Reminds me of the story at the beginning of Snatch.
During one of those copy mistakes, one scribe writes down the word "Virgin" instead of "Young Woman". A young woman giving birth isn't new, or even remarkable. A virgin giving birth gives you the Holy Catholic Church.

Ehrman is an amazing scholar and I would seriously recommend reading Misquoting Jesus as well as any of his other books. He is also a great counterbalance to Christopher Hitchens - he was himself a born-again Christian and doesn't go out of his way to make theists feel stupid; he just presents the facts and lets the reader decide what to do with them.

fwiw every mainstream orthodox bible commentary i know of has at least a footnote for John 8:1-11 stating that it wasn't part of the original writing.

Erhman:
"It looks like this was a story that was added by scribes in later centuries to the text. ..."

Stewart:
"Why would they change things?"

Because it's all made up?

Oh yeah, I should have posted this earlier. If you love this, you really should watch this entire 10 part youtube series of a lecture he gave. It starts here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cK3Ry_icJo

Just skip over the introduction, then find the other 9. It's really good.

My wife tells me this apocrypha business is no problem for her as clearly god was writing through every author, printer and scribe and guiding the romans in their selection priority all the way until you get the exact edition of whatever it is we have on the bedside table.

You would think a mind that can accept that could understand the kind of small changes over a long period of time that are behind chimps evolving into Obama, but noooooooooo, we ain't no monkeys!

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag.(show it anyway)

^ My wife would take that a step farther and say that we are all God. ;-)

^Brain
Thank you very much for that link; it's an incredible lecture series. The lecture is sifted by the way.

That's ridiculous! Only I am God!

>> ^dag:
^ My wife would take that a step farther and say that we are all God. ;-)

So, the bible is filled with fabrications created by whoever happened to be writing it at the time? Sounds like the bible is one big Wikipedia entry.

>> ^jiyanibi:
So, the bible is filled with fabrications created by whoever happened to be writing it at the time? Sounds like the bible is one big Wikipedia entry.


Basically, but as far as I know genocide hasn't been committed in the name of Wikipedia.

>> ^jiyanibi:
Basically, but as far as I know genocide hasn't been committed in the name of Wikipedia.



Yet. Give it 1000 years. One group will go to war against the other.

Books will be dust and all human knowledge will be merged into the one digital source and linked digitally to our minds for convenience. Once something is not just 'a site' but knowledge linked into your mind - everyone's knowledge will be the same knowledge. it seem as the ultimate truth...

Any debate about it being incorrect will be saying what 99.99% of people know is wrong.

It will be Heresy!!!

And yet millions of people still take every word as literal truth. And kill based on that.

When will people accept that it is a collection of stories and remembered moments and fables and writing that were collected and altered and edited from and by so many authors with so many agendas living in so many times under so many leaders that it should just be read as another book. NOT as a definitive ANYTHING.

Bart Ehrman was in a debate a few years back with William Lane Craig on the question of Jesus' resurrection. Ehrman, as you might expect, took the negative, opposing his in depth knowledge of the New Testament to Craig's impeccable debating skills and powerful (if misapplied) intellect.

The only difference being [citation needed] after every verse.

>> ^jiyanibi:
So, the bible is filled with fabrications created by whoever happened to be writing it at the time? Sounds like the bible is one big Wikipedia entry.

I would be curious as to what Ehrman believes the proof is that Jesus was even real. I have been looking into the Historical Jesus which includes 2 Sunday school classes. The proof that he existed is weak.

Josephus, a historian, is the main proof given. Josephus made some references to Jesus in his work. However, Josephus could have never met Jesus because Josephus was born after the supposed death of Christ. I have seen no reference to a first-person meeting between Jesus and anybody.

The more I know about the Bible, the more I feel deceived.

ABTechie, Ehrman has a class on that very topic at the Teaching Company. I highly recommend it. Here is a link.

http://www.teach12.com/ttcx/CourseDescLong2.aspx?cid=643

It's a mix of embellished history, fables, myths, and anachronistic laws.


If God existed and wanted to send a message to everyone he'd speak to everyone at once instead of privately revealing stuff to one person per century.

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