Bart Ehrman's Unethical Business Model. The Way That Sabotages Academic Discourse And Causes Real Harm To Innocent People

  When I hear someone like Bart Ehrman say that Jesus of the Christian texts really existed 

and that this is a settled issue for all qualified scholars, ...

 I realize:

What Ehrman is really confessing is 
confessing about himself
(and accusing about his academic peers) is:

They have allowed themselves to become lazy, complacent, and dogmatic about that particular issue. 

As Dr Josh Bowen has gone on record to say, 
about adopting dogmatic, unchangeable (or "settled") positions regarding ancient history and texts, ...

[Note: He was not talking specifically about anything Ehrman said. 

Bowen, in that clip, was talking about why fundamentalism is incompatible with scholarship] 

[words in parenthesis are mine]
 
"Scholarship 
is always pushing beyond today's status quo;
probing,
challenging,
applying new data and new theory.

What I have been trying to show ... is that fundamentalist is incompatible with scholarship.

 Fundamentalism has already determined its conclusions. 

 It is not seeking,
because it already knows the answer. 

If it has good evidence on its side which supports the bible (or, of course, to support their view of something specific in/about the bible), it uses it.
 
If it has little data, 
it twists and interprets what it has, to support (their view of) the bible (anything in or regarding the bible).

If it has no evidence, it hypothesizes that such will eventually be found (or they'll imagine it already exists).

And, of course, no amount of contrary evidence is sufficient. 

Fundamentalism can never conclude that the bible is wrong.".
 [Although, that last sentence could be better phrased as:
  "Fundamentalism can never conclude that they are wrong about the bible;
either in general, or in regards to something (or someone) in it, or in regards to their interpretations."]

Bowen is talking about the STANDARD by which legitimate scholarship functions. 

So this applies to everyone 
regarding all scholarship. 
---

But not Ehrman;
not about this.

Someone would say he has ideological "fleas"; left over from his days as a religious fundamentalists.

However,
I think the problem runs deeper than that. 

After he de-converted from Christianity, 
he let go of that faith; 
but still had a fundamentalist brain. 

I think this was pretty obvious (at least to some of us) when we recently watched his interview on the "Holy Koolaid" podcast. 

See also this episode of "Godless Engineer", about how "Dr. Bart Ehrman Uses Fabricated Information To Prove Jesus Existed"

He never let go of the figure of a Jesus;
as being forever-real. 

Ehrman was able to let go of the miraculous assumptions that his religion had faith in. 
But he wasn't able to let go of "Jesus" entirely. 

I also recognize that Ehrman's use of language (on that issue) is very lacking in complexity and nuance.

It's so crude ... 

so over-simplified to say something like "that Jesus really existed", ...
 that it's factually wrong. 

--

The "Jesus" figure in the Christian stories 

had literal super powers.

He could walk on water, 

duplicate consumable biomatter, 

 control the weather, 

 raise people from death, 

and he could instantly heal most handicaps and *injuries 

(*but not all injuries; he wasn't able to reverse the effects of aging; for example.

Apparently, he also wasn't even interested in curing anyone of their religious fundamentalism).

Per the Christian texts, 

he was also the foretold Jewish messiah (despite not actually meeting the requirements of that messiah). 

The Hebrew religion was a man-made religion;

 dealing in plagiarism (yea. I went there),

superstition, 

false-history,

pseudoscience, 

and leveraging for predatory power over others. 

Christianity's entire premise of credibility and authority is predicated on the claim that the Hebrew religion was true;
that the entire body of Hebrews texts
 were perfect and true words ...
coming directly from "the one true God".

As most of you know, 
it's not.

They also claim that the Christian texts 
were built perfectly upon a correct understanding of the Hebrew religion.

As most of you know,
they weren't. 

So when someone says the biblical character "Jesus" existed as a real person:

they must either:
a.) immediately clarify a different meaning,
or
b.) they are automatically endorsing 
EVERYTHING which *DEFINES that character in those stories.
[ie.
* was the literal son of the one true God.
* Was the prophesied Hebrew messiah.
* Had all those magical powers.
* Died for the sins of all believers. 
* Was the 2nd Adam in a world where a 1st literal Adam-And-Eve existed and committed the "original sin"; causing many peaceful herbivores to magically transform into Carnivores, causing many harmless microorganisms to magically transform into harmful microorganisms, etc.]

So if they simply say "(that) Jesus existed",...
they're talking nonsense. 

Worse yet, 
it's dangerous nonsense.

Those story elements are all part of what DEFINES (that) "Jesus".

