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Goodbye Jesus

Bart Ehrman On Biblical Texts


MultifariousBirdLady

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I read "Misquoting Jesus' and liked it.

But Bart is nothing new - just recycling old findings with new terms.

However, his participation in the demoralisation of Christianity is important.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Well, God is a liar anyway. Either the Biblical flood occured and God actively hid it by creating laws of science that makes all the evidence contrary to their being a global flood (in which case He is a liar and a deceiver, for even according to his word, he wants all to be saved) or it didn't happen, in which case his "word" is a lie. Either way he is a liar. Who can believe anything a liar says? So screw it. I Don't Care.

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Well, God is a liar anyway. Either the Biblical flood occured and God actively hid it by creating laws of science that makes all the evidence contrary to their being a global flood (in which case He is a liar and a deceiver, for even according to his word, he wants all to be saved) or it didn't happen, in which case his "word" is a lie. Either way he is a liar. Who can believe anything a liar says? So screw it. I Don't Care.

And God planted bones that points to evolution, and DNA with unique markers for branches of species that point to common ancestry.

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  • 7 months later...

"The first Christians were a mafia type organization, involved in the same sorts of business as modern mafia. They were involved in prostitution, drug dealing, and magic shows. Christianity succeeded for exactly the same reason as every other organization succeeds: the first Christians made money. Their evolution from a small group of people on the unsavory side of society to a position of power, as the political leadership of the Roman Empire, was exactly the same as mafia families gaining political power over time. A good analogy for their success is the success of the Kennedy family. Old man Kennedy made his fortune from bootlegging during Prohibition. A generation later, the Kennedys were America's first family. Also, remember that the mafia model of business was created in the Roman Empire, contemporary with Early Christianity, and has consistently worked hand in hand with the Catholic Church."

 

Thank you for posting this, Diana!

 

As a former believing Mormon, I am struck by the profound similarities between the evolution of Christianity and that of Mormonism. These similarities are so profound that your description of Christianity’s evolution would--with a few changes--work equally well as a summary of the genesis of Mormonism. For example…

 

"The first MORMONS were a mafia type organization, involved in the same sorts of business as modern mafia. They were involved in prostitution, drug dealing, and magic shows. MORMONISM succeeded for exactly the same reason as every other organization succeeds: the first MORMONS made money. Their evolution from a small group of people on the unsavory side of society to a position of power, as the political leadership of the AMERICAN Empire, was exactly the same as mafia families gaining political power over time."

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Many of Ehrman's books are an important contribution to early Christian studies. His latest, Did Jesus Exist?, is a waste of time. More interesting is Earl Doherty's Response to Ehrman.

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Thanks for the link. I look forward to reading it.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Ehrman is one of my favorite authors and the one most responsible for convincing me the bible isn't true in any literal sense. Marcus Borg’s book, “Reading the bible again for the first time: Taking the bible seriously but not literally, was responsible for the beginning of my deprogramming.

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Ehrman is one of my favorite authors and the one most responsible for convincing me the bible isn't true in any literal sense. Marcus Borg’s book, “Reading the bible again for the first time: Taking the bible seriously but not literally, was responsible for the beginning of my deprogramming.

 

Thanks for the book suggestion, Geezer. Welcome to ex-Christian! :)

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  • 5 months later...

LOVE HIM. Loved Hitchens, more though RIP. 

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Well, God is a liar anyway. Either the Biblical flood occured and God actively hid it by creating laws of science that makes all the evidence contrary to their being a global flood (in which case He is a liar and a deceiver, for even according to his word, he wants all to be saved) or it didn't happen, in which case his "word" is a lie. Either way he is a liar. Who can believe anything a liar says? So screw it. I Don't Care.

Well, there is a third possibility.  The flood story is fiction (even though it might be based on some flooding of local areas) written by human beings and the sky fairy in the story is also fiction.

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  • 7 months later...

Watched this lecture yesterday, then went straight down to my uni library and read Misquoting Jesus. It was fabulous. Ehrman seems to really know his stuff :) (my uneducated opinion). Some of the stuff he said in the lecture was ripped straight from the book, but there was a lot in there that wasn't.

