christianity in 48 AD when he realized the Daniel 9:25 prophesy of a messiah expired without fulfilling so he made one up decades later and set the story decades in the past to make the prophesy seem true. The James character is simply fiction for his storyline.
2. EHRMAN: The Messiah was supposed to overthrow the enemies - and so if you're going to make up a messiah, you'd make up a powerful messiah. You wouldn't make up somebody who was humiliated, tortured and the killed by the enemies.
2. ME: Paul's goal was to garner support for the insurrection against the Romans which began in 46 AD led by two brothers, Jacob and Simon, in the Judea province. The revolt, mainly in the Galilee, began as sporadic insurgency until it climaxed in 48 AD when it was quickly put down by Roman authorities. Both Simon and Jacob were executed.
He created the fiction of having witnessed the risen messiah. He wanted to show that the messiah had come as prophesied but was murdered by the Romans. This was to entice the Gentiles to aid in the Jews' rebellion against the Romans.
Wonderful, important episode! I could write a book about my deconversion, when in 20 years I went from thinking I saw Jesus in cloud formations to doubting God's very existence. But to keep it short, there were parallel forces that eventually converged. My biblical scholarship began in earnest after I became a deacon in my Catholic denomination. I was constantly looking for material for my homilies or for the adult study group I led. Over the years, I would come across concepts that I found valid, but that I knew I had to avoid rather than rattle the dogma of the faith I represented. LOL, yep, Dr, Ehrman was a source of a lot of that information. At the same time, I myself was becoming more aware of the inconsistencies among the Gospels, as well as scriptural passages that just no longer seemed to apply. For example, I hated "subjugation Sunday," when the letter from the Epistle reading was Paul' admonition for wives to be subject to their husbands and slaves be subject to their masters, (And I noticed that my pastor usually gave me the homily on that particular Sunday!) I was told I couldn't even suggest that those particular examples reflected societal norms of the times in which they were written; I had to approach scripture as the eternal truth. Another problem was that as a deacon leading or participating in services, I was always caught up in traditional rituals; it began to seem to me that rituals and traditions were the primary focus. I wanted to strip away the layers and layers of interpolation that religion had become, but then I became aware that those same layers and layers were found in scripture, as well. Simultaneously, I got a peek at the man behind the curtain, or more bluntly, seeing just how human an institution of a church could be. I saw that policy was sometimes random, sometimes vindictive, often not based on what was transpiring, and more often than not, designed to make the least waves or cover someone's ass. And finally, there was the personal crisis in which my prayers (and those of others) seemed to fall on deaf ears. And so often, the platitudes I heard were scripturally based, were focused on God's compassion and His care for his followers. And so I came to the conclusion that if there is a God, we don't know how He functions or works. We can align ourselves with good in the way we treat others. Faith can be a tool for some, but the goal of it is inner strength to get through hardship. So biblical scholarship was a part of my evolution, but so were other elements. My conclusion is that if a person is curious about his faith, scholarship will probably make him redefine belief in some way, whether minor or radical. I understand the admonition about accepting faith like a little child; once you carefully examine it, the road is tougher.
You haven't experienced real Christianity until you ditch the trinity. There is one God the Father. Jesus is a 100% human being and the Spirit is God's presence and power. Try it.
Every sect thinks theirs is the best one. That’s just the nature of authoritarian belief structures.
@@elimason7954 So if Jesus was 100% human you can cut out like 50% of the verses of the Gospels where he performs supernatural magic? And the birth narratives. And the rising from the dead and the post-resurrection appearances. Good start! Now just cut out the rest! 🤪.
Once you look under the hood of fundamentalist Christianity using scholarship that points out among other things the contradictions and mistakes in the Bible, coupled with the issue of why a god does not intervene to stop random suffering, belief is game over for most thoughtful people. Add to that the intolerance of many American evangelicals, Christianity has been hopelessly corrupted.
Real biblical scholarship combined with critical thinking about what the Bible says, along with the history of the church and the Bible, and science and world history destroyed my faith. Much happier now. Feel much better about myself as an agnostic atheist after forty plus years as a professing and avowed Christian, often with fundamentalist views.
What is an agnostic atheist?
Agree. Leaving religion is absolutely freeing.
@jakoverslept3096 Someone who doesn't know if a god/s exist (agnostic) and someone who lacks belief in a god/s (atheist).
It takes a lot of faith to believe the critics. Gambling on their lies will cost you if they are wrong.
@jakoverslept3096 An agnostic atheist does not know that there is no God but asserts it anyway. He is a fideist. His axiom is he does not know but he begins with the presupposition that his appeal to the magisterium of liberal scholarship is infallible. Trouble is it is a logical fallacy to appeal to authority and to the fallacy of asserting the consequent. The fallacy of induction can never produce universal truth. Ehrman should study logic.
To me (as a person who never really believed) it seems strange to say "this book is the only source of our truth" then turn around and say it doesn't really matter to your faith that we know its nothing more than a collection of myths and history lessons that pretty much has no narrative, moral, or even cultural cohesion. If that is the documentation and its faulty, it only seems logical that the conclusions drawn from it are equally faulty. Maybe i'm too much of a scientist at heart...
Of course. Nothing destroys belief in the Bible like the book itself
For me, as a child, it was the irrationality of blood magic. I was asking a god that was terrifying into my heart and it felt wooden and false. I found it impossible to worship such a good with any kind of honesty.
Yes, as a child it all seemed silly. I have trouble understanding why anyone ever believed such. I imagine most don't and say otherwise for various social reason. But i now a few folk who I sense are very sincere in their feelings. That interest me and has me wonder why I feel what I do with many things. I accept i can be wrong in many a thing and this doesn't matter much.
But a god? That is just silly!
Blood magic??
@@veniqe Revelation 7:13-14. “Washed in the blood of the lamb” is blood magic. Ritual sacrifice strikes me as the worst kind of irrationality, and the gods of the old and New Testament demand it, they demand blood. No thanks!
@@drzaius844 Absolutely! It also disgusted me as a child. I don't remember exactly what turned me into an atheist back then, but I'm sure this contributed.
I would think that if a religion had a firm foundation in reality, examination of reality could only strengthen one's belief in that religion.
Right and it certainly doesn't.
For me as an ex-evangelical, I had many questions about so many things that were never answered by mainstream Christianity. I had my doubts but plugged along until I started the process of deconversion. Once I started studying through scholars like Ehrman many of my questions were answered. It helped push my deconversion along. Christianity teaches you not to question but to just believe. That got harder for me when I had so many questions.
I know that some Christians urge belief over questions. But Jesus did not. He told Thomas to touch him ad see if he was not a ghost. He invited the disciples to watch what he did. Their faith, so to speak was based on the facts they observed. There was no just believe me. There was always come and see.
@@doncamp1150 Problem is, we can not know wether the Thomas story is true or an ivention to give another story - the resurrection story - credibility.
