Bart D. Ehrman and Early Christianity

>>1886182
He was a "born again christian"

>A repugnant heretic

Then he became an atheist

>Deeper and deeper into the abyss

Writes a book called "How Jesus BECAME God"

>Implying Jesus isn'tthe only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father.

Stay away from him if you care about your soul.

>>1886182
Anyone writing about Jesus is going to have an ideological axe to grind so your own beliefs are going to end up shaping which authors you should seek out/avoid. Ehrman achieved celebrity in secular academia because he started out a Christian and lost his faith over the course of his career. This "Christian academic loses faith in Jesus the more he studies" narrative is super juicy for the fedora crowd so Ehrman gets a lot of publicity.

>>1886182
Ehrmans thoughts are pretty close to what the current consensus is among Historians. About the only people who disagree are conservative Christians.

Of course to Christians this is because most historians are "secularists" and not because the overwhelming majority of evidence points towards the consensus.

>>1886250
If by "overwhelming evidence" you mean the fact that secular academics dismiss the possibility of miracles out of hand then sure.

>>1886267
Have you heard of Occam's razor?

prophecies are routinely written after the fact both outside and within the bible. Its a lot easier to predict things that have already happened.

And If your going to apply that standard to the bible I suppose you have no problem with applying it to Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu and other religious texts

>>1886240
Any experiance with his works themselves?

>>1886244
Has that spoiled his work / led to him making false representations?

>>1886250
Is there any particular book of his you would recommend?

Can someone explain to me the whole concept of the Holy Trinity, preferably with meme arrows? I don't quite get the idea that God is all three, but isn't at the same time. It doesn't really make sense.

>>1886404
It's just a way for Christians to still claim to be monotheistic while the Yahweh/Jesus divide is otherwise so clear. It's just labelled a mystery , and any attempt to actually explain it will end up as actually being some form of heresy.

>>1886447

Obligatory video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQLfgaUoQCw

>>1886308
Frankly I think Occam's razor supports the existence of miracles because otherwise you have to make the assumption that the Biblical authors were deliberately lying.

And I do believe that other faiths are capable or producing supernatural signs through demonic powers. That's why supernatural signs should not be why one places their faith in a religion (as Jesus Himself taught).

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>>1886404

>>1886487
>Frankly I think Occam's razor supports the existence of miracles because otherwise you have to make the assumption that the Biblical authors were deliberately lying.
No you don't. You just stop assuming that the gospel authors were somehow protected from the exaggerations, errors, third-hand reporting and so on common in the era.

>>1886404
>It doesn't really make sense.

The great Doctor of the Church St. Augustine of Hippo spent over 30 years working on his treatise De Trinitate [about the Holy Trinity], endeavoring to conceive an intelligible explanation for the mystery of the Trinity.

St Augustine with the boy on the beach

Augustine meets a boy on the beach
He was walking by the seashore one day contemplating and trying to understand the mystery of the Holy Trinity when he saw a small boy running back and forth from the water to a spot on the seashore. The boy was using a sea shell to carry the water from the ocean and place it into a small hole in the sand.

The Bishop of Hippo approached him and asked, “My boy, what are doing?”

“I am trying to bring all the sea into this hole,” the boy replied with a sweet smile.

“But that is impossible, my dear child, the hole cannot contain all that water” said Augustine.

The boy paused in his work, stood up, looked into the eyes of the Saint, and replied, “It is no more impossible than what you are trying to do – comprehend the immensity of the mystery of the Holy Trinity with your small intelligence.”

The Saint was absorbed by such a keen response from that child, and turned his eyes from him for a short while. When he glanced down to ask him something else, the boy had vanished.

- http://www.traditioninaction.org/religious/h065rp.Shell.html

>>1886496
The apostle Paul wrote the epistles and was eyewitness to the things he reported. You have to assume he's a liar in order to discount his testimony.

>>1886493
Literal heresy that holds the Father, Son and Holy Spirit to be parts of God rather than God itself.

>>1886497
tldr a square circle exists its just that we aren't intelligent enough to understand it.

>>1886504
He very explicitly was not an eyewitness to the life and miracles of Jesus.

>>1886487
You realize that assuming people are lying is much less complex than assuming an unknown undetectable power is violating the supposed laws of nature?

To simply say miracles are simpler and therefore inline with Occam's razor would be a gross misrepresentation of the principle.

>And I do believe that other faiths are capable or producing supernatural signs through demonic powers.

I am glad we have you to distiquish between demonic miracles and divine.

