William Lane Craig RESPONDS to Bart Ehrman's Wild Comments on
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 20 ก.ค. 2023
- In this video, I'm joined by Dr. William Lane Craig to address the portion of Alex O'Connor's interview with Dr. Bart Ehrman in which they interact with the work of Dr. Craig.
Link to Alex's original video: • Did Jesus Even Claim t...
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Quick note on the sped up clips: I don’t think I’ll be doing that again. It sounded bad and is conflicting with the way people normally consume our content. I did it because I wanted to respect Dr. Craig’s time. In the future, we’ll either select fewer clips or plan to stream longer.
It was not that bad. I speed up many videos I listen to and I'm used to it. And I am not alone.
we wanna see more of wlc, plan to stream longer
If pressed for time it might be better to keep them at normal speed, only show a bit and then give a complete gist afterwards.
No problem with spending a little more time watching. Keep up the good work.
I also speed up conversations at time, especially if it's a topic I'm knowledgeable on, but I bet a lot of your audience does not do this.
I want to say that I really appreciate that Alex actually linked this video in his own comments section, making it available for people to see Dr. William Lane Craig's responses.
Regardless of his own personal beliefs and conclusions, I believe this shows an astounding willingness to present all sides of the argument instead of just pushing his own.
Atheists can be more honest, than many Christian channels.
Alex has become a far better person than I ever anticipated, his growth as a person and in knowledge is something I hope Atheist look at as an inspiration.
@@blackyjack5819 I actually disagree. When watching atheistic channels, only Alex so far is honest in regards to the facts. People like Rationality Rules and Aron Ra seem to either completely strawman the arguments to a disgusting degree, or they just don't research enough to realize their objections have been resolved years ago. They CAN be, but they usually aren't.
@blackyjack5819 Oh, there are plenty of dishonest athiest channels as well.
@@blackyjack5819
I think it's more to do with clicks and revenue than honesty. At the end of the day a quick check at what WLC says here makes it clear that honesty is not in the agenda
🎯 Key Takeaways for quick navigation:
00:00 🤖 Dr. William Lane Craig and Cameron discuss responding to an interview between Bart Ehrman and Alex O'Connor.
01:51 🛡️ Alex O'Connor pressed Bart Ehrman on evidence for Jesus' resurrection, impressing Dr. Craig.
05:22 💼 Bart Ehrman's comparison of Jesus' resurrection to Romulus and Apollonius is problematic.
12:51 📜 Bart Ehrman concedes that challenging the burial account is pivotal to contesting the empty tomb.
16:24 🏺 The Shroud of Turin, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, and independent sources support the empty tomb.
24:11 🤔 Ehrman's shift on the historicity of the empty tomb contradicts his earlier views.
24:26 📚 Bart Ehrman misunderstands William Lane Craig's expertise, confusing historian and textual scholar.
25:22 📚 Bart Ehrman's academic background in textual criticism contradicts his claim of being a historian.
27:05 📚 Bart Ehrman misapplies David Hume's argument against miracles and the resurrection, despite having previously used it.
32:10 📚 The fallacy in Ehrman's argument: He uses Hume's reasoning to dismiss miracles but claims not to use it.
35:29 📚 Roman practice of crucifixion victims' burial in Judea is supported by archaeological and literary evidence.
40:36 📚 Bart Ehrman's objection against trusting Gospel accounts due to circularity is countered by considering the validity of testimony.
42:45 📚 Multiple independent attestation and the criterion of embarrassment support the credibility of Jesus' burial account.
46:57 📚 Richard Swinburne's principle of testimony justifies believing Gospel accounts unless there's sufficient reason to doubt.
47:54 🤔 Bart Ehrman argues that frequentist interpretation of probability is wrong for historical analysis.
48:22 🧐 Importance of understanding philosophical assumptions in historical analysis to avoid faulty inferences.
49:46 🤨 Anomalies and cultural considerations in historical events challenge simplistic probability interpretations.
52:24 🧐 Resurrection appearances of Jesus are multiply attested and not comparable to other ancient beliefs.
55:52 😲 Ehrman finds it remarkable that people can propose such explanations for resurrection appearances.
59:03 🤯 Ehrman's plausible explanation: Individual appearances led to a chain of telling and retelling, forming the Christian story.
01:04:55 🧐 The appearances were overwhelming, leading to life-changing belief transformations in the disciples.
01:08:07 🤔 Examination of Paul's belief in a glorified Resurrection body supporting the physicality of appearances.
01:11:37 🧐 Discussion on group appearances and how rumors and stories develop over time.
01:12:06 📚 Ehrman discusses how stories are made up and highlights the contradictory nature of Gospel accounts.
01:12:35 📖 Historians don't simply accept accounts; they evaluate them based on consistency and collaboration.
01:13:39 🧐 Dr. Craig counters by pointing out the multiple independent attestation of appearances, burial, and empty tomb.
01:14:05 💡 Contradictions concern minor details, not the historical core, which remains consistently attested.
01:14:18 🔍 Dr. Craig likens contradictions to minor details in witness testimonies that don't invalidate the main events.
01:15:39 💭 Urban's view shows influence of his fundamentalist upbringing, expecting inconsistencies to invalidate the whole narrative.
01:16:34 🧑🏫 Dr. Craig highlights Urban's views as misleading for laypeople and cites scholars who hold a different perspective.
Wow! Thank you
The shroud of Turin proves nothing. It is a fake and many scholarly articles and books disprove it was Jesus’s burial cloth. I have many more objections to your misleading notes about Bart Ehrman but my time on this planet is to valuable to waste on more rebuttals.
Craig makes some good points but I would love if he spent some more time steel manning his opposition. The way he dismisses opposing views nonchalantly lacks humilty and sometimes serves to undercut his points. I'm never sure if he's even really considered the opposing view so his points can miss the entire arguement. Showing you know what the other side is saying will make your arguements come off more credible and will make the responses more nuanced.
Cameron I just think needs to stick to interviewing. Most of the points he made in the video served to undermine Craigs more educated responses. Then he often would immediately move to the next topic as if his thought should be the last word on the matter instead of Craig's. It would take awhile to go point by point he made but if anyone actually reads this and wants a full breakdown of why i think his comments were not helpful to Craigs arguements then I'll share.
Hopefully someone finds this helpful constructive criticism.
HERE HERE Hes far too dismissive and assumes an awful lot. This is what we call begging the question in my town.
Are you a Christian?
This is what every atheist does when debating christianity. Nice projection there
@@stevenselleck5460 Fr lmao
How can we get Bart Ehrman and WLC to go for round 2 in debate? With all the internet back and forth, this is the debate we need! Let's go! I'm so serious.
Topic of the debate: Was Jesus buried. Dr. Craig might need to wear a bib to the debate; he'll eat Dr. Ehrman alive.
The topic would be proving good evidence for the resurrection because that's the most contentious aspect of the narrative.. there's nothing special about dying.. the issue is resurrection. It takes 6hrs-4 days to die from Crucifixion.. Was Jesus dead yet when they took him down from the cross in the afternoon? Did he rise or were the witnesses mistaken in one way or another.. did Jesus actually just pass out but people thought he was dead and they put him in the tomb? Then when they saw him alive in the tomb did they think he had risen rather than that he had not died in the first place?
Do you remember WLC and Lawrence Krauss? Oh, Australia, fond memories. Total smackdown.
Yes, WLC and Bart Ehrman would be awesome.
@@5BBassist4Christ Bill would need a bib to catch his own pious drool
@@5BBassist4Christ 🤺☦🇷🇺Why don't "genius" Protestant Craig even teaches you about the table of nations, hah? Maybe cuz he knows nothing about it..?🤔
Thank you both for covering this discussion! Great material!
Fantastic stream, thank you both for this video! I appreciate it very much.
WLC was like “oh I got time today” 😂😂
I think Alex O’Connor showed at times he realized Bart’s reasoning to be dodgy.
@@HarryNicNicholasTell me you don't understand without telling me you don't understand. Most philosophers agree with Craig on pragmatic justification. If you understood it, you would agree as well.
I gave athiest credit about logical thinking. They have it in arguing against religions. Lack of values and common sense and manners are lacking at times
O'Connor has shown that he regards every aspect of Craig's reasoning to be shoddy, contradictory, erroneous, unpersuasive, or logically fallacious. And . . . ?
@@jwatson181 Tell me you can express yourself without resorting to a vapid meme: are most philosophers atheists or non-theists by a huge margin?
@@kuraikenshi2349 Are you talking about atheists, or people, dishonest bigot?
I've listened to Ehrman a lot in the past, but this was honestly one of the most eye-opening moments. He was being blatantly uncharitable towards the historical evidence for the resurrection, which is especially concerning considering he holds a minority view among New Testament scholars on a number of these topics.
If you are in the minority on your stance on a subject, and you purport to be an expert in the field, you should at least know *why* the majority believe differently from you. Instead, Ehrman paints ridiculous strawmen like "they believe it because it's in the Bible and their religion tells them to." Which is simply not true in the case of the numerous critical scholars who accept the facts Craig put forward.
While Ehrman is punching strawmen, Craig is pointing to multiple attestation, numerous early sources, criterion of embarrassment - all the sorts of evidences that historians typically use while evaluating the historicity of an event.
Ironically, it's *Ehrman* who is bringing his religious beliefs to his interpretation of the evidence - not Craig.
There is no evidence for the resurrection. People who didnt witness it writing about it isnt evidence. Bart talks about this a lot when talking about apologetics. Apologetics will defend their side but then critique the other that has the exact if not more evidence. Do you think Muhammded split the moon in half like the Quran says? Is your answer going to be theres no evidence of that? But the Quran says... Bart points out that people will not apply their same rationality to other religions. Romulus ascended to Heaven and we have an EYEWITNESS account of this. Do you trust this eyewitness account? I bet you dont. What evidence you have for the resurrection that isnt the Bible? Nothing, but then you criticize Bart for pointing out this obvious truth? Non-eyewitness accounts is good evidence but an eyewitness account of romulus isnt good evidence? You say Craig pointed to attestations, when he didnt, numerous early sources, that is just the bible and criterion of embarrassment that only applies to the if Jesus existed argument. You tried to take down Bart and anyone who actually studies knows Bart applies his method to everything. You dont.
Wrong, the majority of New Testament Scholars unfortunately are believers who see history through a biased lens!
I know it's difficult for you to swallow because you're so invested but Bart Ehrman is the number one Authority in biblical text and he like me knows that they're just stories and there is zero evidence for the physicality of a literal Jesus and maybe one day when you're honest enough you'll accept that.
There's a reason that Christians are confused by Bart. It's as if he's playing an advocate for the least rational sometimes. It makes no sense. It's as if he never really had reason to believe in the first place. Idk what it is but he SHOULD know better.
