The worst argument against the existence of a miracle ever

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Bart Ehrman is worth listening to. (I only have a set of audio lectures of his; he may be worth reading as well!) However, he put forward what must be the worst argument I have ever seen against the existence of a miracle.

He was discussing the idea of the virgin birth, and he dismissed it by saying, "We know for a fact that women who haven't had sex don't have babies."

Yes, in the normal course of events they do not. That is why, if such a thing ever happened, it would be termed… miraculous.

Comments

  1. Ken B10:10 PM

    I have read a lot of Ehrman on miracles and you are misrepresenting him. He argues that no historian can conclude a miracle happened, but does not ever deny miracles have happened. He denies a historian can prove one happened is all.
    But why bother to point this out? You ignore correction.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. gcallah10:29 PM

      Ken, I have a CD course where he says what I say he said. So, he didn't say it in a book you read. So what? You never listened to the CD course, did you? You have no idea what he said in it, do you? You are just mad the I have dissed your AI cult, and so you are trying to piss on my blog.

      How about this? I will pay for the CD transcript, if when the transcript shows he said just what I said he did, you pay me four times the cost of the transcript? And if I can't find the quote, I will pay you three times the cost of the transcript. Bet?

      Delete
    2. Ken B4:14 PM

      Not clear why I should give you odds, but let's discuss conditions first.

      1. He said those exact words.
      2. He said them as a complete sentence.
      3. He said them as a statement of his own position, and not as the statement of an argument that others did or might make.
      4. He definitively asserts on the tape that the virgin birth did not occur.
      5. He does not assert on the tape the position I attribute to him, viz that miracles might happen but cannot be proven by historians.

      I on the other hand will write him and ask him.

      Delete
    3. gcallah10:15 PM

      I would pay for the transcript. SO I would have paid four times its cost as well.

      "He said those exact words."

      I am quoting his argument from memory. So, you've chickened out, I take it, since this requirement allows you to win if I had the word "a" where he had "the."

      I figured as much.

      Delete
  2. Prateek6:00 AM

    Not relevant to your post, but Bart Ehrman is one of the most fascinating writers on the New Testament I have read.

    He once invited controversy, because one of his books supposedly seem to attack Christian doctrines. He had to explain that he was not explaining what he believed, but was trying to explain to the public what the general consensus among New Testament scholars is - and many of those scholars are Christians!

    If he were to explain his own views, they are still quite a bit more radical! And yet shockingly well argued. After reading his works, it seems surprisingly convincing to read the Epistles and Gospels again and realize that Jesus was prophesising a very imminent apocalypse in his own time and that the kingdom of heaven was meant to refer to a very real political kingdom on earth.

    ReplyDelete

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