Unbelievable: Bart Ehrman vs. Justin Bass | Did Jesus Rise from the Dead? | Pastor Reacts

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Peter, I would say Peter wrote 1st and 2nd Peter, and 2nd Peter, Jesus, I mean, Peter says that he saw

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He saw the Transfiguration. The Transfiguration, exactly. That's not the Resurrection. Okay. Boop! These were the men besides Joseph Smith who claimed to have seen

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Moroni, and yet here he is trying to say, well, you know, four against two is better. No, it's not! You have zero against Peter, James, and Paul, and Mary Magdalene.

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I'm just giving you my reasoning that why Moroni's not convincing. I understand, but I don't think you've listened to my case here.

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Okay. In one sense, I'm actually on Ehrman's side. We have veered way, way out into the weeds from the original topic.

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But they're in a worldview that allows that. They are too in a worldview. They're in an apocalyptic worldview that expects the

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Resurrection. Ehrman is playing games right now, and I suspect he knows he is, and he can get away with this because not a lot of people are aware of, again, this manipulative framing that he's doing, and there it is.

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We have now discovered the reason why Ehrman will never say that Jesus rose from the dead.

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Doesn't matter what kind of evidence lines up for it. Resurrections do not happen. Period. End of story. The end.

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It's a violation of the laws of physics. Welcome back to another

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Pastor Reacts. My name is Nate Sala. I'm the president of Wise Disciple, where we are helping you become the effective

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Christian that you were meant to be. Before I jumped into this particular ministry, I was a pastor, and before that,

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I was a debate teacher. And so, if you put those things together, like peanut butter and jelly, you get this channel, apparently.

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Well, today we're looking at a video that a lot of you suggested that I react to. It's a recent episode of Unbelievable with Justin Brierley, one of my favorite shows to just watch, you know, conversations -wise.

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This one is Bart Ehrman versus Justin Bass, I think. The topic is, did

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Jesus of Nazareth rise from the dead? So, let's go. Okay.

01:57

Hello, and welcome to the Big Conversation from Premiere Unbelievable, brought to you in partnership with John Templeton Foundation.

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I'm your host, Justin Brierley. The Big Conversation is all about questions around science, philosophy, history, and culture, with big thinkers across the belief spectrum.

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So, little disclaimer at the outset. My issue with these kinds of debates has always been that, on Unbelievable, has always been that they're not really debates, though.

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They're discussions, you know. I'm coming from a more formal debate background, so I'm used to looking at policy debates,

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Lincoln -Douglas, public forum debates. But that's just not what a lot of these kinds of discussions are.

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So, it's hard for somebody like me to just show up and start holding somebody accountable to a structure of debate that these two probably did not agree to in the first place.

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It was probably understood that they're going to have a free -flowing discussion where two people largely disagree with each other, which, by the way,

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I think is actually way more valuable for those of us who want to think through issues and come to our own conclusions.

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So, again, I love the Unbelievable show. I'm just trying to be transparent about my difficulties with doing a

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Debate Teacher Reacts to this. So, what I'm going to try to do is I'll talk about who's doing a better job challenging the other guy, and then

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I might step in with some of my own thoughts about the discussion, and that's probably the best I can do with something like this.

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So, again, let's get into it. Today, we're discussing the central claim of Christian faith. Did Jesus of Nazareth rise from the dead?

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The rise of Christianity, of course, has shaped the modern world, but are its historical origins best explained by naturalistic means, or is the explanation the first followers gave, that Jesus had risen from the dead, still a plausible option for people today?

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Well, Bart Ehrman is a well -known... By the way, the topic is, did Jesus rise from the dead?

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Were the claims given by Jesus' apostles and his first followers plausible? The immediate question that I have is, what the heck is

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Bart Ehrman doing at the table then? You know, Ehrman is a historian, and historians don't answer these kinds of questions according to Ehrman.

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He talks about this a lot. Historians, given their particular methodology to understand history, are not equipped to answer this question.

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So, what is Ehrman doing there? So, this is from Ehrman's book, How Jesus Became God. Take a look at this.

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As a historian, I do not think that we can show historically that Jesus was, in fact, raised from the dead.

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To be clear, I'm not saying the opposite either, that historians can use the historical disciplines in order to demonstrate that Jesus was not raised from the dead.

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I argue that when it comes to miracles such as the resurrection, historical sciences simply are of no help in establishing exactly what happened.

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So again, I ask, what is Bart Ehrman doing here for this discussion then? The topic is, did

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Jesus rise from the dead? That means we need to see people take a position on this question, right? Or else, what's this discussion going to be?

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My prediction is, because I've seen Ehrman do this before, you'll see him only go so far, and then he'll stop, and he'll draw a line in the sand.

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And the other guy, Justin Bass, is going to want to keep walking down the path towards an inference, and Ehrman is going to say, no, no, no, no, you can't say that, you can't do that.

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A New Testament historian whose books include Misquoting Jesus, The Triumph of Christianity, and Heaven and Hell, A History of the

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Afterlife, Bart is an agnostic. He doesn't believe in the miraculous claims of the

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Bible, including the resurrection of Jesus, but he's always happy to discuss it with those who do. One of those is

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Justin Bass, a New Testament scholar who's taught at various institutions, including in Jordan in the

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Middle East. Now, Justin is a Christian, and in his book, The Bedrock of Christianity, he argues there are a number of bedrock facts concerning the death and resurrection of Jesus, agreed upon by the majority of New Testament scholars.

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And today, he's going to be explaining why he believes the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth is the best explanation of both

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Scripture and history. So, Justin... Is anybody else weird like me, and right now you're seeing

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Robert Englund versus Eric Bana? I'm not trying to be disrespectful, but Ehrman definitely resembles

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Robert Englund. Mmm, shenanigans. ...best explanation of both Scripture and history.

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So, Justin and Bart, welcome along to the show. Thank you. Nice to be here. I hope it won't be too confusing for you,

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Bart, having two Justins in front of you today. I'm feeling that I'm being ganged up on. But it's okay, I can handle it.

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You can see the difference. Virtually all will accept that Peter believed

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Jesus appeared to him. James, the brother of Jesus, believed he appeared to him. Paul, obviously, believed he appeared to him.

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And then we can bring in Mary Magdalene, because I'm pretty sure Bart, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but believes Mary Magdalene also had that experience.