"You will know them by there fruits"

By which the church means any miricle that appears to validate them is probably divine where as those that caste doubt are false.

That certainly doesn't sound like confirmation bias, certainly not.

>>1886182
It's a Gnostic meme. Jesus was always God.

>>1886672
Do you have any views on the other questions in my post?

>>1886679
>any other authors on the subject
St. Paul, St. John Chrysostom.

>who to avoid?
Gnostics, Jews, Arians, Muslims, Nestorians, Hussites, Protestants, Cathars, Anglicans, heretics of all kinds.

>>1886690
Even if you dont agree with them, the mark of an intelligent and analytical mind is that it can entertain thoughts they dont necessarily agree with

>>1886690
This kind of shitposting is usually done from a YEC Protestant perspective. ARE the Cathodox really getting in on it to?

>>1886404
The Trinity is the way to explain the presence of three entities in Scripture that all claim to be God. There is the Creator God, the Heavenly Father; there is Jesus Christ, the Lord, the Son of God; there is the Spirit of God, the Heavenly Dove. They're all alluded to as being God, but they're all also considered distinct entities. The Scripture seems to contradict itself, but Scripture must be true because it's divinely revealed.

Thus the Trinity came to light. Understanding the existence of the Trinity is one of the great achievements of theology, because it's a prime example of using Reason to clarify an article of Faith.

>>1886690
I was asking more about modern sources that deals with the early church and the bible on the whole rather than just a source from those times.

>>1886710
Catholic and Orthodox are ususally more accepting of academic sources than protestants but if you step on their doctrines even a little, and they will start attacking academia with all the fury of a young earth creationist

>>1886711
>The Scripture seems to contradict itself, but Scripture must be true because it's divinely revealed
>must be true because it's divinely revealed
there's the problem in your logic

>>1886496
Well you could also assume that, in general, the world has a lot of weird shit in it and that sort of thing happens fairly regularly.

It even happens fairly regularly in the modern day, it's just generally dismissed when it's reported.

>>1886724
Because anecdotes about unconfirmed phenomena dont carry a lot of weight. When we consider how prone humans are to group think, manipulation and hallucination (the last one far far more common than most people assume), we have to be very careful about such accounts in any field, not just on religious issues

>>1886724
>It even happens fairly regularly in the modern day, it's just generally dismissed when it's reported.
If you could provide consistent evidence of "weird shit" happening, you'd be the recipient of a Nobel Prize. Most cases of weird shit are easily debunked.

And even contrary to that, we have evidence of how even eye-witness is extremely unreliable, how stories morph as they are retold, etc (how King Arthur went from being non-existent to a warlord fighting the Anlgo-Saxons to the greatest king of "England.")

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>>1886527
Peter was.

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Peter+1

>>1886645
I realize assuming creation has a Creator is the simplest explanation for existence.

>>1887008
Not really. There exist certain mechanisms that allow for what you call "creation" to exist, but the mechanisms required for what you call the "creator" to exist are way beyond that. Simplifying the actual physical involved using the words creation and creator doesn't actually change the fundamental reality.

>>1887022
Mechanisms require a Mechanic.

>>1887044
do you wish to argue by logic or by english language conventions?

>>1886504
Assuming Paul to be a liar is a smaller assumption than assuming that the laws of physics just suddenly stopped applying.

OP, assuming that this thread isn't bait, you're never going to get anything but a shitstorm from trying to discuss Ehrman here. It's basically a subject that's off-limit at this point, because there are too many people here looking to discuss Jesus from a non-academic standpoint.

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>all the triggered Christcucks ITT

>>1887055
By the Logic of the language.

>>1887044
Not at all. Again, you are confusing language with the actual underlying physics and how we name them.

>>1887072
Not him, but you're playing word games to dance around the issue. Reality doesn't need a creator, we can see complex phenomena occurring all around us without conscious input from any force. Quantum phenomena are especially relevant here, as they demonstrate that there are indeed processes occurring that are without cause: our universe coming into being uncaused is entirely possible, and renders a simpler explanation than it coming into being with a creator.

>>1887077
All languages (including physics) are animated by the same Spirit.

>>1887081
The universe has an age and therefore at one point there was nothing. Nothing produces nothing ergo there must have been Someone not nothing.

>>1887089
>Nothing produces nothing
Virtual particles come into existence from vacuum ("nothing", or at least the closest thing actually possible) fairly regularly, and if they do so at the event horizon of a black hole they produce Hawking Radiation ("something").

