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Sometimes Christian apologists say there are only three options to who Jesus was: a liar, a lunatic or the Lord. But there could be a fourth option – legend.

Bart D. Ehrman

You can’t believe something just because someone else desperately wants you to.
BART D. EHRMAN

Believe Desperately Someone Want
The problem then with Jesus is that he cannot be removed from his time and transplanted into our own without simply creating him anew
BART D. EHRMAN

Creating Jesus Problem Transplant
In fact, most of the changes found in early Christian manuscripts have nothing to do with theology or ideology.
BART D. EHRMAN

Christian Mistake Simple
No other author, biblical or otherwise, mentions this event. Is it, like John’s account of Jesus’ death, a detail made up by Matthew in order to make some kind of theological point?
BART D. EHRMAN

Account Death Kind Mention Theological
Did he say both things? Could he mean both things? How can both be true at once? Or is it possible that one of the Gospel writers got things switched around?
BART D. EHRMAN

Around Both Possible Switch Thing True
In terms of the historical record, I should also point out that there is no account in any ancient source whatsoever about King Herod slaughtering children in or around Bethlehem, or anyplace else.
BART D. EHRMAN

Children Jesus Kings
Sometimes Christian apologists say there are only three options to who Jesus was: a liar, a lunatic or the Lord. But there could be a fourth option – legend.
BART D. EHRMAN

Christian God Jesus
Different authors have different points of view. You can’t just say, ‘I believe in the Bible.
BART D. EHRMAN

Atheist Believe Views
In the entire first Christian century Jesus is not mentioned by a single Greek or Roman historian, religion scholar, politician, philosopher or poet.
BART D. EHRMAN

Christian Jesus Zero
Far and away the most changes are the result of mistakes pure and simple slips of the pen, accidental omissions, inadvertent additions, misspelled words, blunders of one sort or another.
BART D. EHRMAN

Accident Another Blunder Omisison Pure Simple Slip Word
I don’t know anyone who is a responsible historian, who is actually trained in the historical method, or anybody who is a biblical scholar who does this for a living, who gives any credence at all to any of this.
BART D. EHRMAN

Credence Know Living Responsible Trained
My students sometimes ask: what is a fundamentalist? I give them a very simple definition.
BART D. EHRMAN

Fun Giving Simple
Everything we hear and see we need to evaluate—whether the inspiring writings of the Bible or the inspiring writings of Shakespeare, Dostoevsky, or George Eliot, of Ghandi, Desmond Tutu, or the Dalai Lama.
BART D. EHRMAN

Bible Everything Inspire Intelligence People Unique
Jesus existed, and those vocal persons who deny it do so not because they have considered the evidence with the dispassionate eye of the historian, but because they have some other agenda that this denial serves.
BART D. EHRMAN

Agendas Eye Jesus
There are few things more dangerous than inbred religious certainty.
BART D. EHRMAN

Critical Inbreds Religious Thinking
In Matthew, Jesus declares, “Whoever is not with me is against me.” In Mark, he says,“Whoever is not against us is for us.”
BART D. EHRMAN

Jesus Mark Mean

Sometimes Christian apologists say there are only three options to who Jesus was: a liar, a lunatic or the Lord. But there could be a fourth option – legend.

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Sometimes Christian apologists say there are only three options to who Jesus was: a liar, a lunatic or the Lord. But there could be a fourth option – legend.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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