Tag Archives: Bart Ehrman

Bart Ehrman: The Upton Sinclair of Jesus Studies

Look at the title of Bart Erhman’s new book in contrast with the title of its “flea” (the apologetic book that piggybacks on it): http://www.amazon.com/How-Jesus-Became-God-Exaltation/dp/0061778184/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1398779740&sr=8-1&keywords=bart+ehrman _________ http://www.amazon.com/How-God-Became-Jesus-Nature—-ebook/dp/B00I2P2OVS/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1398748855&sr=1-2&keywords=how+jesus+became+god+ehrman __________ Notice that Ehrman’s book title invites the reader to explore something available … Continue reading

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Who Can Plausibly Tell Us Who Jesus Was?

That’s easy. Academic scholars. They’re the contemporary experts who study the subject using the historiographic, textual, and archeological methods that have been developed since the Enlightenment. Bart Ehrman (for example) is a far more reliable guide to what the individual gospel … Continue reading

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Bart Ehrman: Liars Wrote Parts of the Bible

Bart Ehrman has a new book out and it’s got a rather attention grabbing title: ‘Forged: Writing in the Name of God — Why the Bible’s Authors Are Not Who We Think They Are’ (HarperOne 2011). And in a recent piece for HuffPo, … Continue reading

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55%: The Number of Americans Who Say That a Guardian Angel Has Protected Them from Harm (Source: USA Today)

Apparently Jews, during the Holocaust, and the school children who died in China’s earthquake this year, didn’t get the memo about the guardian angel protection plan. Why would guardian angels protect so many Americans from harm, but not do the same thing for so … Continue reading

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From Qumran to Christianity?: The Recently Discovered “Gabriel Revelation” Tablet as the Archaeopteryx of Academic Biblical Scholarship

How similar the “Gabriel Revelation” stone tablet debate is to the evolution-creation debate! Liberal academic scholars have long said that Christianity didn’t just pop out of thin air—a creation ex nihilo—but evolved out of the contingency of circumstances surrounding 1st … Continue reading

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A Suffering and Resurrected Messiah—Before Jesus?: Israel Knohl’s 2002 Book Anticipated the 2008 Qumran Stone Tablet Discovery

A striking aspect of the “Gabriel Revelation” tablet discovery is that Israel Knohl, one of the Israeli scholars cited in both the NY Times and TIME magazine articles, had already drawn together, back in 2002, a number of lines of evidence to suggest that the … Continue reading

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Apocalypse NOT: Jim Jones-like Cult in Profile on ABC NEWS

Self-proclaimed prophet, Yisrayl Hawkins, predicted that a nuclear war would begin earlier this year. Of course, he was wrong. But his followers prepared for the event, and ABC News did an interesting profile on the cult. I couldn’t help but see striking similarities … Continue reading

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A Suffering and Resurrected Messiah—Before Jesus?: First It Was The NY Times, Now TIME Magazine Weighs In

A stone tablet scholars have dubbed “The Gabriel Revelation” and recently traced to the Dead Sea and dated to a full generation PRIOR to the death of Jesus appears to speak of a suffering and resurrected messiah. The story, which has been developing … Continue reading

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Jesusgate: A Stone Tablet Discovery Drives Scholars to Ask, “What Did the Disciples Know About Jesus and When Did They Know It?”

The gospels seem adamant: the disciples did not see Jesus’s crucifixion and resurrection coming. And its long been taken for granted that the notion of a suffering and resurrected messiah would have taken most 1st century Jews by surprise. But … Continue reading

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A Suffering and Resurrected Messiah—Before Jesus?: Bombshell Archeological Find Causes Stir Among Biblical Scholars

In the New York Times today is a bombshell article on an ancient tablet discovery at the Dead Sea in Jordan that PREDATES Jesus, but that may refer to a suffering messiah who raises from the dead after three days. If confirmed, what this means is that … Continue reading

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Albert Camus on Religion

The French novelist of The Plague, in his The Myth of Sisyphus, wrote: There is only one religion that exists throughout all history, the belief in eternity. This belief is a deception.

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Stuff Happens: Donald Rumsfeld, the Free Will Defense, and the Problem of Suffering

After the invasion of Iraq in April 2003, George Bush’s Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, provided a free-will defense for the rampant street looting in Iraq. Why was it occurring, and why wasn’t the United States actively engaged in stopping it? Here’s Rumsfeld’s answer: Freedom’s … Continue reading

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A New Pew Poll: Live and Let Live Evangelicals?

A new Pew Poll contains what some might regard as a startling finding: 57% of evangelicals say many religions can lead to eternal life. Given that one of the most important teachings of evangelical Christianity is that salvation comes ONLY … Continue reading

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George Carlin on God and the Problem of Suffering

In memory of George Carlin (1937-2008), that Prometheus who stole comedy-fire from frowning heaven, and brought it to earth, relieving humans, if for only an hour, of their suffering, wherever God would not or could not. In one of his stand-up routines he … Continue reading

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