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

Bart D. Ehrman

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
[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.
BART D. EHRMAN

Life Live Needs Writing
I have such a fantastic life that I feel an overwhelming sense of gratitude for it. . . . But I don’t have anyone to express my gratitude to. This is a void deep inside me, a void of wanting someone to thank, and I don’t see any plausible way of filling it.
BART D. EHRMAN

Fantastic Gratitude Life Someone Wanting
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
I think the evidence is just so overwhelming that Jesus existed, that it’s silly to talk about him not existing.
BART D. EHRMAN

Bible Jesus Silly
The search for truth takes you where the evidence leads you, even if, at first, you don’t want to go there.
BART D. EHRMAN

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

Atheist Believe Views
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
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
His name never occurs in a single inscription, and it is never found in a single piece of private correspondence. Zero! Zip references!
BART D. EHRMAN

Correspondance Found Inscription Name Single
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
My students sometimes ask: what is a fundamentalist? I give them a very simple definition.
BART D. EHRMAN

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

Believe Desperately Someone Want
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
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

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

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

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