The “Historical Nonsense” of Early Pluralistic Christianities (Carson)

 This is very much worth reading: ...During the last decade and a half a number of writers with media savvy have unleashed books and articles to support the view that originally Christianity was pluralistic in content and largely tolerant (in the new sense!) in attitude. There was no agreed orthodoxy, but highly diverse theological syntheses. …

Inspiration, Criticism, and Fallacious Understanding

Modern critics of Scripture argue that since we only have copies of the words God inspired, we don’t have God’s actual and inspired word.  Bart Ehrman said it like this: “If God really wanted people to have his actual words, surely he would have miraculously preserved those words, just as he had miraculously inspired them …

The Persuasive Language of Bible Critics

This is one outstanding book: Truth Matters by A. Kostenberger, D. Bock, and J. Chatraw.  It is basically an explanation of the current attacks on Scripture (by professors and authors such as Bart Ehrman) and a reasonable, biblical answer to these attacks.  While it is aimed at college students, I’m sure all Christians can benefit …

Ehrman’s Unhistorical Standard

Bart Ehrman argues that since there is much diversity in early religious texts, no version of Christianity is the right one (so he talks about “lost Christianities”).  Michael Kruger and Andreas Kostenberger counter Ehrman’s logic quite well in The Heresy of Orthodoxy.  Here’s one section of this book that tackles Ehrman’s (over)emphasis on diversity. “In …

A Closed Canon

   In 1934, Walter Bauer argued that there was no clear line between heresy and orthodoxy in the early church, but since the orthodox were stronger, their views eventually prevailed in what we now call the New Testament (a sort of survival of the fittest).  Bart Ehrman has taken this thesis and run with it.  …