{"id":4870,"date":"2009-05-02T14:30:05","date_gmt":"2009-05-02T14:30:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/2009\/05\/bart-ehrman-on-the-bible.html"},"modified":"2009-05-02T14:30:05","modified_gmt":"2009-05-02T14:30:05","slug":"bart-ehrman-on-the-bible","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/05\/bart-ehrman-on-the-bible.html","title":{"rendered":"Bart Ehrman on the Bible"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bart Ehrman has become the media’s darling scholar. Bart is a respected New Testament scholar with both a story to tell and a desire to tell it — even if he fails routinely to divulge that evangelical scholars do not believe much of what he is criticizing. Still, he’s got his points, they are in public, and here’s his newest one from The Washington Post<\/a> and he is answering the question if he is out to destroy belief in the Bible. What do you think of his points? What does it mean for us to say we “believe in the Bible”?<\/b><\/p>\n

<\/i><\/p>\n

\"Bible.jpg\"<\/span>Here’s a clip of Bart’s piece: <\/i>The idea that to be a Christian you have to “believe in the Bible”
\n(meaning, believe that it is in some sense infallible) is a modern
\ninvention. Church historians have traced the view, rather precisely, to
\nthe Niagara Conference on the Bible, in the 1870s, held over a number
\nof years to foster belief in the Bible in opposition to liberal
\ntheologians who were accepting the results of historical scholarship.
\nIn 1878 the conference summarized the true faith in a series of
\nfourteen statements. The very first one — to be believed above all
\nelse — was not belief in God, or in the death and resurrection of
\nJesus. It was belief in the Bible …<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

To make faith in the Bible the most important tenet of Christianity
\nwas a radical shift in thinking — away, for example, from traditional
\nstatements of faith such as the Apostles Creed and the Nicene Creed,
\nwhich say not a word about belief in the Bible.<\/p>\n

Throughout most of history most Christian thinkers would have been
\nseen this view as theological nonsense. Or blasphemy. The Bible was
\nnever to be an object of faith. God through Christ was. Being a
\nChristian meant believing in Christ, not believing in the Bible. <\/p>\n

… [Ehrman concludes with this]<\/p>\n

And so, biblical scholarship will not destroy Christianity. It might
\nde-convert people away from a modern form of fundamentalist belief. But
\nthat might be a very good thing indeed. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bart Ehrman has become the media’s darling scholar. Bart is a respected New Testament scholar with both a story to tell and a desire to tell it — even if he fails routinely to divulge that evangelical scholars do not believe much of what he is criticizing. Still, he’s got his points, they are in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":70,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4870","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bible"],"yoast_head":"\nBart Ehrman on the Bible - Jesus Creed<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/05\/bart-ehrman-on-the-bible.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Bart Ehrman on the Bible - Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Bart Ehrman has become the media’s darling scholar. 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