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She's accounted for in all four Gospels, being the first to actually witness the risen

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Jesus. So those four would be kind of the bedrock eyewitnesses. Well, why don't we stick with those specific ones and get your take on that,

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Bart. So, to what degree do you agree that at least people claimed to have seen the risen

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Jesus? Yeah, I think it's probably right. Paul, certainly. Paul tells us that he did.

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The problem with these others, of course, is they don't tell us that. So we don't have, you know, Peter didn't leave his writings where he said,

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I saw Jesus. James didn't leave his writings. We don't know who the 500 were, none of this. Peter didn't say that he saw the risen

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Jesus. Does Ehrman mean that Peter didn't write it down? Like he didn't literally say that phrase in like 1st and 2nd

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Peter? Which is true. I saw the risen Jesus, right? We don't have those in the epistles. Okay, fair enough.

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But wait a sec. Peter does talk about the resurrection of Jesus in his first epistle though, right? 1

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Peter 1 .3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his great mercy, has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

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Seems strange for Peter to do that, knowing that Paul had been claiming that Peter saw the risen Jesus, knowing that Luke was saying that Peter saw the risen

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Jesus. Both of these men were contemporary to Peter, and now Peter is saying that Jesus is resurrected in his own letter.

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I mean, you have an established church in the 1st century holding to Peter's profession of seeing the risen Jesus, and Peter doesn't want to seem to correct any of these claims about him?

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I wonder why. Unless maybe it really happened. Isn't that the simplest explanation?

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What historians tend to do, of course, is to examine their sources of information. And the most important thing is to know what the sources are, to determine whether they are reliable or not, and to see what they say.

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I mean, so we don't, we infer, I think that Peter probably did say that he saw

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Jesus, and I think James probably did. I don't know about the 500, they come out of nowhere. Well, then why did you make a point to say that the problem is

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Peter never said he saw the risen Jesus in his writings? You literally just said that a few seconds ago. Is that really a problem, or do we have enough evidence to infer that Peter saw the risen

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Jesus, which is why you say that you think he did? In which case, that's not a problem, though, right?

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See, this is what Ehrman does on a regular basis. He says, well, you know, here's a problem. Here's another problem.

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Well, here's a huge problem over here. As a debater, this fits into the category of laying a framework.

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Okay, you know, so far so good. But you could make the argument that this is known as manipulative framing. And what that means is when you use negative words like problem, you know, particularly when a true problem does not exist, you're simply describing the regular process of making an inference based on the historical evidence.

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You seem to be manipulative there. You come across as being disingenuous. Imagine a homicide detective saying, well, you know,

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I have the suspect admitting he was at the crime scene when the victim was murdered, and I have several other witnesses claiming the suspect confessed to the crime.

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By the way, these witnesses are known associates of the suspect, and they told a lot of other people about the suspect's confession.

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Suspect never denied it. But you know what the problem is? He never wrote down the words, I'm the killer, though.

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Is that really a problem? In 1 Corinthians 15, there's no— Mary Magdalene? Well, we don't have anything from her either, obviously.

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But do you believe that she had any experience? Yeah, I do. And I believe that in a lot of religious traditions, you get reports like that.

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And so my issue with this kind of bedrock thing is whether it's appropriate to consider these kinds of claims outside of other claims for other religious figures.

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Do we treat them equally, or do we provide a kind of a— do we say, well, it's more likely true because it's in the

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Bible and less likely true if it's in the Mormon tradition, or if it's in the

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Muslim tradition, or if it's in ancient Greek and Roman mythology, or not just mythology, ancient

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Greek and Roman history. And so do you give equal weight to everything? And if so, then how do you— why is it that you prefer these witnesses to the others?

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So, that's an interesting move. Did you see what just happened? After begrudgingly agreeing that the eyewitness testimony of those four people, right?

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Peter, James, Paul, Mary, are probably legitimate. You know,

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I mean, the experience of the risen Jesus probably is what happened to them. Now, Ehrman wants us to shift and consider the legitimacy of other miracle claims from different religions.

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The question for Bass is, why not just stick to the claims of the resurrection of Jesus in order to make an inference and answer the question of tonight's topic?

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But you know what? This is actually an advantageous move on the part of Ehrman, because what he wants to do is demonstrate that for the same reason that Christians dismiss

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Mormon claims and Muslim claims, etc., we should dismiss resurrection of Jesus claims.

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So, Ehrman is doing well as an interlocutor. All right? Let's see what happens next.

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Great question. What is the evidence? You know, so my question would be, what is the evidence?

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You brought up Islam. You brought up Mormonism. Well, in Islam, this only supernatural really claim is to Muhammad.

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That's one. You know, one eyewitness. And I agree with Deuteronomy. We shouldn't trust anything unless it's at least two or three witnesses.

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So, we have four that you agree with, you know, in Christianity. When it comes to Mormonism, again, Joseph Smith is the only person to say that Moroni appeared to him and he said

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Jesus and God the Father and a lot of other strange things. I'm not sure, Justin. But only one person. Only one eyewitness in both those cases, both those religions you brought up.

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But I'd like to hear the evidence for the Greek and Roman. Well, I don't know if you've studied Mormonism very much. Oh, I've studied a little. There are 11 eyewitnesses.

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To the golden plates. Yes. Yeah. So, we're going to compare golden plates to the resurrection of Jesus? No, I'm just saying if you're a historian and what you're doing is you're saying we're going to trust eyewitnesses.

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Okay, I'm fine with them seeing golden plates. But what does that tell us? Four of them say they saw Moroni give them to him. Four saw him.

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Who actually signed affidavits. Half of them left the faith. No, they didn't.

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They abandoned Joseph Smith. They left Joseph Smith. But when they abandoned Joseph Smith, they continued to say that they saw

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Moroni. So, that's not true. You can look into this. And I encourage you to, although that's a rapid trail.

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The problem here is, well, see, now I'm sounding like Ehrman. Okay. The problem is LDS history is shoddy because they will only affirm certain things these witnesses said and then they will downplay or ignore other things.

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The four witnesses to Moroni were, allegedly, now I had to look this up for reference, Martin Harris, David Whitmer, and Oliver Cowdery.