@@norbertjendruschj9121 regardless of that you can still make a case that because of verses like that, the themes in the gospels don't tell you to just believe blindly and never question anything. jesus always put in work or some type of demonstration of what it was.
@@doncamp1150 "Know the truth and the truth shall set you free." Furthermore, the parable of the Prodigal Son suggest that we each must follow our own you unique Prodigal Son journey, and hopefully, from a Christian perspective, one ends up back where they started. But for each person it is the honest, humble search for the truth, as they understand it.
For instance, I was "converted" (more like convinced) by the "render unto Caesar what is Caesar's" that that statement was an example of divine wisdom, at the age of 10 or 11, especially when the priest (circa 1970-71) said that "as Catholics we believe in separation of church and state" - something that they abandoned the following year, but I really didn't realize it until 2004. At the time, we were studying the bill of rights at school. I went to a public school. 1/3rd were Jewish, 1/3rd were protestant, and 1/3rd were catholic and we all got along well. I had fallen in love with history & global geography at age 9, and was a bit of a prodigy in the social sciences. I was well aware of the wars of religion following Martin Luther and their bloody outcomes which projected into colonial America. The 1st amendment ended all of that and rendered religion a personal choice. The 1st amendment was the 1st time since Christ said "render unto Caesar" that which is Caesar's" - that an actual state was based solely on secular government. I knew that me and my fellow classmates got along famously well. It was a great environment.
So separation of church & state seemed like divine wisdom. Since my field is in the social sciences, my own personal search for truth caused me to recognize it Jesus' statement concerning Caesar. Over the years the wisdom of that statement, and that interpretation of it deepened. For instance civics has to make compromises that religious ethics cannot. (Lots of religious are against divorce, alcohol, gambling, prostitution, abortion - but in civics, it is imperative to make compromises in these areas so that society functions, that maybe religious ethics cannot. Finally, if each of us need to make a prodigal journey, which I do, then we need to be free to seek that. A state imposed theology makes that much harder to do. A secular government gives one a head start on that. More divine wisdom. Essentially those that attempt to conflate religion and politics are directly acting against Jesus' commandment - so that means they have an agenda, and it is not Jesus' agenda.
In regard to civics, Jesus said "I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full." The closer we get to the civics he describes in the Gospels, the farther our society advanced. In 1969, the civilization that grew out of the teachings of a 1st century Jewish carpenter became the first to land on the moon. That's 3 years before Roe v. Wade caused American society and the catholic church in particular, to begin to more vigorously mix religion and civics.
So what did that do to me regarding "faith?" #1 - I didn't understand Paul's statement "if Jesus did not rise from the dead our faith is in vein." His statement regarding Caesar proved his divinity to me.
As a Catholic, I did not have to assume the bible as literal truth. As an amateur historian I wasn't inclined to. The genesis story was suspect to me, and it didn't matter. All I was concerned about is what Jesus said. That means, the epistles meant little to me. Only the Gospels mattered.
But there are things in the Gospels that are also highly suspect. When Jesus, months or maybe years before his crucifixion says that "we each must bear our own crosses" - I assume that him saying that would have been absurd to those listening. The metaphore would have made no or little sense to the listeners. The context of his bearing of the cross had not occurred yet, so how could it render any meaning to the listeners and if it couldn't render any meaning why would he have said it? Which means he didn't say it. So there's stuff in the Gospels that I assume were written in after the fact over the years - or constructed by the original writer because he wrote them 20 or 30 or more years after Jesus' death.
It's the stuff that Jesus says that is not logical to the times that grabs me. Its the stuff people didn't think of before he said it. The idea of eucharist, communion - a God that wants us to memorialize him that way, as in eating his flesh and drinking his blood - no one would conceive of such an absurdity if it wasn't God himself doing it. By the way, the Prodigal Son parable is all of our's biographies as viewed from God's perspective. That stuff grabs me.
One has to be able to sort all that stuff out. One might ask, why didn't Jesus just write this stuff out so we would know it definitively? Why did he leave it to us? Probably because he knew we'd idolize the scripture the way Muslim's have idolized the Koran. The fact is, he created us with free will. At no point does Jesus ever seem to want to take that away from us. In fact he may have died for us, purposely so we could find a path back to God without us losing our free will. What that means regarding civics? In the Civic debate between pro-choice and pro-life, what would Jesus do? what would he choose? we know what he did choose - he chose us having free will (choice) over life, his own life, so we could have that free will. So if abortion is sin, we have to find another way to contain or eliminate it other than legislating it as a crime. And there are. Sorry - I thought that was a simple idea, but it turned out to be long and complicated.
@@PaintedHoundie Jesus was just a mediocre Jewish rabbi of no importance. Paul made him a god.
I stopped identifying as a Christian probably 30-40 years ago, but I have become addicted to biblical studies, like the studies that Bart, James Tabor, and Paul Fredricksen present (and, of course, this blog), because I remain a serious student of comparative religion and contemporary modes of spirituality. I am sincerely interested in understanding how all these traditions might come together - which, I would argue, is an urgent concern in an increasingly turbulent modern world. My home traditions today are the yogic and Western transpersonal astrological traditions (both of which I've been immersed in since the early 1980s) but I feel that the more that I understand the roots of all spiritual and religious practice, coupled with the intellectual breakthroughs of modern science, the closer it will bring me to understanding the true nature of whatever force might authentically underlie human experience. And I learned today that Bart and I are the same age!
hi, i've been reading/watching Bart's stuff for more than a decade. actually, almost 2 decades. I have ALL his books/audiobooks/vid clips/youtube vid recordings/Teaching Company lectures etc. I have often thought about James Tabor. Is his scholarship any good (like Bart)? does any of James Tabor's books give new insightful material (extra and above what Bart has already done),. are James Tabor books well written (easy for non-scholars to understand)? or too scholarly (and ridiculously difficult to follow) like Robert M Price?
thanks.
Why don't you read the Quran?
@@mohamadromzee7394 why would i want to read a book that worships a paedophile as a prophet? lol, allahu snackbar! boom!
@@mohamadromzee7394 I've certainly taken courses on Islam, particularly in the aftermath of 9/11. Some of the very first spiritual seekers that I ever encountered on my journey of discovery were Sufis - and I found these individuals and their message extremely attractive. The costumes, however, didn't do much for me! My strong bias, however, is that if God exists, and has attempted to communicate with humankind, then He, She, or It has never stopped attempting to do so, and thus revelations from the present era are to be preferred to those of previous eras. So I would personally put greater weight on 'The Course in Miracles' (which I tried reading once but found too slow going...) or the environmental revelations of the Findhorn community (which I would suggest offers a far more relevant model for human beings in the era of climate change than any of the sin-obsessed Abrahamic traditions).
I was already a non-theist when I went to theology school. I worked as a hospice chaplain; not believing in an afterlife was a challenge but an opportunity to me. I could find no rational reason for suffering so I studied and practiced Buddhism and found that very helpful for me personally and as an answer to the question of existential suffering as in dying. So it helped my patients and their families second hand.
