Tuesday, June 06, 2006

William Lane Craig vs. Bart Ehrman

These two heavyweights engaged in a debate on the resurrection of Jesus at Holy Cross College in Worcester, Massachusetts. Here is a transcript of the debate (38-page PDF file).

1 comment:

Jim Pemberton said...

Whew! What a read. As a debate tactic, I notice that Dr. Craig never answered Dr. Ehrman's assertions that the Greek NT is unreliable. Instead, he held his ground that the resurrection was plausible, and therefore the most possible, over and against Dr. Ehrman's presupposition against it. Dr. Craig drew Dr. Ehrman into an area where it was apparent that he was blind to his own presuppositions.

As for the plausibility of miracles, I offer the one from Mark 8 where Jesus healed the blind man. The man then couldn't see properly and Jesus had to go back and try again and got it right the second time around. Modern medicine has uncovered what appears to be a hidden message in this. Not until recently have we had the ability to cure some types of blindness that affects the eyes. Doctors have discovered a need for people's brains to learn how to process visual information. When eyes that have never seen before begin to see, images appear distorted. How could Jesus have gotten it wrong on the first try unless He intended to hea only the blind man's eyes to begin with and then miraculously wired his visual cortex to understand the information it had never gotten before from the eyes. What other purpose could He have had unless He knew we would be able to discover it 2000 years later. I wonder what Dr. Ehrman's explanation for this passage is.