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Okay. The fourth witness was Joseph Smith himself. The issue with these three witnesses to Moroni, apart from Joseph Smith, is they do change their testimony over time with regard to what they saw.

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And all three were excommunicated from the church and were tarnished in terms of their reputation by the

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LDS church and its leaders. Joseph Smith called David Whitmer a dumb beast.

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Martin Harris was said by Mormons to have a lying, deceptive spirit. He was of his father the devil and that the wrath of God was on him.

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Why? Well, one of the things Martin Harris did was he recanted his testimony. He said he never actually saw the plates, even though he originally said he did.

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Whitmer did the same thing, said he never actually saw the plates, changed his story a few times on that.

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And then these gentlemen went on to make other grand claims that could not be substantiated. You see where this is going?

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If Ehrman wants to say, well, you know, let's look at other religious claims, two miracles, then he's going to have to notice that there is a qualitative difference between the ethos of, say,

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Peter, Paul, and James, because these men were tortured and died for their testimony, never recanting, never being excommunicated from the

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Christian church, never being denounced for having lying, deceptive spirits and being of their father the devil.

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But you'll also have to notice that the ethos of the Mormon witnesses are not there. Once you press into the details of the religious claims of Joseph Smith and his compatriots to the religious claims of the apostles of Christ, there is no comparison.

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And Ehrman knows this. He has to know this. He's a historian, right? That's his thing. So then, what is the point of bringing all this up?

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It seems to me you have two options. You're either ignorant and are making illegitimate comparisons, or you know what you're doing and you're misleading folks on purpose.

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To suggest historical Christian claims about Jesus and historical Mormon claims are on par with each other is to, at the very least, mislead people that are watching this video.

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You know what I mean? And then you wonder, okay, is that unintentional or is that intentional? At the very least,

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I will say this. Ehrman is doing a good job handling himself as an interlocutor against Justin Bass.

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I think that's pretty obvious. You credit those. Okay, well that's still, that would only be three. But to abandon

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Joseph Smith, Joseph Smith is the foundational prophet. It's four plus Joseph Smith, that's five. I'm just saying, are you being impartial?

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Or are you saying it's more like, No, it's three plus Joseph Smith is four. Because these are biblical witnesses.

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In those cases, by the way, we actually have their testimony. And it's within a hundred years.

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So with the New Testament, you don't have Peter's testimony or James's testimony or the 500.

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So you don't have four. You've got Paul. But what we have is good enough to convince you for the

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New Testament. That's a good point, though. Right?

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What is all the fuss about, Ehrman, if you're already convinced? It seems like this is much ado about a huge nothing burger.

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Oh, well, you know, are they like Mormon religious claims? You know, we have four plus one is five. You know, well, no, because the three

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Mormon eyewitness testimonies referenced are not credible. They undermine their own credibility over time.

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Peter, James, and Paul did not do that. This cannot be compared as equal. So then what's all the fuss about if you're already convinced that Peter and James and Paul saw there isn't

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Jesus or had the experience of seeing there isn't Jesus. But that isn't proof that it happened, right?

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Who else has Moroni appeared to other than those people in history? We're talking about a particular event with Jesus raised from the dead and a particular event.

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But other things can support another event, right? So if Jesus is appearing to people, for example, all throughout history, if we have...

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That's a separate argument. So I think we have to take one argument at a time because if you just start piling on arguments, we have to consider each of those arguments in turn.

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Okay, but I'm just giving you my reasoning that why Moroni is not convincing. I understand, but I don't think you've listened to my case here.

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Okay. So in one sense, I'm actually on Ehrman's side. I don't know what ongoing sightings of Jesus is going to do to undermine the claims to have seen

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Moroni, you know? But I'm not on Ehrman's side in a sense because I think he's manipulatively framing the discussion to make it more advantageous to his position.

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So in my mind, it's one thing to lay a framework with the strong contentions that you have in your arsenal.

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I've said that over and over again in debate teacher videos. But it's another thing to manipulatively frame a discussion in order to make your argument look stronger when it's not.

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Judges notice these things, and it's not going to help you in the long run. And by the way, Christians are just as guilty of this as well.

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So we're not off the hook when our side does this too. You are basing everything. You said... I'm not basing everything.

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You said the bedrock... We're starting with appearances. This isn't my only argument. You said the bedrock is Paul because Paul gives us the information about Cephas and James.

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Correct? I said Paul is the bedrock in the sense that the vast majority of scholars agree when it comes to Paul.

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That's what I mean by bedrock. How many ancient Christian writings do we have by somebody who says in those writings that he saw

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Jesus? Directly? Paul. Thank you. How many do we have?

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We have Peter. I would say Peter wrote 1 and 2 Peter. In 2 Peter, Jesus... I mean, Peter says that he saw...

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Saw the transfiguration. The transfiguration, exactly. That's not the resurrection. Okay. So you've got Paul. John saw the risen

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Jesus. Oops. Oops. That's not good.

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That's not good, guys. The resurrection is not the transfiguration. You know what? But these things happen in the heat of the moment.

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You know? You... Both sides, you know. It's just... It's... Your heart's going 100 miles an hour.

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You know the cameras are rolling. If you're live, you know, you're on stage, you see an audience, right? In the middle of a conversation, you reach for something that isn't quite what you were after.

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Right? So, Ehrman got him there. So far, Ehrman is handling not only himself, but Bass very well.

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In spite of the critique that I've already been giving Ehrman, I'd say he definitely has the upper hand in this exchange so far.

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At least in heaven, in Revelation. Are you... You're counting that as a historical source?

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Of seeing something... Of seeing Jesus again. That would... That would contribute to the argument. Again, that's the point.

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These things go back to support the original... I want us to be clear what we're talking about.

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Miraculous claim. You have nothing beyond those three witnesses with Moroni. Nothing. Let me finish.

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Okay. You're saying that Paul gives us the evidence for himself. He saw Jesus. But none of the others...

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You think Peter wrote 1 and 2 Peter, and... Okay. But... That would be two.

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I'm saying that in the case of Moroni giving Joseph Smith the plates, we have four.

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So, if the idea is that you trust eyewitnesses who swear to what they saw, and that we're doing this impartially...

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No. Okay. We're doing this impartially as historians. In other words, we're not trying to back up our faith.

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We're not trying to prove that we're right about something. Historians don't do that. Historians try to figure out what happened in the past.