@@CynHicks Christians are confused with Bart because hes not saying what you want to hear. It reminds me of dealing with toddlers. What Bart says makes sense, you just dont want it to be true. People attack Bart Ehrman but never his arguments? Why? Because they cant. He had so much faith to begin with, like many biblical scholars and lost it as he learned more. People criticize Bart for not being ignorant and its ridiculous. Every comment I read on this video is just attacking Bart while not addressing anything he has said. I have no idea how someone can think its not rational to say we have no evidence for something when we literally have no evidence for something. Bart has a deeper understanding of Christianity then anyone on this channel and because of that, Hes attacked. The Irony is Jesus warned people not to act like this, Christians do it anyways. Literally acting like the Pharisees who attacked Jesus. Jesus TOLD you to not act like these people and you all do! People dont even know this most basic thing about Jesus but have the audacity to say anything about Ehrmans knowledge. This is why Atheists joke, Christians dont ever read their Bible.
I am a atheist but what a wonderful person is William Lane Craig
rofl how so
William Lane Craig has such a good vibe. I really do appreciate this guy, especially considering that I find many protestants to be overly arrogant and lacking humility. WLC brings that Jesus energy to every conversation. He's someone no one wants to debate, everyone wants on their team, and is always humble as can be. Love this dude.
He's as humble and honest as Trump, as much of a team player as Trump, and as predictable in debates as Trump.
@@highroller-jq3ix 😀 I take it you and I might meet in hell for barbecue. I'll bring the aluminum chairs for maximum heat transfer.
@@goodquestion7915 and I will bring the marshmallows.🤣
@@ddavidjeremy 🤣🤣🤣🤣
He's all nice and dandy until he's backed into a corner abt what he believes and can't do or say anything to help himself. U should rlly watch some of his debates where he starts having to go on the defensive. Craig becomes insufferable
Hey Cameron, thanks for the video. Hope to connect with you again this fall if you are doing Craig's class again. Just to update you, I recently got accepted to do an MA in Philosophy at Southern Evangelical Seminary. Super excited!
Alex does do a good job of pushing back on fellow atheists, he did a great job also with Peter Bhogossian showing how poor his views are.
He only does it so he can attempt to appear "the most rational one" in the room.
Secularists are obsessed with appearing rational. At 5:37 Dr. Craig even admits he misquoted him.
Alex was/is diligent in his studies. According to him he really wanted Christianity to be true but came away unconvinced.
He's not the only one but he has a platform unlike most, that he built with his gifts. Alex quickly became my favorite, vocal atheist. The young man is very sharp of anything.
@@CynHicksAlex is really bright. Unfortunately, it seems to me that whole his life he was presented with wrong doctrines and versions christianity. Catholicism, Trinity, hell and so on - no wonder he finds it difficult to believe. And then he is also poisoned by some atheistic prejudices, but he is slowly working through them.
Alex grown so much both as a philosopher and as a person.
Peter Boghossian on the other hand still idolises Dawkins and hasn't grown at all. It's pathetic to think that he as 60 something old man stuck to the superficiality Alex represented when he was just a 17 years old edgy atheist making YT content from his bedroom.
@@viktordoe1636
What do you think of Genetically Modified Skeptic?
Thank you so much for this! Great content and you can tell alot of work went into yalls responses.
Glad you enjoyed it!
This was so interesting. Thank you both!!
Thank you for the great interview, Cameron! WLC interviews are always great
Really enjoyed the stream, Cameron! I also saw the interview O'Conner had with Ehrman and was underwhelmed with Ehrman's responses. Glad you got Craig on and you did an excellent job, thank you!
you take Ehrman seriously?
@@MU-we8hz I take his scholarly works in his area of expertise seriously. But his popular level material is often overstated and fails to interact with detractors.
Yes, confirmation bias will do that. Craig ultimately says that he believes what he prefers and wants to believe, and will dishonestly shop sophistry accordingly. Ehrman, conversely, has intellectual integrity.
@@MU-we8hz You think anyone should take you seriously?
@@aaron_johnson Where do you draw the imaginary line with no expertise or credentials of your own? You're really just being a ventriloquist dummy, aren't you?
Great content, Cameron. You have been such a great resource! Keep it up, my family loves your videos and we appreciate all that you do!
Satisfying confirmation bias can be so comforting.
@@highroller-jq3ixso can self assured smugness apparently
@@Sammo212 Yes, sleazeball, apologist charlatans such as Craig certainly seem to wrap themselves in it.
@@highroller-jq3ix That sword cuts both ways.
@@kennorthunder2428 So the "I know you are but what am I, so nyah!" gambit. Well played, fundie. When you come up with an evidence sword, please do check back in.
There's a question I always wanted to ask Dr. Craig: he's told a story about how he was in high school and another student witnessed to him about the joy she had in her life because of Jesus Christ. I want to know if he ever talked to that person again and if she realized the impact her witness had for Christian apologetics.
Yes he did. She went to one of his presentations (I forget where), came up to him afterwards, smiled and said, “I’m Sandy.” He was absolutely delighted.
@@Mark-cd2wf I tried to find that clip on TH-cam but couldn't. Can you give me a link, please?
@@kristoffersevillena7657 Sorry, I don’t know either, it’s in one of his podcasts on his channel.
But also (for whatever reason), TH-cam doesn’t seem to like commenters posting links. It can get your comment deleted. Go figure.🤷♂️
@@Mark-cd2wf thanks anyway. I appreciate it!
"Witnessed to him"? What kind of English is that? She TOLD him that she felt joy "because of Jesus Christ". What that actually means is nothing.
She felt "joy". Good for her! She felt it "because of Jesus Christ"? Huh?
What she is really saying is that she feels great, and she thinks Jesus made her feel that way. What doe she say to people who say that Allah makes them "feel joy"? Or that Krishna makes them "feel joy"? Or how about Avalokiteshvara, the Bodhisattva of Compassion? Are all those other sources of "joy" fake? Is the "joy" they bring fake?
And which Jesus does the young woman mean?
There is the Jesus of the Catholics, tortured on the Cross; whose Sacred Heart is prayed to, along with His Mother and all the saints.
There is the Jesus of the Mormons, who came to America after he finished in Palestine.
There is the Jesus of the Orthodox Church, the mighty ruler of the universe, and the Mother of God, the Virgin Mary, Help of the Afflicted.
There is the Jesus of the megachurches, who wants everyone to succeed, make a lot of money, have a great house and nice cars, and donate lots of $$$ to the "Pastor" who tells them about "God's Plan for You"!
Or there is the Jesus of history, a carpenter from Nazareth, who wandered around Galilee with a dozen disciples and their families, living off the kindness of strangers and telling people to forgive their enemies, to feed the hungry, to heal the sick, and to return love for hate and to pray in privacy, not parade their piety in public.
Which Jesus gave this young woman her "joy"? The one who promises happy times and success? Or the one who says "take up your cross and follow Me"?
Bart Ehrman speaks honestly about Jesus, he doesn't pretend to be filled with "joy" because of Jesus, and he pays close attention to what Jesus taught, not what millionaire "pastors" say about him.
i have to say this: Dr. Craig does have the sunniest smile any human can have , and he is a professional philosopher(apologist), so refreshing, praise God.
He has the friendliest apologist smile I have ever seen
Would you say that an apostle Paul was a professional philosopher?
@@DartNoobo both
@@solideogloria5553 both professional and a philosopher? Or both professional and an apostle? Or both philospher and Paul?
@@DartNoobo both are logical and christian. forgive me.
Craig ever get older ? He has been like this for decades !! Just laughing and pouring knowledge
IKR he is an ageless apologetics grandfather
This was excellent. What a great apologetic resource!
This stream was jam packed, great stuff!!
Thanks for this, Cameron. I really enjoyed it. Will there be a video about the Shroud of Turin on your channel? I think I remember reading something about you working on a video about it.
Yes!
@@CapturingChristianityI know Jimmy Akin did a Mysterious World episode on it. Might be with chatting with him on it.
Cracks me up listening to Cameron explain things to Bill.
The speeding of the clips is actually a great idea. It saves time like he said, and all we really have to do is slow it down on our end ❤😂
"it occurs to me that Ehrman has never really shed his fundamentalist upbringing" - WLC
shots fired! 😆😆😆
no one can shed his up-bringing. It is a matter of history. Nobody can change that, although study of it might yield "new" insights pertaining thereto.
Moreover Ehrman can shed the IDEOLOGY that he was trained to buy into.
Which he did. He candidly admits to all of that, and it fully INFORMS HIM about what ideological points he has come to reject and why.
@@510tuber I am not claiming otherwise. I think Bart's shortcoming in the "media circus" is that sometimes he is just too civil with people who really are deserving of a harder and more blunt frontal challenge.
But bart is a RESEARCHER not so much a media pundit. I do think he would sell more books if he were more outspoken but he does have ETHICS. I think he knows he could make more money and is content to just have a pretty solid reputation as an expert in his field and let the cultural circus live its own life. That is the general impression I get from him.
I guess Craig would know lol
Please don't play clips at 1.5x speed. Then I can't listen to your video at 1.5x speed. I know you and Dr. Craig's time is important but I would like it better if you blocked out enough time to watch them at normal speed. If you're concerned with video length or retaining attention, let us dictate that with how fast we listen. Just some feedback 👍🏻
Yeah, I worried about that. I’ll bring that up to Dr. Craig in the future!
You can slow his video down too. Maybe that helps.
You could toggle the speed back n forth like l do, speed and depth of comprehension is affected by number of "ideas per minute, and then overall the number of novel (to me) ideas/ paradigms per show"
I find the more intellectual challenge, the more "choppier" my viewing is anyway.
If something's steadily playing at 2.0 then it's not challenging and it may merely be a novelty.
Then there's me watching this vid at x2, and slowing it down to x1.5 at the clips
It helps keep people from paying attention to what Bart Ehrman said that way people hopefully won't take his side and they'll take the fallacious side of these cuacos
This may well be the most enjoyable and refreshing TH-cam video I have seen in years. The content is *so* high quality, and the refutation is so decisive… it’s really hard to overstate how good this was. Thank you.
Yes, the clown who operates under an ideological belief pledge and believes he is Sean Carroll's peer in matters of physics has "decisively refuted" yet another expert to whom he is monumentally inferior.
In years?? Did you watch the original video they are referencing?
@@KrazyKittyKatKatcher I did. It was not especially enjoyable for me, though, because Dr. Ehrman’s arguments were so bad, as this video exposes.
@@SentinelArchivist Well, this video exposes Craig's ineptitude and scholarly inferiority to Ehrman at least, but it's nothing new in the way of Craig's flim-flam and sophistry.
@@highroller-jq3ix 100% agree. I'm so glad people are pointing this out. When I saw WLC debate with Alex I thought he was ok. Watching this hysterical uninformed response to the civilised and factual conversation Alex and BE had is quite baffling for an actual philosopher. I guess a Phd does not spare one from emotional instability
Bart Ehrman famous footnote confession
I had difficulty with the speed. Thanks for your honest response to the issue.
