Bart Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus Chapter 3

We are reading through Bart Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus and analysing it in some detail.  We will pick up where we left of with Misquoting Jesus–Chapter Three.

Throughout Chapter 3, Bart Ehrman gives us a quick history of the different texts and manuscripts we have of the New Testament, and how these manuscripts have affected translations of the New Testament.  The first fact that we ought to look at is that by Ehrman’s own admission, we have 5700 Greek manuscripts of the New Testament.  Some of these manuscripts are partial manuscripts the size of a credit card, some are collections of more than one book, and a few even contain the whole New Testament. 

Bart Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus-Chapters 1 & 2

We are reading through Bart Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus and analysing it in some detail.  We will pick up where we left of with Misquoting Jesus–Chapter One.

In the first chapter, Ehrman gives an introduction to Judaism, Christianity and then Christian Scriptures.  While there are not many controversial ideas in this chapter, at least when compared to the last, Ehrman still makes one significant mistake that someone of his stature should know better than.  In the process of explaining Jewish history, Ehrman makes the statement that just as there was only one God, “so, too, there was only one Temple…they (Jews) could perform religious obligations of sacrifice to God only at the Temple in Jerusalem.” (p. 18)

This simply is not true for at least one major reason: The Jews, Judaism and Jewish sacrifices predate the Temple. 

Bart Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus–Introduction (Answering the Critics #3)

We are going to take a more in-depth look at Bart Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus than we have in our other “Answering the Critics” posts.  We will take the book one or two chapters at a time.

Bart Ehrman begins his Misquoting Jesus in a very different way than one might expect—with an introduction which tells the story of Ehrman’s interactions with the Christian Church as he was growing up. 

Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion (Answering the Critics #2)

Our discussion of Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion will focus on Chapter 4, “Why There Almost Certainly Is No God”, because this contains the central argument of the whole book. Dawkins sums up his argument in 6 points leading to a conclusion. These are provided below, not in exact quotes, but translated into language that one can understand without having read the first half of Dawkins’ book.

1. One of the greatest challenges to human intellect is to explain the improbable, complex appearance of design which we observe around us.
2. It seems only natural for humans to attribute the apparent design to a Designer.
3. We must not attribute this apparent design to a Designer because it would lead to a “who designed the Designer” problem. If we conclude that a Designer designed the universe because we observe the universe to be complex, then surely the Designer is more complex than what He/She designed. If complexity shows that something was designed by a Designer, and the Designer of the universe is complex, then who designed the Designer of the universe? (This fallacy is called the fallacy of infinite regression).
4. Darwinian evolution, that is, evolution through small degrees, has explained the illusion of design.
5. We do not yet have a theory which explains the appearance of design in physics, as Darwinian evolution does for biology.
6. Even though it is true that we do not yet have a theory to explain design in physics, the weak theories we do have are still better than the theory of an Intelligent Designer.

Conclusion: There almost certainly is no god.

There are a number of problems with Dawkins’ 6 statements. A number of them are questionable at best. For the moment, though, let us assume Dawkins’ statements are accurate. Even if all of them are true, there is a sort of bait-and-switch going on here. Throughout Dawkins’ argument, he is talking about Intelligent Design. In the conclusion, though, a switch happens. Dawkins no longer talks about Intelligent Design–he makes the jump to say that there is no God. It does not make sense to make a whole argument about Intelligent Design, and then end with a conclusion that is about the existence of God. In short, Dawkins’ conclusion does not follow from the premise. One cannot make an argument about Intelligent Design, and then follow it to a conclusion about the existence of God.

Christopher Hitchens’ God is Not Great (Answering the Critics #1)

The main idea Hitchens presents throughout God Is Not Great is the question “If God is good, how can his followers do evil things?”  Indeed, Hitchens raises an interesting question here.  We all have examples of people who claim to be religious, who claim to be moral, who claim to believe in a good god, who also end up doing something evil.  So Hitchens raises the question, “If God is great, how can his followers do evil things?”  The implied answer to Hitchens question is the title of his book-god is not great.

Isn’t Hitchens jumping to conclusions here, though?  Might there be any other number of reasons why people who claim to follow a good god do evil things?  Right off the top of our head we might offer the suggestion that not all those who claim to be following God are truly following God.

Is the Bible a Trustworthy Source of Truth?

One place that many, many people have found Truth is in the Bible.  But is the Bible a trustworthy source of Truth? 

In order to explore that question, I will be starting two different series of posts.  One series, called “Making Sense of Christianity”, will explore many different subjects and how the Bible addresses or intersects with them.  How does the Bible deal with women?  How does it coincide or come into conflict with archaeology?  How does it line up with historical fact?  Many issues including these will be addressed, and as they are addressed, we will discover what these findings say about the trustworthiness of the Bible.

The second series, called “Answering the Critics”, will examine the writings of some prominent authors who have questioned the historical reliability of the Bible and Christianity–people like Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Bart Ehrman.  As we are examining each author, we will discover whether what they are saying is accurate, and who is more trustworthy–the author or the Bible.

I am looking forward to both these series, and if you have any ideas for either of them, or maybe questions about the reliability of the Bible, feel free to leave them in the comments!