Catholic journalist Ross Douthat and atheist historian Bart Ehrman went head-to-head on a recent New York Times podcast over whether the resurrection is credible. Andy Kind recommends the conversation as respectful and intelligent, but says it ultimately leaves the biggest questions unresolved
During Holy Week, Catholic journalist Ross Douthat hosted the historian Bart Ehrman on his New York Times podcast to discuss the question: Did Jesus Rise from the Dead?
Bart Ehrman has long been used as a kind of double agent in religious debates. For the atheist, he’s the former evangelical pastor and world-class Bible scholar who doesn’t believe in God. For the Christian apologist, he’s the renowned atheist who shuts down the idea that there was no historical Jesus.
If the Christian world is Argentina and atheism is the UK, Ehrman is the Falkland Islands.
Ehrman’s new book Love Thy Stranger makes the case that the Western idea of helping the stranger in need derives from the teachings of Jesus; that in Greek and Roman moral philosophy, offering aid to the outsider seemed counter-intuitive.
Ehrman is no soapbox evangelist for radical atheism
Jesus’ teachings “universalise the idea of love your neighbour” says Ehrman in the interview, going on to acknowledge that hospitals, orphanages and foodbanks are all, essentially, Christian innovations.
Historian Tom Holland has also made that point in his writings, and it must be quite annoying for staunch mythicists to know that they inherit so much from someone they believe never existed.
Sceptical of suffering
What makes Ehrman interesting is that while he says Jesus “certainly existed, as virtually every competent scholar of antiquity, Christian or non-Christian, agrees, based on certain and clear evidence”, he is not a Christian.
He is, however, very transparent about the reasons he no longer calls himself a Christian, and just as clear about the reasons he doesn’t have for unbelief.
His deconversion was not linked to his understanding of the Bible, but to the problem of suffering. “Any monotheistic religion has a problem with the existence of God given the state of suffering in the world”, he says.
Douhat makes the point here that the crucifixion of Jesus, while not removing suffering in the here and now, offers at least a poetic response to it.
Other commentators have described this as a ‘debate’ in which, depending on your viewpoint, Ehrman ‘schooled’ Douhat or, alternatively, Douhat easily found holes in Ehrman’s arguments.
Neither is true. This was a mutually respectful dialogue between two people with different areas of expertise.
Douhat is clearly very bright, but he’s no Bible scholar, and he backs off at points when he realises his mild attacks don’t yield enough hit points against Ehrman’s academic armour.
Christian scholars such as Peter J Williams and William Lane Craig have had much more successful engagements with Ehrman, but while Douhat has read a lot, Ehrman has studied deeply. There are levels to this.
Ehrman is paternal and (usually) gentle; bombastic without being acerbic. Certainly, he’s no soapbox evangelist for radical atheism. To quote the meme that is probably already wildly out of date, Bart’s just a chill guy. He doesn’t get overtly political, but there are some obvious side-eyes to the current state of America.
“If people claim to be followers of Jesus, they ought to follow his teachings. And his teachings are quite clear - that you should care for people who are not like you: the other,” he says at one point.
The moral message
Historians are sceptical by nature, because they’re dealing with sources that have to be evaluated. Historical scepticism, says Ehrman, is a tautology. He doesn’t think you can simply read the Gospels and conclude: “That’s what Jesus really said and did.” He illustrates this with contradictions between Mark 6:8, where Jesus tells his disciples to take a staff with them, and Matthew 10:10, where he forbids it.
Certainly, at least in this interview, we get a robust critique of biblical inerrancy at its most militant. “What’s the probability of Jesus walking on the water? There’s no way for us to use historical criteria to establish that it happened. Other explanations are far more likely.” That’s fair enough, although scholars such as Wes Huff would disagree.
If the Christian world is Argentina and atheism is the UK, Ehrman is the Falkland Islands
What we don’t get here - and, in fairness, Ehrman doesn’t try to give it - is the idea that disagreements within the Gospels render the whole of the New Testament untrue. Giving up strict inerrancy makes it possible to understand what each Gospel is trying to say, rather than trying to make them all say the same thing. Douthat makes the point that we might reasonably expect such contradictions if we’re genuinely getting these accounts from eyewitnesses.
What Ehrman has never managed to do is construct a better conclusion for the rapid growth of Christianity than the actual physical resurrection. The very idea of loving the enemy and outsider is surely given its greatest power by the fact that it was God himself who said it.
It is curious that Ehrman believes the very story that can’t be trusted historically is still the most beautiful moral message on earth - and one worth committing your life to. The amount of suffering in the world is certainly overwhelming. The idea that suffering will not ultimately win is something to invite hope, not skepticism.