I realized long ago I was a secular humanist for myself and a religious humanist in that I attend a UU church.
thank you for your work in consoling distressed ppl.. much suffering already on earthly life, blessed are they that console others 🙏
Buddhism is great. It does not require belief in supernatural forces to participate. It’s more like a philosophy that takes place in your own experience, and requires you to do everything.
Interesting to see so many Westerners believe in yoga mat buddhism, not realising how little resemblance it bears to the Buddhas’ actual teachings.
Amen!
When you study reality, non-reality fades away to where it belongs.
Biblical scholarship and research did destroy my faith. I was an Evangelical Presbyterian ( PCA) who believed that the Bible was inerrant, original sin, Jesus was the Son of God, the trinity, heaven, hell, etc. Dr. Ehrman’s books were one of the keys to deconverting me away from Christianity and on the road towards atheism. Reading Karen Armstrong and Jack miles also blew me away.
I agree with the idea that it takes many things and a long journey to go from Christian to Atheist as it did for me. However, research such from Dr. Ehrman were invaluable on that journey.
Bart's bio would make a decently watchable movie
It was for me. I went to a Divinity School where we read and studied the whole Bible over two years. I could tolerate everything about the Old Testament because that wasn't really important in my version of Christianity. The killer for me came when I discovered how radically divergent the accounts of the "resurrection" were. Here was the most important part of the Faith, and the Gospels are radically different about it. Mark doesn't even say anything about it! Which was so embarrassing that another ending was later forged into the text! Let that sink in.
I know the argument that eye-witnesses sometime disagree about details, and I know the vast literature arguing that the divergence is not a problem. But it is. It's far more than a disagreement about details. This is wildly different accounts, conveniently written long after anyone can check the facts. Add to this the pointlessness of the resurrection, and the enormous motivation of the disciples to continue their mission (which requires claiming that their leader wasn't really killed). It's made up. Or at least it's indistinguishable from something that was made up.
My understanding of the resurrection changed when I read Rev 14:13 and Romans 1:4 with new eyes. Started me on a 6 year journey out of Evangelical Christianity.
@@jdaze1
Always think back to who constructed the bible the way it is.
You do that, and you know that it is not God's word.
As for Mark, he actually provides in a vivid detail the reaction of the women to the statement of the young man (angel) at the tomb that Jesus was risen. Mark writes they trembled in ecstasy at the news and hurried, even fled from the tomb (it held nothing to interest them) to tell the disciples, not even pausing in the street to greet people. It is too bad that someone else came along and felt they need to add something. Nothing more was needed. 16:8 completes a perfect chiasm that begins with hope in 1:1 descends to hopelessness at the cross and rises to exultation in 16:8. It is pure genus and a powerful dramatic statement of the fact that Jesus was risen. It was something Mark's readers could relate to.
@ast453000 can you help me understand what you meant when you said the pointlessness of the resurrection? Do you mean from a narrative or theological POV - etc? Just curious!
@@doncamp1150the oldest versions don’t say they fled with joy to tell the disciples. It says they fled and told “no one” because they were afraid.
Dr. Ehrman is always a win.
You too Megan, you're always a win too.
Out of everyone that I have heard speak of Jesus, Bart speaking about Jesus is the first person that made Jesus feel real.
I have been to many sermons under different denominations. The key is to keep learning, even from those who may have different opinions.
Yes, he found a unique niche in this con. Seems to be working just fine for you.
That’s because Bart is not talking about the theological character of Jesus as presented in the Bible like priests and ministers are. He’s trying to strip away all the mythology and legend and arrive at who the actual human being Jesus was.
As an 18 year old evangelical, I was able to accept the documentary hypothesis about the Pentateuch. But I pushed back and rejected the idea the gospels were written by non-eyewitnesses and that half of Paul's letters weren't written by Paul. But as a 40 gay, celibate Christian, I decided to walk away from church. I did it because I came to understand that a gay person will always be an object of contempt in a Baptist church. Over the next few years, I discovered I now longer really believed anymore. I circled back and watched Yale's Great Courses on the OT and NT. I was better able to understand it
The Yale course on the NT is really worth watching.
Dr. Ehrman’s books and classes actually strengthened my Christian faith. I need most is high quality facts. I can’t find better sources from contemporary scholars. I think every should get as much reliable information and make a call based on personal experience and decision making skills. Thank you, Mr Ehrman!
Faith is not a reliable pathway to truth but a shortcut to self-deception.
Fantastic, I always learn so much from this podcast!
I don't think it does. I think it makes it very hard to be a fundamentalist. I grew up in a non-denominational Charismatic church. I went to christian school from 6th grade to University. I went into college with a very fundamentalist view of scripture. The Bible was inerrant, historically accurate, with no contradictions. I thought it was essentially an instruction manual for my life. I took biblical greek for fun, and it was the first time in my life that I thought of the Bible as a literary work. I had a friend who converted to Catholicism and i think he really wanted to convert me lol, but he really had an impact on what I was reading. He pushed me further from that fundamentalist viewpoint. The nail in the coffin was this book The Bible Made Impossible by Christian Smith. I'm agnostic now for unrelated reason, but for a long time after getting into biblical scholarship I was still a christian.
Yes, but was it really scholarship, or indoctrination? You can't say your sources were not biased. I don't call that true scholarship.
@@littlebitofhope1489 everyone has some bias. The stuff I was reading and leaning at that time was from other Christians. What do you think the bias was?
To believe that the Nt goes back to Jesus or the apostles has nothing to do with being a fundamentalist. This is the minimum criteria to be Christian and the books don't go back to the 12. Then, everything someone believes about God or salvation is found in the NT. And most of it contradicts the Ot. So there is no reason to be Christian, forget the contradictions, if someone believes for example that Jesus is God, he violates the first commandment if its not true
@@t_ylr Christians teaching Christianity as opposed to Academic without that bias teaching Christianity.
@@germanboy14I think it does. Too much exa. Mining too much questioning will lead to doubts.
TLDR: MUSIC deconverts.
I stopped being a Christian at 19. My musical experiences singing in church or church camp or just listening to Christian music by myself as a teen made me feel like god was really there with me at the moment.
Honestly I would say learning about music was a big part of me losing my faith. Just growing my own taste in music as a teen and being in choir at school really showed me that music in general was the key to what I was feeling rather than god's presence.
We even sang some christian music in my public school choir. These were usually choral arrangements with latin lyrics; we sang a lot of lyrics like "Gloria in excelsis Deo"! Seeing how different Christian music in different settings affected me was also part of my realizations that music just gives cool vibes for the human brain basically.
I think evangelicals are aware of the potential of musical experiences making people think god is really with them which is why they try to create a bubble where all music evangelicals listen to is Christian music (e.g. Christian rock) then your good feelings with music are always connected to your faith in your brain.
