how do you address the following ?

is it true that theological power would have PREVENTED corruption?

…just as the lack of centralized temporal power by Christians explains the lack of physical survival of the oldest manuscripts, the lack of centralized THEOLOGICAL power within the Christian church by any one group after 70 AD means that NO one group had the power to universally/consistently change the NT books. The destruction of Jerusalem in 70 and Nero’s persecution in 66 destroyed Jerusalem or Rome as candidates for a universal Christian theological power — the church had divided into Coptic, Abyssinian, Nestorian, Levantine, Anatolian, Greek, and Latin branches/churches who protected their own copies of the NT writings.

Yes, it is possible all of these groups falsified something to suit their fancy, but it is vanishingly unlikely that they all falsified something in the same way — so Christian scholars can have high confidence that the points that all the earliest manuscripts agree on are the text of the (lost) original.

congaboy: Great analogy. I may indeed use that one someday!

I was 13 years old when Stars Wars was released. I thought it was the most amazing thing I had ever seen. I convinced my mother to see it with me. When the movie was over, I asked her whether she found it as awesome as I did and she said to me that it was just the same old story. My mother’s review of the movie really opened my eyes about the origins of stories and how the same story can be retold in different ways.

Also, the New Testament is a collection of self-promoting documents. The books were written by people who were trying to promote their own beliefs. How is the New Testament any more reliable than a television commercial promoting any other product or service?

Mike: I also don’t see why being in a context of a delusion makes something less embarassing.

Granted. But I find it more sad than embarrassing. Embarrassing is when someone really shows they don’t know what they are talking about, explicitly eats their foot, and can’t reason logically, and as a result doesn’t even come close to a technical win or draw in a debate. Jacoby was at least well informed (he made only a few mistakes of fact), could reason soundly (his fallacies were complex and thus not “obvious”), and knew how to pick up drops and otherwise go for a technical win in a debate. In other words, he was competent. He just made a few key mistakes as to underlying premises, and it is on top of those that his entire delusion is built–yet, built entirely logically and informedly. That’s the trouble with delusions in smart people: they can make them perfectly consistent with logic and (almost) all facts. It’s just those few little blindspots that allow this to be possible. So I distinguish between someone with a few (albeit fundamental) blindspots and who makes a few (ancillary) errors, and someone who is completely out of touch with logic and reality (like, say, Josh McDowell or Newt Gingrich).

I’m not saying there has never been a more embarassing debate. I also don’t see why being in a context of a delusion makes something less embarassing.

I would give the following as just a few reasons one might be ambarassed, as far as debate performances go:

– His opening statement reminds me of a bad sermon from my Assemblies of God days. It consists largely of unsupported assertions and very sloppy reasoning.

– The argument that the miracles actually help the reliability of the NT is downright hilarious.

– He had to contradict himself when you cornered him about the Jewish culture adopting things from neighboring tribes.

And that’s just a few examples from the first hour. On a positive note, I thought you did well. I’ll have to keep listening until the end to see if there is interaction with the audience, which I’m guessing is a church audience. I’d be interested to hear how they thought it went.

Jake: Sorry, I don’t understand either of your questions.

Sili: Can I find Ehrman’s response somewhere, or did I just miss it in the comments?

It was in backchannel conversation between us. I expect he polished his side of the debate up for inclusion in his book out this March.

P.S. I don’t know much about Nordic religion, so I can’t help you with that question. As to child sacrifice in the OT, that’s not influence from Homer, but influence from widespread ANE religious culture in general, which independently influenced both Homer and the Bible. Avalos covers this in Christian Delusion, pp. 224-27 (see also End of Christianity, pp. 147, 186-88.

Ray Staroof: Have you thought about putting out audio versions of any of your books?

Ideas are in progress. I have the equipment now. It’s finding the time to do the recording that’s the obstacle at this point.

Incidentally, the moderator was charming. The coffee and cookies were a nice touch.