The Ehrman project – critically engaging the work of Bart Ehrman

Thanks to Michael Gorman for pointing out The Ehrman Project, a website dedicated to exploring and engaging the work of Bart Ehrman. As the website explains:

 

Dr. Bart Ehrman is raising significant questions about the reliability of the Bible. In an engaging way, he is questioning the credibility of Christianity. His arguments are not new, which he readily admits. Numerous Biblical scholars profoundly disagree with his findings. This site provides responses to Dr. Ehrman’s provocative conclusions.

With resources from Alvin Plantinga, Ben Witherington, D.A. Carson, Darrell Bock, Craig Evans, Dan Wallace, and Larry Hurtado, among others, it looks like a great resource for understanding and engaging Ehrman’s writings and arguments.

And, no blog post on Bart Ehrman would be complete without referencing Stephen Colbert’s interview with Ehrman, in which Colbert drills Ehrman on why “the Bible is a big fat lie” and Stephen’s an idiot for believing it. Journalism at its finest.

 

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Flotsam and jetsam (1/14)

• David Fitch offers five reasons that “leadership” is not biblical.

I feel like I need to put out there why I think leadership in this mode is not Biblical, why we might need to find a new word when we are talking about what leaders do in a church, and why if we are ever going to truly “lead” a community into the Kingdom it requires a skill quite different than what many in the church have come to describe as “leadership.”

• Bob Kellemen shares the Top 10 Trends in Biblical Counseling.

• The beatification of Pope John Paul II will take place on May 1.

• Koinonia is giving away a copy of Michael Horton’s A Place for Weakness: Preparing Yourself for Suffering.

• Stuart is going to start running the news blog for Reclaiming the Mind. Stuart does a great job highlighting important news stories, this should definitely be worth following.

• And, on that note, Stuart also offers some interesting statistics on British evangelicalism.

• Diglot is putting together a list of journals focused on early Christianity.

• And, here’s The Wire‘s list of the 50 Most Influential People in Media This Year.

Flotsam and jetsam (1/10)

• Andrew Perriman discusses the “Missio Dei” in historical perspectives.

This shift of focus away from the activity of the church towards the activity of God, however, exposed a critical bifurcation in the argument, a fork in the road—and many theologians took the concept of missio Dei in a direction altogether unintended by Barth and the German missiologists….If the church participates in the mission of God, the possibility arises that the mission of God in the world may be thought to happen more or less independently of the church.

• Daniel Kirk has some interesting reflections on the seven “deacons” in Acts 6.

But there are other indications that though this event was used to bring about peace for a time, the twelve might not have been as faithful leaders at this point as we might have hoped.

• Roger Olson is frustrated that no one seems to know what “the kingdom of God” means even though they use the phrase all the time.

One of my pet peeves is the fact that most Christian lay people and even many pastors don’t seem to know what they think the “Kingdom of God” means or have no idea what the Bible really says about it and yet use the phrase all the time.

• Larry Hurtado offers an updated list all copies of all texts of Christian provenance from before the 4th century CE.

• Here’s a roundtable discussion on Christians an Internet Presence with Trevin Wax, Steve McCoy, and Brandon Smith discussing social media, blogging, and other forms of Christian presence on the internet. One interesting quote from Trevin Wax:

The blogosphere is a neat thing, but it’s also a gigantic echo chamber, and the noisy links create the false perception that we are very important and have something so valuable to say.

• The NYT discusses the fact that TV watching in on the rise in America. (HT)

• If you were wonder, here are the 100 Best Selling Christian Books of 2010.

• Eerdmans new blog is now up and running (HT).

• If you spent way too much time during your teen years (or youth  ministry years) watching The Princess Pride, here is the quiz for you: “Prepare to Die: A Princess Bride Quiz.” I’m slightly ashamed to admit that I scored a 10 out of 10 on this one.

• And, here’s a list of 10 bestselling books that almost weren’t printed.

Flotsam and jetsam (10/13)

• There’s been a lot of talk lately about the need to create a national digital library, enabling free and easy access to a wealth of digital material.
• Along the same lines, Tim Bulkeley argues against traditional academic publishing and for a free and open exchange of ideas online. HT
• HuffPo has an interesting article on the quiet faith of Stephen Colbert.
• Nick Norelli points out a new blog offering book review in biblical and early Christian studies.
• Roger Olson explains that he’s only opposed to a certain kind of Calvinism.
• Justin Taylor continues to post excerpts from Tom Schreiner’s forthcoming book, this time with a section on the question “Is perfect obedience to the Law mandatory for salvation?“
• If you want to improve as a reader of fiction, you need to know what questions to ask. So,here’s a list of 20 questions to ask of a novel. HT
• And, apparently a morning donut can improve memory and concentration.

 

Flotsam and jetsam (9/9)

• Carl Trueman reflects on the importance of the generalist and the “vortex of specialization” in academic studies.
• Joel has posted three articles on the role of women in the early church (here, here, and here).
• David Murray argues for the importance of preaching without notes. HT
• Mark has begun commenting on David Dewey’s A User’s Guide to Bible Translations.
• Logos is a developing the new Evangelical Exegetical Commentary series.
• Denis Alexander comments on how ideology guides the use of evolution in the science and religion debates.
• And, the guy who wrote the “Jump the Shark” episode of Happy Days actually defends the episode and argues that it did not signal the downfall of the show.

