Is Christianity as btfo as he claims?

Unfortunately none of his teachings was written down, just Sauls fan fiction. Historical Jesus wasn't even recorded.

>virtually unchallenged in academia
For reasons, like you get just some more circular reasoning from religious people, critical dispute about the sources of Christianity are not the strong side of devout believers.

Yes, that would be nice. Unfortunately, all we have are books written decades after the fact of what people say Jesus said, and who also get a whole bunch of other stuff about how shit worked in Judea around Jesus's time wrong, so they're not particularly credible.

Disclaimer: I read a few books a few years ago, and my memory is a bit hazy.

All he's doing is writing popular books that explain mainstream New Testament scholarship. He's also open when he is explaining the mainstream scholarly view, and when he's putting forth his own theories. Nothing he says is outlandish for New Testament studies. It's only strange to us since we're used to seeing only evangelical apologetics rather than secular historical research.

>Jesus never claimed to be God

What they're trying to do is to figure out the Historical Jesus, rather than the one presented in the Gospels. So they don't just take the Gospels at face value. The idea is that Jesus didn't claim to be God in Mark, and it's only with later Gospels where they make that claim. Thus they conclude that the historical Jesus didn't claim this. But this is all based on the conclusion that Mark was written first.

>Jesus predicted judgment would happen in the lifetime of his disciples

The theory that Ehrman proposes is that Jesus was an apocalyptic preacher, who predicted that the "Son of Man" was soon going to return to the world.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Son_of_man

>>over half of the New Testament is forged

This is probably in reference to the letters, and some of Paul's epistles are believed to be forged.

>It still escapes me why he wouldn't walk the extra mile and acknowledge that Jesus is a creation of Paul.

What's more likely? Paul made up a guy at random, or there was a real Jesus, who was killed, and his followers went into mental gymnastics to explain his death as a good thing? Jesus's story seems to be grounded in some reality. It's not the tale of a man born from a bird egg who flew through the sky. It's one of a man who lived in a real time period, and interacted with real historical figures like Pontius Pilate. As such, I'm willing to meet the Christians like 20%, as some of their arguments make sense. But that doesn't mean everything in them is factual.

>Is Christianity as btfo as he claims?

If you want to, you can believe anything effectively. All Ehrman is saying is that using these historical methods, you can come to certain conclusions about Jesus. If you want to go the faith route, go nuts. There's a difference between faith and historians. He talks about this in one of his Great Courses lecture series.

Working on an MTS, I'll give it a go. The first two points are correct, while the last is tricky. Half of Paul's letters are pseudepigrapha written by other people pretending to be Paul, which is the clearest thing you could call forgery. What makes things more complicated for the gospels is that they're better understood as hagiography than history. History/biographies as we know them, attempts to reconstruct a series of events as accurately as possible to how they occured, did not really exist in ancient literature. It's a difficult concept for modern people to understand, but someone could write a life's story filled with events they invented and embellished and it would not be considered dishonesty. The important thing was that the narrative imparted "true" specific lessons or theological points for the audience to take away from that person's life story.

As one might guess, this makes dealing with the historicity of early Christian religions and texts a real bitch.

>"Jesus never called himself God"
>he literally does in the Gospel of John
>T-THAT ONE IS FORGED
Every time

So much for circular reasoning and why believers are very bad to critically analyse a source.

>All ancient texts are factually accurate and we should take all of them at face value

Especially when said texts have been written by cool aid drinkers 50-70 years after the events they depict.

Because it isn't supported by the evidence. If you were making up a character and trying to convince people to listen to your ideas about him, would you say that you'd never actually met the guy and that the person's surviving friends and relatives thought you were full of bullshit and disagreed with you over what he really preached?

If Jesus was a total fabrication of Paul then where did all the early Christian communities he wrote letters to attempt to win over come from? Who was he persecuting for years before his alleged vision?

Marcion was trying to fix that by getting rid of all the Jewish parts of the Bible but nooooo, we have to shoehorn random verses from the OT on Jesus so he can be the Jewish Messiah, even though virtually all Christians today are gentiles and shouldn't give a fuck about that.

And people wonder why Christianity is such a clusterfuck.

