Category: Early Christianity

Bart Ehrman on the Date and Historical Reliability of Acts. A Challenge to Evangelicals to Renew Studies on NT Introduction

Bart Ehrman’s Challenge to Evangelicals to Renew Studies on NT Introduction
Bart Ehrman, in his youtube video “Christianity One Year After Jesus,” speaks favorably both of scholars who suggest that Luke was dependent on the writings of Josephus from the 90s AD, and other scholars who suggest that Luke was written around 120 AD. Ehrman eventually settles for around 80s AD for the date of Luke.

Not surprisingly, he also questions the historical reliability of the book of Acts. According to Ehrman, Acts says things which seem implausible given what else we know about the world at that time and what we know about early Christianity etc.

If one rejects the historical reliability of Acts, the earliest historical record of the birth of Christianity, everything else in the NT is called into question. NT history is then reconfigured according to the skeptical presuppositions of critics like Ehrman. Continue reading “Bart Ehrman on the Date and Historical Reliability of Acts. A Challenge to Evangelicals to Renew Studies on NT Introduction”

Series 2: Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity – Part 6: Is Christianity is then just a copy-cat religion?

Question: Earlier Ehrman claimed that pagan myths like Philostratus Life of Apollonius of Tyanna could have influenced how the four gospels were written. Some documentaries from National Geographic & Discovery Channel claim that Christianity borrowed he idea of resurrection and saviors from the Mystery religions and Mithraism. Is Christianity is then just a copy-cat religion?

Discussants: Dr. Ng Kam Weng and Mr. Micheal LimYou are welcome to join the discussion at:

Is Christianity is then just a copy-cat religion?

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Bart Ehrman’s Historical Revisionism. Part 3/3. Ehrman Misplaces Jesus among the gods

I. Skepticism Toward the Gospels’ Witness of the Deity of Christ
Bart Ehrman rejects the deity of Christ for two reasons. First, he insists that Jesus did not claim to be God during his lifetime and neither did his disciples. Second, Christian beliefs about Jesus Christ changed over time. The disciples initially regarded Jesus as a man, but after reportedly having experiences of visions of the resurrected Jesus, they concluded that since the exalted Jesus was no longer physically present on earth, God must have taken him to heaven. The Son of Man became the Son of God. At the beginning, there was no belief in the pre-existence of Jesus, but over time the pre-existent Christ was adopted in order to explain the incarnation. Ehrman postulates that the deification of Jesus was due to the influence of pagan mythologies and Jewish angelology.

Ehrman finds no evidence from the gospels that Jesus went about Palestine publicly declaring “I am God.” However, Ehrman fails to consider the historical context which led Jesus to refrain from making such a public declaration. Instead of weighing calmly Jesus’ declaration of deity, the Jews would have reacted violently to Jesus as one guilty of blasphemy. They did try to stone him, after all. It would have been futile for Jesus to try to convince the intransigent Jews who had already made up their minds to reject Jesus’  teaching, no matter what evidence he could offer to back up his claim. Continue reading “Bart Ehrman’s Historical Revisionism. Part 3/3. Ehrman Misplaces Jesus among the gods”

Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity. Part 5 – Was the Early Christian Belief in the Deity of Jesus Influenced by Non-Christian Ideas?

Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity

Part 4: Question: Bart Ehrman asserts that Jesus never claimed to be God. Instead the later Christians attributed divinity to Jesus because they were influenced by surrounding pagan ideas and especially by the influence of Jewish angelology at that time. How would you evaluate the historical basis for Ehrman’s assertion?

Discussants: Dr. Ng Kam Weng and Mr. Micheal Lim

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Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity. Part 4: What Was the Apostles’ Fully Developed Confession of Their Belief in the Deity of Christ?

Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity

Part 4: What was the apostles’ fully developed or definitive confession of their belief in the deity of Christ?

Discussants: Dr. Ng Kam Weng and Mr. Micheal Lim

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What was the apostles’ fully developed confession of their belief in the deity of Christ?

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Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity, Part 3: How Did the Apostles and Early Christians Come to Believe in the Deity of Christ?

Question: How did the apostles and early Christians come to believe in the deity of Christ?

