Tag Archives: Ben Witherington

06.27.15
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Busted (7): The Book of Acts Agrees With the Skeptics!?

Painting of Luke, the author of Acts, Andrea Mantegna, 1453-54

Painting of Luke, the author of Acts, Andrea Mantegna, 1453-54

Many anti-Christian commentators argue that the gospels and other New Testament documents, contrary to Church teaching, could not have been written by direct eyewitnesses to the events they describe.  This is because, they argue, Jesus and his disciples were just simple, illiterate, Aramaic-speaking peasants who probably couldn’t write their own names, let alone a Greek gospel account.  The argument is weak, and we have countered it in other articles (here and here).

However, there is another angle to this argument that we should address.  Let’s allow Matthew Ferguson, a Ph.D. hopeful—and activist atheist—from UC-Irvine to lay it out for us: Continue reading →

04.22.15
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Ben Witherington Critiques Bart Ehrman’s Book, Misquoting Jesus

Misquoting_JesusThis is the last in our series of posts sharing Ben Witherington’s critiques of Bart Ehrman’s work.  Today, we share a critique of Misquoting Jesus:  The Story of Who Changed the Bible and Why.

I have to ask the question:  Does Bart Ehrman have any original thoughts?  This book, like his others, contains many criticisms that are old, as well as busted.  Misquoting Jesus asserts that belief in the divinity of Christ, as well as many other core tenets of Christianity, are basically the result of scribes altering the original texts over the centuries, either intentionally or unintentionally. Continue reading →

04.15.15
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Ben Witherington Critiques Bart Ehrman’s Book, Jesus Interrupted

Ben-Witherington

Dr. Ben Witherington

Below is the description from Amazon.com of Bart Ehrman’s book, Jesus, Interrupted:  Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (And Why We Don’t Know About Them):

The problems with the Bible that New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman discussed in his bestseller Misquoting Jesus—and on The Daily Show with John Stewart, NPR, and Dateline NBC, among others—are expanded upon exponentially in his latest book: Jesus, Interrupted.  This New York Times bestseller reveals how books in the Bible were actually forged by later authors, and that the New Testament itself is riddled with contradictory claims about Jesus—information that scholars know… but the general public does not.  If you enjoy the work of Elaine Pagels, Marcus Borg, John Dominic Crossan, and John Shelby Spong, you’ll find much to ponder in Jesus, Interrupted.

Continue reading →

04.09.15
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Ben Witherington Critiques Bart Ehrman’s Book, Forged

Bart Ehrman

Dr. Bart Ehrman

Bart Ehrman is the man that gives Christians more heartburn than any other academic these days.  Erhman is a well-known Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  He is a specialist in New Testament textual criticism, and he has written a wide range of books that are, in my opinion, damaging the Christian faith by repeating and amplifying various false theories.

Ehrman is an agnostic, but he didn’t start out that way.  Raised with a fundamentalist background, he seems to have “rebelled” against that during his time as an academic, and now works to deconstruct the Christian faith. Continue reading →