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And they evaluate their sources. So, what I'm saying is if you're going to take the sources that agree with you, and you say that they're probably right, not because they agree with you, but because they're reliable sources.

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Because you've got Paul and you've got Peter, say. Okay. Well, I've got four people from Moroni giving the plates.

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And these people are highly religious people. The religiosity was never questioned. So, again, this is just not true.

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I mean, Ehrman, who earlier, I think, suggested or alluded to the fact that he knows LDS history, he told

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Bass, you know, you should look into it or something like that, right? So, I mean, Ehrman presents himself as someone who knows what he's talking about as a historian.

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Okay. You can't sit here then and say that Ehrman is ignorant of the unraveling of the credibility of the other eyewitnesses to Moroni over time.

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These were the men besides Joseph Smith who claimed to have seen Moroni. And yet here he is trying to say, well, you know, four against two is better.

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No, it's not. You have, in many scholars' opinions, zero against Peter, James, and Paul and Mary Magdalene.

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Those are the ones even Bart Ehrman accepts, by the way. So, once again, what is this weird math equation about if Ehrman already accepts

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Peter, James, and Paul, and Mary? If you've already accepted their testimonies, then let's move on to the abductive argument.

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You know, what is the inference to the best explanation for these testimonies as well as the other facts of history for the establishment of the early church claims about Jesus' resurrection?

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Can we go there at some point? I am not saying that I think that it happened.

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I don't think it happened. Yeah. For good reason. But on your, on the way you're mounting an argument for Paul and Peter, you,

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I don't see how you can exclude the argument for Moroni. Well, let's hear from Justin. Well, it's credibility. Right?

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The LDS witnesses have none based on their behavior over time. Peter, James, and Paul's credibility remains intact based on their behavior over time.

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Justin, so, essentially, Justin, is the question here, is there better evidence that the resurrection claims of these first followers of Jesus are better evidence than other claims from other religious traditions like Mormonism and so on, where they also claim to have been eyewitnesses to something miraculous?

23:17

Exactly. And what I was saying with the, when it comes to the four eyewitnesses, one of them is

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Joseph Smith. No, no, no. There's four in addition to Joseph Smith who claim they saw him. So there's five.

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No. You know what? Let's look this up. Okay. So this is from Church of Jesus, this is a

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Mormon website, churchofjesuschrist .org. Witnesses of the Book of Mormon.

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The first edition of the Book of Mormon featured two testimonials, one written by a group of three witnesses and another by a group of eight to make eleven.

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Three witnesses, Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, and Martin Harris, declared an angel of God appeared to them and showed them the

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Book of Mormon plates and they heard the voice of the Lord pronounce that Joseph Smith's translation had been accomplished by the gift and power of God.

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This experience took place in June 1829 near the home of Peter Whitmer Sr. in Fayette, New York.

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An additional eight witnesses, members of the Smith and Whitmer families, declared that Joseph Smith himself showed them the plates and allowed each to have the...

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Okay, so now we're onto the plates. So you have three witnesses who claim to have seen an angel plus Joseph Smith makes four, not five.

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You didn't realize this video was going to be heavy in math tonight, huh? Okay. Well, regardless, I guess

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I want to hear why you... if you do regard them as different in some way to the Mormons. Because they're claiming a supernatural being named

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Moroni appeared to them. Okay? And so, who else then has this Moroni figure appeared to?

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Because there's been other people that have claimed supernatural things have happened. But see, one of the things that I would say, well, who else has they appeared to, right?

24:48

And who else has Moroni appeared to? Well, again, I don't understand this line of argumentation.

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I think it's better to point out the credibility of the eyewitness testimony than it is to try to stack numbers of sightings against each other.

25:03

And Ermin is probably going to slap back on this. So, let's see what happens. So, then those four. Now, I just want you to agree that's a separate argument now.

25:10

Yeah, but it contributes. So, let me... I build a case with multiple arguments. Exactly, I get it. It's not just one. So, when it comes to corroborative evidence of later witnesses, what about the angel...

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what about the Mother Mary? Now, Mary appears regularly to people.

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It's completely well documented. Thousands of people claim this happens. And I'm going to assume that since you're not

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Catholic, you don't think these appearances happened. I'm open to the... So, instead of answering

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Bass's question about other sightings of Jesus, Ermin decides to ask about sightings of Mary now.

25:46

Again, by the way, Ermin has the upper hand in this exchange. Bass should not follow him down these new paths of conversation.

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He should just stick to early resurrection sightings and the inference to the best explanation for those sightings. That's what the conversation is supposed to be focused on.

26:00

...the evidence, and I do think some of the stories about Mary is compelling. I think some of the stories is compelling. You think she does appear to people.

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But I think what the issue... No, no, no. Do you think she appears to people? No, I don't. I don't know. You just said the evidence was compelling.

26:11

Well, I said it's, you know, it's something to look into. I'm saying it's enough to look into. Why don't you look into it?

26:17

This would be very important. I have looked into it. Okay, so... But let me answer. I think it lacks the unexpectedness, so it makes...

26:24

And it normally happens in Catholic contexts. No, no. This is completely wrong. No, no. Let me finish.

26:30

Let's let Justin finish his point. It normally happens in Catholic contexts. Okay. Okay. And so people who are already

26:37

Catholic... Yes. ...who expect, you know, they pray to Mary regularly. They expect saints to...

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They pray to saints. They expect this kind of thing. And it's happened in only, you know, a handful of type of situations that have actually been confirmed by the church.

26:52

But I ask you, if Mary is actually appearing to people, would that support the resurrection or not support the resurrection?

26:58

No, I'm saying that you have better... No, answer that question. I will answer it by telling you that we have better evidence for Mary appearing to people, many groups of people in the modern period, than we have for Jesus appearing to people in the modern period.

27:11

Okay. By your criteria, that would mean that it's more likely that Mary is showing up.

27:17

By your criteria. And... By my criteria, neither one happens. Okay, but if Mary is appearing to people, does it more support the resurrection or not?

27:25

If she... Yes, if Mary... If Mary is showing up to people, then that would support...

27:30

So, your example, to parallel, to kind of thwart the evidence for the resurrection, actually would support the resurrection.

