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. EHRMANFar 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.
More Bart D. Ehrman Quotes
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In fact, most of the changes found in early Christian manuscripts have nothing to do with theology or ideology.
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Different authors have different points of view. You can’t just say, ‘I believe in the Bible.
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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 -
Traditionally in Christian circles, Judas in fact has been associated with Jews. Of being traitors, avaricious, who in fact, betray Jesus, who are Christ-killers. And this portrayal of Judas of course also leads then to horrendous acts of anti-Semitism through the centuries.
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My students sometimes ask: what is a fundamentalist? I give them a very simple definition.
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The problem then with Jesus is that he cannot be removed from his time and transplanted into our own without simply creating him anew
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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.
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As time goes on, thing do get made up.
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You can’t believe something just because someone else desperately wants you to.
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A fundamentalist is no fun, too much damn, and not enough mental.
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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.
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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.
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[P]eople need to use their intelligence to evaluate what they find to be true and untrue in the Bible. This is how we need to live life generally.
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In the entire first Christian century Jesus is not mentioned by a single Greek or Roman historian, religion scholar, politician, philosopher or poet.
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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