This is the final post in a series of useful quotes for Christians from Dr. Bart Ehrman’s book Did Jesus Exist? The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth (New York, NY: HarperCollins, 2012).  Posting these quotations is not an endorsement of Dr. Ehrman in general or even of this book in particular, but these quotations are, in my view, indubitably very useful.  Biblically faithful scholarship on the Old and New Testament’s inspiration and composition in history can be found here for the Old Testament and here for the New Testament; note the series of classes on the Old Testament and archaeology on YouTube here as well.

Ehrman on the mythicist argument that all
the gospel accounts are simply one source, Mark, because of (alleged) literary
dependence—the argument invalid even from a theologically liberal bent:

Some
mythicists . . . have taken . . . [the] thought among New Testament scholars
that both Matthew and Luke had access to the Gospel of Mark and used it for
many of their stories of Jesus . . . to a faulty end to argue that all of our
Gospel accounts (even John, which has very little  to do with Mark) ultimately go back to Mark
so that we have only one source, not multiple sources, of the life of
Jesus.  Nothing could be further from the
truth. . . . significant portions of both . . . Matthew and Luke . . . are not
related in any way to Mark’s accounts. . . . Matthew and Luke record extensive,
independent traditions about Jesus’s life, teachings, and death. . . . and so
by the year 80 or 85 [the incorrect and false late theologically liberal date
for the period of time Matthew and Luke were written; Matthew was probably
actually written c. A. D. 40, and Luke c. A. D. 55] we have at least three
independent accounts of Jesus’ life . . . all within a generation or so of
Jesus himself. . . . But that is not all. 
There are still other independent Gospels. . . . The Gospel of John . .
. does not appear to have received his accounts from any or all of [the
Synoptic Gospels] . . . so within the first century we have four independent
accounts of Jesus’s life and death. . . . [T]he famous Gospel of Thomas . . .
from the early second century, say 110-120 CE . . . is independent . . . not
derive[d] from the canonical texts.  To
that extent it is a fifth independent witness to the life and teachings of
Jesus. . . . The same can be said of the Gospel of Peter . . . an independent
narrative . . . of Jesus’s trial, death, and resurrection . . . a sixth
independent Gospel account of Jesus’s life and death. . . . Another independent
account occurs in . . .  Papyrus Egerton
2. . . . a seventh independent account. . . . [I]f we restrict ourselves . . .
to a hundred years after the traditional date of Jesus’s death, we have at
least seven independent accounts, some of them quite extensive.  (It is important to recall:  even if some of these sources are dependent
on one another in some passages—for example, Matthew and Luke on Mark—they are completely
independent in others, and to that extent they are independent witnesses.)  And so it is quite wrong to argue that Mark
is our only independent witness to Jesus as a historical person.  The other six accounts are either completely
or partially independent as well.  For a
historian these provide a wealth of materials to work with, quite unusual for
accounts of anyone, literally anyone, in the ancient world.  And that is not nearly all. . . . [O]ur
surviving accounts . . . were based on earlier written sources that no longer
survive . . . Luke . . . knew of “many” earlier authors who had compiled
narratives about the subject matter that he . . . narrate[s], the life of
Jesus. . . . When dealing only with Matthew, Mark, and Luke . . . [w]e are
talking about at least four sources:  
Mark, Q, M, and L, the latter two of which could easily have represented
. . . many other written sources. . . . The most . . . authoritative . . .
commentary on Mark . . . contends that Mark used . . . sources . . . even our
earliest surviving Gospel was based on multiple sources. . . . The Gospel of
John too is widely thought to have been based on written sources . . .
[S]cholars have mounted strenuous arguments that . . . the Gospel of Peter
[and] the Gospel of Thomas . . . go back to written sources[.] . . .

            All of these written sources I have
mentioned are earlier than the surviving Gospels;  they all corroborate many of the key things
said of Jesus in the Gospels; and most important they are all independent of
one another. . . . We cannot think of the early Christian Gospels as going back
to a solitary source that “invented” the idea that there was a man Jesus.  The view that Jesus existed is found in
multiple independent sources that must have been circulating throughout various
regions of the Roman Empire[.] . . . Where would the solitary source that
“invented” Jesus be?  Within a couple of
decades of the traditional date of his death, we have numerous accounts of his
life found in a broad geographical span. 
In addition to Mark, we have Q, M (which is possibly made of multiple
sources), L (also possibly multiple sources), two or more passion narratives, a
sign source, two discourse sources, the kernel . . . behind the Gospel of
Thomas, and possibly others.  And these
are just the ones we know about. . . . Luke says that there were “many” of them
. . . he may well have been right.  And
once again, this is not the end of the story. . . . Form Criticism . . .
[indicates that] there were stories being told about Jesus for a very long time
not just before our surviving Gospels but even before their sources had been
produced. . . . Anyone who thinks that Jesus existed has no problem answering
the question . . . [“H]ow far back do these traditions go?[”] . . . [T]hey
ultimately go back to things Jesus said and did while he was engaged in his
public ministry[.] . . . But even anyone who just wonders if Jesus existed has
to assume that there were stories being told about him in the 30s and 40s. For
one thing, . . . how else would someone like Paul have known to persecute the
Christians, if Christians didn’t exist? 
And how could they exist if they didn’t know anything about Jesus?^[1]