Craig is a very charming person, but I’d challenge his claim that most NT scholars support his views, especially as regards the empty tomb. What he means is affiliated theologians, those who are committed to the belief, leading to a circular argument. The majority of non affiliated theologians do not support his views.
Great video and response well done! Praise God.
Praise god. Lol. Come.on grow.up.
What's the name of that book for post resurrection appearances? Sounds like he's saying "John Alsip" but nothing is coming up in searches. I'm listening around 9:40
The Post-Resurrection Appearance Stories of the Gospel Tradition by John E Alsup
One last point to add:
The people testifying they saw Jesus raised, are with Him, touched Him, and spoke extensively with Him… testified on penalty of death!
Who did that? We have no testimonies from those people.
@@gottfriedosterbach3907 James, Peter, Paul, all the first apostles, Stephen… these all died (not for what they believed) but for what they testified they had seen: the dead Christ raised and alive, who was and is the Son of God!
I had a correspondence with Bert years ago. He said the parting of the Red Sea was a Christian public relations effort to get converts.
I have never heard a pro Red Sea argument so that would be interesting. Being a new Catholic of 5 years I am learning constantly.
I will say he was nice and respectful to me.
He said the story of Moses parting the red sea was a what???
I don’t get it. Parting of the Red Sea is a Old Testament Jewish story.
@@Crazy88277 True but Christians adopted that old Jewish book (except for the parts they disown because they no longer match modern moral sensibilities).
@@billyjackson2219 a myth without a shred of the archaeological evidence you’d expect if it were true.
@@iemy2949what kind of archeological evidence would you expect?
In an effort to mislead viewers, Ehrman commits a “Superficial Fallacy,” which goes something like this, "Apples and Oranges are both sweet, round, and fruit. Therefore they are the same/identical. Ehrman mentions the similarities between two beliefs, and knowingly omits essential differences in order to make them look the same, thus misleading viewers who are not aware of the differences.
Do you think that Bart Ehrman is putting forth a conscious effort to mislead people or is this just thing where polemics slightly distort what you actually mean
@@Greyz174 He's got know there are vast differences between Romulus and Jesus (which he seemed to acknowledge), so why make the absurd comparison?
That's the astounding thing I figured out one day. There are no other historical comparisons that remotely work, which is why he was forced to use a superficial "comparison". That's why so many unread atheists find mythicist arguments so convincing, because they just assume that the historicity of Jesus must be at the same level as mythical stories that have zero historical support.
@@godfreydebouillon8807 do you think he's putting forth a conscious effort to mislead people?
@@Greyz174 Well, I'm not into reading minds. However, for some reason, a PhD at his level is making a very poor comparison, and rather intentionally or not, one can mislead others. So, I'll just leave it at that.
The fallacy cited here is correct.
@@godfreydebouillon8807 OP said there is an effort to mislead people. I asked if he thought it was conscious. If theres no input you have on the question then theres no need for you to respond with an unrelated point about bart making a bad argument
There are also ways to tell if people are lying without mind reading, and discerning peoples intentions obviously matters for reasons i can explain if needed, so no need to shuffle off my question into impossible/irrelevant land
Great discussion!
2nd time watching this and again i am struck by not only how brilliant WLC is, but also the class he comports himself with. "i'm happy to continue in light of the importance of the issue" what a great conversation
Yes, please don't do any more speedups. I found Alex to be difficult to understand at that speed, and he's a capable guy, so didn't want to miss anything. And totally thanks for having WLC.
Not only that, but it made it difficult to tell the difference between Bart and Alex, their voices sound the same, which might not matter to those watching the video, but I listen to the audio on my commute with my phone screen turned off, I need to be able to determine the difference between the voices of the two people talking.
start listening to content at 1.25x and go from there. within a few weeks this will sound totally normal and you can pack in a lot more content.
Craig has such an amazing mind. I still think of his debate with Anthony Flew.
I often rewatch his debate with Sean Carroll… what a bloodbath.😅
Fantastic Interview! I found Alex's "Within Reason" a beautiful new channel.
Alex is very good in steelmanning the position of the christian apologist in this scenario. While watching it I was actually wondering if an actual christian apologist would agree that he did a good job. I am glad to see that the do agree.
Although it is funny to see them interpret it as maybe Alex slowly converting to christianity because of his attempt of representing the position fairly.
A+ analysis.
Maybe Cameron and Low Bar Bill could learn from Alex and try to steelman the position of their opponents instead of searching for Gotchas.
@@ramigilneas9274 I don't know if I am being mean... But I don't think Bill understands too well the position of his opponents. In how he presents his arguments as facts and his opponents opinions as unreasonable. I really find very cringy how much he dismisses Bart for using a "humian" understanding. As if by just stating is humian there is no further arguments needed. When Bart is merely claiming the completely sensitive idea that miracles are improbable and so historians cannot endorse them as historical.
The response from Craig: that is just humes and humes theory is false, so yours is false.
So... No response at all. Bart is wrong because Bart is wrong.
Also didn't we talk in a different video?
I guess we are both in a Bart Ehrman binge lol
@@diegog1853
The bigger problem is that pretty much all historians agree with Hume and that his reasoning is the basis for the historical method.
@@ramigilneas9274 Yes... Craig essentially is saying that the historical method is wrong. And Bart has said repetedly that it is okay if you want to use methods outside of the historical one, just the conclusions won't be historical.
And Craig simply doesn't like that, he wants the weight of saying that something it is historical... without the actual rigorous methodology of finding out if something is historical. And that is just icredibly dishonest.
That is really the kind of apologist that I dislike the most, the ones that want to argue that their position is the most reasonable in all academic institutions, but to that end he decides to lower the bar of every single one of them without being an expert on neither, so that his conclusion sounds academic and reasonable.
I used to be a devout christian. And to me christianity was just an opinion, as subjective as art or something like that. Never tried to claim that my belief was the smartest that every reasonable person should have because I knew it wasn't true. And it is just cringey that apologists do exactly that and that so many people just eat it up for their dose of confirmation bias
To claim that a scholar trained in textual criticism is not a historian is a very ignorant and/or disingenuous argument that disqualifies the claimant
If you look up what textual criticism is (there are much better places that wikipedia to do so) you'll realise a textual critic is a historian. If a person specialises in particle acceleration that person is still a physicist, not a particle accelerator posturing as physicist.
Bart Ehrman's scholarly work does not only include textual criticism, but he trained in it and he is very good at it.
You lot need to educate yourself
But better not do it by listening to WLC
Yeah aslo... in the same paulogia video they reacted to. Bart Ehram goes through his whole education and pointed out that he maybe had one or two courses in just textual criticism. The rest are about historical analysis on its own or of specific periods, which some yes... a heavy dose of that historical analysis is studying the texts that the people were producing at the time and determining what is historical or not.
A textual critic (as Dr. Craig describes them), is just a person that tries to reconstruct as best as possible what the original author said. And that is simply not at all what Ehrman does...
I have read many of your books during my seminary years. Appreciate your work.
since you are apparently OUT of seminary it is time for you to go to a real library or learn what a search engine is for.
@@tracyavent-costanza346 so everything on the internet is true?
@@timmartin3927
WRT "...so everything on the internet is true?..."
1) I do not recall having said that.
2) it's about as true as everything found in your favorite book.
@@tracyavent-costanza346 "Search Engine"
That is why we go to school. So we have the ability to research what is true and what is false. Yes I did graduate from Seminary.
Very good! Thank you for your work.
Thanks, Cameron and God bless you.
Making the clips 1.5x speed ensures normal people turn this video off.
Clip 6:
50:46 You know it's ironic that Cameron says that they are "running out of time" when the last "discussion" skewed into the longest tangent where Cameron basically expressed his opinion on how history should be looked at in terms of probability (offering no actual examples of how he would look at things though) instead of how history is looked at in general in terms of probability. then when we get back to this clip, it completely skips over the part that follows directly after where the last cut was made which showed Bart talking about how the Gospels show an increasing inclination towards Pilate's innocence when we arrange them in chronological order as a reason why he feels that the Gospel narratives of the trial and resurrection aren't reliable (Ta dah! It's gone!)
And what were they talking about quite a bit in the last segment? Why how mean ol' Bart has the temerity to dismiss offhand the Gospel narratives because of a penchant for being against miracles actually happening. They couldn't even wait like a minute more more with that clip which would have included that segment and given them something to talk about regarding an actual reason that Bart Ehrman gives regarding why he finds the Gospel narratives unreliable regarding the resurrection accounts, they would have had to address that otherwise. Much easier to just paint Bart Ehrman as some warmed -over Humian!
52:41 Paul's only actual attestation to Jesus that he can lay claim to is his personal vision of Jesus that he claims he saw. Everything else is either something that he was "told" by that figure as he claims that the dogma he preaches comes from "no earthly source", or else he is repeating claims and attestations of others for which we have no verification, sometimes we don't even know who those people are.
52:54 They cut off before the portion where Bart addresses the supposed multiple attestations. But overall, Paul is repeating the attestations of others. I don't know if it was tradition or not or what source he actually got that from, all I know is that this isn't a claim Paul himself is making, it's a claim he's repeating that others supposedly made. And we have no way to verify those claims.
53:10 Which again, doesn't mean much as all that tells us is that stories about such appearances were already around before Luke and John were written, 70 - 100 plus years after Jesus' death. We don't however have any way of confirming if these stories are actually real.
53:34 Do note that he is writing about this in a letter to the Corinthians about appearances that occurred in Jerusalem. He also doesn't state who any of those 500 are, so to the already believing Corinthians, that's good enough. Whether they would even bother to factcheck a claim about an event that happened miles away from them let alone actually spend the time and effort to do so was probably not of any concern of Paul's.
53:42 Nope, if I were to tell you today details of the trial of Donald Trump, does that mean that I am familiar with the people involved in the event or does it simply mean I simply heard about the details from somewhere. WLC is assuming something that really doesn't follow. There is nothing about repeating something you heard of that necessitates that you had to be familiar with those involved in it. Notice that Paul hedges his bets here about how "some have died and some still lived" because it's not too big an assumption to make that within the time period of the claim which has probably been around for a few decades now, some might have died but not all of them.
53:59 How do you question witnesses when you do not even know who they are?
55:05 Assuming that the narratives are true. None of this is at all convincing because to make such an assumption you must at least assume that such narratives, which we cannot verify, let me remind, are true.