27:36

No, no, no. You're not... No. Ehrman's argument is that based on Bass's criteria for assessing the validity of the resurrection claims, he must then accept claims to see

27:46

Mary, which it appears he does not accept at the moment. So, this is a bit of a nuanced argument.

27:53

My issue is we have veered way, way out into the weeds from the original topic, and that's on Bass just as much as Ehrman.

28:02

So, this discussion so far is a bit of a mess. But, you know, Ehrman has control.

28:08

He's handling himself extremely well as an interlocutor against Bass. ...my argument. I'm saying that you...

28:14

But that's true, right? What I just said is true. No, you're not understanding... You just admitted that. You said if Mary is appearing to people, and you think there's a lot of evidence for it,

28:21

I don't think so. I think it lacks the unexpectedness. The apostles, these people like Paul, Peter, Mary, were in no way expecting

28:29

Jesus to appear to them. In no way. So, Catholics who expect that can have an expectation for this type of thing, it makes sense why it would happen.

28:40

So, you have... So, the arguments... The problem is you're arguing about three or four things at once.

28:45

You're arguing three or four things at once. I don't think you've read the literature on Mary, because in many, many...

28:51

I've read a lot of it, yeah. Laurentine? Yeah. Then you know full well that many times it's not expected.

28:59

So... Because if you've read the literature, so... No, of course it's expected. That's the point. No, then you haven't read the literature.

29:05

There are many testimonies of people who are not... Who don't expect it and can't believe it.

29:10

Yeah, but they know about Christianity. They know about people appearing to people. They know about the resurrection of Jesus. That's what I'm saying.

29:16

And is that different from Jesus showing up to people? Where was the expectation for Jesus appearing to people?

29:22

This is a key part of what you discussed just now. You mean by people who knew him? Yeah, what was the expectation? But where's the expectation for Mary?

29:28

They're not expecting her to show up, and she does. But they're in a worldview that allows that. They are too in a worldview.

29:34

They're in an apocalyptic worldview that expects Okay, where was the Messiah? Where was the expectation? It's interesting to watch this, because Ehrman is playing games right now.

29:43

And I suspect he knows he is, and he can get away with this, because not a lot of people are aware of, again, this manipulative framing that he's doing.

29:52

You know, for example, well, the Jews were apocalyptic, and therefore, you were totally expecting Jesus to rise again, right?

29:58

Well, two things about that. First, they were not expecting Jesus to die in the first place. Why? Because it was not expected for the

30:04

Messiah to die. So you have to include in your calculations the likelihood that they abandoned the notion that Jesus was the

30:11

Messiah the moment that he died on the cross, right? Whoops, we followed just another false Messiah.

30:17

Which, by the way, there were a lot of them floating around at the time. Second, apocalyptic

30:22

Jews were expecting all the dead to rise again on the last day, hence the term apocalyptic.

30:28

On the last day, at the very end, when the judgment comes, all were expected to rise again.

30:35

This explains Martha's response to Jesus when he said he would raise Lazarus from the dead. John 11, verse 23,

30:41

Jesus said to Martha, your brother will rise again. Martha said to him, I know that he will rise again, in the resurrection, on the last day.

30:50

Martha wasn't a Sadducee. She believed in the resurrection at the very end. That was the expectation of resurrection for apocalyptic

30:58

Jews, which explains, I think, part of Thomas' doubt, right? I'm sure he was looking around and hearing claims that Jesus was alive again and realizing, well, this isn't the end.

31:08

So Bass's claim that this is unexpected is likely from the apostles' perspectives.

31:14

But you got Ehrman going, oh, no, it's not unlikely at all. I call shenanigans on that one. The expectation of a

31:20

Messiah rising again from the dead. Tell me that. That isn't what generated the appearances.

31:30

Of course. They thought they saw Jesus afterwards. Of course, because he actually appeared to them. Then they concluded he was the

31:35

Messiah. But if he didn't appear to them like you believe... They weren't expecting the Messiah to rise. How did they... And they weren't expecting

31:42

Mary to appear. Okay, then how did they believe Jesus appeared to them? They saw him. Okay.

31:49

So what did they see? Well, how do we know? What do they see when they see Mary? You don't think they see

31:55

Mary. Well, that's what I'm saying. I think some of the evidence for the Mary is they saw something. Well, I think they saw something with Jesus, too, of course.

32:01

I've never argued against that. But that's the thing. It led them to say something that was completely unexpected. Yes. So I think it's compelling evidence that it actually is the raised

32:10

Jesus. Because you guys tend to the dozen here. Exactly. For the sake of the viewer or listener, I just want to be really clear on this point that you're making at this point,

32:18

Justin, because there's a lot of different points being thrown out here. But it's that you say that the idea of a resurrected

32:24

Messiah who had been crucified and resurrected was completely unexpected in that Jewish culture. And therefore, is what you're essentially saying it's unlikely they would have made something like that up.

32:35

There had to be some kind of experience that came behind that claim because it was such an unexpected claim.

32:41

Whereas, I think what I understand you saying appearances of the Virgin Mary, although they may not have been expected in that moment or whatever by the people experiencing them, there is a general expectation in Catholicism that that sort of thing happens and therefore it's not so hard to believe that it's been generated.

32:58

So where did they get the idea? I'd like to respond to that. I just wanted to make sure we got that really clear. I think it's a good clarification because I think that's absolutely right.

33:06

And I think it's what happened with the followers of Jesus as well. Okay, go on. They did not expect a

33:11

Messiah to be raised from the dead. There was no expectation that a Messiah was going to die and raise from the dead. So they didn't expect that.

33:17

The question is what happened to generate that belief? My view... According to Ehrman, what happened was

33:23

Peter, James, and Paul, and Mary had an experience of seeing Jesus alive again. Now, what is the best explanation for their experience of seeing

33:31

Jesus? That's where this conversation should have gone like in the first like five minutes because Ehrman began the conversation by agreeing that Peter, James, and Paul, and Mary had that experience of seeing the risen

33:43

Jesus. It's absolutely right that Peter probably, Mary probably,

33:49

Paul certainly I would say thought they saw Jesus alive afterwards. There's something happened to them to make them think that Jesus was alive.

33:57

It's not because they're expecting the Messiah to rise from the dead. No, it wasn't. What we don't know is who else had these experiences.

34:07

What we know is that there were claims that other people did after the first people claimed it.

