A debate between Bart Ehrman and Mike Licona at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary on February 28, 2008. Source The Debate Topic was: Can Historians Prove that Jesus Rose from the Dead? Licona argued "Yes" and Ehrman argued "No". I found out about this resource from Apologetics 315.
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Licona did a great job, especially given that he was loosing his voice. I think it takes a lot of courage to face the media darling of those who attack Christianity like Bart Ehrman. I've got to say that Ehrman's argument boiled down to the idea that Historians can't say for sure that Jesus was raised for the dead. He argues that Licona's three facts that show the Resurrection did happen.
1. Jesus was crucified.
2. People saw Jesus alive after the resurrection.
3. Paul's conversion because he saw Jesus after the resurrection.
Ehrman did his best to assert that History can't substantiate miracles because miracles are not probable. The problem is that history can't say that miracles have never happened. I think Ehrman dodged the question. He says that because history cannot prove miracles, it can say nothing about whether or not Jesus was resurrected from dead. He discounts the gospels as being reliable. He also does not believe that all 11 disciples were martyred. He did not have time to go into why he believes that. This explain why Ehrman rolled his eyes when James White said something about martyrs. I want to know why Ehrman has concluded that Jesus was not resurrected if he does not think history can say one way or another? I'd like to know why he thought that.
Ehrman tried to discount Licona's last 2 points by saying the disciples only saw Jesus because they really wanted to see him..alive...because they loved him so much. But Licona's right. They weren't expecting Jesus to show up. They thought their movement was over! And Paul...did Paul love Jesus before he saw Jesus? No Way! I think Licona won this.
I think another debate that would be useful to listen to on the resurrection can be found on two of my previous posts on William Lane Craig vs Bart Ehrman: video and audio.
Sorry for joining in late here, was looking for a different debate, stubled across this blog posting. Just wanted to highlight something though.
ReplyDeleteThe topic of the debate was, "Can Historians Prove that Jesus Rose from the Dead?"
You then stated, "I've got to say that Ehrman's argument boiled down to the idea that Historians can't say for sure that Jesus was raised for the dead."
That seems like he was arguing specifically about the debate topic. The point is that we have a lot of lack of evidence regarding this subject, and many more probably scenarios than resurrection. Historians can not *prove* that it happened. There's just not enough evidence to be reasonably certain about it, which is required by the definition of "prove."
I don't agree that the other scenarios are more probable than a physical Resurrection. You'd have to prove that.
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