Bart Ehrman – Jericho Brisance

Taking Easter Seriously, an Infographic

March 28, 2021 by Matt 8 Comments

It is that time of year again, and so I am reposting the popular “Taking Easter Seriously” infographic.

Many Christians read the Easter stories year upon year, as I did for several decades, yet we never compare them in detail. As a consequence, we often do not realize that they are not telling the same story. There are indeed contradictions in the texts, but it is very important to move beyond “mere contradiction” — the issues with the gospels are far more extensive than that. Comparison against the historical record and assessing the gospels for trends of legend development are probably far more crucial. As with many non-believers, I left Christianity specifically because of the Bible, and because I considered and examined its content very seriously indeed.

Perhaps it is time for more Christians to take the Bible and our Easter stories seriously.

[Click Image for Full Size Version (PNG), Use Ctrl+ and Ctrl- to adjust zoom.] or [PDF Version ] or [Greek Version]

I am indebted to scholars like Bart Ehrman, Marcus Borg, Richard Carrier, and many others, without whom I would no doubt continue in my own past failures to take Easter seriously. And as always, I look to improve the accuracy of my work wherever possible. Please reply with any factual errors found, and I will correct appropriately. Thanks.

Also See: Infographic for New Testament Timeline

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

[In other words, feel free to pass along, distribute, etc., just don’t repackage it and sell it. Thanks!]

References: [Read more…]

Filed Under: Multimedia, Religion Tagged With: Apologetic, Bart Ehrman, Bible Contradictions, Christ Myth, Christianity, Crucifixion, Easter, Easter Contradictions, Easter Infographic, Good Friday, Gospels, Historicity, Inerrancy, Inerrantist, Infallibility, Infographic, Jesus, Marcus Borg, Myth, Mythology, New Testament, Resurrection, Richard Carrier, Robert Price

Plot Twist on Ehrman vs Wallace Debate

May 15, 2020 by Matt 6 Comments

This article in the Atlantic tells a fascinating story of antiquities theft, cover-up, and fraud. The basic topic was attention grabbing. But I was positively arrested by the opening scene, because I remember watching it quite distinctly:

A Recent Resurrection to Consider this Easter: Reblog of “The Curious Case of Alireza M.”

April 5, 2015 by Matt 1 Comment

This Easter, advocates of the traditional Jesus tale might consider a more recent example of “resurrection” that foiled a professional execution in the most startling way. The following was a blog post I originally wrote 18 months ago, though the ending has been appended. We now know how the story really ends.

October 18, 2013

An astonishing news story was posted by CNN this morning, with the following highlights:

Convicted by an Iranian court of possessing a kilogram of crystal meth, the 37-year-old man was sentenced to death by hanging at Bojnurd Prison in northeastern Iran, according to Jam-E-Jam, an official newspaper that offered this wince-inducing account:

On the morning of October 9, Alireza M. was taken from his cell to the gallows, where the judge who had issued the order read his sentence aloud and official papers were signed.

Then, a rope was placed around his neck and he was hanged for 12 minutes, after which his body was lowered and a doctor declared he was dead. The doctor, the judge and the prison head then signed the death certificate, and the body of Alireza M. was taken to a morgue for delivery the following day to his relatives.

But the next day, a worker at the morgue noticed that plastic encasing one of the bodies had steam in front of the mouth.

Consider the tally:

Executed by suffocation…
By professionals that carry out such executions for a living…
Death witnessed by multiple people…
Dead body lowered and inspected…
Carried away, wrapped, and laid on a flat surface

I can think of one notable case where this sort of thing happened before. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Other, Quotations, Religion Tagged With: Alireza M, Apologetics, Bart Ehrman, Capital punishment, Case for Christ, Christianity, Christopher Hitchens, Crucifixion, Easter, Evidence, Iran, Jesus, John 19, Luke 24, Mostly Dead, Princess Bride, Resurrection, Spear, Swoon Theory, William Lane Craig

Taking Easter Seriously – Revised & Enhanced

April 2, 2015 by Matt 40 Comments

It is that time of year again, and so I am reposting the popular “Taking Easter Seriously” infographic. This 2015 version includes slight enhancements and corrections to the prior version.

Many Christians read the Easter stories year upon year, as I did for several decades, yet we never compare them in detail. As a consequence, we often do not realize that they are not telling the same story. There are indeed contradictions in the texts, but it is very important to move beyond “mere contradiction” — the issues with our gospels are far more extensive than that. Comparison against the historical record and assessing the gospels for trends of legend development are probably far more crucial. As with many non-believers, I left Christianity specifically because of the Bible, and because I considered and examined its content very seriously indeed.

Perhaps it is time for more Christians to take the Bible and our Easter stories seriously.

[Click Image for Full Size Version (PNG), Use Ctrl+ and Ctrl- to adjust zoom.] or [PDF Version ] or [Greek Version]

I am indebted to scholars like Bart Ehrman, Marcus Borg, & Richard Carrier, without whom I would no doubt continue in my own past failures to take Easter seriously. And as always, I look to improve the accuracy of my work wherever possible. Please reply with any factual errors found, and I will correct appropriately. Thanks.

