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That Ehrman's atheism is insincere—what's this, atheist Inquisition? tgeorgescu (talk) 22:30, 20 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

... what? — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 12:10, 21 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@HandThatFeeds: There were several edits stating that Ehrman is an insincere atheist (fake atheist). tgeorgescu (talk) 12:35, 22 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, I missed those edits. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 15:06, 23 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I've actually wondered about this, I've heard Christian's proclaim how "even Atheists like Bart Ehrman believe Jesus was a real person in history"

Much as Atheists youtubers like to feature Ehrman, he is doing massive PR on why people should read the Gospels Czarnibog (talk) 13:32, 15 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Bart, if anything, is academically conservative. Most of his (non-text crit) positions are academic orthodoxy from the 1980s. [...] Virtually all of his positions were mainstream in the 1980s and have a substantial following today.

Does anyone know WP:RS to that extent? tgeorgescu (talk) 06:37, 25 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Joortje1: I'm saying this nicely: you're moving in the direction of WP:TE. tgeorgescu (talk) 13:30, 6 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Wow, that escalated quickly! This was after a single edit? StAnselm (talk) 16:00, 6 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@StAnselm: The editor had other problematic edits, but I tried not to meddle with those. tgeorgescu (talk) 13:06, 7 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the friendly warning, I’ll do my best to act more sensitive.

Sorry about the length of this reply. I took some time to think about the atmosphere surrounding the historicity of Jesus topic and whether I wanted to invest more time on improving the related pages, and I found a few points that I'd like to share here.

I suppose the warning has more to do with some of my comments on Talk: Historicity of Jesus than with actual edits, but it makes sense to judge them together. Granted, even in the heat of the moment I should have chosen more civil ways to express myself than using “credulous pigheaded individuals" for biblical scholars, and than comparing Ehrman to Trump.

Not that this can totally redeem me, and not to say that they started it, but I’d like to point out that these remarks were embedded within statements that were intended to clarify how I experienced their tone in the presented citations. To give examples that I believe are somewhat typical (there are many): Talk:Historicity of Jesus/FAQ#Quotes has a section in which Ehrman and several colleagues equate people who express doubts about the validity of HoJ arguments with holocaust-deniers. I strongly doubt that this is a proper scholarly comparison. I happen to live in a city that houses plenty of evidence and many reminders about the large-scale deportation of Jews, I have visited the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, I met a survivor, saw the tattooed number on his arm, and read his personal memoirs about the camp. So, both intellectually and emotionally, I feel quite shocked by the extremely contentious comparison (imagine how people feel who have personally suffered and are simply not impressed with the reasoning of historicists).

I am not a mythicist, but I do doubt the amount of weight given to purported evidence, and I do take issue with certain unscholarly qualities of the HoJ article and many of its citations, especially with the one-sided polarised tone, and the general lack of nuance and balance.

Since these talk pages should focus on improving articles, I’d like to suggest a source that can be used if anyone likes to address the tone of Ehrman and colleagues in the related articles. What I called pigheaded and Trumpian has been better described as unjustified disdain and unjustifiable confidence by Tom Dykstra in ‘’Ehrman and Brodie on Whether Jesus Existed: A Cautionary Tale about the State of Biblical Scholarship’’ (Journal of the Orthodox Center for the Advancement of Biblical Studies Vol. 8. No. 1 (2014) The Ehrman WP-page already contains the Daniel Wallace quote that Ehrman "overstates his case by assuming that his view is certainly correct", but Dykstra puts better words to it and places such problems in a wider context.

Dykstra's review is by far the best evaluation of the historicity topic that I've read, with plenty of references to sources, clear analysis, scholarly tone. Very WP:RS (a paper reviewing existing research, from an academic journal, relatively recent, author with History Ph.D). I recommend others to look into it and see if they can use it to improve related wikipedia pages (I'm not sure if I'd like to do it myself).

To elaborate on my reason for the contested edit on the Ehrman page: To me, the citation that I deleted immediately looked like somebody was trying too hard to counter criticism. This touches upon the concerns about promotionalism and especially the short shrift for critics that Ad Orientem expressed on this talk page. When I checked, the quote turned out to be part of the line “While his thinking is hardly original, as his positions are largely those embraced by mainstream skeptical scholarship, he is a gifted communicator with the ability to present complex positions in a lay-friendly manner,” from a piece entitled "Fish Tales: Bart Ehrman's Red Herrings and the Resurrection of Jesus". The point of mentioning consensus is unoriginality, but in the wikipedia article this was used as defence against criticism on Ehrman’s depiction of scholarly consensus. (Also note that Licona features twice in the list of holocaust-comparisons and may thus be one of those biblical scholars who tend to exaggerate when trying to make a certain point). It looks a bit out of context WP:RSCONTEXT and close to WP: SYNTH. Although less specific than the reddit claim, this citation seems better suited to address the “Academically conservative” topic above this one. Or check the Wallace quote "Misquoting Jesus for the most part is simply NT textual criticism 101". Joortje1 (talk) 18:47, 9 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Ehrman is "Mr. Academic Consensus". So, of course, if the academic consensus is wrong, he is also wrong. But that's a truism. tgeorgescu (talk) 20:51, 9 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

To which of the mentioned sources are you refering, and to what statement? I'm afraid I have much difficulty understanding your point. Does it have anything to do with improving wikipedia articles? WP:TALK#TOPIC Joortje1 (talk) 12:58, 10 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

None of what you posted really has anything to do with improving the article. Your personal experiences don't help us. Make a clear, concise suggestion for improving the article (with sourcing), or else we can drop this. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 13:56, 10 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Some of this could probably have been addressed at better places (my user talk page, for instance). However, I did reply to something stated here, which was a reaction to my edit on the article. My comment did clarify why I think the edit was an improvement, in that process it did suggest 2 sources the user seemed to ask for (granted, in another post), it did suggest to use 1 additional source that I think is more important, and why. Once again, sorry for its length (I'll work on discussing in a more concise manner). Joortje1 (talk) 14:59, 10 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The Biography seems to be a bit illogically laid out with details about his education under the 'Early life' heading and details about his religious views changing over time under a 'Career' heading. This means that the article refers to him getting his PhD at 30 as a part of his early life, while him being a teenage evangelical as a part of his career. I suppose I could have a crack at rearranging some of this information so that it makes more sense, unless someone more experienced and knowledgeable than me has something to add. Binomialtie7088 (talk) 09:32, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]