55:30 Ok, this is where Cameron is going to espouse his utter BS epistemology about how "claims are evidence". Note that this is basically how he addresses it when he says that Ehrman says that claims are not evidence and he thinks that's utterly not true (for the record, Ehrman is making the unremarkable statement that claims in general are not in the category of what we would consider evidence, he is not saying that no claims are evidence or that claims can never be evidence.). I'll explain more about this at the end and how it's so horrendously flawed not to mention intellectually bankrupt, but note that the example Cameron is using here of a claim is about his daughter making a claim about herself. His daughter is already in a position to make such a claim about herself for him to "take it as evidence" but if a total stranger, or perhaps, an anonymous internet commenter like myself, were to make the same claim to him, would he take that as evidence?
This is one of the MOST egregiously flawed pieces of epistemology I've seen from Christian apologists and it may in fact be the reason why some of them have even resorted to a presuppositionalist position regarding their God and religion and ONLY their God and religion.
55:54 This isn't what Bart is saying, BUT I'm shocked (well not really shocked) that Cameron can miss an important point of what evidence is and how we regard anything as evidence, from this statement. Hint: What we consider as evidence is relative to whatever subject it is that we intend the evidence to be for.
56:40 But he's certainly not going to tell us why right? Fun fact, Bart DOES make that comparison later though it is more a question of applying the same standards fairly across scenarios which apologists often struggle mightily to do. Wonder if this will get directly addressed.
57:18 But we're not going to have an example of such comparison's are we? What's missing here is comparison criteria and why those criteria are criteria. There are resurrection accounts in mythology that predate the resurrection story of Jesus. They share a common point in terms of resurrection, but why would these accounts be comparable or not comparable and on the account of what criteria as well as why those criteria are important?
It depends on what point the comparison made is trying to make as of course these different accounts have differences as well as similarities, and the only reason why we would compare them is so to make a point about the comparison to support a particular proposition. WLC is telling us nothing useful by saying "there's this book where they say that the accounts cannot be compared" while stating nothing about the context of the comparison being made and most importantly WHY they are being made.
57:47 So pagans don't believe in resurrection at all, I guess the ancient Greeks were not pagans then as they have stories about the resurrections of Asclepius and Achilles to name 2. Yes they were considered all but Gods after resurrection, but that's exactly Jesus's circumstances too.
58:07 Which means that if the Jews were to see a dead person it would also be evidence to them that the person is dead, or that they were in the end times. Funny how the apostles were never recorded as believing either of these 2 things in the accounts of them seeing the resurrected Jesus.
Well the theme of this segment is: Craig and Cameron presuppose that the Gospel narratives, which we can't verify, are reliable testimony. Why? Well in Cameron's case it's because they said so that's why, claims are evidence after all right?
"Well the theme of this segment is: Craig and Cameron presuppose that the Gospel narratives, which we can't verify, are reliable testimony. Why? Well in Cameron's case it's because they said so that's why, claims are evidence after all right?"
🤣🤣🤣
bravo!!!
Amazing dissection of an intentional misrepresentation of Ehrmann's views.
Thank you for standing our ground.
Funny thing I hear is: The gospels must be true, because they differ just the right amount to not be arranged... talking about non-falsifiable claims ;-)
🤦♂️Wtf...what is that essay..? What a nerd!😂
@@user-hi5bo2by4t 🤺☦🇷🇺Why don't "genius" Protestant Craig even teaches you about the table of nations, hah? Maybe cuz he knows nothing about it..?🤔
Regarding some of the claims you're making about the segment starting from 52:41, I'll give some responses.
You're correct that Paul claimed to have witnessed Christ. That very well might be the only direct knowledge he had of Jesus, but his letters contain more biographical information about Jesus that was probably delivered via intermediaries. That would make Paul a secondary source for the life of Jesus. Was Paul in a good position to acquire information about Jesus? I think so. He was an educated former Pharisee and someone who had personal contact with some of the apostles and other people who knew Jesus.
There's another problem here and that's the question of verification. When it comes to history, we can't independently verify any of it in the strict sense. We weren't there. Even when it comes to reliable sources, that still ultimately reduces to the testimony of one or more people. And even more specifically, even reliable sources didn't always name all of their sources. And even when they do, sometimes their sources are gone or left behind in a fragmentary way.
This is why historians often speak in terms of general reliability. If a person is reliable when we can check them, they're probably reliable when we can't. That's a very basic but good reason for trusting a historical source. We're not looking for proof here. Due to the nature of history, that's impossible.
So awesome to see Dr. Craig on your show!
Paulogia replied to this video. And his reply is actually worth engaging seriously. Please consider a part two
Cameron rambles on his points. That’s why they run out of time. He should let the guest talk as much as possible and be more of an interviewer.
Don't speed up video. Those who's first language is not English don't understand
And for those whose first language is English who normally up the speed on videos (like Cameron who already listens to videos at 2× speed)- I have to keep slowing it down for the clips😂
Don't know if it helps but you can slow it down too.
@@halleylujah247 Having to change the speed constantly through the video is a lot of extra work. Particularly for somebody who's doing something else (like reading through the comments) at the same time.
@@stephengray1344 Never know when people are being ironic anymore, but l laughed either way.
Clip 5:
41:46 Right off the bat, I can tell that this clip cuts off Bart before he actually explains how the Gospel narratives show an increasing inclination towards vindicating Pilate as an innocent party if we look at the Gospels in a chronological order leaving him with a quote that makes it seems as if he doesn't believe the Gospel narratives simply because they were Gospel narratives.
42:02 So Craig is just going to reiterate that taking the bodies down was the rule. That is far from confirmed history and clashes with a lot of circumstances regarding Jesus' trial and crucifixion as I've already mentioned.
42:35 I certainly would like to see that evidence because it is far from clear cut in my view that Jesus' body was allowed to be taken down from the cross let alone put in a tomb. Simply mentioning that "it was the general practice in Judea" (when it's not confirmed to be the case) and therefore it also happened with Jesus is similar to saying that because in general prisoners can be paroled or let out on bail meant that that one specific prisoner would also be allowed out on bail or parole simply because of this supposed trend. Without examining the circumstances of that person's imprisonment, it would be premature to make such a claim. So far I have yet to see WLC actually address the specific event that is Jesus' trial and sentencing rather than simply talking about crucifixion practices as a whole. This is the perfect time for him to actually do that and I'm waiting to see what he will say about it.
42:48 We are talking about the circumstances of Jesus' trial and crucifixion whereas the so called "multiple attestations" that WLC has mentioned so far are about the tomb. They aren't the same thing and they aren't even "multiple independent attestations" as I've already covered. It seems highly unlikely now that WLC will speak about Jesus' trial and crucifixion and the circumstances surrounding it regarding the question about whether he was taken down from the cross. He's simply going to defer to "attestations that of reliability of the Gospel narratives". As a reminder most of those attestations he speaks of come only from the Gospels themselves and nowhere else.
43:03 I don't know what he's talking about regarding pre-Pauline formula in Corinthians unless he's referring to what Christians already believed, which is not evidence for what actually happened, it was simply what they believed. The pre-Markan passion has been shown to be completely a figment of Craig's wishful inference and it requires Mark to be reliable anyway which means citing that is just as circular as citing the Gospels to prove the Gospel's reliability. There's no documented pre-Markan passion we know of.
43:15 Testimony he says. Both the things he cited are based on what Christians supposedly believed before any of the earliest documentations of the faith, which would be Paul's letters, even were a thing. That he calls them "testimony" really cheapens the word tremendously. I could just as easily point to what Christians believe today and call that "testimony and I would be doing something no different from what WLC is doing here. Not only that the pre-Markan passion is reliant upon Mark and an assumption that Mark based his sources off of this supposed passion. In order to assume the passion is reliable we have to assume that Mark is reliable so the passion validating Mark is basically a circular argument in itself.
43:25 This is a maximalist argument and I could just as easily say that this is evidence that the whole thing is a poorly written story. Heck if WLC wants to talk about stuff that doesn't make sense in the Gospels, consider Jesus's trial circumstances and also the whole episode of the guards at the tomb in Matthew. To say that stuff that is quirky and doesn't make sense is EVIDENCE for the reliability of the Gospels is like a heads I win, tails you lose scenario where anything can be considered evidence for the reliability of the Gospels as long as you are good at using it to argue in that direction.
Where are the criteria and standards that should be used and are they consistent in assessing Biblical reliability? because if WLC is saying that parts that don't make sense or are quirky are evidence for Gospel reliability because they don't make sense or are quirky, then can we say that parts that are NOT quirky and do make sense are evidence for the Gospels NOT being reliable? If not then where is the consistent standard for judging Gospel reliability here? As a side note the criterion of embarrassment is old hat and not even a thing in the example the apologists highlight.
44:14 Cameron knows better, Bart explains his position on the Gospels and why he thinks they are not reliable with regards to the details of Jesus' trial and crucifixion immediately after the segment where it was cut. It's very convenient that that part was left out when it is totally relevant to the question about Bart's views on Gospel reliability. Bart's position is not "the Gospel narratives are unreliable because they are Gospel narratives" Cameron, who has watched the entire clip, knows this. But here he has the excellent opportunity based on how the clip is cut, to accuse Bart of being biased against the Gospels and he takes it.
44:32 No it is not a normal thing to do. Treating the Gospels as testimony presupposes that they even are actual testimony to begin with and THAT is the VERY thing that is being disputed.
44:50 I can see where this is going. Cameron leaves out one very important detail in his example, and that is that in the court case, the victim should be verified as having been a victim of rape before their statement about such can be taken as testimony. They could still lie, their testimony could still be false, but at the very least, they have to be QUALIFIED to have their claims treated as testimony. If the court cannot even confirm that the person in question has any business even being in court (ie. they can't even confirm if a crime ahs been committed or if the person even made such a claim perhaps).
The Gospels are not in that position with regards to things like Jesus' trial and crucifixion. We still have yet to verify that they can even be considered as testimony on that subject. Yet Cameron wants us to simply presuppose that they are. This is leading up to the BS "claims are evidence" line that I believe Cameron mentioned and I'm sure we'll see in play later on.
45:01 Cameron, is relying on the claims of a person saying that they are reliable as testimony to demonstrate their reliability circular? if so then that's exactly the case with the Gospels. We are talking about their reliability here, and you're saying we can accept their "testimony" to show that they are reliable. How is this any different from the above scenario? Testimony is indeed considered a valid source of evidence, but what makes testimony testimony? What makes the Gospel passages testimony and why are we looking into the passages themselves in order to determine that?
46:15 I'm sure Swinburn would agree that such is the case only when you can confirm that whoever the "testimony" comes from is qualified in being regarded as testimony. A guy who waxes lyrical about having been a witness to a murder can't be considered a witness with actual testimony until it is at the very least confirmed that he was actually there at or around the time the crime happened.
46:45 The you should not have any reason to doubt the events in the Quran either about Mohammed being the prophet of Allah. Or that the Quran is "testimony" for such.
47:08 Talk about pot calling the kettle black. WLC accuses Bart of the exact same thing that he's done here. He's relied entirely on what he thinks are general Roman practices to proclaim that Jesus was taken down from the cross without once actually looking at the exact circumstances of Jesus' trial, what he was sentenced for and how it went as per the 4 Gospel narratives of it because no other accounts of it exist.