I’ll give you this, hardly ever do I see something in a TH-cam comment I’ve never seen or heard of before. You get an ‘A’ for that🙏😂
I feel this!!! I would listen to worship music like all day long every day to try to keep myself close to God. I started realizing that there was other music (mostly movie soundtracks) that made me feel very similar feelings and that those feelings were some of my favorite things.
Bart is my go-to person when discussing with Christians. His know-how is top notch. I live in NC too.
Just be sure not to mention his name as a source. Some people get mad and just go “don’t quote Bart Ehrman!” until the topic is abandoned.
If it’s inspired by god it should be accurate , full stop Fundamentalist or not !
Well done . Excellent presentation !!!
This was a very encouraging interview by Bart Ehrman and Megan! #KeeptheFaith!
I've spent the last few weeks binging this podcast, and am finally caught up :)
I've loved all the episodes, the interesting conversations, and thought-provoking insights that Megan and Bart bring.
I haven't read much of the New Testament since my seminary days years ago, but this podcast has re-interested me in returning to it, this time armed with better tools for really digging into the texts AS TEXTS, and not just as ammunition for making theological arguments.
Thank you, Megan and Bart, for such an excellent podcast! Please keep it going!!
I feel frustrated because I think many people DO deconvert after studying biblical scholarship and I think most of us have similar views which weren't represented here!! I think this because of the many forums I belong to discussing our deconversion. Barts videos and books present powerful arguments that Jesus did not think he was divine and that his disciples when he was alive did not think he was divine. It is much more likely he was an apocalyptic prophet, common at the time. He did not teach the gospel Paul preached re dying for our sins and salvation by that route etc. You can see Christology, the theology surrounding Jesus, developing from Mark through to John as time passed. Regarding the resurrection, there are good arguments it did not happen and no hard historical evidence it did. There are very good arguments that early Christians developed the whole Jesus is God and salvation narrative in the wake of Jesus death. I think for many of us this causes us to not follow Jesus as God anymore and I think this therefore can be said to 'destroy' our faith. But that is ok, it is a hard path but it is where knowledge leads us. BUT I am still wrestling with is there God ? But not limiting to the Judeo-Christian God. I see the bible as people wrestling with the idea of God and religious experiences they had. If you start delving in the OT, Francesca Stavrapapolis (spelling will be wrong!) will blow your mind like Bart does. You can trace how the concept of Yahweh develops from other earlier gods. And there is no evidence archaeologically for some major OT events and figures. This has then caused me to doubt that Israel were a chosen nation etc and YHWH the only expression of God, if there is a God. I would love to know how academics keep their faith in the face of these NT and OT arguments and facts and wish this had been addressed! I think we should have had Megan's husband Josh on as well perhaps. Otherwise great episode!
I was confused by the episode, because I am aware of many people who *have* deconverted because of their studying of the Bible. I felt that was downplayed. You don't have to be a "Bible-believing" fundamentalist to recognize that the Bible is almost the only way we know anything about Jesus. So, how can learning about the flaws, contradictions, fictions, and morally disturbing parts of the Bible *not* affect your faith in the whole story? Christian faith is rooted in the Bible. If biblical studies undermine the moral authority and trustworthiness of the Bible, I would expect that people's faith would get wobbly. Mine certainly did. And I have heard many stories of deconversion based on biblical studies.
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Bart was instrumental in dismantling one of the last parts of my Christian faith. His book, How Jesus Became God, killed any notion that Jesus was some kind of unique, one-and-only divine son of God. I already suspected that was wrong, but Bart put the nail in the coffin.
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You give several good examples of things that undermine the standard Christian narrative. I wonder how Bart can so staunchly claim that his Bible studies didn't cause him to lose his faith. I am guilty of psychoanalyzing him here, but I suspect that, even if the "final blow" was grappling with the problem of evil/suffering, everything he learned in his scholarship at least set him up to be more vulnerable; it attenuated his faith, even if he was still holding on to it.
I agree with both of these statements. Biblical studies absolutely “ destroys” your faith. It is the foundation or starting point because it reorients you.
the more I learned the more questions I had and the more I asked the Elders, the more unanswered questions I had.....ultimately, I rejected religion.
Hey Megan best glasses ever! And great discussion too keep up the great work 🤓👍
What I’d really like to hear Dr. Erhman talk about is WHY he was a believer during the seven years he was an evangelical. He comes across as someone who NEVER took things at face value. I grew up in a Presbyterian household but never was a believer. I am trying to understand why other people believe in Christianity. As I was growing up it was my impression that everyone (except me) believed in God and it was not an option to not believe. So, I kept my non-belief to myself. Still do because it seems if I mention my non-belief to someone else they take it as an invitation to try to convert me to their religion.
I don't dance. I've tried it quite a few times, and it just doesn't work for me. But, humans have been dancing for millennia, it's a huge part of human culture, many people can't imagine life without dancing. Maybe it's the same for you and religion/faith. You and I are both human, but we're both missing things that have been an integral to human culture for millennia. It's a little sad, really. It's pointless to justify ourselves by saying that those things are irrational and have no real meaning. The rational, scientific fact of dance, and of religion, is that people do them.
My short answer is that belief in God raises more questions than it answers.
I really appreciate this week's episode. Just to add to the survey, Dr. Ehrman did not destroy my faith. My faith was on shaky ground when I started asking questions. The more I learned, the more questions I had, which forced me to draw certain conclusions. I then asked myself, "Am I crazy for thinking this way?" Listing to Dr. Ehrman helped me 1) learn I wasn't and 2) direct my studies further. Thank you both.
Great podcast once again. Have always enjoyed Biblical scholarship in practice of a disciplined faith. Thanks.
Best podcast yet.. Keep up the good work. Tom in Ky
Knowledge of the truth is always welcome, no matter what happen to us in terms of conversion or deconversion, because what happens is the truth advance us forward we may convert or deconvert again more we learn about the truth and ultimatly we reach the highest fulfillment!
"Faith" is required to "Believe in Lies" and that is why religions demand "Faithfulness" to maintain Power and Control over their Subjects.
Ah the great conspiracy of the "leaders of religion." Do they all have red phones so they can call each other to keep the sheep in line? Do they meet regularly, to coordinate their efforts?
@@kencreten7308 nope, "no conspiracy" is required for the Power Hungry Tyrants, "only Faithfulness" of their Subjects
I deconstructed my faith during the covid lockdown which Dr. Ehrman was a large part of that. I no longer struggle with understanding my place in the cosmos and agnostic today. One thing I still struggle with is how the disciples came to think that Jesus rose from the dead. The visions theory just doesn’t resonate with me nor the swan theory. I recently saw a podcast from Dr. Ali Ataie who is a Muslim who proposes a case of mistaken identity. I would recommend watching its a fascinating theory 3.5hrs lecture. I’ve listened to 100s of hrs of Dr. Ehrmans lectures and hardly come across anything new but picked up some fascinating new info from watching that podcast. Lecture is called Jesus was not crucified by Dr. Ali Ataie.
we all listen to Dr E during lockdown... He has some funny lines.
