Lon, everything you said in the post above is completely unrelated to the point I made.
I thought you said his degrees impressed you?
We were not discussing your credentials or aspirations.
Not mine, just his? :think:
You made a false claim, I called you out on it. You should have just admitted you misspoke.
:nono: you misread. I said "...thinks he is a scholar...." See, he's not anymore. At least not in Christian circles. We are sad, but he cut his influence with us. Its gone.
You said Ehrman was not a scholar, and you were wrong. I’m not offended, people make mistakes. But a wise man will acknowledge his own. FWIW.
Are you a wise man? I said "...thinks he is a scholar...." Did you want it to read '...knows he is a scholar..?" When Ehrman has denied the faith, he is no longer a reputable scholar. He isn't the first or last sad guy that went off the deep end, but he's no longer reputable among us. My next sentence after the quote however, was:
:nono: He 'thinks' he's a scholar...didn't hear much but ... opinions."
Then:
He was this smart guy who was able to read the languages, and then he started missing the easy stuff. He literally asks questions and says things, that are answered in the Bible and he seems completely oblivious to having read them.
See, I recognize the guy knows language, but he certainly is going beyond his degree. All of us who have Koine Greek get a New Testament with all variants listed. We are all quite aware of what is different. Guess how many of us 'scholars' who are apparently no match for Ehrman, have denied the faith? Guess how many of us were ever convinced, by our translation studies, that the scriptures didn't represent what Jesus or the Apostles said? You guessed right, just Ehrman (and few others who, like me, aren't well known). The rest of us can read those variants any time in our Greek NT and we do. None of us agree with Ehrman (neither did Metzger, his mentor).
ONLY those who deny the faith go this direction. Pay attention: They FIRST reject, THEN go this direction. The rest of us, reading and studying the same stuff, whether we ever publish or not, recognize the difference and yet NEVER question that the copies are very comfortably close to one another in such a way that I've incredible confidence. Further, it is such a weird - odd, CRAZY notion that anyone but the original Apostles and those with them wrote these books. They aren't 'made up' nor remotely have that vibe (evidence) about them. It'd have been better to have said "Ehrman still thinks he's a scholar..." with qualifications about that. He's in a secular college and is qualified for a secular education. He isn't qualified to speak in any evangelical or orthodox university other than as one against what they hold as true and only for that purpose. If you understand this, you won't be bothered by my previous statement. He is no longer qualified to be a spokesman for the Christian community any longer. That means his scholarship is only noteworthy among people who happen to agree with him and aren't Christians themselves. He laughed, as I said, about the qualifications of being a Christian, but again, God says plainly what that is: one whom He knows. That's it. Paul gave signs of how we can tell if one is behaving as a Christian, and you can certainly tell if someone knows Christ portrayed in scripture, but the mark of a Christian is simply who Christ has a hold of. There are people who will say to Him: "Lord Lord" that He says do not know Him. Therefore, it must always come down to "does He know you?" It has to.
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