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Watched this lecture yesterday, then went straight down to my uni library and read Misquoting Jesus. It was fabulous. Ehrman seems to really know his stuff smile.png (my uneducated opinion). Some of the stuff he said in the lecture was ripped straight from the book, but there was a lot in there that wasn't.

 

 

You might also enjoy Karen Armstrong's book A History of God. She traces religion back to its recorded beginnings.

 

THE WASHINGTON POST BOOK WORLD

In this stunningly intelligent book, Karen Armstrong, one of Britain's foremost commentators on religious affairs, traces the history of how men and women have perceived and experienced God, from the time of Abraham to the present. From classical philsophy and medieval mysticism to the Reformation, the Enlightenment, and the modern age of skepticism, Karen Armstrong performs the near miracle of distilling the intellectual history of monotheism into one superbly readable volume, destined to take its place as a classic.

 

http://www.amazon.com/History-God-000-Year-Judaism-Christianity/dp/0345384563

 

 

Dr. Robert M. Price is another author I think you would enjoy reading. His books the Incredible Shrinking Son of Man and Jesus Deconstructed are a must read in my opinion.

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I love Ehrman's writing (and speaking) style. Unfortunately he's 100% correct when he says that nothing he writes will convince fundies of anything because they're too entrenched already. For example, Ehrman points out that in the NT, Jesus is said to die on two different days, either Thursday or Friday. When I pointed that out to my brother he found some fancy (and wrong) way to dance around the issue. Same with the two different genealogies of Joseph etc, etc.

 

Ehrman is an agnostic because of the inconsistency between suffering in the real world, and the concept of God being "loving". Much the same reason I started on my own road to atheism.

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  • 1 month later...

In general, I really love Bart Ehrman; but, his position on the historical Jesus is really weak. A Christian used an interview with Ehrman by an atheist, the Infidel Guy, to bash atheists. I did a youtube video in response to the Christian video, taking down Ehrman's historical Jesus. I really hated to argue with Ehrman because I really do like him otherwise. I had very positive response on the video. Take a look:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TlJiuvWLj

Y

 

 

 

That was a great response. You read this stuff and realize how sacred cows work in cultures. Jesus is the #1 sacred cow in the West especially the Americas.

You are allowed to question the sacredness of the cow, perhaps even criticize the cow, but do not dare say that there is no cow. Western culture's fragile ego cannot accept that it has been wrong about its leading figure for 2,000 years. 

 

But yes, of course, every other ancient religion is a myth. 

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I love Ehrman's writing (and speaking) style. Unfortunately he's 100% correct when he says that nothing he writes will convince fundies of anything because they're too entrenched already. For example, Ehrman points out that in the NT, Jesus is said to die on two different days, either Thursday or Friday. When I pointed that out to my brother he found some fancy (and wrong) way to dance around the issue. Same with the two different genealogies of Joseph etc, etc.

 

Ehrman is an agnostic because of the inconsistency between suffering in the real world, and the concept of God being "loving". Much the same reason I started on my own road to atheism.

 

I suspect that Ehrman is actually an atheist, and just says "agnostic" because it's more socially and professionally respectable. An atheist teaching New Testament Studies in North Carolina would be scandalous. (He did say he had "atheist leanings" in his intro to "Did Jesus Exist.")

 

He also says that he lost his faith because of "the problem of evil," which is a really lame way to lose your faith. Again, I suspect this is an excuse, not the real reason why he lost his faith. I think that happened when he actually started doing real textual research into the Bible and realized that he'd been lied to his entire life by everyone he trusted: his parents, his pastors, his teachers. I can't think of anything more disillusioning than that. 

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Well, God is a liar anyway. Either the Biblical flood occured and God actively hid it by creating laws of science that makes all the evidence contrary to their being a global flood (in which case He is a liar and a deceiver, for even according to his word, he wants all to be saved) or it didn't happen, in which case his "word" is a lie. Either way he is a liar. Who can believe anything a liar says? So screw it. I Don't Care.

Response removed because I earlier responded to this poster's false dichotomy.

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