Flotsam and jetsam (8/19)

• According to a recent survey, a growing number of Americans believe that Obama is a Muslim (now 18%, up from 11% in March 2009). What I found just as interesting was the fact that 30% of his chief political opponents say they believe this is true. I wonder where 18% of American could possibly be getting this idea?
• Diglot is going to begin a series explaining and defending conditionalism (annihilationism).
• Jonathan Robinson has a very creative post on reasons for being Baptist. I particularly liked the idea that baptists are closely related to fish, hippies, and synchronized swimmers.
• Michael Patton asks whether modern science has made belief in demon possession unnecessary. Basically, his question is whether we can view scriptural accounts of “demon possession” as accommodations to the knowledge of the day (i.e. they didn’t know anything about science so they called it demon possession).
• Patrick McCullough is working on a bibliography of works applying social identity theory to the Bible.
• Lifehacker offers a roundup of the best places to go to get a free online education.
• Sara Parvis warns that we need to be careful about reading later technical meanings into earlier uses of a term. She specifically focuses on “episcopos,” but her warning would also apply to a whole range of technical theological terms like homoousios, sustantia, and persona.
• And, apparently a bunch of Dr. Who fans sabotaged voted in a recent survey and succeeded in getting Daleks voted as the greatest monster ever.

Flotsam and jetsam (7/27)

• Christopher Benson discusses whether Christianity entails a particular metaphysics, citing William Hasker in favor of the idea that although Christianity itself is not a metaphysical system, it does imply one.
• Pete Enns discusses the image of God, offering a pretty standard functional understanding of the image as kingly representation.
• Koinonia has posted an excerpt from Craig Blomberg’s commentary on James discussing why “Not many of you should presume to be teachers.”
• Mark Stevens has completed round one of his Christian scholars grudge match. The only disappointment was that Brueggemann lost to Waltke – clearly a tragedy.
• Phil Sumpter discusses why the early Christians were persecuted.
• Joel has a great interview with Matt Mikalatos about his book Imaginary Jesus.
• Westminster books is offering the 5-volume The Essential Edwards Collection at 50% off.
• Adam Kirsch explains why he thinks Slavoj Zizek is the most despicable philosopher in the West.
• And, an article at Religion Dispatches, “Medieval Multitasking: Did We Ever Focus?“, argues that medieval manuscripts have more in common with modern technology than we might think.

Flotsam and jetsam (7/15)

• J.R. Daniel Kirk tackles the question of whether Christianity has really done any good for the world, pointing to adoption, sex trafficking and peace as key areas of contribution. And Andrew Perriman offers his thoughts as well.
• The Vatican has tightened its rules on for disciplining priests involved in sexual abuse cases. NPR has a piece on it here.
• Larry Hurtado is at it again, posting his article “Jesus as Lordly Example.” He also announces the new blog site for his Centre for the Study of Christian Origins.
• Jesus Creed has a nice roundup of recent discussions on science and miracles.
• Inside Higher Ed has a very nice article on the Illinois adjunct who was fired for teaching about Catholic beliefs regarding homosexuality. Unsurprisingly, the situation is more complicated than they first appeared.
• Justin Taylor recommends a book for learning how to write non-fiction book proposals.
• And, apparently spending most of your time sitting down is bad for your health, even if you exercise regularly.

Flotsam and jetsam (7/7)

• Ben Myers offers an excerpt from an upcoming paper on “Prayer as Theological Method.” This particular section focuses on one of George Herbert’s sonnets and the way that Herbert uses poetry to create a space for prayer.
• Evangel discusses some of the difficulties inherent in the idea of a soteriological “age of accountability“.
• Larry Hurtado briefly reviews Jimmy Dunn’s Did the First Christians Worship Jesus?: The New Testament Evidence, noting a few points of minor disagreement. James McGrath offers a brief response to Hurtado’s claim that the early Christians did not participate in any sacrificial practices.
• Phil Sumpter continues his discussion of Brevard Childs’ exegesis, this time looking at the development of two distinct traditions regarding the origin of Moses’ office among the Israelites.
• Mike Bird offers a very nice summary of the events leading to the “Incident at Antioch” (Gal. 2:11-14).
• And, if you feel like you need to protect your children from the nefarious influence of religious rhetoric, you can now install GodBlock, a web filter that is “is targeted at parents and schools who wish to protect their kids from the often violent, sexual, and psychologically harmful material in many holy texts, and from being indoctrinated into any religion before they are of the age to make such decisions.” That’s fabulous. (HT Jim West)

More on diversity in the early church

Following up on my earlier post about Mike Bird’s comments on diversity and unity in the early church, I wanted to point out a couple of other interesting posts. As I mentioned before, James McGrath weighed in with a warning that we need to keep in mind the evidence that does exist for diversity, especially in the NT texts themselves. In keeping with this, Darrell Pursiful has now posted a very helpful diagram (also available as a .pdf) of how he understands diversity during the New Testament period. 

What do you think about the diagram? Is there anything you would present differently?

Also worth looking at is a post by Ari Katz assesseing assessing Walter Bauer’s original thesis. Katz argues that there is insufficient evidence to support Bauer’s idea that the church in Rome had enough influence in the ealiest years of Christianity to enforce its brand of Christianity on the rest of the early Church.