More on Bart Ehrman
Wednesday, May 5, 2010 at 9:20PM | by Otter 
Did Bart Ehrman Really Not Rise From The Dead?Samama commented on my last post on Bart Ehrman:
Hey Daddy_Otter. This is really interesting. I recently read about a debate between Ehrman and Craig Evans at a church in Kansas. You can watch it on youtube. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this when you have time. I'm listening to it right now, and he's going through all the discrepencies in the gospels.
Yikes.
It appears that Ehrman was an evangelical fundamentalist Christian, but he is now an agnostic. He also doesn't believe the resurrection really occurred. Truthfully, he scares the hell out of me. I want to keep my faith, but...dang.What do you think?
A couple of things.
First, your statement that Ehrman "scares the hell out of" you shows sterling good sense. He's attacking your faith at the root, not just playing around in the branches.
And he's got powerful things to say.
I've written elsewhere that I think his scholarship is all but unanswerable. But he's not terribly imaginative.
There are two things I want to avoid, here. One is stealing away peoples' faith. The other is leaving them with a false sense of security about their faith when it's founded on weak foundations.
Ehrman's analysis of contradictions in the New Testament is profound and accurate. And in a culture where we put an almost religious value on the "fact" (an incontrovertible account of what happened which all reasonable observers would have seen and reported), this is a pretty rough mallet to the back of the head.
Swallow that pill.
Mark ("...they were afraid and told no-one") and John ("they ran and told the disciples") cannot both be true, except by elaborate insertions into the text. Nor can the genealogies of Jesus (which vary between Matthew and Luke) both be accurate (and no, I'm not inclined to suppose a levirate marriage).
Swallow that pill.
But what you should be getting over, first and foremost, is your addiction to the modern ideals of what a "historical account" should live up to.
That's your addiction, not the Bible's. Once you begin to let go of it (and get over your panic) you can begin to ask this question: "What is it that I really do believe, and why do I believe it?" Ehrman slams shut the idea that you believe in a physical, historical resurrection (as you and I believe in "historical" things).
You can try to prop that door open: reach for your Josh McDowells or your Lee Strobels.
But those conversations are kind of chimerical, in my view.
What isn't chimerical is what's happened to you.
Reader Comments (7)
Thanksfor this. I've been thinking about what you said : "What has happened to you that can best be expressed by the words, "Jesus is risen" and "Jesus is Lord". For all of my life, I think, I've believed in God. I remember going to Mass with my dad, kneeling in the pew, and just knowing that God loved me.I've always felt that I was searcing for him. Over the course of my life I've had experiences of feeling God's presence, of being overwhelmed with a sense of love for him. Once, I knew that God spoke to me. He said, "Come unto me...and I will give you rest." I knew it wasn't my thought. I knew it was God. Is that enough, do you think? I desperately want him to speak to me again. It would help a lot.
Lately I've been thinking that in order to keep my faith, I need to return to the Ancient Church, convert to Eastern Orthodoxy. It makes sense to me where evangelicalism does not. But it's tough because of my husband's vocation and all. I've been praying that God would speak to him, make it clear to him where we should worship.
I just don't want to feel as though I'm lying to myself or to my kids about my belief in God. I'm still searching, I guess.
I'm sorry for rambling here. Thank you so much for taking the time to write to me in the midst of all that you are going through. I hope you know that I've been praying for you and for your mom. My dad was sick with cancer for most of my growing up years. He died 13 years ago. It still hurts.
For you to have faith and say you believe that, in some sense, Jesus is alive, or more generally that there is a God who is interested in you?
Yes.
Not sufficient to make the sorts of claims that modern Christian apologetics makes: "I know there is a God because...." No. You "know" nothing of the sort, if we can use the word "know" with the precision required by the sorts of people who need apologetics.
But the best test for this I can offer up is, "Are you a better person for belief? Do you love more? Is your love more spontaneous and wide-ranging because of your belief?"
If so, I'd say not only is God speaking to you, but she's speaking to you less as a child and more as a part of herself.
If God is love, as First John says, and not merely characterized by love, then God is not just "proven" by you, but I'm almost tempted to say is you.
And as you look towards the Eastern Orthodox church, you might consider their idea of theosis., the divinization that is the point of the gospel as you become love incarnate more and more.
Thank you for your "rambling." It means the world to me, as do your kind comments about my mother.
Thank you. Your words were a great relief to me. Yes. I do believe that there is a God who is interested in me. And I think I am a better person for belief. I really do. It's hard to let go of needing something to be historically accurate in order for it to be true. I've done it very easily with the Old Testament, but the New Testament has been tricky because of the resurrection. That's the crux, the pinnacle of the Christian faith. I need to believe that it really, factually happened. Right now, I believe that God loves me; I believe that my faith has made me a better person and has been a great comfort to me. I suspect I will have to let go of needing to "know" about the truth of the resurrection and just rest in what I do "know".
I will look more into theosis. I've read about it, but it's been a bit of a hard concept for me to grasp.
You're quite right. St. Paul pinned everything on the resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:1-58). But then he claimed he had the better part of 500 witnesses to it on hand... so it's not exactly the same ball of wax for him as it is for us.
I find it interesting that you usually refer to God in the feminine. Which makes sense, I suppose: I don't think God is either male or female, but depending on how you look at him and/or her, (s)he could definitely seem feminine: creator, bringer of life, and all. But (s)he could be masculine as well: protector, bringing ruin on those oppressing his/her people. I personally refer to God as "he" simply out of habit forged out of thousands of years of patriarchy, even though (though my father doesn't realize it) my family is totally a matriarchy run by strong, loud Creole women.
Thanks, Victoria... I have a couple of reasons for that. One is what you point to: that God has no gender, and I think it's worth remembering.
Then too, half the time I imagine God as feminine, and when I do, there's nothing but convention that keeps me from saying so.
Third, God probably IS a Creole woman.
English needs better genderless pronouns. It's a pain in the ass to say "his or her" in essays, and "it" just isn't right for some things.