Must have been hard evolving ones world view in period of social isolations. Yiu must be emotionally robust.
Once I was a believer, a charismatic christian, now I'm an agnostic atheist. Meaning that I'm not certain that there is no god although, I am as close to 100% as possible that the god described in the Bible doesn't exist, and I no longer believe in god(s), I have no need to believe. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” John 8:32 (NIV). I actually prefer this movie quote it goes something like this: When you've heard the truth everything else is bad whiskey.
Thank you Professor Doctor Bart Ehrman for all that you have done and do.
It destroyed my faith, thank God! But I still love following the research and scholarship, which is fascinating.
I appreciate Megan's knowledgeable and well-conceived questions -- they are intelligent, interesting, and informed.
I haven’t been a believer for 60 years. My college, Ohio Wesleyan University, had a required religion course which explained all the so-called “miracles” in scientific terms. Plus, I studied geology, and haven’t had any religious beliefs since 1963. Listening and reading Bart Ehrman just convinces me that I was correct in discarding religion. However, as a history major and teacher, I am very interested in comparative religion as an important influence on world thinking. So I have read extensively into religion because it has had a huge impact on world events. What war fought in all of history has not been justified by the excuse, “God is on my side?” So ironic that a dogma that argues for love and peace is the cause for so much bloodshed. Tragic!
yeah, After I deconstructed, remaining Christian was like convincing myself I was one of Santa's elves after discovering Santa Claus condones genocide and slavery.
It absolutely does, if you're being intellectually honest.
As a former christian who was raised in a fundamentalist sect, I think the answer to this question hinges upon the differences between scholarship and faith. To quote Carl Sagan, "Science [and scholarship too] is more than a body of knowledge, it's a way of thinking." Scholarship is about paying attention to the evidence and letting it lead you because you're interested in finding out what's true. Faith is something else. Sometimes Stephen Jay Gould was right and the magisteria don't overlap: science has little to say about morals and ethics. Other times they do overlap, and when they do, having "faith" is the antithesis of the way of thinking that is necessary to do scholarship. To the extent that a person becomes disciplined about their mental hygiene, not just in their professional life, but also in their personal life, and they stop accepting claims without the evidential warrant to do so, that discipline rules out accepting unevidenced claims for things like cryptid supernatural anthropomorphic life forms. The correct answer is that nobody knows whether such a class of beings exists, not jumping to the conclusion that yours does and all the rest for all the other tribes don't. That doesn't even make any sense! In my case, my parents and my church lied to me about almost everything that's known historically about how the bible came to be. I'm not sure what they were expecting me to do if I ever found out, but I'm pretty sure they hoped I never would find out. They told me this was a religion about truth, and yet the founding documents, the only source of any information that has any hope of being reliable at all has to be propped up with a pack of lies? I suppose there's many ways to be "religious," per se, but, any scholar who isn't disciplined about accepting religious claims that trespass onto the magisteria of science, the such as being agnostic about the existence of their religion's deity, either never learned how to think critically at all, or else has to segment their life into a disciplined, professional side, and an undisciplined personal side, and I just don't understand how anyone could realistically do that. So do I think that becoming a biblical scholar causes people to, for example, stop believing in deities? I think it should. To the extend that it doesn't, I'm not sure how much stock I'd want to put in their biblical scholarship. To his credit, someone like Bill Dever has finally been dragged kicking and screaming by the evidence over the course of his entire career as an archeologist into accepting that some of his deeply held religious views about what he thought the archeological record should show, were, in fact, incorrect. But it took his entire career of looking at primary evidence to dissuade him. Some scholars are dissuaded quickly, many others are never dissuaded at all.
Hey big man, can you do some videos on specialty topics like your reconstructed origen text? Like going over some key discoveries you made when reconstructing it.
I was already questioning religion when Erhman's first book came out. That pushed me over the edge.
It depends. If one’s faith is built on the sands of fundamentalist intolerance one is susceptible to facts which contradict silly beliefs. However, if one’s faith is rooted in the depths of reason, humility and love biblical scholarship will only deepen one’s faith.
I would have been described better as the second type of Christian you mentioned. I still ended up an atheist. This seems like one of those subjects where generalized expectations will routinely be undermined by empirical reality until apostasy is studied more closely.
I disagree. Look at Bart. True scholarship opens the mind. But I do admit true “faith” is the real poison here: It is a mind blocker by design. All religions are highly evolved memes.
That makes absolutely NO sense whatsoever. There is no "reason" in the bible. There is very little love, and none for those outside your tribe. It says "love thy neighbor" for a reason. Nothing about religion is rational and you cannot have reason without rationality.
Does your faith lead to Eternal Life? Is that what you call reasonable or is that a silly bit?
Truth
I came to religion from total non-religion (I don't say atheism, because that's a loaded term these days), baptized as an adult, member of the Episcopal Church. I was never any kind of evangelical or literalist, having been raised religion-free by two particle physicists. Leading up to my baptism I did a lot of reading of the scholarly or skeptical variety, to see if I could make it fit with faith. For me, religion has always been about the tension between doubt and faith, squaring circles, you could call it cognitive dissonance, I suppose. For me, faith lies in the tension.
That makes no sense.
This reduces to zero. You’ve said exactly nothing here.
My tipping point came when I confronted myself with the eruption of Nevado del Ruiz in Columbia in 1985. Upwards of 25,000 people were killed. If you think about this event from a Christian context, you are only left with a spectrum of very uncomfortable choices. My conclusion: it was the context that was the problem.
Thank you.
The answer is "yes", if you're intellectually honest.
If you're intellectually honest, you would admit that textual criticism proves nothing other than asserting the consequent, which is a logical fallacy.
Everyone is a fideist. Everyone starts with unprovable starting points. My axiom is the Bible is God-breathed and inerrant. Your axiom is subjective and ever-changing "science", which does even rise to the level of empirical science. And, btw, logical positivism turned out to be seld refuting.
Depends on the focus of your faith. I was raised a fundamentalist, advanced to Calvinist, and finally graduating from a theologically reformed seminary. The focus of my faith was content: doctrine, dogma, catechism, confessions. In seminary, higher criticism was reduced to the confidence that "we're 99.9% sure we can create the original texts from existing manuscripts." If there was a listing for "Higher Criticism" in their Hitchhiker's Gude to Biblical Studies it would read: "mosty harmless."
But my BA in history wasn't buying it. Years of Bible teaching didn't bury my unanswered doubts. And a "content" approach to faith is a fragile construct. Doctrines are based on scripture, but if the texts are questionable, whence comes the reconciliation? The conflict can only result in a nasty cognitive dissonance.
Then I read "Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium". It provided the historical evaluation that my doubts needed. After reading a few more books by this author, I developed a better understanding of what Jesus was possibly up to. I discovered a faith focused on context. The clearest expression of this faith is expressed here: "Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me." (Mat 25:37-40)
Faith focused on context doesn't make claims dependent on the critical issues of higher criticism. Compassion doesn't even require you be a Christian. The "righteous" above didn't even know anyone was watching.