Marcionites were right desu. Attempting to rationalize the radical swing in character and goals between Yahweh and Jesus's god is a fool's errand.

They're all forged. No academic attributes the gospels to the apostles.

Critical thinking doesn't seems to be the strong side of evangelicals, judging by this thread.

Consensus is the Gospel of John originates sometime between 100 AD and 115 AD, but Yeah, it is 100% true and legit...

>If Jesus was a total fabrication of Paul then where did all the early Christian communities he wrote letters to attempt to win over come from? Who was he persecuting for years before his alleged vision?

How much about Jesus did Paul make up, then?

Jesus likely was just another Zealot like there was dozens at the time. The whole son of god/messiah/resurrection bit plus most of the theology seems to be a blatant forgery borrowing heavily from every middle eastern religious myth at the time.

Where he said he would destroy the temple and rebuild it in a day

>Catholicism/orthodoxy
Just say Chaledonian you gimp

>it’s the jews fault that Luther had an autistic fit
Please explain how removing the Old Testament allows Jesus to stay as the messiah when he’s just some preacher who dies then

>Jewish religion has beliefs similar to Jewish neighbours
STOP THE PRESSES

>They're all forged. No academic attributes the gospels to the apostles.

Well, the texts themselves NEVER claim to even be by the authors we attribute them to. Their actual authors are anonymous. Thus they are not forged at all.

Ἐγώ εἰμι is not אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶהְיֶה though.

Wisdom is encoded in the phrase “I am that I am” which poses the divine name of keter as a reflexive equation. It is given in the Torah as Moses inquires before the burning bush not consumed by its enveloping flame. The most common translation is not exactly accurate. AHYH AshR AHYH is better understood as 'I will be that by which I will be', thereby stressing the meeting point of potentiality with its capacity to manifest anything.

>Thus they are not forged at all.
Correct, in that case they are just completely made up by cultists several decades after they events they allegedly depict.

What's amusing to me is that if we take "most manuscripts attested to in History" then we automatically have to also take at face value OTHER equally prolific ancient testaments, meaning that we should view the Iliad as True, with Hermes existing to guide the Hellenes out of Troy, Eris tossing the apple, and a fair majority of Hindu and Buddhist canon (though many would quibble over the latter because I guess oral transmission and preservation for a couple hundred years doesn't count).

>can't refute the argument
>moving goal posts

Hm?
I just think it's a generally weak argument. If the argument is "Jebuz is troo bcuz lots of words" then we need to hold that same standard for other historical works.

Isn't it the presuppositionalists like "Dr." James White who say that arguments must be consistent? So why is the argument of "NT is true because we have a lot of NT manuscripts" acceptable but not "Iliad is true because we have a lot of Iliad manuscripts"?

The Jews had a set of conditions someone had to meet to be the Messiah, and Jesus apparently did not fulfill them:
aish.com/jw/s/48892792.html?mobile=yes

Either way, Marcion believed the concept of the Messiah was irrelevant, since it was only meant for Jews. Jesus and the Christian God were separate from the Jewish God.

The longer the game of telephone, the less we should trust them. The Illiad was probably never even meant to be historical at all, and I don't trust any of it as being historical. The Gospels have some historicity to them, but I don't trust all of them.

>Marcion
Interestingly, he was so far out in left field he even disagreed with his contemporary Gnostics who thought the Demiurge was ignorant at worst and incompetent at best, ascribing a level of malevolence which wouldn't be seen again until later Gnostic moments.

>The Illiad was probably never even meant to be historical at all, and I don't trust any of it as being historical
But why?
It says right here that Hermes saved the Hellenes. It's not like we haven't found Troy.

>It's not like we haven't found Troy.

Not confirmed to be Troy AT ALL.

Yeah what a sloppy game of telephone...
youtu.be/qPcasmn0cRU?t=140

There's literally zero evidence any of those Early Christians practiced any kind of memorization techniques or anything. Works like Epic Poems were passed on also by having Dactylic hexameter and repetitive phrases to help with memorization. The Gospels have none of that.