Whenever someone says "(that) Jesus existed",

they are saying something that is factually incorrect.

And if they ~know better~, then they're also being dishonest. 

-=-=-

Ehrman's business-model 

is laid upon the foundation of marketing to as many demographics as possible;
including Christian-religious fundamentalists. 

It would be an unprofitable business-move to stop selling weaponized sound-bites to fundies. 

But it would be a strong ethical move. 

So he had to choose between those two concerns. 

Bart knows EXACTLY what those fundamentalists  DO with those quotes. 

They use those quotes 
to:
* more effectively indoctrinate vulnerable minds, 
* more effectively hold on to minds they've already conquered, 
and to
* conquer even more. 

 "This Ehrman guy is a leading New Testament scholar.
He's not even a Christian; but even HE realizes our Jesus really existed".

That endorsement 
carries weight with a lot of people.

They then continue to USE all of their amassed  ~strength in numbers~ 
to more effectively leverage for political power and social privilege;
which they predictably continue to seriously harm countless people with.

They also hope (as a matter of "prophecy") will help them oversee the literal end of the world.  

It's insufficient 

for Ehrman to set aside ~other times~, to talk about how the miracle claims are ~probably not true~ or ~just not provable~. 

Meanwhile, ... 

Carrier and some other mythicists are fully qualified.

Ehrman's reasons for dismissing them (without even actually reading or understanding their position) is because of:
* his financial ~conflicts of interests~, 
* the unfortunate over-investment of his ego into the matter, 
* his own lazy biases, 
and
* Argumentum Ad Populum. 

 In fact, Carrier is actually more qualified than Ehrman; 
because Ehrman is not actually a historian. 

He's a textual critic.
There's some overlap with actual historians.
 But it's really not the same. 
----

Now, I happen to lean towards historicism. 

My reasons for thinking "some of the story elements probably were copied from a real person's life" ... 

are just different reasons than Ehrman's reasons. 

Notice how I'm also a lot more specific and careful about how I worded that. 

Notice, too, that:

 No one knows 

what the earliest versions of the gospel stories claimed. 

Chinese whispers ("The Telephone Game") does as much to radically replace mundane claims 

as magical claims. 

That can be seen in less than a minute, between friends. 

So, of course, that can be seen in far greater effect 

over the course of decades,
in a mostly-illiterate, heavily superstitious culture
... where:
* the earliest oral authors are unknown,
* the later written-version authors are unknown, 
and where
* the entire motivation for creating and spreading those stories was ~anything but honest~. 

The gospels aren't even independent sources for the rumors.

Neither is anything that came later. 

The gospels can't even agree about what happened.

Paul admits he wasn't even around when any of it happened. 

And even he doesn't agree with several crucial claims that were later written in the gospels. 

Meanwhile, ...

ANYTHING claimed 

only by people (thousands of years ago)

who were pushing a fantasy-religious, political,
 and (let's be honest) ... a mafia agenda
is automatically suspect.

Christianity is, at its core, 
a Racketeering Scheme.

If someone like that,
writing thousands of years ago,
wrote:
"Jim went to the market 

riding on a tornado he summoned from his butt". ...

it's not enough to say "He probably didn't ride to the market on a tornado summoned from his butt". 

 One must also admit to ~reasonable doubt~ that the writers really knew and saw a "Jim" who went to a market; 

UNLESS an independent source affirms 

"Jim",

and 

that Jim "went to a market", 

and
that they're talking about the same guy. 

 

We have nothing equivalent to that for "Jesus". 

The only (arguably) good reason I've found 

for thinking that a real person's life inspired the earliest stories:

 1. 

That character is profoundly mentally ill. 

Seriously.

The guy once got so angry at a fig tree for not bearing fruit ~out of season~ ... that cursed it to wither and die. 

The guy later heard a voice in his head telling him to kill himself. 
He argued with that voice and LOST. 

Arguably, that's not even the worst of it.

2. Those illnesses and dysfunctions are so "true to life" 

that it "rings true" in a way beyond the terrible writing skills of the unknown authors. 

So it ~seems to me~ that a real (and really messed up) person's tragic life is bleeding through the pages. 

If there's any other ~good reason~ to think it was based ENOUGH on a real person's life that the real person would even be able to RECOGNIZE their self in those stories, ...

 I sure haven't heard it. 
But even if someone produces that, 
it would still be dangerously unethical behavior 
to speak as Ehrman does. 

He is an arms dealer;

 fitting you with
weapons in the form of words.

He doesn't really care which side wins.

So long as the room keeps singing, that's just the business he's in.