"The question is then how can we decide what anybody in the ancient world said. We can't. We wish we could. It would be nice if we could. You would like to think that because you can go to the store and buy an edition of Plato that you are actually reading Plato, but the problem is that we just do not have the kind of evidence that we need in order to establish what ancient authors actually wrote."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Activists from the United StatesAtheists from the United StatesAcademics from the United StatesEditors from the United StatesEducators from the United States
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Bart D. Ehrman
29 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Bart D. Ehrman →
Related Quotes
"Very few people who devote their lives to studying the historical Jesus actually want to find a Jesus who is complete…"
"Some recent scholars have proposed that Jesus ... preached a "radically egalitarian society"—that is, that he set abo…"
"From the historians' perspective it is striking that all forms of early Christianity claimed authorization of their v…"
"Not a single one of our ancient sources indicates that Jesus was married, let alone married to Mary Magdalene. All su…"
"How does it help us to say that the Bible is the inerrant word of God if in fact we don't have the words that God ine…"
"It is one thing to say that the originals were inspired, but the reality is that we don't have the originals—so sayin…"
"The only way to make sense of a text is to read it, and the only way to read it is by putting it in other words, and …"
"For the only reason (I came to think) for God to inspire the Bible would be so that his people would have his actual …"
"Judas's act of "betrayal" is in fact his faithful obedience to Jesus' will."
"My thesis can be stated simply: scribes occasionally altered the words of their sacred texts to make them more patent…"