>>1887089
Actually, matter in the universe has a definite age, the background forces and energy of the universe have always been present. But you missed the point there: things have been demonstrated to occur uncaused, therefore the creation of an uncaused universe does not defy logical sense.

>>1887097
Proving that there is no nothing ergo there is a Someone.

>>1887099
Once there were no causes at all, then He spoke.

>>1887115
>no nothing ergo there is a Someone.
This isn't even close to an actual argument.

>>1887123
Someone must have made something for there to be no nothing.

>>1887059
>It's basically a subject that's off-limit at this point, because there are too many people here looking to discuss Jesus from a non-academic standpoint.

Do you know a place where i could go to get information regarding him and other Early Church Scholars? I figured Erhman despite his click bait titles might be a good source given he was chosen to translate the apostolic fathers for the loeb library.

Honestly I expected some shit posting but I didnt think it would get off topic.

>>1887115
Sorry, you just showed me your hand. I'm done here. Have a good night.

>>1887123
We got trolled.

>>1887133
You seem to have overlooked part of >>1887099
>the background forces and energy of the universe have always been present.

>>1887133
No, it could easily mean that "nothing" is a hypothetical construct that does not have any actual physical meaning. For example, we could hold onto the concept of a square circle and believe in it very strongly, but the closest actual equivalent is a hexagon. In this sense, philosophical "nothing" may simply be an utterance without reference to reality, and a different definition of "nothing" is actually required in order to refer to something in reality.

>>1887142
His hand.

God bless you.

>>1887144
Those forces (λόγοι) are a language therefore there is a Speaker.

>>1887149
We both agree that there is no nothing therefore Someone caused causality.

>>1887155
>Those forces (λόγοι) are a language therefore there is a Speaker.
What did he mean by this?

>>1887161
>The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth His handiwork;

>>1887165
So specifically the warrior god Yahweh of Hosts combined with charateristics of Ba'al Hadad and El created the universe?

>>1887165
Really makes you think.

>>1887174
אֱלֹהִים

>>1887177
You do realize elohim is plural, right?

>>1887181
God is Triune.

>>1887187
let me correct myself: the warrior god Yahweh of hosts combined with charateristics of Ba'al Hadad and El, and is made up of three persons, created the universe.

I don't accept that your creation needs a creator argument but suppose I did. how do you get from "something or someone created the universe" to specifically the deity worshiped by ancient Jews and later elaborated on theologically by Christians created the universe?

>>1886182
>Is he a good source of information?

No.

>Does anyone have any experience with this author

He used to work on textual criticism but then realized he could write pop books filled with total bs that people want to hear and they will sell like hot cakes to fedoras/muslims who will hold them as gospel.

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>>1886404

>>1887201
Seek and ye shall find.

Goodnight and God bless you.

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>>1887223
so you don't have in argument

>>1887223

Tu quoque

Oh wait christcucks don't care about the truth

>>1886182
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftHecLxquCg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRJUk4TvehQ

>>1887207
>He used to work on textual criticism

Are his older works any good ?

>>1887249

>Ehrman triggers christcucks so much they get out of their church safe spaces and produce garbage 'responses' like these

I like this Ehrman guy

>>1887215
Legitimately heretical.

>>1887263
>garbage 'responses'

How is it garbage? They provided an argument, you didn't.

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>>1887252

>>1887270

>yes, there are massive differences between the text we declared to be infallible and immutable
>but they're irrelevant because we say so

Yeah, great 'argument' you got there. I don't even need to respond to garbage like this. Now fuck off to /pol/ and go be christriggered there

>>1887274
Thanks,

>>1887044
Reality requires a realtor.

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>>1887274
Thank you for that recommendation aside from the OP the following is easily available to me, is it worth the time or should I hold off until that one you posted

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>>1887280
>>yes, there are massive differences between the text we declared to be infallible and immutable
>strawmanning

Anyone can type up a bible and fuck it up however much they want. That proves nothing. Christianity never said each bible is immutable.

>>1887332
Okay, now what if instead of having a bunch of "thou shalt not commit adultery" texts and one famous "thou shalt commit adultery" version, it was the other way around?

>>1887383
>what if it was ancient aliens

Anyone can make wild conjectures.

>>1887424
Answer the question.

>>1887280
>massive differences
>but they're irrelevant because we say so

They're irrelevant because the differences are scattered over the ~whole~ bible. It's not like one line has thousands of variants, each one of them different. It like every couple of pages has a line with a variate. And most of them are word order and spelling mistakes. And word order and spellin misteaks make up most of them. Others are late that pop up without precedent. Only a few really matter but they are backed up other parts the bible so nothing is lost by the uncertainty.