34:13

Okay. And so, once you have a follower of Jesus like Peter say, I saw the

34:18

Lord. It's not implausible. In fact, others start saying, Oh, I saw him too.

34:26

So, that's not... So, it's the same thing with Mary. It's exactly the same thing. And so, my point is not that that proves that Mary was raised from the dead or anything.

34:35

My point is that if that's the kind of argument you want to make about Jesus, you can make it about other people that is just as possible.

34:44

So, this is Ehrman critiquing Bass here. And the critique isn't exactly correct, but it's not way off the mark either.

34:54

Ehrman is right in the way that he frames this. If you want to count numbers of witnesses, then let's talk about numbers of witnesses to other religions.

35:02

The problem is all of this is a huge deviation from where this conversation started, where this conversation should have stayed from the very beginning.

35:10

Because Ehrman agrees about Peter, James, Paul, and Mary. What is the best explanation for these folks talking about seeing the risen

35:16

Jesus? Particularly Paul, who was an enemy of Christians initially, and then completely flipped and became an outspoken

35:24

Christian. Why? Because he said he saw the risen Jesus. If we could just bring this conversation back to that, that would be awesome.

35:32

...issue here then, that you think that this claim that the Messiah had been raised was kind of a post -facto kind of...

35:39

Oh, yeah. ...sort of rationalization of these experiences they had. They thought he was the Messiah before he died, my judgment.

35:45

So they did think he was the Messiah. They weren't expecting him to die. Right. He died. One of them, two of them, three of them said,

35:53

I've seen the Lord. And then they had to figure out, well, how does that work? And it must mean, if he's alive again, it must mean that God's raised him from the dead.

36:05

But there were other... These are apocalyptic Jews. Apocalyptic Jews, the only way they can imagine life after death is an embodied existence.

36:14

They don't believe the soul lives on after death. These are Jews. Jews believe that the body and soul are one thing, and that afterlife, if there is an afterlife, it's body and soul.

36:23

So that if they see Jesus alive afterwards, it must mean that his soul has come back into his body.

36:29

How does that happen? It can only happen when God does it. God has raised him from the dead. Once they say they raised him from the dead, and they already knew he was the

36:37

Messiah, that's when they start saying the Messiah was raised. That's an interesting account of what potentially happened, except it leaves out key factors, like all of Jesus' claims to be

36:50

God, to self -identify as the Yahweh that appeared to Moses in the burning bush.

36:56

It leaves out Jesus' own claim to raise himself from the dead. John 2, verse 19 says,

37:01

Jesus answered them, destroy this sanctuary, and in three days, I will raise it up. The Jews then said, it took 46 years to build this sanctuary, and will you raise it up in three days?

37:13

But he was speaking about the sanctuary of his body. Now check this out. So when he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he said this, and they believed the scripture and the word which

37:24

Jesus had spoken. Ehrman is ignoring the testimony of the disciples themselves, if we're to take

37:30

John's accounting at face value. So it's not just that Jesus' disciples were trying to fit his resurrection into some kind of Judaistic framework, but they also recognized the claims that he was making about himself.

37:42

He is Yahweh. He forgives sins. This is Matthew 9, verse 6. But so that you may know that the

37:49

Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins, then he said to the paralytic, get up, pick up your bed, and go home.

37:57

Only God can forgive sins. Luke 5, verse 21 shows us the moment that the scribes and Pharisees flipped out over Jesus making this claim.

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Verse 21, the scribes and the Pharisees began to reason, saying, who is this who speaks blasphemies?

38:09

Who can forgive sins but God alone? Mark 2, verse 7 says the same thing.

38:16

So, once again, we have an historian who touts his role and his knowledge, but mysteriously leaves out key pieces that appear to undermine his arguments.

38:25

And you have to ask the question, why does he do that? Is this really an exercise in seeking truth, or is something else going on here?

38:33

Now, just in that last section, Bart, you were sort of obviously going at it with Justin there as to whether this constitutes evidence for a resurrection, or whether it's just a sort of post hoc rationalization by apocalyptic

38:45

Jews of the fact that they had some kind of an experience. Now, what do you say those experiences were?

38:50

They said it was of a physically resurrected Messiah. What do you say then they probably actually experienced from your perspective?

38:58

Once again, bear in mind that Ehrman disqualifies himself in his own writings to be someone who can actually answer this question.

39:07

Why? Because historians don't answer these questions. So, if he decides to answer the question, he'll do so no longer as a historian.

39:15

That is, if he wants to remain consistent with his own statements. So, let's see what happens. So, we have lots of records, of course, of people being seen after they're dead.

39:25

It happens, as I was saying earlier, just today it happens for one out of eight people they see something and they assume they think it's that person.

39:32

Or they hear, or they touch, they can feel them, all sorts of experiences like that. And throughout history, there have been all these thousands of appearances of Mother Mary.

39:41

And we have eyewitnesses to Romulus being raised from the dead. People saw him after he died. Apollonius of Tian.

39:47

We have, you know, we have all. So, in every instance, you do have to ask. Of course, the historian wants to know what really happened.

39:53

And in most cases, all you can do is come up with options. There's no way of knowing what they saw.

39:59

Partly because they don't tell us. In this case, we only have one person who actually said he saw

40:06

Jesus. And that's Paul. But he doesn't actually say what he saw. He says that God revealed his son to me.

40:13

And he says, I saw Jesus. But he doesn't give us any details. So, we don't know.

40:19

But it's quite easy to come up with a list of things that have led to that kind of claim over the centuries and still lead today.

40:25

Some people have a dream. They think that, you know, that they were awake when they saw it. So, I'll just repeat this again.

40:31

When you choose your words carefully to say, the only one who saw the risen

40:37

Jesus is Paul, you're misleading folks. With the actual historical evidence that is accepted by other scholars.

40:43

Paul says that Peter and James as well saw the risen Jesus. Peter was a contemporary of Paul.

