Rom 1 reply, 41: Mike Licona answers Bart Ehrman et al on the reliability of the NT Gospels, in light of a commonplace hostility to Christians on College campuses

In the video below, Dr Michael Licona begins by speaking to a situation of entrenched hostility to especially Evangelical Christians and our faith on College Campuses. (And, while his statistic of 53% hostility on the part of lecturers is specific to North America, the general pattern is plainly an issue we too must face in the Caribbean.)

His pointing out how in several cases professors are asking Christian students to identify themselves and are then announcing an objective to rob such of their faith is revealing. As, is his comparative challenge: would you even hear of a case like that with Muslim, Jewish or Hindu students?

His comment that it is clearly open hunting season on Christians, is plainly on target, quite revealing, and very troubling.

Indeed, so serious is this, that we need to have a serious alternative.

But, that is just the introduction.

We need to watch the video:, as he takes on what the YouTube blurb sums up as the ABCDE's --

A -- Authorship, 
B -- Bias, 
C -- Contradictions, 
D -- Dating, and 
E -- Eyewitness Testimony

Let's watch:



WK (HT!) has a useful summary

• What a Baltimore Ravens [NFL American Football] helmet teaches us about the importance of truth
• What happens to Christians when they go off to university?
• The 2007 study on attitudes of American professors to evangelical Christians
• Authors: Who wrote the gospels?
• Bias: Did the bias of the authors cause them to distort history?
• Contradictions: What about the different descriptions of events in the gospels?
• Dating: When were the gospels written?
• Eyewitnesses: Do the gospel accounts go back to eyewitness testimony?

For more, you may want to read here on in context. END

PS: Dr William Lane Craig has a podcast here, on how he was recently subjected to a pre-planned personal attack in Australia (co-ordinated with one on YouTube) designed to "expose" him as a charlatan and liar, multiplied by rather unprofessional behaviour by his opponent -- multiple dozens of interruptions including repeated use of a buzzer that took the dialogue format out of the control of the moderator. There are troubling indicators of a spreading intention to poison the well by distractive, alienating personal attacks,  in order to discredit effective Christian spokesmen and to cow into silence any who would try to speak up for the gospel. That in turn speaks sad volumes about where those who make, enable or support such attacks are headed, especially when we multiply by the sort of attitude to Christians Dr Licona exposes. Surely, we can do better as a civilisation.