If you want a more fleshed out argument see:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lEmch2OAhs

>>1887467
One of the examples already brought up in this thread involves an "irrelevant" difference of Jesus vs The LORD. This difference is considered irrelevant, because obviously both terms refer to the same figure, because Jesus is The LORD, and substitution of two synonyms doesn't really matter. But the problem is that this irrelevancy only works if you accept the idea that Jesus and The LORD are synonyms, which was not uncontroversial during the early life of the New Testament. In fact, we would expect an edit like this to occur very specifically in the context of someone trying to reinforce the idea that both terms were synonyms in order to establish the divinity of Jesus, which was a later development.

From the perspective of someone who accepts the dogma that motivated the variations, of course they are irrelevant, but to someone trying to figure out what was written before the edits they are actually very telling.

>>1887492
There are many other places in the bible that say Jesus is The LORD.

>In fact, we would expect an edit like this to occur very specifically in the context of someone trying to reinforce the idea that both terms were synonyms in order to establish the divinity of Jesus

Actually no, because for that to work you need it to say "Jesus, who is The LORD". Changing Jesus to The LORD or vice versa doesn't reinforce anything if the reader does not know this was done. Also in early bible manuscripts, it was common for references to God to be abbreviated to 2 characters with an over line (Nomina sacra). So this change would have been easy to happen by writing the wrong abbreviation (Lord = ΚΣ, Jesus=ΙΣ).

>establish the divinity of Jesus, which was a later development

Our earliest manuscripts refer to Jesus as the LORD, it is not a "later development" in any stretch.

>>1886250
>Ehrmans thoughts are pretty close to what the current consensus is among Historians.

Das rite ignorantboi we wuz THE CONSENSUS

>About the only people who disagree are conservative Christians.

Das rite ignorantboi anyone who disagry with us is a nazi !!!!

t. atheicuck


>>1886182
He is shit

Anyway if you want to read serious authors read Albright, Keller, and so on

>>1886504
>You have to assume he's a liar
Or you can assume he was a mentally ill superstitious ancient. Wasn't he prone to "ecstatic visions"?

>>1886182
>Is he a good source of information?

He's on par with Dan Brown.

>>1889081

Better call him a brainlet next time, my Æutistic friend :^)

>>1886182
But from where I sit, it seems that Bart’s black and white mentality as a fundamentalist has hardly been affected as he slogged through the years and trials of life and learning, even when he came out on the other side of the theological spectrum. He still sees things without sufficient nuancing, he overstates his case, and he is entrenched in the security that his own views are right. Bart Ehrman is one of the most brilliant and creative textual critics I’ve ever known, and yet his biases are so strong that, at times, he cannot even acknowledge them.

--Daniel B. Wallace

>>1886250

Yup. Christians disagree with heretics.

>>1886496

Assuming?

John 14:26 But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.

We're not assuming anything.

>>1887274

Read Metzger's editions prior to when he was fooled into letting Ehrman put his name on it.

>>1889149

Yes, and people in reality care about the reasons why someone disagrees with someone

>>1889162
Not so much, really.

1 Corinthians 2:14 But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

Geniuses lacking spiritual discernment have no understanding of the word of God.

>>1889167
>Not so much, really.

You don't, but that's because you're an Æutist

>>1889176
Secular Bart Ehrman agrees with secular liberal christian scholars and historians because they all lack spiritual discernment.

See how you don't care about that?

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>>1889167
>the power of the holy spirit

>>1889179

>when people disagree with my Æutistic views, they automatically become secular liberals who lack spiritual discernment

Now, Ælian, can you please fuck off from /his/ forever? No one likes you and no one takes your Æutistic version of Christianity seriously. Take on your trip again so I can filter you and your christfaggotry.

>>1889186
Yup. The power to bring the dead to life, to bring life everlasting, and to transform the lives of sinners into the lives of saints.

>>1889194
I'm not who you think I am.

And you're wrong, because, again, you don't think spiritual discernment exists.

>>1886182
All of his claims might not be erroneous but he sensationalizes them in a way to generate controversy to keep attracting buyers to his ample catalogue. Not much better or different from Reza Aslan. Elaine Pagels is a more reliable writer.

>>1886250
This. Ehrman is a legitimate scholar with a pretty stellar reputation among other people who study the early church. His scholarship in general is very good, and he's written a number of scholarly books that are standards in classes on church history. His stuff intended for general audiences is a bit watered down, but if you want to read his more scholarly work, you can.