Ehrman on multiple lines of evidence for
Jesus existing:

[I]t
should be clear that historians do not need to rely on only one source (say,
the Gospel of Mark) for knowing whether or not the historical Jesus
existed.  He is attested clearly by Paul,
independently of the Gospels, and in many other sources as well:  the speeches in Acts, which contain material
that predate Paul’s letters, and later in Hebrews, 1 and 2 Peter, Jude,
Revelation, Papias, Ignatius, and 1 Clement. 
These are ten witnesses that can be added to our seven independent
Gospels (either entirely or partially independent), giving us a great variety
of sources that broadly corroborate many of the reports about Jesus without
evidence of collaboration.  And this is
not counting all of the oral traditions that were in circulation even before
these surviving written accounts. 
Moreover, the information about Jesus known to Paul appears to go back
to the early 30s of the Common Era, as arguably does some of the material in
the book of Acts.  The information about
Jesus in these sources corroborates as well aspects of the Gospel traditions,
some of which can be dated to the 30s, to Aramaic-speaking Palestine.  Together all of these sources combine to make
a powerful argument that Jesus was not simply invented but that he existed as a
historical person in Palestine.[2]

The value of Paul’s testimony to Jesus
existing:

Paul
was personally acquainted with Jesus’s closest disciple, Peter, and Jesus’s own
brother, James. . . . We have several traditions that Jesus actually had
brothers (it is independently affirmed in Mark, John, Paul, and Josephus).  In multiple independent sources one of these
brothers is named James.  So too Paul
speaks of James as his lord’s brother. 
Surely the most obvious, straightforward, and compelling interpretation
is the one held by every scholar of Galatians that, as far as I know, walks the
planet.  Paul is referring to Jesus’s own
brother. . . . [I]n the letter to the Galatians Paul states as clearly as
possible that he knew Jesus’s brother. 
Can we get any closer to an eyewitness report than this?  . . . Paul came to know James around 35-36
CE, just a few years after the traditional date of Jesus’s death. . . . Surely
James, his own brother, would know if he lived. . . . The fact that Paul knew
Jesus’s closest disciple and his own brother throws a real monkey wrench into
the mythicist view that Jesus never lived.[3]

Mythicists claim falseley that Nazareth did
not exist in Christ’s day:

One
supposedly legendary feature of the Gospels . . . is in fact one of the more
common claims found in the writings of the mythicists.  It is that the alleged hometown of Jesus,
Nazareth, in fact did not exist but is itself a myth[.] . . . Many compelling
pieces of archaeological evidence indicate that in fact Nazareth did exist in
Jesus’s day[.] . . . For one thing, archaeologists have excavated a farm
connected with the village, and it dates to the time of Jesus. . . . [A]nother
discovery . . . in ancient Nazareth . . . is a house that dates to the days of
Jesus. . . . Nazareth was an out-of-the-way hamlet of around 50 houses on a patch
of four acres . . . populated by Jews of modest means. . . . No wonder this
place is never mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, Josephus, or the Talmud.  It was far too small, poor, and
insignificant.  Most people had never heard
of it, and those who had heard didn’t care. 
Even though it existed, it is not the place someone would make up as the
hometown of the messiah.  Jesus really
came from there, as attested in multiple sources.[4] 

Miscellaneous statements of value from such
a prominent theological skeptic and liberal:

The
alleged “Q” document does not exist today: 
“Q . . . is a document that no longer survives, but [only] appears to
have once existed [to theological liberals, at least].^[5]

So
far as I know there are no longer any form critics among us who agree with the
precise formulations of Schmidt, Dibelius, and Bultmann, the pioneers in this
field.^[6]

Apollonius
of Tyana . . . [was] a historical person, a Pythagorean philosopher who lived
some fifty years after Jesus.[7]

Jesus
is the most important person in the history of the West, looked at from a
historical, social, or cultural perspective, quite apart from his religious
significance.  And so of course the
earliest sources of information we have about him, the New Testament Gospels,
are supremely important.  And not just
the Gospels, but all the books of the New Testament.^[8]

Daniel
9 . . . [relates] in precise detail what will happen to the people of Jerusalem
over the course of “seventy weeks” . . . [t]he weeks are interpreted within the
text itself to mean seventy “weeks of years”—that is, one week represents seven
years.[9]

[T]he
Old Testament prophet Micah said the savior would come from Bethlehem . . .
Micah 5:2[.][10]

It
is true that we have far more manuscripts for the books of the New Testament
than for Homer, Plato, Aristotle, Euripides, Cicero, Marcus Aurelius—name your
ancient author. . . . [T]he Gospels are among the best attested books from the ancient
world[.] . . . [W]e have thousands of manuscripts . . . we are . . . not . . .
lacking manuscripts. . . . If we had no clue what was originally in the
writings of Paul or in the Gospels, [an] objection . . . [based on] . . .
numbers of variations [in NT manuscripts] . . . might carry more weight.  But there is not a textual critic on the
planet who thinks this, since not a shred of evidence leads in this direction.
. . . [I]n the vast majority of cases, the wording of these authors is not in
dispute.[11]

For
. . . the Christian author of the book of Revelation[,] the future kingdom
would be earthly, through and through (Revelation 20-21).[12]

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