47:56 It is reason to DOUBT that Jesus rose from the dead, just as it is reason to doubt any accounts of seeing a live dragon. I would expect Cameron to believe such accounts about dragons and all on face value and only doubt them after we get evidence of otherwise. In history you don't often get enough information for conclusive evidence that something like that did not happen. So I guess Cameron would believe things like how Apollonius and Romulous really did miraculous things and would only be convinced otherwise when faced with evidence to the contrary then?
49:25 WLC is talking about the possibility of a particular proton existing (or whatever it is he's talking about). This is not a question of probability. Scientists don't know the probability of that proton existing. They search for it because of how their understanding of how physics works allows for that proton to possibly exist. It may not exist and they may be wrong about it, just because the laws of physics allows for something doesn't necessarily mean we will find any evidence of it or that it actually even exists at all. However this is not a question of probability at all, or if it is, then the probability is compared to perhaps similar other protons that have been found and therefore the probability that this particular one does exist.
For example we have 0 instances and examples of confirmed extraterrestrial life. Yet scientists calculate that probability based not on the number of confirmed encounters, but on the probable number of habitable planets known to exist along with possibly many more, which, if taken altogether would make it almost inevitable that extraterrestrial life exists as habitable planets like ours. This calculation could be wrong but it is relying on a sample size of all the habitable planets out there.
49:42 I'll get straight to the point here. Does the laws of physics allow for a resurrection, yes or no? How likely is it in your estimation and with your methodology?
As expected WLC did not look at the specific circumstance of Jesus' trial and crucifixion, deferring instead to claiming "general practices" being enough for us to say that that is what happened to Jesus too. if WLC was a judge in charge of parole or bail, all potential criminals in his jurisdiction would rejoice. The rest is attempting to argue for the reliability of the Gospel accounts by citing independent source that aren't, and calling them testimony when they aren't. The rest is maximalist nonsense.
Avoiding mentioning the specific circumstances of the trial of Jesus and focusing on that to determine if Jesus was actually taken down from the cross is a clear red flag. Why divert to generalist arguments for a specific case if that specific case makes it clear that your argument stands? The answer is that it doesn't and in fact it argues against it (that Jesus was charged for treason for instance, doesn't get raised at all).
Cameron's dishonesty is in full display here in terms of misrepresenting Bart's position on Gospel historical reliability. And that's without even mentioning his flawed epistemology on testimony. I'm also very curious as to how Cameron views other religious texts or indeed any tall tales because as far as his epistemology is concerned, it allows for them and requires that he take them at face value without doubting them unless he can find evidence that such is not the case.
@@DeludedOne
Awesome and very detailed comment. Kudos to you.
"As expected WLC did not look at the specific circumstance of Jesus' trial and crucifixion, deferring instead to claiming "general practices" being enough for us to say that that is what happened to Jesus too."
Not only that. There was a Craig apologist below who replied to my comment with some transcript of Roman Law relating to what they did with bodies of executed convicts. In the very text he provided thinking it supported Craig's claims it clearly says that they only allowed relatives of the crucified to bury them upon request which had to be granted and that it was always denied in certain cases such as high treason. I wonder if claiming to be the King of the Jews would have been seen as high treason 🤔
@@strumspicks2456 It likely would have. Unless Pilate had other motives for killing Jesus we don't know of, if one takes the Bible accounts as true, the only thing that Jesus had said that could get him in trouble with Roman authorities is him being the King of the Jews. Everything else like being the Messiah or forgiving sins is the Jewish Sanhedrin's matter and not of any concern to Roman authorities.
Should be the top comment. One side is intellectually dishonest and manipulative. Dr. Craig seems a very condescending person.
Thanks for the edifying discussion. WLC is brilliant
The best evidence for me is that these apostles, who were fleeing and hiding bc they thought they were all going to die as Jesus did and denounced Him, experienced something so profound that they never again denounced Jesus even when they were tortured and killed.
Hello Warren,
I like where you said regarding the apostles, that they "experienced something so profound...".
I need to ponder your statements. Thanks. God bless...
Even if that actually was the case, I seriously don't understand why you think that is good evidence for something being true.
Can it not be the case that people could strongly believe something, NOT be aware of how easily they can misperceive/misattribute/misunderstand something, and live their lives accordingly?
Don't you see this exact thing with religions you think are false?
@@whatwecalllife7034You're talking about belief, in which case I say you make a good argument. He is talking about witnessing. Not like I saw an image of him in the clouds either. No, they claim they saw him, talked to him, touched him, and sat down and had a meal with him. Then died refusing to denounce what they had witnessed. In contrast to the fact that they fled for their lives and hid themselves before they witnessed this event.
I recall Bart Ehrman contradicting himself on the point of reconciling events. During his conversation he said "Some things cannot be reconciled". Later he said "You can reconcile anything". There was a nuance, but his words should have been consistent because he had an audience. He was not tricked into saying anything. He basically insisted on elaborating his claim that anything could be reconciled.
So I agree the words could be chosen more carefully. It's more about reasonably reconciled. In the first he's saying that there are things that can't be explained with the current information and in the other it's about being able to explain using any reason no matter how unlikely. It's the same reason we say there is hot and cold but may clarify later that there is no such thing as cold, there's just less hot. It depends on the context.
So you can cherry pick and distort. You should be a Christian.
@@KrazyKittyKatKatcher Wait, there's context and nuance in things other than scripture? No way.
@@charliethecoyote2896
I bask in the radiance of your wisdom.
@@charliethecoyote2896 Well, you actually didn't provide substance and went with sarcasm yourself. Get the stick out of your ass and quit whining. I think we're actually on the same side.
Well done gentlemen. Thank you.
Thank you guys these videos are very important for obvious reasons
The two things I love the most about William Lane Craig are his ability to easily communicate his depth of faith and knowledge and that he does so while looking like David Lee Roth.
Haha, he does! Never noticed that. I'm more of a skeptic myself, but I do appreciate what the man has to say.
LOL David Lee Roth if he weren't amped up to 11
It's only fair you have Bart on now.... this is not fair to not have him on. You never push back on Craig since you share his bias. Bring Bart on please.
Bart already got to respond to Craig on Alexs channel
@@shassett79
Okey but that would mean Bart got to respond to Craig twice .
So if Bart gets a second response so does Craig
@@ramadadiver59Stop being such a baby
@@Crashawsome
I'm not the one complaining about what's fair
@@ramadadiver59 And there you are still being a baby. Work on your self awareness, buddy.
Complaining about what’s fair is exactly what you’re doing
About Romulus and Apollonius, regardless of these characters not having been historical, the stories of death and resurrection were known before Jesus, why couldn't Christianity have copied such stories?
*Enjoyed the show. Thanks bro*😊
Great video from you and Dr. Craig, Cameron! much respect for Alex doing honest investigative journalism so to speak.
TBH, the most impressive part of the O'connor/Ehrman video, imo, was its title and the discussion of it, happening at about 12' 50'' (or chptr 4) in their video. I wish that point was addressed more in this video. I mean I understand that the rebuttal only focuses on " the portion of Alex O'Connor's interview with Dr. Bart Ehrman in which they interact with the work of Dr. Craig", but I might have learned something about what the scripture actually says, and how it changed over time, if they had addressed more the title-topic of the O/E video.
They have no interest in doing that.
Ehrman is a serious historian (text criticism is part of the work of historians!! not a different discipline) this is an ideologically motivated attack on him for catholics to feel good about themselves
@@strumspicks2456nope. Ehrman is nothing of the kind. He's a biased ex-evangelical anti-apologist. Better read a few books about the history of the "historical critical method" in theology and its roots in German philosophy, especially Kant and Hegel.
@@MrSeedi76 Ehrman writes scholarly works of history published by academic presses he's a historian.
Excellent video Cameron, thanks a lot ! It would have been interesting to have Craig's view on the argument made by Ehrman about apparitions of mother Mary. It seems to me that denying those apparitions (as Craig does) provides an undercutting defeater for the belief he holds that the hypothesis of the apostles having hallucinations of Jesus is improbable.
Loved this response! Very detailed and well explained
A somewhat frustrating thing about debating the resurrection is the epistemological quackery that sets in the moment you try to argue for the reliability of the gospels and the certainty of key historical facts that are best explained by the resurrection. All of a sudden claims are no longer evidence, even though in daily life everyone treats claims as evidence.... It just reeks of either sloppy or motivated reasoning. Same with the seemingly inevitable Humean reasoning that is employed whenever a miracle claim is discussed, which is of course question begging and fallacious. Why can't we just use the same standards of evidence that we regularly use to investigate this topic?
Anyway, rant over. Great livestream WLC and Cameron, and good job Alex for pushing back during the interview.
Who actually treats claims as hard evidence in their daily life? I sure don't.
@@Zangelin So when somebody comes into work late and says "I was stuck in traffic" you don't take that as evidence that they drove to work, but the roads were more congested than usual? If you're a parent and you ask what your kids learnt at school today you don't believe their answer until they demonstrate that they can do whatever it is?
Your life must be several times more difficult than that of the rest of us.
@@Zangelin Everyone including you. It is not insurmountable evidence, but for a lot of things you believe and act on your only evidence is claims by people in positions to know. Sure, if there exists specific evidence to contradict a claim, you will weigh the evidentiary value of the claim against the evidence that contradicts the claim. Sure if the cost of being mistaken is high, you may want additional evidence, but even then the claim is not meaningless or void of evidentiary value. Claims are evidence, and like any other form of evidence it is possible for there to exist contradictory evidence, but that does not take away from the inherent evidentiary value of claims.
If your husband/wife told you what happened at work today, would you believe them or would you tell them to stop wasting their time because claims aren't evidence and tell them to just send over the security footage instead? There you have it. Claims are evidence.
@@truthmatters7573
You're not accounting for the kind of claims that could be uttered. If a claim deviates wildly from normal events or proceedings, then that is problematic either for it being believed or for it being true. It is such a simple point, and noncontroversial.
@@wet-read yes, it's such a simple non controversial point that claims are evidence. I never said anyone should believe everything that's being claimed. That would be silly, but to pretend like claims aren't evidence is equally silly.
Always enjoying seeing a good WLC show - great video, God bless you both
I love to see Dr. Craig's praise of young philosophers like Alex O'connor. It would be amazing to see you facilitate a discussion between Joe Smidd, and WLC, as Joe has recently been posting withering critiques of the Kalam! Joe Smidd, is a young philosopher who I feel would be able to engage WLC in a truly deep and engaging way.
@CapturingChristianity
Awesome stream, thoroughly enjoyed!
Craig saying Ehrman is only "posturing" as a historian when he himself said he "lowers the standard of evidence for Jesus" is pretty rich.