The only reason some Christians don't like him is that he writes from the perspective that Jesus was a historical figure and not God. Honestly, the whole "Christian turned atheist" thing is blown out of proportion and doesn't reflect his writing at all; the guy is an academic, who writes from an academic point of view. Yes, that's not a religious view, and if you don't like it, you don't need to read it. For historical information about that time period, he's easily the best, most accessible author to start with.

>>1889340
He was never a Christian.

He writes sensationalist books about Jesus to make money.

Like Dan Brown.

>>1889345
>He was never a Christian
that's when you give yourself up as a fundamentalist. any christian who loses his faith you'll claim never was one

>>1889345
>He was never a Christian.
So? It has absolutely no bearing on his writing, either way. As I pointed out, he writes from an academic point of view, his religious beliefs have nothing to do with that.

>He writes sensationalist books about Jesus to make money.
No, he writes books about early church history and the development of early Christianity which present the academic consensus of those subjects. There's nothing sensationalist about them. I minored in religious studies at a Christian University and focused in early church history. Nothing I've read of his went against stuff I learned in lectures, even at a Christian institution. Again, it's the academic consensus.

>Like Dan Brown.
Not in any way. Dan Brown is a fiction writer who bases plots on fringe conspiracies. Ehrman is a legitimate scholar, who is known for good scholarship, and writes books about his research. Just because he doesn't write from the perspective that the Bible is correct and inerrant doesn't mean his stuff is sensationalist or comparable to shit like Dan Brown. I know this board is almost entirely dominated by Christian shitposting, but on the off chance someone is actually interested in the history of that period, they shouldn't be mislead about Ehrman's scholarship.

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>>1889159

THIS

>>1889381
What is a good way of assessing who is good source on early Church and biblical exegisis?

Do you have any experiences with the Authors recommend by >>1889081

>>1889345
>He was never a Christian
Yes he was lol. He went to the same school as that shithead William Lane Craig.

>>1886182
Truth is, we don't have a clue what happened in Early Christianity as nothing from the 30s and 40s survived the filter that Christian documents were going through

>>1887000
>https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Peter+1
1 Peter supports the Mythicist theory, 2 Peter is a forgery

>>1891293
Yeah but thats a point itself which needs to be demonstrated by evidence as that conflicts with the current religious narratives.

>>1891336
Look it up yourself, the earliest textual variant we have of Paul's letters is from 175AD and Paul's letters are from the 50s AD which he was writing 15 to 20 years after he experienced these things. Paul never mentions a Jesus on Earth. Paul is the earliest document we have that gives you a glimpse into Early Christianity.

>>1891042
Certain types of Christians like to use a rhetorical trick where it's impossible to deconvert from the religion. The idea is that Christianity isn't just a religion, it is an irreversible transformation, thus anyone who claims to have been Christian once is mistaken, and they in fact were never actually Christian in the first place. The analogy they like to use is that a caterpillar cannot claim it was once a butterfly, and a butterfly can not become a caterpillar. It's not all that different from the trick Muslims use, claiming nobody "converts" to Islam, they simply "revert" to the one true original faith.

>>1886308
Not supporting or denying anything but William of Occam's razor isn't "A has less assumptions than thus B must be false", it's more or less "Keep shit simple & don't assume too much". It's closer to a guideline than a law of the universe.

>>1887056
I should note that while we haven't encountered many exceptions to the laws of physics, we haven't proven there don't exist exceptions. It's black swans & white swans all over again.

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>>1886342
Read Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium. Its probably one of his best.

Majority of Ehrmans stances, as already stated here, really are the consensus among scholars. And not just the "atheist/agnostic" ones, but also among Christian scholars as well.

>>1886250
>overwhelming majority of evidence
Ehrman's arguments are founded on lack of evidence though. He digs up a lot of holes in the Christian narrative by making assumptions on certain historical details he deems most likely but we actually know nothing about for certain. Of course, you're gonna get biased that way.

>>1891842
Its not just Ehrmans views tho, its the majority scholarly view. Even Christian historians of the NT agree with him on most things.

>>1891821
Christian scholars agree that Jesus was a failed prophet?

>>1891846
[citation needed], also argumentum ad populum without specifying any other scholar and without pointing out the elements of convergence with and departure of said consensus

Also

Ehrman literally said in a podcast he thinks Jesus died on the cross, Pilate denied his burial and he was most likely eaten by dogs. He clearly has an axe to grind.