Also See: Infographic for New Testament Timeline

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

[In other words, feel free to pass along, distribute, etc., just don’t repackage it and sell it. Thanks!]

References: [Read more…]

Filed Under: Religion Tagged With: Apologetic, Bart Ehrman, Bible Contradictions, Christ Myth, Christianity, Crucifixion, Easter, Easter Contradictions, Easter Infographic, Good Friday, Gospels, Historicity, Inerrancy, Inerrantist, Infallibility, Infographic, Jesus, Marcus Borg, Myth, Mythology, New Testament, Resurrection, Richard Carrier, Robert Price

“Strictly Speaking, the Gospels are Anonymous” (w/ YouTube)

March 28, 2014 by Matt 115 Comments

As Anonymous as Genesis

“…strictly speaking, the gospels are anonymous”

~ Craig Blomberg, The Case for Christ

This little boulder of information is so frequently passed over. Evangelicals stamp feet and insist that the gospels are eyewitness records. But these are curious eyewitness records indeed, though a person is unlikely to come away from The Case for Christ understanding the following:

The gospels never claim to be eyewitness records.
They never narrate in the first person.
They were written in the wrong language for Galilean disciples.
They recount a great deal that the disciples could not have witnessed.
But perhaps most disturbing – and perhaps the first flag we should have noticed – is that they are entirely anonymous.

And that makes the first four books of the New Testament a whole lot like the first five books of the Old Testament: they all have unfounded traditions about who wrote them; they were all written in the wrong language; they were all written in the wrong voice; and they all include information that doesn’t make sense for eyewitnesses. Yet we like to say that they are eyewitness records – because, hey, that sounds reliable.

A few more quotes to flesh out this interesting issue of anonymity: [Read more…]

Filed Under: Religion Tagged With: Anonymous, Apologetics, Bart Ehrman, Bible Authorship, Case for Christ, Ehrman Project, Eyewitness, Lee Strobel, New Testament

YouTube – “Isaiah-Gate” and the Virgin Mary… Minus the Virgin

March 23, 2014 by Matt 15 Comments

It stands to shame that we Christians are the last to know about our own errors of sacrilege. But as the season of Lent is here, I would petition abstention from one particular sacrilege, the inherited error of believing Jesus was born of a virgin, and that being so conceived would have fulfilled Isaiah’s prophecy. Our belief that Isaiah predicted a virgin-born Messiah is simply false, a scandal which heretofore shall be referred to as Isaiah-Gate! And though many books have discussed this, I finally located a succinct 4-minute description in an engaging lecture. And a good thing too, because there are two quite curious points to this dilemma of non-prophecy. First, it is odd that we came to believe the messiah would be born of a virgin, essentially based on a translational boof. Second, it is more interesting still that we should wind up with gospel stories describing the fulfilment of said prophecy, when we now realize that Isaiah said no such thing.

But first things first. Here is the YouTube lecture excerpt, with commentary following.

YouTube: Bart Ehrman

Manifold Greatness of the King James Bible, 4 min., January 2013.

(NOTE: video is set to play from 45:08 to 49:03. Timings sometimes do not work correctly in IE. Recommend using Firefox)

Recap

The Curious Case of Alireza M… Thoughts on Resurrection and Being “Mostly Dead”

October 18, 2013 by Matt 13 Comments

An astonishing news story was posted by CNN this morning, with the following highlights:

Convicted by an Iranian court of possessing a kilogram of crystal meth, the 37-year-old man was sentenced to death by hanging at Bojnurd Prison in northeastern Iran, according to Jam-E-Jam, an official newspaper that offered this wince-inducing account:

On the morning of October 9, Alireza M. was taken from his cell to the gallows, where the judge who had issued the order read his sentence aloud and official papers were signed.

Then, a rope was placed around his neck and he was hanged for 12 minutes, after which his body was lowered and a doctor declared he was dead. The doctor, the judge and the prison head then signed the death certificate, and the body of Alireza M. was taken to a morgue for delivery the following day to his relatives.

But the next day, a worker at the morgue noticed that plastic encasing one of the bodies had steam in front of the mouth.

Consider the tally:

Executed by suffocation…
By professionals that carry out such executions for a living…
Death witnessed by multiple people…
Dead body lowered and inspected…
Carried away, wrapped, and laid on a flat surface

I can think of one notable case where this sort of thing happened before. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Other, Quotations Tagged With: Alireza M, Apologetics, Bart Ehrman, Capital punishment, Case for Christ, Christianity, Christopher Hitchens, Crucifixion, Evidence, Iran, Jesus, John 19, Luke 24, Mostly Dead, Princess Bride, Resurrection, Spear, Swoon Theory, William Lane Craig

Cargill on The Ehrman Project

April 24, 2013 by Matt Leave a Comment

Cargill Cargill on The Ehrman Project

Quite apart from Cargill’s post, which I only just found, I concur with his assessment of The Ehrman Project website. I had previously come to my own identical conclusions after digging and scratching.

Filed Under: Reblog Posts Tagged With: Bart Ehrman, Cargill, Ehrman Project, insularity, New Testament, Robert Cargill, TheErhmanProject