Since we linked to it in yesterday’s post, we thought we would mention a little bit more about it today. Dr. Ehrman does claim that he donates all the proceeds to different charities and we have no reason to doubt him on that.
He may be making a one-man crusade against suffering because he may feel God is not doing his job. But we have talked about the issue of suffering in other articles. If you want a really good sermon on suffering, then listen to this sermon by John Macarthur.
Here is an excerpt from Dr. Ehrman’s blog that describes why it exists:
- The first is to disseminate scholarly knowledge of the New Testament and the earliest periods of the Christian church to a non-scholarly audience, to normal people instead of abnormal scholars. Every post is rooted in scholarship – not just my own but that of thousands of scholars who have worked for centuries on understanding the historical Jesus, the New Testament, and the origins of Christianity. Even today there are thousands who work in this field, who have devoted their lives to scholarship, who know what other scholars around the world have said based on their analyses, and who have the requisite training to do the analysis themselves, for example, by reading the requisite ancient languages (all established New Testament scholars can read ancient Greek; most can read several other ancient tongues: Hebrew, Latin, Coptic, Syriac, Aramaic, and … and well, even some most people have never heard of).The problem is that many of the most brilliant scholars on the planet are not skilled or capable of communicating their knowledge with non-scholars. That’s where this blog comes in. I not only do research in the field, but I also work hard at making it accessible to the non-scholar. Read some of the blog posts and you’ll see.
- The second goal of the blog is to raise money for charity. For me, this is what keeps me going, the major raison d’être for the blog. We do charge a membership fee. But it is not much, and every penny of it goes to charities helping those in desperate need. So when you join the blog, you not only benefit yourself by increasing your knowledge and understanding of the important topics we cover, you also help others in doing so.
Then if you do not know anything about the man himself, here is an excerpt from his other website:
Bart D. Ehrman is the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He began his teaching career at Rutgers University, and joined the faculty in the Department of Religious Studies at UNC in 1988, where he has served as both the Director of Graduate Studies and the Chair of the Department.
Professor Ehrman completed his M.Div. and Ph.D. degrees at Princeton Seminary, where his 1985 doctoral dissertation was awarded magna cum laude. An expert on the New Testament and the history of Early Christianity, has written or edited thirty books, numerous scholarly articles, and dozens of book reviews.
In addition to works of scholarship, Professor Ehrman has written several textbooks for undergraduate students and trade books for general audiences. Six of his books have been on the New York Times Bestseller list: Misquoting Jesus; God’s Problem; Jesus Interrupted; Forged; and How Jesus Became God. His books have been translated into twenty-seven languages.
The reason we bring this topic to your attention is because of a couple spiritual points. Dr. Ehrman and anyone like him, bring a different gospel than the one Jesus and the apostles brought. His words may sound good to many people and even to you but his words are not true and they do not come from God.
He is, like many others like him, a false teacher. Yes, we can expose him and others like him because the scriptures tell us to warn the flock of those who are dangerous to their faith:
Ephesians 5:11 Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them.
Peter warned us about false teachers and his words are found in his 2nd epistle. Many ‘scholars’ claims that Peter did not write this epistle but we think they took this view because Peter is warning the faithful of these false teachers. peter said:
But false prophets also appeared among the people, just as there will also be false teachers among you, who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves. 2 Many will follow their indecent behavior, and because of them the way of the truth will be maligned; 3 and in their greed they will exploit you with false words; their judgment from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep. (2 Peter 2:1-3)
We know verse 2 is true as the owner of the BG website has done just that. He has followed after Dr. Ehrman’s teaching and now maligns the way of truth. There are other passages of scriptures that warn us of those who bring another gospel.
1 Timothy 1:18-20 Timothy, my child, I am instructing you in keeping with the prophecies made earlier about you, so that by following them you may continue to fight the good fight with faith and a good conscience. By ignoring their consciences, some people have destroyed their faith like a wrecked ship. These include Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I handed over to Satan so that they may learn not to blaspheme.
1 Timothy 1:3-4 When I left for Macedonia, I urged you to stay there in Ephesus and stop those whose teaching is contrary to the truth. Don’t let them waste their time in endless discussion of myths and spiritual pedigrees. These things only lead to meaningless speculations, which don’t help people live a life of faith in God
Matthew 7:15-17 “Beware of false prophets who come disguised as harmless sheep but are really vicious wolves. You can identify them by their fruit, that is, by the way they act. Can you pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? A good tree produces good fruit, and a bad tree produces bad fruit.
Isaiah 8:20 Look to God’s instructions and teachings! People who contradict his word are completely in the dark.
2 Timothy 4:3-4 A time will come when people will not listen to accurate teachings. Instead, they will follow their own desires and surround themselves with teachers who tell them what they want to hear. People will refuse to listen to the truth and turn to myths.
There are others but many verses do not include the words false teachers and use different terms to warn the believer of who to watch out for. We should not be giving these people a place in our churches or academic institutions.
As we pointed out with the book The Battle for the Bible, many seminaries and Bible colleges have ignored biblical teaching and let false teachers ruin many of their congregants and students.
Over the years, we have spoken out about Dr. Ehrman’s false teaching. We have several articles dealing with his books, etc. Here are some links to those articles so you can read up on Dr. Ehrman and his false teaching. What we said about him applies to other false teachers as well.
Back in 2010 Bart Ehrman recorded a lecture series for the Biblical Archaeology Society entitled, God, The Bible & Human Suffering. In this series there are 4 lectures on human suffering and God and time, space and my readers’ attention spans do not permit a detailed analysis of his lectures, so we will only hit a couple of main points. We only actually need to use a couple of points for the issue of suffering does not need 4 hour long lectures to explore why it takes place.
Dr. Bart Ehrman is well-known for his campaign for forgery in the Bible. We take it seriously enough to devote our 9th issue to the problem of Dr. Ehrman’s accusations. Dr. Ehrman has written several books on the topic of forgery in the Bible and ancient world and while we were rebutting them, God led us to an interesting discrepancy in his arguments.
Both Dr. Ehrman and Dr. William Dever champion the idea that the ancient world was illiterate. Dr. Dever in his lecture series, How Archaeology Illuminates the Bible, makes his stand very clear that the ancient world was not literate at all. Dr. Ehrman in his book Forged says the following:
#3. Why Is There Suffering In The World?
Bart Ehrman is well-known for stating that his main reason for leaving the faith is because of the amount of suffering in the world. In fact he joined the blogging world using suffering as his excuse and decided to charge people to view his thoughts with the money going to charities of his choice.
#4. Taking Your Eyes Off God-2/ This is actually the first in a 4-part series and we will link to the other parts after the quote.
I have also started reading Bart Ehrman’s book Forged and I have pointed out in other posts where scholars go astray in their faith. Bart Ehrman is no different he let his eyes get off God and onto humans or human thinking and no spends his time attacking the God and Bible he once loved.
Here is where he went wrong, but first I should mention that Ehrman has also said that it was the suffering of the people of the world that made him lose his faith. You can never be sure what the correct story is with Dr. Ehrman and in either case, he still took his eyes off God and lost sight of the answers.
Early in this blog’s history, we used to mention and address many false teachers who like to claim they are Christian yet also bring another gospel. Their names are Mcgrath, Watts, West, Enns, and many others.
You have to watch out because these false teachers sound good and use the right words most of the time. You have to be sharp and have God helping you to spot their erroneous teaching, in many cases.
The trick is to get them out of the academic institutions as they are training the Church’s future pastors.
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