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. EHRMANMy students sometimes ask: what is a fundamentalist? I give them a very simple definition.
More Bart D. Ehrman Quotes
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In Matthew, Jesus declares, “Whoever is not with me is against me.” In Mark, he says,“Whoever is not against us is for us.”
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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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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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[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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There are few things more dangerous than inbred religious certainty.
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His name never occurs in a single inscription, and it is never found in a single piece of private correspondence. Zero! Zip references!
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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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You can’t believe something just because someone else desperately wants you to.
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The search for truth takes you where the evidence leads you, even if, at first, you don’t want to go there.
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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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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.
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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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In fact, most of the changes found in early Christian manuscripts have nothing to do with theology or ideology.
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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?
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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.
BART D. EHRMAN