Timestamp please
@@jasoli1749 Have you not watched the video? 24:30 onwards. WLC thinks specialising in textual criticism makes you a textual critic and not a historian... In case you don't know this is like saying that specialising in particle acceleration makes you a particle accelerator and not a physicist
Cameron, your channel was instrumental in my conversion to Catholicism, and as a consequence, my introduction to philosophy. Thank you
I’m sorry you’re a Catholic now. Hopefully you don’t give that criminal organization money.
@NDeemz According to which worldly authority?
I just read your comment and cringed. I cringe whenever I see someone jump from a pan into a fire. Romanism (Roman Catholicism) is a false religion - not the same doctrines as Jesus taught.
@@nics4967 5,500 hospitals, 18,000 clinics, 16,000 homes for the elderly, 65% of which are located in developing countries, Hundreds of thousands of parishes doing local charity, and running more than a billion dollars in deficit to preform more charity. Do you think all these buildings are run by agents to falsely convince the world the catholic church does charity? You can hold your own private opinions about the church but don't deny the good that it does based on your own biases.
@@nics4967according to many covered child rapes without any reprecussions to molesters. According to concordate with Hitler. According to indulgence sales. According to rampant idolatry. Ahould I continue
Bart Ehrman comes across as an extremely rational and reasonable person. I wonder what is the relevance of a philosopher commenting on a historian's comments about the historical record. He makes perfect clarifications every time he is expressing his opinion and draws clear lines to what in the record makes him think that... He's quite the opposite of dogmatic and very eloquent...
One of the issues is that his eloquence and rational objectivity is selectively deployed. He'll draw very rational comparisons one second and reach facile conclusions the next depending on which side he steel-mans and which side he straw-mans. People that search for the truth steel-man both sides and see which side wins. Mind you I'm not saying he's the only one that does this, certainly Christians or anyone else is also capable of this. We are discussing Ehrman though.
He will ask, what is the probability that someone resurrected from the dead when that hasn't happened before. But will not ask. What is the probability of an executed convicted criminal spawning a worldwide religion with billions of followers that has lasted 2000 years. The odds are zero because neither happen. And yet here we are.
@@SeanzGarage "One of the issues is that his eloquence and rational objectivity is selectively deployed. He'll draw very rational comparisons one second and reach facile conclusions the next "
It sounds to me like you're describing WLC here. Do you really believe BH is not a historian?! Do you really believe that because a handful of ancient texts that a) belong to a specific religious tradition and b) are inconsistent in many ways, mostly all state a certain set of supernatural events we are to assume said events are historical fact?
This is a game of likelihood. The only thing we can take as historical fact is that those accounts were written - let's not forget - in a totally different language in a country 1000 miles away.
There is consensus on the historicity of the texts, there is not a consensus in the veracity of any of the specific events, especially the supernatural aspects of what is recounted, even if there is a certain level of consistency across the few text available. Even if all accounts were exactly the same they would still be words on papyrus by people who wanted to present their religion as the saving of humanity. Hardly the standard for impartiality... Just like WLC
@@strumspicks2456
You're immediately redirecting from Ehrman to WLC which illustrates my point rather well.
I'm not here to white knight WLC. You mentioned Ehrman being extremely rational and my position is that he is in-fact very rational but only when it is convenient for him to be.
Ehrman will point out that there are detail differences in the gospel accounts of the resurrection then draw quite absurd conclusions about why that might be. (They must of seen him from a distance or maybe it was someone who looked similar, etc.)
Ehrman says that the Apostles were mistaken but concluded that they weren't lying, just perhaps confused. This objectively holds no water. All of the apostles saw Jesus and walked and talked with him for over a month. Thomas put his hands in Jesus's wounds. They ate together, They all saw him ascend into heaven. Based on scripture there is no way that these events were mistaken or uniformly imagined. If they didn't happen, the only rational alternative is that the Apostles must of been lying.
However, if they were lying what was the motivation to do so. There was no prospect of wealth, fame or power, only the near certainty of being horrifically executed and dying in equal obscurity to their teacher. Ehrman would then have us believe that it's again no real stretch that tens of thousands of people across hundreds of years would betray their ancestral Gods, go against family traditions, be reviled by their society, hunted by authorities and ultimately also be tortured to death simply based on some shoddy thirdhand information.
These conclusions are not the products of an extremely rational and reasonable mind. They are the products of someone who perhaps has more to gain by pandering to their base and peddling their collection of over simplified analysis.
@@SeanzGarage
"You're immediately redirecting from Ehrman to WLC which illustrates my point rather well"
No it doesn't. It simply states that what you claim Ehrman does is actually what Craig does, precisely because Craig is 'very rational but only when it is convenient for him to be'.
For example. Do you believe that Ehrman is not a historian because he trained in text criticism like Craig claims? It makes no sense and anybody with any ability to read and the curiosity to inform themselves knows this.
"They must of seen him from a distance or maybe it was someone who looked similar,"
What you seem to miss here is that Ehrman does not need any excuses to dismiss the historical veracity of any supernatural events related in the early sources from which the gospels were developed. Any rational person understand that the fact that people took it upon themselves to write about such events in those texts (which have the clear intention to disseminate religious beliefs) does not constitute real world evidence of the events actually taking place. He does not need to prove JC wasn't buried to disprove the resurrection like Craig claims! It's an utterly absurd argument to start with.
He also has no reason to think the people who passed on the stories or those who wrote the texts, in a foreign language in a faraway land, didn't believe what they were writing to be true (i.e. lying). But he also has no reason to believe that the things they said were actually true. There is plenty of evidence, particularly in religious settings but not exclusively, of otherwise perfectly functional people believing things that are demonstrably false even in societies in which formal logical thinking is well developed, let alone in ancient palestine where these stories originated from. So him saying 'they must have seen him from a distance etc...' is not an exhaustive attempt at ascertaining exactly what motivated them to develop such stories, it is more a 'who knows'. Because a rational mind knows that we cannot know. A christian mind however has a vested interest in misrepresenting the mere existence of the text as factual evidence.
It is not. It's simple hearsay
I've already addressed the first portion of your reply. so I'm going to leave that there. As for the second part of your reply
*He also has no reason to think the people who passed on the stories or those who wrote the texts didn't believe what they were writing to be true. (i.e. lying) but he also has no reason to believe that the things they said were actually true.*
As I've laid out, them lying doesn't make sense and them suffering from the same delusion doesn't make sense.
*There is plenty of evidence, particularly in religious settings but not exclusively, of otherwise perfectly functional people believing things that are demonstrably false even in societies in which formal logical thinking is well developed, let alone in ancient palestine where these stories originated from.*
There are countless instances where humanity has been wrong, from religion to science. The list is unimaginable. That's normal. Humans are trying to figure it out. We are here to grow and learn. Yet throughout these trails and errors, ups and downs, rises and falls of countless civilizations, dynasties and religions, nothing on earth remotely comes close to the transcending inseverable thread of the Judeo Christian belief system.
*So him saying 'they must have seen him from a distance etc...' is not an exhaustive attempt at ascertaining exactly what motivated them to develop such stories*
No one would expect an exhaustive list, but one would expect for him to at least put up a best guess. Simply dismissing the origins of Christianity as "meh who knows" is plain lazy.
*a rational mind knows that we cannot know. A christian mind however has a vested interest in misrepresenting the mere existence of the text as factual evidence.*
The early "Christian" mind did not have this vested interest that you speak off. It did not exist. Quite the opposite, they would have every reason in the world to reject these stories. Aside from that the contrast you draw against the "rational" mind and "christian" mind, implying that billions of Christians are simply irrational creatures, is quite presumptuous and arrogant don't you think?
Cameron, watched through this again, and it’s so much better than I first realized. Both of you were sharp, focused, insightful, and very well prepared.
Also, your own extensive knowledge is evident here, and appreciated.
I appreciate that!
You must be kidding.
Cameron literały said that it's reasonable to believe in Jesus resurrection because if his daughter would tell him that she was hit in school, he would believe her too.
Indeed, sharp, focused, insightful piece of apologetics right there. Smh.
@@jozefglemp8011 Who’s kidding now? You took one line (weak relative to others) out a long video, misunderstood the point being made, and then applied that to the entire video.
Don’t guys like you complain when Christians pull this nonsense when they’re reacting to Paulogia and Ehrhman’s long videos? This is dirty and political
@@TheProdigalMeowMeowMeowReturns I agree it's a weak line, but it has been said as an argument. It wasn't my choice, Complain to Cameron, not me.
@@jozefglemp8011 He was clarifying a point about sincerity. That alone obviously doesn’t prove accuracy, but he didn’t say otherwise. So much more to the issues, and you know this. As I said, a politician’s behavior
Much respect to Alex, he is genuinely looking for truth - seek and you shall find.
The textual criticism thing stuck out like a sore thumb in the original interview with Alex and was discussed in the comments on that video. Ehrman's own bio on the UNC website describes him as a textual critic, and another video on YT where he explains his background and training as a textual critic was cited as well.
Likewise though, the assertion that he is not a historian because he doesn't have training or a degree in history is somewhat nonsensical. Textual criticism is a subset of historical research. By definition, every textual critic is a historian. Furthermore, Ehrman has published work as a historian of early Christianity, not the least of which is the most widely used university level intro to New Testament textbook in the country, "New Teastament: A Historical Introduction." So that also qualifies him to be called a historian. This argument is kind of like saying Richard Dawkins, who claims to be an evolutionary biologist, is not in fact a biologist at all because his degrees are in zoology.
It is bewildering that two such accomplished intellectuals can descend into this odd form of trite madness.
This is exactly correct... he completely displayed his own ignorance for all who can think critically to see
@strumspicks2456 I hold to the aphorism that you shouldn't attribute to malice anything that can be explained by ignorance. I love and respect both of these scholars, but honestly I have a hard time believing in either case here that these facts can be explained by ignorance.
Almost spat out my coffee when WLC referenced Wikipedia
@DonkasaurusNZ Haha, true. Wiki was right on this though.
The funny part is that this comes from Craig… a guy who makes outlandish claims about history, cosmology and biology with no relevant qualifications whatsoever.
He educates historians that you can totally prove that miracles happened based on unverifiable anecdotes and anonymous hearsay.
He educates cosmologists that you can totally prove that the universe can not be eternal based on his naive intuitions about physics.
He educates biologists that Adam and Eve were created by God 750k years ago and then slowly replaced the other humans that already existed based on nothing that the myths of Genesis and wishful thinking.
And then he claims that Ehrman isn’t a historian.
I would say that Craig isn’t a real philosopher because a real philosopher wouldn’t have such a poor epistemology based on an embarrassing collection of logical fallacies.
Hey Cameron would it be possible to get Ehrman and Craig together for a discussion on your channel? That would be great.
58:35 what an incredible guy! I've rarely ever seen a guest ask to stay in order to fully educate the audience
Or to finish the propaganda.