A few Thanksgivings ago, I was with a group dishing out dinner for some homeless people in Phoenix. As I handed a dinner roll to a young boy, I noticed his nametag: "Emanuel."
Now, I consider myself an agnostic, but I'm paying close attention.
Megan is an unusually talented interviewer; very few can narrow an issue and eliminate irrelevant digressions in their questions like she can.
Raised Catholic here, and was never taught that the Bible was to be taken literally. I was always taught that different books of the Bible had different purposes. Some books are poetry. Some are mythology. Some are historical. Some are mystical. They work together to explain the Christian (or at least Catholic) approach to man's relationship with God.
Exactly. It's Protestantism that is causing all of this
This is what happened to my spirituality as I got honest in studying biblical scholarship and church history: I gained a deep appreciation for the value of metaphor, history, literature, philosophy and the human condition. I realized the limits of 1st Century middle-eastern culture and beliefs when it comes to the historical fact of The Enlightenment and the pressing issues of today that Christianity just does not address-like climate change, civil rights, etc. I realized that a lot of the problems of the local congregation are baked into Scripture and exacerbated throughout ecclesiastical history. Pastors/priests are supposed to be a certain way. Lay people are supposed to be a certain way. When you look at the gospels and the epistles, you can see that the church NEVER worked. It’s always been a mess, and Paul’s (or whoever’s) remedies for the eff-ups were not going to be effective. It’s not just “there are sinners everywhere.” The church has its own peculiar brand of guilting people out and beating people up. The structures and creeds of the church don’t really fit my life anymore. Just about every word of the Apostle’s Creed I just can’t buy. I believe in God the Father (father??? Wtf does this mean?) Maker of heaven and earth (Maker? heaven? heaven used to be the dome over the plate of the earth), and so forth and so on. Every single line has issues. So, what to do with spirituality?
I feel the need for connection with others. I am a part of Rotary now, which provides me with the opportunity to help people who struggle in my own community and throughout the world. It also provides deep friendships.
I feel the need for wonder and for appreciation, which I meet through celebrating the seasons, walks in the woods, and through diving deeply into The Humanities: reading good literature, listening to great music, studying folklore and fairytales. When I reflect on the Bible, which I still do, I think of the texts in terms of history, myth, legend, and folklore. When I reflect on the history of the Church, which I still do, I think in terms of the historical-cultural contexts and the results.
I’ve grown past Christianity. I’ve stopped “believing in belief.” I still like a lot of what the gospels have Jesus saying and doing. I have no problem following Jesus’ lead, but I don’t think of gospels as historically reliable. The Jesus stories are mythic in the best possible sense. Jataka Tales of Buddhism are also mythic in the best possible sense. And so forth, and so on. The Italians have a phrase, “The Sacred Conversation.” That’s how I think about the Bible and all spiritually oriented texts. They’re conversations about what people across the space/time continuum have found important. Maybe my tiny evangelical faith WAS destroyed, but my spiritual life has deepened and grown.
Wow. You just spoke for me, and mirrored my experience. Well said!
How? And what do you mean by spirituality? Still believing Jesus is God and died as a human sacrifice? Because most of the doctrines turned out to be later developments
@@germanboy14 No. Spirituality is not tethered to any salvific Jesus or to the Christian religion. You sure read a LOT into what I just wrote! My spirituality is where I find meaning in life. 1. Connection with others and 2. Need for wonder and appreciation. Maybe you missed the paragraph that started, “I’ve grown past Christianity.” I know. I wrote a lot. Maybe you just didn’t read carefully. That’s okay.
@@kjmav10135 oh sry. It was a language barrier. I can accept your view. It makes sense.👍
@@germanboy14 No worries!
Off course it does if it finds irregularities and contradictions .
No, it does if you are only a fundamentalist.
@@Congowillprevail243nothing to do with fundamentalism, stories differ here and there and verses are added and taken out and so where is the guidance in this book ?!
@@dr.nabilalayyoubi5122 That’s not an issue if you are not a fundamentalist, as Dr. erhman stated Christianity is not built on the Bible, but the faith in Jesus Christ. You will only have an issue with this if you are a fundamentalist and take the Bible word for word literally.
@@dr.nabilalayyoubi5122irregularities and contradictions aren't very important to those who don't think the Bible is inerrant.
@Congowillprevail243 i dont understand how one can have faith in jesus if the text thats supposed to reveal his story and teaching to us is not reliable (my opinion).
I just accepted that i dont value faith. I value truth and finding good paths to truth through knowledge.
Jesus is more than welcome to reveal himself again, but 2000 years is a long time to wait
Hector Avalos is a great source on this issue: his youtubes and writings cannot be sufficiently praised, a man of learning and deep passion for seeing humans throwing off the ancient chains of bibliolatry in search of a better life for all.
QEPD, Dr.Avalos.
I absolutely love these discussions. Critcal biblical scholarship was huge in my college experience, and my professors were men/women of faith, so the contradictions and revelations of authorship were slways presented within a faith commmunity context. Stories, either in the OT or NT may be dubious historically, but were presented as what was important to the communities within which they were written. The Gospels are the passing on of the faith of the church, and it is on this that my faith is based, at least where the Gospels are concerned. Beyond that i was very affected by the christian tradition of contemplation which allowed me more of a direct experience of the Divine. It is a place i could not get to without scripture, but one that makes scripture more substantial.
Did mine.
It's definitely a test of ones faith. That's for sure. Thank you professor your so good, inside and out and I appreciate you and all you have done and still do. I believe that God is with you.
He doesn't believe in God and according to him most doctrines of Christianity are not true. I mean basically every doctrine, that Jesus is not God, that Jesus taught to keep the commandments for eternal life and that he didn't die for your sins
@@germanboy14 Don't you dare sit there and tell me that there is something that my God cannot do! God may use and work with and direct anyone he chooses and he doesn't need your crappy opinion to do it. I believe that God works and does good works through his people here on earth regardless of their sin! He can make them pure! He wants the truth of his word and our true history and destiny to be known wholly and completely! And if that takes Bart to help get that done, then that's what it takes. Don't you ever put a limit on what the Lord can do or how he does it. That's the gravest sin of all.
And I also truly do believe that God is with Bart on this journey. I 100 💯 percent believe that.
@@jennifferjude3156does your god want world peace? If so, what do we need to do? Also, can your god create a stone they cannot lift?
@@jennifferjude3156does your god want world peace? If so, what do we need to do? Also, can your god create a stone they cannot lift?
Great interview Megan! It would be great to see a pew survey on some of the questions you asked. Example, how many People who now identify as atheist, once considered themselves fundamentalist or evangelical Christians in their past?
Actually, she is a terrible interviewer. I wish Bart would find someone much more likeable to interview him.
I really wish there was some study or polling that looked at the religiosity of students before and after different categories of biblical education.