40:50

He knew Paul. When it came time to write 1st and 2nd Peter, you think he would have clarified that Paul made a false claim about him seeing the risen

40:57

Jesus? You think that makes sense for Peter to do? But no. Instead, Peter says in 1st

41:03

Peter 1, we are born again because of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. You also have to think for a moment, where did

41:08

Paul get this idea that Peter saw the risen Jesus? Right? And it appears the answer is the oral tradition that came to Paul that he relayed through 1st

41:18

Corinthians chapter 15. Verse 3 says this, For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures that he was buried and that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures and that he appeared to Cephas that's

41:33

Peter then to the twelve after that he appeared to more than 500 brothers at one time most of whom remain until now but some have fallen asleep after that he appeared to James then to all the apostles and last of all as to one untimely born he appeared to me also.

41:50

So if you take Paul as being reliable enough to at least relay that he had an experience of seeing the risen

41:57

Jesus can we not also take Paul as being reliable enough to relay the oral tradition of the early church that Peter saw the risen

42:05

Jesus? So, no, it's not that only Paul said he saw Peter Ehrman accepts that Peter, James, Paul, and Mary said they saw the risen

42:13

Jesus. Some people have hallucinations some people see somebody who looks similar and they mistake him somebody sees something at a distance so what happened in the case of Peter or Paul we can't say just as we can't say for any of the others but you don't think they would just and there it is so I said at the outset of this video to watch

42:37

Ehrman because he'll only get so far and then he'll stop and draw a line in the sand and say well you can't say whether or not

42:45

Jesus rose again and there it is inventing it they had some kind of an experience some people think so but not the one that they claimed

42:52

I really don't think Paul was making things up I just don't I don't think he's lying about it he really thought he saw

42:57

Jesus and I'll just add you know Bart says this is happening all the time where does someone project an enemy apparition?

43:05

Oh, it happens sometimes if you feel guilty, for example if you feel guilty about what you've done to somebody give me an example well, if you read the psychological literature on visions you actually find a good bit of it anything specific?

43:17

well, they aren't names that you would they're just people I'm pretty sure not in the literature not in the literature no okay, well

43:24

I suggest you read it there is no projection of enemies in the literature Dale Allison would yeah, so what

43:31

I'd say is that some people have hypothesized that Paul felt very guilty or that Peter sorry

43:37

Peter felt very guilty about his denial of Jesus and that he started out you know so because of his guilt he saw something it's very common one of the most common reasons for seeing a bereaved loved one is because you felt like you mistreated them before they died and the guilt creates a and so but again, that doesn't guarantee so, interesting how

43:57

Bass asks for enemy attestation what he's asking about is the explanation for somebody like Paul seeing the risen

44:04

Jesus and Ehrman now starts talking about Peter did you notice that? what's that about?

44:10

saying an unbearable claim of resurrection of a messiah that was crucified he could have felt like he forgave him but does it mean he would have said that and not only that but I've never said it did and so that isn't my claim you said that what caused

44:24

Peter's claim? Peter did not he didn't claim Jesus rose from the dead? okay what

44:33

I've been saying is Peter did not claim that the messiah got raised from the dead the second he saw

44:39

Jesus what he thought was Jesus had come back to life he figured it out as an apocalyptic

44:45

Jew I'm going with your argument but Paul how does Paul imagine a crucified man rising from the dead that he hates that he thinks cursed by God appearing to him

44:57

I'm looking forward to that one okay, go ahead wow it's getting spicy which by the way while you are absolutely allowed to interrupt your interlocutor and ask specific questions that are advantageous for your position the bottom line is this isn't a debate though so when you do what is more typically accepted in a debate like in a regular discussion you come across as rude and Ehrman is definitely letting his non -verbals and some of his verbals express how his interlocutor is being rude so this isn't a great look from Bass I can even see

45:33

Justin Brierley getting a little uncomfortable there but here's the thing Bass is making some good points though so this is where you have to make a decision as someone in a context like this do you press hard you know or do you choose your moments this is definitely an art for sure so Paul did not get this information from Peter and James Paul was persecuting

45:56

Christians before he ever met Peter and James so he knows the Christian claims already there have been a lot of psychological analyses about what might have happened to somebody who feels guilt over what they're doing to these people that would generate a vision and to have a conversion as you probably know there are instances in which people who are enemies of Christ have visions in which they get converted and so Paul would be in that category okay just so we're clear according to Ehrman who cannot answer these questions as an historian

46:31

Peter and Paul felt guilty and so they coincidentally had experiences of a risen

46:37

Jesus these were not together these were on separate occasions and then coincidentally concluded the same exact thing which was not commensurate with apocalyptic expectation of Jews in the first century

46:51

Ehrman agreed with that by the way that was not the expectation so if they were both feeling guilty why did they have the same experience why did they both draw the same conclusion why not manifest their guilt in separate subjective ways right and why not draw different interpretive conclusions about their experience and then you gotta think too what is a more plausible explanation based on their similar experience and exact same conclusion that Jesus really did rise from the dead or that this was a coincidence or something

47:24

I suspect how you answer that question will come down to whether or not you accept the existence of miracles in the first place which is a presupposition folks smuggle into this conversation and it's almost always left unexamined but almost always explains folks resistance to the idea that Jesus really did rise from the dead that probably explains

47:43

Ehrman's resistance as well he presupposes that miracles cannot happen Sundar Singh by the way would be a great example of this this was an

47:51

Indian that became a great missionary he was burning bibles he was persecuting Christians in the early 1900s and ultimately he had a vision of Jesus and he was transformed like Paul but again that happened after the

48:02

Christian claim has already been made so did Paul that's my point it's exactly the same so you can't say that it doesn't happen to enemies because you just gave the example of an enemy where it happened so you think he understood the

48:14

Christian claim clearly as he was persecuted he understood that they were saying Jesus got raised from the dead absolutely what else was he persecuting and then he imagined on the

48:22

Damascus road I didn't say he imagined anything on the Damascus road what happened on the Damascus road

48:27

I just said that there are lots of options and we don't know because he doesn't tell us he said he saw the

48:32

Lord Jesus that's what he said he said he saw the Lord Jesus but what did he how did okay where did he see him when did he see him how did he see him how close was he did they talk did they spend a week together seeing him is good enough right he thought he saw

48:44

Jesus I've been saying that all along he thought he saw Jesus I'm not expecting I'm asking why you don't why you don't believe him why do you think

48:50

Paul's wrong why don't I think a person got raised from the dead yes oh why don't you think

48:56

Jesus got raised from the dead I don't think anybody got raised from the dead because it violates the laws of nature okay and there it is we have now discovered the reason why