Discussants: Dr. Ng Kam Weng and Mr. Micheal Lim

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEkm-BqnCFo

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Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity, Part 2: Why the Canonical Gospels are more reliable than Gnostic Gospels.


Question: But critics like Elaine Pagels & Bart Ehrman argue that this  traditional history of orthodoxy is skewed because it grants greater authority to the canonical gospels and ignores the other (gnostic ) gospels. Why do you think the canonical four gospels provide more accurate historical information about Jesus than the gnostic gospels?

Discussants: Dr. Ng Kam Weng and Mr. Micheal Lim

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Why the Canonical Gospels are more reliable than Gnostic Gospels.

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Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity Part 1: Was there diversity of Christian beliefs in the early church as different sects competed for influence?

Question: Many secular university scholars argue that there was diversity of Christian beliefs in the early church as different sects competed with one another for influence. When the sect in Rome gained power it declared itself orthodox and condemned the other sects like Gnosticism to be heretical. What is your response?

Discussants: Dr. Ng Kam Weng and Mr. Micheal Lim

You are welcome to join the discussion at:
Part 1: Was there diversity of Christian beliefs in the early church as different sects competed for influence?

Please forward this message if you find the video discussion helpful.

Bart Ehrman’s Historical Revisionism. Part 2/3. Relegating Orthodoxy in Early Christianity

A. Bauer-Ehrman Revisionist History – “Heresy Preceded Orthodoxy”
Ehrman’s assertion that the early Christians took liberty with scripture flows from his contested claim that there was no defining leadership in the early church. According to Ehrman, there was no notion of orthodoxy in early Christianity. Instead, a variety of “christianities” like the Ebionites, the Marcionites, the Gnostics and “proto-orthodoxy” [Ehrman’s coins the term “proto-orthodoxy” as he refuses to acknowledge that there was orthodoxy in early Christianity] vied for power and influence. Ehrman argues that alternative forms of “christianities” and their sacred writings which include the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Mary and the Gospel of Peter should be regarded to be of equal authenticity (or in Ehrman’s real estimation, of equal inauthenticity) as the four canonical gospels. Indeed, he questions the special regard given the canonical gospels by orthodoxy since to him, the New Testament canon as it is, came to be only when the politically powerful “proto-orthodox” Christians in Rome unilaterally decided which book to be included in or excluded from Christian Scripture, and then applied ecclesiastical machinations and coercive policies to force other Christians to accept their decision. The other forms of “christianities” were then stigmatized  by the victorious “proto-orthodox” party to be heretical and their writings were erased from history until some of them were discovered in Nag Hammadi in 1945. Ehrman writes, Continue reading “Bart Ehrman’s Historical Revisionism. Part 2/3. Relegating Orthodoxy in Early Christianity”

Historical Origin of Divine Christology Part 3 – The Origin of Paul’s Divine Christology

Why bother to collect water with leaky buckets from distant wells when one can draw fresh water from the well in one’s backyard? [cf. endnote 7]

One of the most dramatic stories in the Bible is the transformation of Paul after he had a vision of the risen Christ. Paul was bent on destroying the church, but he suddenly turned into a preacher whose influence on the development of Christianity is second only to that of Jesus Christ. F.F. Bruce describes the significance of Paul’s conversion experience on Damascus Road,

No single event, apart from the Christ-even itself, has proved so determinant for the course of Christian history as the conversion and commissioning of Paul. For anyone who accepts Paul’s own explanation of his Damascus Road experience, it would be difficult to disagree with the observation of an eighteenth century writer [G. Lyttelton] that “the conversion and apostleship of St. Paul alone, duly considered was of itself a demonstration sufficient to prove Christianity to be a divine revelation.” /𝟏/

The cradle of Christianity was Judaism and Paul could rank himself as among to the finest elite of Judaism: He was born a “Hebrew of Hebrews,” sat at the feet of the outstanding teacher, Gamaliel, who was the grandson of the great rabbi Hillel. He was an emerging leader of the strict sect of the Pharisees who boasted that he was blameless in his observation of the Law (Phil. 3:6). He shared the same dogmatic assurance with his religious cohorts that the tradition handed down to them by their learned rabbis contained the whole truth of the religion. As such, there is no need for new revelation from God. Continue reading “Historical Origin of Divine Christology Part 3 – The Origin of Paul’s Divine Christology”