@@highroller-jq3ixWhat propaganda? He's simply stating the facts.
@@123duelist Propaganda for the god fantasy I am sure you share with him, the propagandist agenda he has confessed to on numerous occasions and which all Biola faculty and students must similarly commit to. Falsified claims or misrepresentation of available evidence is not synonymous with "facts." Thanks for asking.
@@123duelist he's stating the facts within his bias and lying to you about Ehrman whilst at it
This is his desperate attempt at straw-manning Bart Ehrman for the christian crowd
Nobody who isn't a christian believes anything written in the gospels is factual proof of any events. Different people may have different opinions about the likelihood of different events, some of those opinions may be based in common sense and some in religious bias: that's fine. But there is no academic consensus that Jesus was factually and demonstrably buried as opposed to left to dry, the later being what happened to most people executed by crucifixion, even in ancient Palestine
This was a great interview. That's for having Dr. Craig on to defend his position.
🤺☦🇷🇺Why don't "genius" Protestant Craig even teaches you about the table of nations, hah? Maybe cuz he knows nothing about it..?🤔
16:14 "Then he needs to give us what these overwhelming reasons are". He provided reasons as to why a burial was very unlikely in the conversation.
My thoughts exactly. I think it’s the other way around. The idea that the Roman’s would have let someone be buried in a tomb or otherwise after crucifixion is antithetical to the historical practice of crucifixion. Therefor they would need overwhelming reasons for why they’d make an exception.
@@Cj99861Would a request from political and influential figure of the israelities be a good enough reason to let Jesus be buried? In adition, 5 independent sources for the burial of Jesus? Jesus was a very influential figure before his death, and even his death was a popular one, when he was displayed. so I dont doubt his death was not seen as “any death”
No he didn’t. He literally said “there are lot of reasons for doubting that its right” and that was it. Were those overwhelming reasons to sway away most NT scholars? Noo.
The only reason he gave was 1. Note: not many. Which was, that the gospels are the only piece that talks about Jesus being buried. However this can be refuted because even Paul, in his epistles (not in the gospels), says Jesus was buried (In 1 Corinthians 15:4). he also says that he was preaching this gospel without even having met or talking to the apostles. How do we know this? because he went to the apostles to confirm if what he was preaching was right (Galatians 2:2). When he finally met them, in Galatians 2:6 he said “They added nothing to me”. Meaning The Gospel he preached, where Jesus died, was buried, rose again on the 3rd day, was the same as the gospels the apostles preached even though he didnt even meet them. His Letters are some of the most well respected and reliable historical accounts, even by Bart Ehrman. So now you have more than 5 independent sources that are not the gospels that prove Jesus burial.
@@marcocortes9968 nope
@@marcocortes9968 you understand that there were many forms of Roman execution? Crucifixion was reserved for people to be left up and picked away by scavenger animals as they decompose.
Minor correction:
1:02:00 - This isn’t exactly true. The Hebrew Bible records three explicit examples of individuals being risen from the dead (1 Kings:17-17-24, 2 Kings 4:8-16, and 2 Kings 13:21). While a particular individual resurrection was by no means expected, I see no reason to think such an idea “contradicted” their beliefs.
He means resurrection to immortal life (e.g. Daniel 12:2 and Isaiah 26:19), not simple"resuscitation". As far as we know, no Jews believed that the former resurrection would occur until the end of the world.
I would point out, though, that the original disciples and Paul believed they _were_ living at the end of the world (e.g. see 1 Peter 4:7; 1 Thess. 4:17; Hebrews 1:2; Mark 9:1; etc.). Paul called Jesus' resurrection the "firstfruits" of the general resurrection (1 Cor. 15:20). So, Jesus' resurrection for them was not "in the middle of history".
@@legron121 Agreed!
Cameron. great content and great video with Dr. Craig. I learn a lot from your chanell, so keep it up. HOWEVER... not a fan of speeding up videos for the sake of time. Those who come to listen to this awesome interaction, will take the time to go through it, even it's longer. So to leave a good legacy content, do not speed up the reference videos.... it diminishes your final work. Blessings brother!
Thanks for sharing!
I agree on the speed thing. I had to go in and slow it back down. Way too fast for me.
Clip 7:
1:00:24 Apart from Paul there's no documented evidence for an appearance for the other 2. I get how personally some may believe that they had such experiences but I don't think it's verifiable that they did.
1:00:42 You know what's really remarkable? That neither of these 2 know how stories propagate or they don't want to admit that that is EXACTLY how stories propagate. I suppose this is another reason why they cut out the part about Bart mentioning the progressively innocent Pilate through the Gospel accounts when viewed in chronological order as an example of that.
1:01:11 Absolutely not. WLC is trying to affirm that Bart concedes that these people actually saw a post mortem Jesus. Bart is crystal clear in the clip that he doesn't know what they saw, but that they likely saw something and it led to them believing that they saw a resurrected Jesus. It's things like these where apologists push in their own position as the position of their opposition in order to get them to "concede" stuff in this way rather than actually addressing their actual positions, that reinforces the image of apologists being intellectually dishonest. And Bart only mentions 3 people he thinks saw a risen Jesus, Peter, Mary Magdalene and Paul as a later addition. The appearance to the 12 is not mentioned.
1:01:56 As I pointed out, if this is the case, then the Gospel accounts of Jesus' resurrections would be invalidated as being reliable on the same grounds as the apostles would not believe that they are seeing a living Jesus, but an animated dead one. The Gospels make no mention of this, any and all accounts of such appearances IMMEDIATELY has the apostles assuming, in a totally implicit manner, that Jesus was alive, and not dead. WLC is doing his own position no favors here.
1:02:30 WLC what are you even saying? According to Acts, Jesus WAS assumed into heaven and Acts even mentioned that it happened with the apostles as witnesses! So they should then, according to you and the account in Acts, be preaching that Jesus is dead and not alive then? Come on WLC.
1:02:39 And I will note that this is not the only account of this rapture scenario happening. Elijah was said to have been taken up into heaven bodily, as was Mary the mother of Jesus. Heck, there were no cries of apostasy when Jesus told the story of Lazarus and had Abraham already in heaven when he should have been brought up there with everyone else at the end times. When the apostles saw Elijah and Moses with Jesus in the transfiguration, none of them said then: "I see dead people" (even though Moses and Elijah are considered to be dead in Jewish lore at this point). WLC's point about how the ancient Jews believed only in a corporate mass resurrection at the end times and therefore the post mortem Jesus appearances were somehow "special" in that they somehow immediately knew that Jesus was alive and not dead, contradicts ALL of these other accounts to some degree.
1:04:07 Well then thanks for clarifying that post-bereavement hallucinations are a perfectly natural explanation for these supposed experiences of a resurrected Jesus.
1:04:27 So I guess all those who claim that Isaiah accurately prophesied the coming of the Messiah through the suffering servant are wrong then? After all no Jews would have taken that prophecy that way according to WLC, and no Jews at all would have expected Jesus to come back, not even his disciples to whom, according to the Gospels, Jesus stated he would return, sometimes even explicitly.
1:05:06 According to Acts, what actually transformed the disciples was the holy spirit coming down on them. Before that and AFTER their supposed encounters with resurrected Jesus is the Gospel accounts are to be taken seriously, they were still cowering in their room in fear of Jewish authorities. That was precisely their situation as described in Acts when the Holy Spirit allegedly came down upon them. I guess WLC doesn't believe such an account at all to be reliable?
1:05:25 If a hallucination would contradict beliefs, so would an actual resurrection in the same vein. A hallucination can have them firmly believing that Jesus is indeed alive as it has happened before in the same way for post bereavement hallucination experiences in present day.
1:05:42 Why would they assume that Jesus was dead and assumed into heaven if they saw him while on earth? Plus, doesn't such accounts of assumption, you know, contradict the notion that Jews think of the resurrection as a mass corporate event? Doesn't it mean that they do think that some can be "raised" before the end times?
1:05:59 I'm a bit confused here about how WLC views assumed victims with regards to the mass resurrection at the end times. So the assumed's soul is taken into heaven while leaving their rotting corpse on earth that would then rise, sans soul at the end times to be taken up into heaven by their erstwhile accommodators who have been waiting for a really long time to get their bodies back? This doesn't gel with Elijah's assumption because he was taken alive into heaven, if he had appeared again, people wouldn't have any reason to believe he was dead as he was alive when he was assumed. Something's fishy about how WLC is portraying assumption vs actual end times mass resurrection here.
1:06:47 We have absolutely no way to verify the nature of such experiences or even whether the occurred at all with the exception of Paul's experience that was the only documented one. How exactly is Craig able to confidently state that he knows exactly what such experiences are like when we cannot even verify from records that these experiences even happened?
Oh wait, he's taking the Gospel accounts as reliable history the way maximalists do a prior. Ok then, carry on.
1:07:30 What Paul believed in doesn't make what he experienced true. Indeed the account of Acts portrays Paul's encounter as being explicitly non-physical. The ones said to be with him at the time either saw or heard nothing, and they certainly didn't see an actual Jesus.
1:08:04 These are the lines of the creed that Christians had been believing in and propagating perhaps even when Paul was still persecuting them. That they believed in such a thing is not in any way evidence that their belief is true.
1:08:34 How does Jesus' appearance to the apostles require an empty tomb? Unless of course you're simply taking the Gospel accounts as true in which case why even argue? Just say the Gospel says so so it's true that Jesus was resurrected and be done with it.
1:10:24 Well there goes WLC's claim that Jews only believed in a mass corporate resurrection at the end times. The Corinthian Jews did not according to WLC, so what gives? The entire line of reasoning from WLC here makes no sense at all and also contradicts what he said about Jewish beliefs regarding the resurrection.
I'll talk about the extremely damaging "claims are evidence" line of epistemology of Cameron's in greater detail in a separate post. For now, this segment is simply WLC and Cameron pooh-poohing natural explanations for seeing a post mortem Jesus by appealing to the Gospels because did you know that the Gospel accounts are true? Did you? As well as an odd account of Craig about how the Jews viewed resurrection that he later contradicted himself that doesn't add up in light of material from the Bible itself, you know, the thing that is simply true.
Other things include how they are not aware of how rumors spread and stories get embellished as actually being a thing, how Paul's beliefs can somehow confirm things, even Paul's recitation of beliefs that existed before he adopted them are also legitimate confirmation of facts, and of course that the Gospel accounts are true, did you know that? Except on the parts where they contradict WLC's explanation on what Jews believed about the resurrection apparently.
When WLC says that there are 6 independent sources for the empty tomb... What are they?
Check out his book The Son Rises.
I believe Craig argues that Mark, M, L, 1 Corinthians, John, and the apostolic sermons preserved in Acts independently support the empty tomb (I’m not saying they do; I’m just answering the question).