49:07

Ehrman will never say that Jesus rose from the dead doesn't matter what kind of evidence lines up for it there can be no evidence that would actually lead to that conclusion and we also see now why

49:19

Ehrman couches his language in such a manner in order to provide as many problems as he can with the resurrection accounts from Peter, James, Paul, and Mary resurrections do not happen period end of story the end it's a violation of the laws of physics here is where the true clash lies ladies and gentlemen we've discovered the root under the ground it should be

49:40

Bass's job now to make Ehrman defend this claim that resurrections never happen if we want this conversation to proceed productively kind of a materialist fundamentalist view well let me ask this

49:50

I mean you think God raised Jesus from the dead right do you think God can break the laws of mathematics can

49:56

God God can't contradict himself no because he is exactly mathematics is his language that's right the other language he uses is physics can he break the laws of physics

50:07

I mean I think we're getting off no no we are not this is precisely you asked me why I don't believe well and the reason

50:13

I don't believe it is because it violates the laws of physics and I don't think God he can feed things into his system for sure

50:18

I don't think God can break the law of physics anymore than he can break the law of mathematics feeding things into his system to bring a dead person to life is not the same thing as making 2 plus 2 5 that's completely different things they are both laws that have never been broken in history except in the case of Jesus gosh oh man divine agency is not a law of physics this is understandable even on a human level if I hold this phone up in the air

50:44

I am not allowing the laws of physics to take its course right which law of physics am

50:50

I talking about the law of gravity if I let this phone go then of course the law of gravity will take its course but have

50:57

I violated the law of physics with my human agency no if the God of the Bible exists and he decides to intervene in the everyday lives of his people is he violating the law of physics to do so no in the same way that my agency does not allow for certain laws of physics to take its course on a particular object so should the divine agent act in the world as a matter of fact this is a this is a philosophical position that Ehrman has adopted he cannot scientifically disprove miracles as a matter of fact as a materialist he has no criteria to identify a miracle if they did actually exist why because he begins with the presupposition that they cannot happen doesn't sound very scientific of him does it so here's the question this is a very big no it's a very big question because what you're arguing is that the most probable event that happens with Jesus because Paul and Peter said it happened the most probable thing is the violation of a law of physics that has never been violated in 13 .8

51:55

billion years never except in this one instance now if you're a historian historians don't argue that something that happened only once in all of history is the most probable occurrence because somebody said it happened let me also point out that what

52:11

Ehrman is saying right now was the position of Hume Spinoza and others back in the day that miracles were violations of the laws of physics or the laws of nature but this definition is outdated and has been corrected by a number of folks

52:25

John Ehrman has a great book on this called Hume's Abject Failure miracles are not relegated to one definition they can be understood in ways that have nothing to do with the violation of the laws of physics even to say the word laws of physics is misleading these are not invaluable laws and the understanding of physics famously breaks down at the quantum level which should not force anyone into this rigid definition of miracles there's an incredible evidence the incredible evidence is that Paul said so not just that not just that we're just getting started what's interesting here for me

52:58

Bart though is that presumably on the face of it if you do believe that God would never if there is a

53:03

God let's say that that God would never break the laws of physics then on the face of it you could no amount of evidence could persuade you of a miraculous claim you've kind of decided that before you come no no what you'd have to do is you'd have to have evidence from physicists that these laws don't apply okay so you'd have to go to the physicist rather than the historian you certainly could prove it because physicists you go to the physicist for the evidence well if you're going to say that the laws of physics have been broken one time in the history of the human race then you need pretty good evidence and the evidence that somebody said they saw somebody but that's not the only evidence so here's how to argue like Bart Ehrman you frame the discussion around a definition of miracles that is advantageous to your position which many would not agree with Spinoza's or Hume's definition of miracles and I'm not even talking about Christians and then you use that definition as a basis for the rest of your argument are you keeping track?

53:57

I could talk about more but that's not the only evidence we were talking about the appearances and the appearances I think and you've said this and I've appreciated you've said this in How Jesus Became God you talk about how basically the evidence is consistent with if Jesus did rise from the dead and I appreciate that because you're saying if Jesus rose from the dead basically the evidence we have looks the same it would look the same so you don't believe he rose from the dead but the evidence does support the miracle let me put it like this do you agree with that?

54:24

let me no let me of course I don't well okay consistent with the miracle let me is it consistent with the miracle?

54:30

let me put it this way there is a famous Jewish holy man Baal Shem Tov who eyewitnesses have told us lived in the 18th century told us they can he could heal the sick he could cast out demons he could raise the dead we have eyewitness accounts of this and my suspicion is that you don't think it really happened because you'd be suspicious of those reports

54:54

I think the fact that nobody outside of Hasidic Jews think it happened is quite okay who outside of Christians think that Jesus was raised from the dead?

55:02

Pinchos Lapid he was a Jewish historian and scholar he wrote a book called The Resurrection of Jesus you should read it it's actually really good he actually was convinced by the evidence that Jesus rose from the dead uh huh right you should read it

55:14

I mean I guess okay I got it I got it I got it I got it we're back to the well what about other religious claims like the

55:21

LDS church okay got it by the way who besides Christians saw the risen Jesus? Paul right?

55:27

the basis of becoming a Christian though is seeing the risen Jesus so I mean it's just a weird way to say that oh my gosh this was a uh fascinating discussion

55:37

I think there's no doubt that in terms of debate Bart Ehrman handled himself much better than Justin Bass which is ironic because if you go beyond the rhetoric and get to the root of the issue

55:48

Ehrman's substantive issue with resurrection claims is his philosophical presupposition that miracles just don't happen guys right

55:54

Justin Bass did make some good moves against Ehrman particularly as he pointed out that Ehrman accepts that Peter, James, Paul, and Mary experienced what they believed was the risen

56:03

Jesus but then he really wanted to talk about appearances over time and focus on like the numbers of sightings or something he also didn't really challenge

56:12

Ehrman as well as I think he could have so I would say Ehrman dominated Bass throughout the conversation largely because Bass just didn't challenge him well enough uh those are my thoughts what do you think?

56:24

how did these two interlocutors do? how would you have responded to Ehrman? let me know in the comments below as always

56:30

I hope something here blessed you as you get out there and engage others for Jesus Christ I will take a break and return soon with more videos but in the meantime