What does the bible have to do with the notion that there might be a spiritual realm, immaterial beings etc? It might destroy blind faith in what some old book has to say about these matters, but that what the Christian bible tells isn't the truth doesn't mean that the atheist assumptions about the supernatural are the truth. Go look at other spiritual traditions maybe soemthing there seems more plausible, or make up your own mind.
The Bible is used a preeminent authority in Christianity, and even as a Catholic I was taught that The Gospels were divinely inspired truth. I guess if you can rationalize that many of the most important features of Christianity didn't originally exist in the first Gospels (Virgin Birth and Resurrection), then you should also accept the theological concept of Islamic Hadiths, and that all versions of the current Bible are The Word of God, despite being retranslated, revised and added to over the centuries. Anything and everything that is currently in whichever Bible you use is essentially correct, and there is really no need to determine what might have been added or radically changed or deleted over the years.
Atheism is specifically the absence of belief in God. One can be an atheist and agnostic about other matters of faith. You can also have an experience of mystery and the spiritual and still be an atheist. Zen Buddhism has no “God,” but it is certainly a spiritual way of being.
@@kjmav10135 The idea of a god-being and the myths around it are just an attempt at creating conceptual ideation around the fact that humans have had spiritual experiences since the stone age. So, if you are having these experiences, and don't fall into the trap of declaring it "this" or "that" in wordly conceptual thinking, you get religion without dogmas to believe.
Certainly it can, but it doesn't necessarily. It did for me. I was an atheist as a kid who converted to evangelicalism as an adult. I went off to a Christian liberal arts college and took the required New Testament Survey class (during my senior year, as I was a transfer). The section on Historical Jesus Studies was very much a "scales falling from my eyes" moment: if the gospels don't accurately record Jesus life and actions, bibliocentrism doesn't work. As my Christianity was bibliocentric, as that's really the only Christianity I knew, Christianity per se was no longer viable. (Not immediately: I flirted with Catholicism for a few of years after that, thinking maybe there was something to apostolic succession and a stronger idea of church authority; but I eventually ditched it as a non-starter).
[NB I haven't watched the video yet so I'm not sure what Bart's answer is; I'd guess, from what I know of him, generally biblical scholarship simply forces one to reconsider fundamentalist leanings one might have; which of course one can always go into denial about. There are all kinds of ways to harmonize "secularism" and faith. People do it all the time, it's much easier than harmonizing the gospels.]
I have encountered people who were in seminary and after they learned to read Latin, Greek and Hebrew and studied the scriptures, they dropped out and became agnostic.
Many have done that. Possibly they discovered (after thousands of hours of working at studying) that their previous pastors/preachers were ignorant or even deceitful.
Bart Ehrman is always impressive, both in his scholarship and in his humanity.
I’m just surprised that as an agnostic he is accepted as a professor of religious studies in the Bible Belt, I would have imagined that they would have insisted on a committed Christian for this position. Perhaps he was tenured. In any event it is great that he is accorded the high status that he deserves.
No because christians will say you have to have the holy spirit to see that it all makes sense. Basically once you believe the bible is true with no mistakes then the bible will be true with no mistakes.
I don't think it does. As for me it was part of a time in my life that made me love the Bible so much more. Not for what others told me what it is, but for what it thought it was, and each author's completely different viewpoint of God.
Books don't think.
@@littlebitofhope1489 People who write books do, Einstein.
You know that the authors of most of the Bible books are not written, John, Mark or Matthew etc?
@@germanboy14 I think they were partially written by them.
@@zephyr-117sdropzone8 yeah well then u go against biblical scholarship and everything you believe is just an assumption and you cant be sure that anything what you believe is true.E.g. Jesus as God or he dying for your sins etc. If that's not true, you even violate God's first commandment...
What is truth ? What is reality ? None of us knows, some think reality is what is in front of them or can be 'proven'......If your life is enriched by faith, why not go for it ! In the end, faith is personal as is everything that happens inside of us. We have the freedom to believe in anything we wish.
Depends on what you're asking. If you're asking Scientifically, we know a tremendous amount. If you're asking philosophically, things start to get a little fuzzy. Truth isn't your bitch.
@@kencreten7308 Last we were told, the universe is made up of over 90% of dark matter and dark energy, both of which we know little about........we are just beginning to understand the universe scientifically......let's not even get started on quantum physics....
I lost my belief not just from the errors in the bible but how the so called Christians treat each other.
I remember when I was convinced Jesus didn't exist and Bart showed that he almost certainly did, and Bart was a liberal Christian at the tine and showed me I didn't have to be a fundamnetalist to be a Christian... which means, ironically, Bart brought me into the Christian faith right before he left it.
Bart never showed how Jesus existed. He just says "scholars all agree so it's true" which is not an argument.
@@TheMahayanist Mythicism is the New Earth Creationism of the atheist community.
Like many people on the east side of the Pond, religion never played much of a role in my childhood. Consequently, I never had a Christian faith and came to an interest in the New Testimate via the Classical Studies route. Until recent years I believed in a god, but it was Spinoza's god rather than that of any of the world's faiths. It was the Problem of Evil that led me to abandon even that concept of a divinity. I would imagine that Biblical Scholarship would only undermine one's faith if one was a Biblical Literalist, as a serious investigation of the Bible would render that kind of religious viewpoint impossible to maintain.
Thanks. Yes, useful and helpful. My faith is remains steady and unshaken. In fact I even pray/dialogue more! There are already normative reference works (Jerome Commentary by over 90 scholars, Study Quran by over 10 scholars ) and sites (eg Word on Fire) to check out and compare notes. Bart is honest and frank and a great scholar. Says what he thinks about it. Megan helps to follow his theme. I am a regular viewer of this programme. Reference to Oxford and Cambridge university scholars is interesting. God bless us and keep us safe.
I came to Biblical scholarship from a background in Eastern Philosophy. I read the bible young but without an understanding it fell on deaf ears. In the East is where faith is the path you follow with devotion, commitment, and confidence. Studying the Sutras of the East allowed me to see these same teachings in the Bible. Community, compassion, good acts followed by good acts, turning towards truth. The Heart Sutra or Matthew 14 to me speaks to the same lessons, if truth is a problematic word.
If you think the Heart Sutra says the same thing as the Gospels, you dont understand either.
Good works apart from believing in Jesus Christ and His aton8ng death on the cross can never please God. Good works could never merit justification.
Answer: No. Biblical scholarship has driven me to consider more carefully what I believe. It has in some ways changed what I believe, but it has been a blessing to me, not an impediment to faith. It put faith on solid ground.
But there is this obvious caution: Scholars differ. It is kind of the game they play in the academic world. Don't become a groupie. Use your head and make up your own mind.
So what is your rationale for literally worshiping ritual human sacrifice?
Yeah, you by definition don't make up your own mind.
@@littlebitofhope1489
Wait. Are you disputing that the literal worship of ritual human sacrifice is the core tenet of Christianity? You know, John 3:16 and that cross thing...
Paul created Christianity in 48 AD and this is how he put it:
Romans 8:32
"He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all."
