Debates are good but the lectures are better.
As some general rule I don't [edited] see why that should be necessarily always true. Good debaters should accurately represent the opponent's ideas fairly.
I don't take seriously those who do not, on either side of an issue.
Did you ever answer my question to you to explain what caused thousands of Jerusalem Jews to suddenly switch their main sacred day from the seventh day Sabbath on our Saturday to the eighth day, the "Lord's day" ?
Did you ever explain this ?
@secondson saidThe book is about Christology. Regardless of the nature of your faith now in the C21st, the early Christianities and Christology have an interesting history.
The Bible stands alone.
Relax, everything is going to be O-K-A-Y .
I know everything is going to be O-K-A-Y. Are you sure its not yourself you're trying to persuade everything is going to be O-K-A-Y ?
On your debate verses lecture comment, I have taken from the Public Library a series of lectures by Bart Ehrman on writings of the early Christian authors. I knew nothing about him except he was one of The Teaching Company's contributors of popular lectures. They only record people voted as best lecturers.
I found much interesting listening in his lectures. That doesn't mean I have to agree with all of his conclusions.
As for Richard Carrier, I would say he is a highly educated crack pot. It seems obvious to me that he has been ducking and hiding from God all his adult life hoping accumulating higher education will reinforce his rationalizations to teach "Anything BUT Jesus Christ" basically.
I can see him coming a mile away armed with an arsenal of skeptical reason to exterminate the Gospels like spraying Raid on a nest of termites.
Jesus crucified in space between the moon and earth ??
And that just because Carrier knows a ton of legends and mythologies that he draws from to concoct parallels.
These are crackpot ideas.
Open question:
The Greek New Testament records that the apostle Thomas confessed to Jesus - My Lord and my God when he was presented with the test to put his fingers into the wounds of the resurrected Jesus.
And after eight days, His disciples were again within and Thomas with them. Jesus came, the doors having been shut, and stood in the midst and said Peace be with you.
Then He said to Thomas, Bring your finger here and see My hands, and bring your hand and put it into My side, and be not unbelieving but believing.
Thomas answered and said to Him, My Lord and my God! (John 20:26-28)
This is a very early evidence that the disciples recognize Jesus as God - "My Lord and my God".
John recorded it and it agrees with his prologue to the Gospel of John. Who can furnish proof that this was not in the earliest copied Greek manuscripts of the Gospel of John texturally ?
What proof is offered that this verse was a much latter fictionalized addition?
@wolfgang59
I'm looking for adult discussion "howling mad".
You're missing some of your precious entertainment.
@sonship saidCare to elaborate on either of those bizarre sentences?
@wolfgang59
I'm looking for adult discussion "howling mad".
You're missing some of your precious entertainment.
@sonship saidIs Professor Bart Ehrman just a "pop sceptic" or is a distinguished New Testament scholar who is both more qualified and more knowledgable than you on these matters? Is James White a "darling pop" something-or-other too if he has, as you claim, "equal education and training" to Professor Bart Ehrman?
National Public Radio's {NPR) darling pop skeptic Prof. Bart Ehrman doesn't push around some people with equal education and training.
James Whites comments about Ehrman's popular release
Jesus Interrupted
James White
Ehrman vs Luke and Mark
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDrdQuk1Jwk
@FMF
Yes. Good enough.
James White
Bart Ehrman on NPR
Endure five minutes of the opening statement about Ehrman's expansion beyond the area of his expertise.
Don't try to buffalo me FMF.
@FMF
You're not going to stand with Ehrman's arguments. You are going to distance yourself from them when the heat is on.
You say he has interesting things to say?
Sure, I'll give you some of that .... interesting.
What is Ehrman doing that wasn't tried with "The Passover Plot" a popular book of the 60s? Or with "The Mistakes of Jesus" around the same time. Or "The Divinci Code."
Popular cash cow books giving people reason to doubt the Gospels regularly hit the circuit.