Tuesday, June 21, 2011

William Lane Craig and Bart Ehrman resurrection debate transcript and audio

Recently, a friend and I watched the debate on the resurrection of Jesus between William Lane Craig and Bart D. Ehrman. I am familiar with the Christian side of the argument, so I was hoping to hear a good rebuttal to those arguments and understand why the skeptic wouldn't find the conclusion to the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus to be convincing. I didn't find any of that in this debate.

The debate is interesting because Bart didn't take the route I've heard skeptics take before, e.g., the eyewitnesses were hallucinating, instead he merely said that historians cannot have theological conclusions based on historical evidence. Even before Craig rebutted Bart's "point," I found his statement to be fallacious. Why? I found it fallacious because even though I'm not a historian, I can still draw the conclusion God raised Jesus from the dead based on the historical evidence for that conclusion; it simply doesn't follow that a historian cannot make that conclusion. Can one say it's historical? Not really, but you can make a conclusion based on the historical evidence that points to such a conclusion. Bart didn't make a good case in this debate. He was also overly emotional and would yell in attempt to make a "stronger" case, which only made me yawn. If one is going to yell in a debate, then all that shows me is the speaker knows his argument is weak so he has to beef it up with yelling and rhetoric.

The good thing about the debate is it shows how strong the case for the resurrection of Jesus is. I'm not into knock-down debates because I know there isn't going to be a good exchange of ideas (those are the debates I like), but if you aren't familiar with the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus, I suggest reading or listening to this debate. 

You can find the transcript and audio by clicking here.

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