1 Corinthians 5:7
"Christ our passover is sacrificed for us."
Romans 3:25
"God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement."
Romans 5:8
"God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us."
Hebrews 10:10
"We are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ."
@@twitherspoon8954 What?
@@littlebitofhope1489 I don't know if you have enough information to say that. But that is typical of true believers.
I was a militant atheist as a kid, but for the last 10-15 years I've been heavily influenced by radical dialectical theologians, "death of God" types. I have found Dr. Ehrman's perspectives on how to READ THE BIBLE very helpful in searching for an essential Christ around whom a community could be built in the present day. Especially what Dr. Ehrman says about Ecclesiastes, Job, and the Gospels of Mark and Thomas
Wow! Bart nailed it again! I'm not sure why I didn't pick up on this before but he's absolutely right, at least concerning the Evangelical scholars with which I am acquainted. If they didn't complete their PhD at Talbot, Dallas or the like, they went somewhere in the UK and his reasoning in this video eplains why. Palm to the forehead moment for me 🤦♂
I think you can remain a Christian after learning that the Bible isn’t 100% accurate, but not a fundamentalist Christian. Basically you just take and practice the teachings you like.
It isn't the fact that the Nt contains mistakes but the fact that these books don't even go back to Jesus
How do you square the idea of biblical errancy with the perfection of god? Or the cherry-picking of what you like? This didn't really come up in the discussion and it's the reason why critical scholarship should eventually destroy people's faith -- unless you believe in a god who doesn't really care (who would not deserve to be worshipped).
For me, while learning about the non-theological details about the bible prompted me to question the bible, I wouldn't say it was a sole factor in turning away from my religious faith. My own observations of the behaviors and motives of other people of religious faith, in particular Christians, prompted me to question why people accept a religion and in turn my own motives. I don't hold it against people for being Christian. I only take issue when they try force their religious beliefs on others, and when they also try present their faith as being some sort of scientific proof.
No one is forcing you to go to hell. You're going there by your own choice.
@@ThomasCranmer1959 You know, its usually people like you I find to be the weakest in their faith because they try too hard to show what "good Christians" they are. It's as if they are trying to prove it too themselves.
Megan is such an excellent host.
Dear Megan and Bart. I really like this series. You are both fascinating people. I really appreciate the questions that Megan asks. Her questions are thoughtful and deep and difficult. It takes courage to ask a difficult question. Thank you Megan.
I do want to say that I have de-converted during the time I have been listening to Bart, but it is not because of Bart. No, it is because I have been also listening to to Stephen Meyer who is a proponent of Intelligent design. He reveals a God who is much more interesting than the God who is presented in the Bible. I can no longer be a Christian after listening to him. But I do believe in God, but I can not at this time make any statements describing God's nature. Thank you Megan and Bart for these videos, I eagerly anticipate them every week.
The more you know, the less likely you are to believe. Faith is just gullibility all dressed up in its Sunday best.
As a Catholic, I have been taught to not take everything in the bible literally, especially the Old Testament.
Megan is smart as a whip, incredibly articulate, and cute AF. Enjoy seeing her hair color evolve.
My journey started when I got clean and sober. The meetings that I went to there used to say fake it to you make it, but then I would ask. This is a program of honesty it’s been 30 years I’m still sober
I did grow up in the church of christ. Very fundamentalist. 6 day creation, noahs flood is literally true, young earth, immersion baptism as a requirement of salvation, no divorce outside of adultery, women cant be elders preachers deacons worship leaders etc, and the bible is the word of god and is without error or contradiction.
After i discovered too many holes in this to be rationally flexed or harmonized, i simply had to leave christianity as a whole. I went back and questioned a gods existence as a whole and faith to me ended up being an unreliable path to truth.
So i gave up faith. I dont see a purpose in believing and serving a supposed god who is supposed to not he the author of confusion yet directed the compilation of writings that cause confusion.
I think the gnostics are closer to having the right theology in that case than mainstream Christians
This I completely disagree with. It's why Jesus appeared to show everyone the way. You read the Bible through Jesus. That's how you find what God's words really are.
Cant have a jesus without a bible to tell ya who he is. And if i cant believe that book, then i cant believe in your dude.
If your dude wants to show himself hes more than welcome to. Your dudes divine hiddeness isnt my problem but rather one of their own making
@philswaim392 The Bible does tell you who he is. And divine hiddenness is bullshit lmao. Jesus appears to millions around the globe of all ethnicities and religions. He even appeared to my grandfather and uncle separate times. But if you require him to do something for you when he ALREADY HAS, that's just childish and petty.
@@zephyr-117sdropzone8The Bible only gives hints at who he was, and those clues can be contradictory. If you learn more about Judaism in his time, you get a lot different idea about who he was then what the early church eventually made him into. Saying Jesus is the only son of God, for me, just anthropomorphizes God. If God created us all then we’re all his children. What makes Jesus any different than any other person? Jesus,himself supposedly said, “The things I have done you can do also, and greater things.” The whole idea of having to believe in Jesus to be saved seems to have been a creation of Paul’s. There were lots of different ideas about who Jesus was in early Christianity. It took hundreds of years to reach the conclusions the early church reached, and even longer to get to where we are today. And where are we today? How many different sects of Christianity are there? Do they all agree? Of course not!
If you put Jesus in the time frame of the Judaism of his day, he was an apocalyptic prophet who thought the Kingdom of God was soon to arrive on earth, in his generation. He was wrong. Because he was wrong, ideas about a him changed over time and developed into the religions we have today.
@davidkeller6156 That also isn't true. The Gospels give a very similar depiction of him, a prophet who preached the kingdom of God. Son of God just means messiah. Jesus is different because he was vindicated by God, he knew in order to become the Son of Man and messiah, he must suffer, and his disciples didn't want that to happen. He understood there is no victory without suffering, no exaltation without degradation. And 'apocalyptic prophet' is only one interpretation. There is no consensus on that at all and subscribing to one to make yourself feel better is wrong. I hold the view, a la Dale Allison, that Jesus had a conditional eschatology, meaning he hoped the consummation would come quickly but the response of the Jews disappointed him, eventually leading to verses like Luke 17:22. But his point of view stands today. He showed you must live every day as if the kingdom of God is at the door. If that were the case with the christian religion as a whole, the world would be beautiful but it isn't.
Also Paul and Jesus weren't that different. Jesus also had a concept of being born again in the Synoptics (become as a little child) that John put into his own motif (and Allison thinks this is the more accurate version), being born again.
Faith is the wound that knowledge heals.
Please define 'faith' - what faith, which faith, whose faith, faith by which and from whom.
I'm here for the truth. My faith is stronger.
You mean like the priest who said, "if the bible said that 1+1 equals 3, I would believe it!" ?
Where can I send questions in for this podcast?
1:00 I grew up in a private Lutheran school until mid 3rd grade and we used semesters, I believe. At least that's what we called them. (i am 31 years old)