Also the absurdity of this is that there's faith placed in a bunch of dudes 2000 years ago being accurate rather than in God. Trusting God at least make sense, but men are fallible.

Indicators are good enough for Dartmouth to be teaching it.
dartmouth.edu/~prehistory/aegean/?page_id=630
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Homer
global.oup.com/academic/product/troy-and-homer-9780199263080?cc=us&lang=en&

lol, ok kid

>those Early Christians practiced any kind of memorization techniques or anything
I absolutely agree, I must have misinterpreted your underlying meaning.

Which books of his in particular?

>Ehrman critics BTFO now and forever
youtube.com/watch?v=K2Mp4v8VQwQ

>Jesus never claimed to be God
Because he was avoiding being fucking executed.

>Jesus predicted judgment would happen in the lifetime of his disciples

This was referring to the destruction of Israel, which WOULD happen "In their generation", 40 years later.

>This was referring to the destruction of Israel
Quote it.

Why are Jews STILL so butthurt about Jesus?

>everyone who disagrees with me is a KIKE

No one has ever claimed that the story of Achilles, Helen, etc is historically accurate and the destruction of Troy being attributed to the same conflict is ridiculous given the amount of destruction in the Mediterranean, Levant, and Mediterranean. You can find an ash layer in almost every ancient eastern Mediterranean city

>No one has ever claimed that the story of Achilles, Helen, etc is historically accurate
And yet millions buy that a man in Palestine performed miracles, was crucified, and rose from the fucking dead.

Thucydides spends time in his discussion of the Peloponesean war to provide apologetics for the Iliad and trying to reconcile how the war could really have taken 10 years. He certainly seems to believe that it was historical fact.

It's almost like the willingness to do so ties directly into whether or not an individual believes in the religion interwoven with the work.

>It's almost like the willingness to do so ties directly into whether or not an individual believes in the religion interwoven with the work.
You mean that religious people apply different standards to their OWN canon and texts than they do for others?
SAY IT AIN'T SO

Mah future tiu wasjdveust?

As garbar i oboe ots odor incrojable tjstb Psuñ did it on piropeen

Liar?

No i font thinl di because he sctually fue lmoe sortee and opposte ho l to dime ergere thats svfsct and i giuntin rojiblanco that jid avelli firnybyjinlvsbout tribitubcionyrsgggyibh the One gente d the gitdtbtextsmrbye Monti r Rudy you jydtvgiyys traje it from the rugjt poi y of vire

user are you okay

Not about hurto ha, but you cant gobsround telline Paúl was a liar because he esen he was sctually very devote and vel in Christ he reality duo, he justo hsg thr visión ejem jr frode from Damascid you cant dejó that

meanwhile the Talmud was rabbinical oral law before it was written down

I'm the guy you replied to; his claim that he had a more accurate understanding of what Jesus believed than the man's own brother and friends did. Seriously, the nerve.

Do you have a plausible alternative explanation that accounts for the prior existence of Christians and established Christian communities + the conflict between Jesus' surviving followers and Paul?

Christ, like Buddha, taught different things to different disciples and Paul was making an attempt at standardization?

I thought Mark is still attributed to Mark the Apostle by some? I could be wrong as my knowledge on New Testament scholarship isn't the best, but isn't it entirely possible Mark wrote his gospel in his old age? I thought the dates for mark are between 60 and 80 CE?

>No one has ever claimed that the story of Achilles, Helen, etc is historically accurate

Various ancient Greek historians, philosophers, politicians and kings would like a word with you.

>others are wrong too
>so we are not totally wrong, right?

Mark was written decades after Jesus' life and probably has very few actual quotes from the man.

Documents correlating with ancient copies doesn't mean the ancient copies weren't forgeries. Several of the Pauline letters don't have Paul's signature writing style, and omit several key Jewish details that Paul should have known.

>Because he was avoiding being fucking executed.

He was executed for claiming to be the king of the Jews, and he could have easily denied it, but never did

How Jesus Became God, Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium, Forged

Everything we know about Alexander the Great was written down centuries after they happened.

MEDIC

>There's literally zero evidence any of those Early Christians practiced any kind of memorization techniques or anything
That's all these people did....theycouldn't read or write, how else could information be passed along?