@@legron121 Thanks. Yeah I looked into it. I feel like he is overstating his position quite a bit personally. And after thinking about it, even if he was right that all of those sources are independent of each other... I'm not really sure what that does to strengthen the validity of the tomb being empty? To me, the 6 sources being independent just confirm that there was an earlier oral tradition about an empty tomb narrative being spread and that people believed in the oral tradition, wrote about it and evolved it. I don't think that the 6 independent sources argument actually does anything to strengthen the support for an empty tomb. Unless something is going over my head here which is entirely possible lol
You're better off reading Ehrman who is a legitimate historian (not like the two people ignorantly slandering him here) and knows the original earliest sources from which the gospels were compiled. One of them is called Q by historians
@@strumspicks2456😂😂😂you are funny gospel Q doesn't actually exist it's a hypothesis put together by historians trying to explain why there is specific information in gospel Mathew but it is not in mark and luke
Fantastic work Cameron and Dr Craig!
I read this too late and thought it said
Fantastic work Cameron and Dr. Cringe!
😂
@@Wretched2JZ 🤦♂️Are all of you Americans that dцmb?
🤺☦🇷🇺Why don't "genius" Protestant Craig even teaches you about the table of nations, hah? Maybe cuz he knows nothing about it..?🤔
@@EasternOrthodox101 what?
@@DavidJohn-ig4sy Can you read? Obviously not lol
Thank you for putting this rebuttal out there for people to find!
Thank you Cameron, your videos are simply fascinating. The more I hear Ehrman speak the more I feel that he is simply putting on an act. He is an intelligent person and I fail to see how he could actually believe what he is saying.
Thanks Cameron!
I think this was a brilliant conversation, and as a Bart fan, found it fantastic how respectfully you argued some of his claims
myself...I'm more of a Fart Ban...than a Bart Fan...
@@anarchorepublican5954 yikes
🤺☦🇷🇺Why don't "genius" Protestant Craig ever teaches you about the table of nations, hah? Maybe cuz he knows nothing about it..?🤔
@lionboy4427 you're Russian Orthodox I'm guessing?
@@pebystroll Yes, I am. But to the point: Why didn't he and Craig explain the contradictions or differences between the accounts of the disciples? Hah?? Why didn't they?! All they said is that it's not a reason to dismiss their whole testimony!! Why didn't they explain the WHY?? Maybe it's because they are ignorant about the Bible as all Protestants...🤔
Just a fun fact, with regard to the final clip, in the scenario of there being several eye witnesses whose narratives don’t exactly line up, in a court of law, it actually would result in the narrative accounts being viewed as not credible.
In other words, if there are independent multiple eye witnesses to a crime and they all have the same exact narrative, it usually results in the witnesses being viewed as not credible, as it insinuates the witnesses met with one another to corroborate their narratives. Conversely, multiple witnesses that have similar narratives but not exactly the same are usually accepted as being credible.
not exactly the same and wildly different are two very important distinctions you just failed to make
@@dkirk_official”wildly different” is doing a whole lot of work for some minor differences, possibly even describing different events.
That's not really the issue. The issue is that if 500 people saw Jesus after the resurrection, then someone would have either written about that as it would be the single most important thing of all time, or they would have told a lot of people and one of them would have written something or had someone write it for them. Also, if people were coming out of graves all over Jerusalem, that would have caused people to literally faint with fear. no record of any of that whatsoever other than one gospel writer. none of this makes sense. it's some sort of tall tale.
@@Michael-le5phFirst of all, they did write it down. That’s what these documents are, the written record of the witnesses. Secondly, you have imposed your view of the supernatural anachronistically onto a very superstitious people, many of whom believed in an open pantheon of gods doing all sorts of crazy things in meddling with human affairs. To many Romans and Greeks, Jesus was just a backwoods nobody god among many. Many of the Jews believed in the resurrection of the dead. These people wouldn’t have been as close minded to these type of supernatural events as some modern atheists. Accordingly, your points here don’t really hold water. Weak sauce.
@@wisdomsdoorstep I find it odd that people
Will justify any possible way to justify their beliefs but in modern day they will never think like that. The obvious answer no matter how much you hate it is often the right thing It never happened. There is zero evidence of any accounts outside the gospels. To say there are accounts by eyewitnesses is nonsense. There are none that can be believed and if we believe those accounts why not believe the other gospels in circulation at the time? My point is that when we believe something there is no evidence that will ever make you change your mind. People will even lie to avoid changing a belief.
Great interview!! Love WLC
At 23:53 WLC reads from Erhman’s teachings and Erhman writes that women found the tomb empty three (what????) later, did you notice this was cut out
He changed his mind, his tomb-denial is a recent development as Craig notes repeatedly
I just love listening to Dr. Craig. His views on Molinism in other interviews have had great impact on my theology with regard to middle knowledge and how that melds together foreknowledge and free will.
Clip 1:
5:53 Which we will get to and which Bart disagrees with. This however is NOT a fact that is accepted by all.
6:09 Tied to the first, and same as well, not accepted as fact by most. If they don't accept that there was a tomb, then they can't really accept an empty tomb.
6:19 No, Alex puts it much better, groups of people claimed they had such experiences. These claims are not corroborated and cannot be verified through such. To say that most people accept this as true would be no different than saying that most people accept the resurrection as true which is probably what WLC is trying to get at here.
6:35 Again, addressed later and the short answer to this is that we don't know exactly what the disciples experienced, whether it was sudden or not. This also requires accepting the Gospel accounts of their character which, again is not verifiable. There is some speculation of whether or not Peter had an experience where he thought he saw Jesus which Bart also mentions, but no documentation of such an experience, if it happened, has ever been found.
6:43 The ones who are tied to Christian universities and "institutions" sure, but to say that most New Testament scholars agree is to overlook the fact that there are those who do indeed disagree with those, and they are not by any measure small. Take the empty tomb for example. Gary Habermas once included it as part of his Minimal Facts argument as one of the things that are widely if not universally accepted by New Testament Scholars.
That was later removed as this was clearly disputed amongst such scholars. Not all of them agreed it was a fact. The rest of WLC's points don't belong on Habermas' list, except perhaps the part about how people later came to believe in or saw Jesus, and even then that they CLAIMED to not that they actually DID see Jesus.
7:10 The facts raised by Alex that that Bart responded to are these: 1.) A man named Jesus lived in 1st century Israel. 2) This man went around preaching stuff. 3.) He got into trouble with the Roman authorities and was killed by them through crucifixion. 4.) There were people who claimed to have seen this man alive after his crucifixion. There is nothing controversial about these 4 facts, so I don't see why Bart responding to them in the affirmative is strange.
7:24 The only one of these 4 facts that requires any explanation is the last one, the claim that people saw Jesus alive after his crucifixion. The rest are not really disputed. On that however, the examples Bart gave were of people who claimed that they saw these figures alive after their supposed deaths. And that's the explanation, that people made these claims in other instances but we don't simply accept them as true because they claimed such a thing, they need to be evaluated and evaluation is either not possible or comes up negative in such cases. Heck people were claiming they saw Elvis alive mere HOURS after his death. Doesn't mean he rose from the dead, or that such a thing is unusual.
7:46 The explanation for why there would be people claiming that they saw dead people alive is something that happens a lot and oftentimes there are perfectly reasonable explanations as to why there are such claims, the most common of which is that they were mistaken. Bart brought up the examples he did to show that such claims of seeing people who are dead alive again are mundane and happen in other areas too. But we don't accept all of them as actual supernatural occurrences. Granted he did not elaborate much here but he does get into it later on. WLC is painting this as Bart being flippant about explaining such an occurrences by focusing on how there are "similar other events" rather than on the fact that such claims are and can be explained in them, (plus such claims aren't taken as true by the very apologists who take claims about Jesus' resurrection as true).
8:08 Yup, just like Jesus' story, apt comparison if you ask me. Note here how these apologists are all to happy to dismiss myths they don't believe in despite their similarities to the myth that surrounds the Jesus story, but are adamant that their story that contains such similar myths is real and not a myth. Bart treats BOTH such stories the same way. He doesn't let religion determine for him which is more true than not.
9:28 WLC's lack of awareness here is staggering. Doesn't he realize that this is exactly the sort of argument that mythicists can also use for Jesus? Right down to the various aspects of his story that could have been copied from earlier myths.
10:26 They were not written within the generation of the eyewitnesses, or if they were, it was barely within such a generation. Not to mention that it is questionable that they were written by people who knew any actual eyewitnesses at all.
Clip one is done and not much to say here, because not much was actually said that needs addressed. It's noted however that WLC is quick to deny other myths as myths without realizing that we're talking about people claiming that they saw dead people alive. Regardless of the origin of such stories, the CLAIMS they saw such people alive is what Bart was addressing here and on that, they were similar if not identical to the claims made by those who supposedly saw Jesus alive after his resurrection. So WLC is not really addressing what Bart was.
Thank you for posting this breakdown! I had to stop listening to after the first clip because the headache I got from the amount of spin in WLC's "analysis" of the interview clip. I didn't believe there could have been that much of a mismatch, but what you wrote confirms it.
All this back and forth about whether there was a tomb, whether there was a burial, who saw what….in the end it doesn’t matter at all. Dead people don’t get up and be alive again. So whatever happened, there’s another explanation for it.
Nice talk. At the end I wish dr. Craig would have addressed what are the actual discrepancies ehrman thinks exist in the gospels regarding the resurrection accounts? And why then being written decades later doesn’t detract from the reliability of the accounts.
Correct. Neither delay to be written, nor discrepancies matter because of faith. Although, I always wondered why Jesus hates missing limbs, he never restores them; but he loves keys, 'cus he finds them after I pray.
Great show. WLC is such a clear thinker. Thanks Cameron.
He's definitely a clear ideologue and flim-flam artist.
@@highroller-jq3ix Nice
Clear sure... not correct
@@strumspicks2456 In what way is he even a clear thinker? He tortures and butchers logic in the service of confirmation bias and betrays his own intellectual discipline in the process. There is no clear connection between, for example, the Kalam and the fantasy overlord of the bible. It can only be forced by means of fallacies and sophistry.
"Erhman doesn't give his good reasons for denying the empty tomb.... But we have 5 indipendent sources proving it!"
*then fails to list his sources*
😕
There is one source… the gospels.😂
he could name them with his eyes closed, start out with this guy: Josephus Flavius
@@555nm6 eeeehhhh....tell me you've never looked into this without saying "I've never looked into this!"
I very much believe that he already has his eyes closed, and his ears, and his brain.
Yeah I have I went to college and took 16 hours in religious studies.....Josephus is a solid source of extra-biblical evidence my friend.....good luck on your journey @@JCMcGee
@@555nm6 extra biblical sources of what? Information about Jesus? Naaaaah.
Have a look into that. Then see if you can get a lawyer to help get those 16hrs back.