>>1891874
The burial of Jesus is an invention of the Christians to mark him buried as a king, not historical fact so he CAN make that assumption

>>1891881
Again with what evidence is this argument made? This is a very general problem with ancient Greek and Roman, even more so with Egyptian history. Anyone can make up stories founded entirely on disbelief in the only sources we are left with.

But you're probably just trying to bait people

>>1891872
They agree that Jesus was an eschatological (basically apocalyptic) preacher. The difference is they believe that Jesus was being more metaphorical and didn't think the Kingdom of God will come soon. Unlike Paul who had no doubts that the end is near.

>>1891874
Ehrman, Paula Fredriksen, Dale Allison, Dale Martin, Gerd Lüdemann, Elaine Pagels, John P. Meier, E. P. Sanders ...

Even apologists like N.T. wright agree that Jesus was an apocalyptic preacher, but he like other Christians see his eschatological preaching in a more metaphorical way.

>>1891874
>he was most likely eaten by dogs

I don't think he thinks that he was eaten by dogs. That was John Dominic Crossans claim. Ehrman just believes that Jesus was put in a common grave. Its what happened to most criminals accused of sedition and crucified.

>>1891919
I am arguing from the top of my head here but I remember Ehrman basically said Pilate was a mean ass mofo who bullied the jews for a living and because of that denied burials of capital punishment victims.

>>1891933
Basically. But that's only part of the argument. Also, its what happened to most criminals crucified by the Roman authorities, not just under Pilate. Pilate was according to all our secular sources and contrary to the gospel accounts a mean piece of shit who had very little understanding for Jewish "feelings".

>>1891888
In archeology the only tombs with blocking stones that were round were the tombs of Kings and rich people

>>1891958
If we can believe the New Testament accounts, Jesus had rich sympathisers like Joseph of Arimathea. For whatever reason that may be.

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Joseph Orbi's "Kickin' Santa - Atheists and the matter of Fact explains exactly how Jesus became God. It is the best book - and very funny too - to dismantle the bullshit of religion. He also exhorts people to take action against organized religion. http://youtu.be/8Uw4879W6u0
www.kickinsanta.com

>>1886240
Insane people like this really turn off others from Christianity.

>>1891350
>>Paul is the earliest document we have that gives you a glimpse into Early Christianity
>speaking out of your ass

We have found over 40% of the new testament dated to before 150AD and that not counting the writing of Church Fathers which back up the doctrines of the church.

>>1892233
>We have found over 40% of the new testament dated to before 150AD

Source?

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>>1887160
>failing this hard at using semantics

Your approach is that the words (concepts) shaped the universe, but those concepts are just human conceptualization.
Let's take "Nothing" for instance, we know now that everything in space has mass, even "space" itself has a mass that is disturbed by gravitational force, in fact this year Einstein's theory of gravitation was finally proved thanks to two massive black holes colliding causing massive ripples in the"empty" space.
Basically, "Nothing/Nothingness" is just a metaphysical term used to conceptualize the absence of something in specific.

>>1892233
What I meant was Paul is the earliest document availalble as to when it was written and the earliest document we have of it is dated 175AD

>>1892191
For the reason of the narrative, doesn't mean it's what happened

To answer OP, I've read 2 of his books and my primary problem with him is that he's trying to write a "popular history" book for the masses about a controversial subject where you can't really skimp on the research, evidence, and details. Meaning that he wants to keep the books short and easy to read, to the point where he just jumps around without offering solid historical facts or arguments.

For example, he'll frequently just say things like (paraphrasing, obviously): "Just so you know, this is what Biblical scholars agree on, I won't explain why, but just trust me." Well... no. Explain how you came to that conclusion, why you think it's a viable conclusion, before you use it in your book.

>>1893080

You're probably reading the wrong books. I saw an interview with him where he said he alternates between three different types of book. He writes one for the general public, one aimed at student level and then one aimed at the couple of dozen people in the world that are his scholarly peers.

If you want to get into the more serious detailed arguments then you probably need to read the ones not aimed at the plebs.

>>1891663
Of course, the problem of induction hasn't gone away. But it's still a smaller leap to assume falsehood than assume the black swan of physics.

>>1893121
Unless it's a book aimed at little children, a non-fiction book shouldn't ever say "just believe me that this is right, I'm not going to explain it, but I'll use it as the crux of my argument!"

>>1893080
>>1893538
>>1893121

Which of his two books did you read?