>i oboe
I play the oboe

No, even literary source we have on Alexander was written centuries later.

We have a lot of archaeological sources from the time of Alexander which not only confirm his existence, but in some cases also confirm acts which are ascribed to him (the mole to Tyre being an example).

Also, the literary sources for Alexander mention the first hand accounts which they used (Ptolemy Soter for example). The second hand literary sources for Jesus (in particular Matthew, Luke, and John) not only do not speak of their sources, but also pretend to be Matthew, Luke, and John. Arrian doesn't pretend to be Ptolemy. Also, we have records of Ptolemy's account, and others from bibliographies unrelated to the sources speaking of Alexander.

No serious scholar thinks that, and there's no evidence of this. They text itself doesn't even claim it. Remember also, that the area where Jesus taught was a relative cultural backwater. His first generation converts were mostly fishermen and peasants. It was the 2nd and 3rd Generation of converts, such as Paul, who were educated and began writing down his teachings. It's speculated that before the Gospels, there was a book of sayings and a Q source. My lord, imagine the impact if these had been found somewhere?

>That's all these people did....they couldn't read or write, how else could information be passed along?

These people were tradesmen, farmers, workers. The area Christianity started in was a poor rural area. They weren't writing great epics. It was just passed around like any other idea or religion. They weren't sitting memorizing some Epic Poem as their only job. They had real jobs.

There were actual sources for Alexander's life that were written by people who had met him. Sadly, all of these sources are gone. We have only later sources, which were written much later.

Well, we know Paul flat out lied about being a student of Gamliel, so why is it surprising he's not well versed on Jewish doctrine?

I don't know of any academics who do so. Of the 4 gospels, Mark is the one that displays the most ignorance of "basic Judaica", just normal contemporary knowledge of local geography, customs, everyday Jewish practice, etc. If it's really written by Mark the Evangelist, then the guy was functionally retarded, and didn't notice basic things like where large cities in the vicinity of where he lived were located relative to one another, or that women aren't allowed to divorce their husbands, or the titles of the local Roman client-kings.

>Mark the Evangelist, then the guy was functionally retarded
Maybe a side effect of him being at least 135 years old?

>Well, we know Paul flat out lied about being a student of Gamliel
Wrong.

Explain how a student of gamaliel does not know that the paschal offering isn't a sin offering, as Paul conflates the two.

Also explain why Gamliel NEVER mentions Paul, his status, his learning, his renunciation of Judaism in favor of Christianity, or anything remotely related to the dude from Tarsus.

Do we even have any texts by Gamaliel? I know there are a few lines attributed to him in Acts, and there are probably some in the Talmud, but both of those are rather far removed from a historical figure

Bart Ehrman lost that debate though

Yeah no that debate makes it ABUNDANTLY clear that White rejects all known contemporary academic scholarship on text criticism in favor of his own incredibly narrow and dogmatically Calvinist worldview. He can't distinguish between collation and compilation, he hasn't read any textual critics outside the US, he's unable to correctly break down text agreements, and he's unwilling to engage with an actual professor on the thing he also specializes in.

The debate was an utter and complete shitshow, and it's not because of Dr. Bart Ehrman, it's because of ""Dr."" James White.

...

...

He's a disgraced atheist with some background in textual criticism.

He's as respected in the field of theology as Dan Brown is respected in the field of theology.

Jesus made many claims to be God.
Jesus never made that prediction; it's a conflation of two others
None of the NT is forged.

Because even an atheist heretic isn't a fucking Jew.

>Catholicism/Orthodoxy

Both lost.

No, it's just in the future tense. Which as a self-professed Hebrew expert, you should have known.

None of those criticisms are valid.

It's like you live in a delusional fantasy of your own making.

And how do you know that, Jew?

How do you know that, Jew?

When you don't even know that John Mark's gospel was basically what John Mark remembered of what Peter had told him?

ITT a pathetic Jew who knows he's going to hell and lies constantly about the bible, God, and Jesus.

Pitiful thread indeed.

>Jew

You can really see when the Euros go to sleep and the fatties wake up and take over the thread.

callajewajewrecoils.jpg