Not being involved in debates often over the inerrancy oft he Bible, I had not heard the name Bart D. Ehrman until today. However, while reading Dinesh D'Souza's article today, I saw many anti-Christian or atheists posting mention of him, so I checked out the Wikipedia page they cited. And I have to say, that I am less than impressed with his three criteria for determining historical validity.

Now, before I begin, I acknowledge that Wikipedia is hardly a primary source, and admit freely, as I wrote elsewhere, that it can easily be manipulated by those wishing to defame someone or something. However, the section listing the three principles Ehrman uses appears to be coherent and written by someone either neutrally or favorably disposed toward the theses, so I think I can safely assume the page has not been defaced and is not presenting a strawman against which to debate.

And if those assumptions are true, then only one of his three theses is valid.

These are presented by wikipedia as follows:

The first major theme in his books and lectures is to analyze the historical accuracy of ancient religious texts used in the creation of the New Testament. Ehrman subjects them to a series of specific criteria. The criteria are as follows:

1. Criterion of independent attestation - the more sources that mention an event, the more likely it is to be historically accurate. Multiple witnesses are better than one witness. This is akin to corroborating evidence in modern trials.^[5] It is worth noting here that since Matthew and Luke took many stories from Mark, those instances cannot be considered independently attested. It is also worth noting that just because an event or saying is found only in one source, that alone is not evidence that it is historically inaccurate. This criterion will, however, assist in determining where the information is on a spectrum of more or less likely to be authentic.

2. Criterion of dissimilarity - the more a witness or source makes claims counter to their vested interests, the more that testimony is likely to be true.^[6] This criterion is the most controversial of the three, and does not always properly apply to ancient sources, but is valuable nonetheless as one of the tools to evaluate historical reliability. In short, if a supposed saying or deed of Jesus seems to go against or does not support the supposed agenda of its record's author, then it is considered more likely to be historically accurate.

3. Criterion of contextual credibility - states that "the sayings, deeds, and experiences of Jesus must be plausibly situated in the historical context of first-century Palestine to be trusted as reliable."^[7] Whereas the first two criteria serve to place a tradition on a spectrum of more or less historically reliable, this criterion is used exclusively to argue against the historicity of a tradition.

And looking at these argument, only the criterion of independent attestation is true. And just barely. I agree that more independent witnesses do create greater reliability, but it can hardly be the sole criterion. Otherwise, for example, Alexander Hamilton's spying* of the British crown is not a fact, as the only evidence we have are a few letters between two individuals in code. So, while more witnesses do provide greater reliability, a paucity of witnesses is hardly an argument against veracity.

In fact, the way he argues, that since Matthew and Luke use text from Mark, then it is likely false, would invalidate a lot of what we know about Roman history. As much of the Republican period is proven by later extracts from missing documents, many by Tacitus, there are many events in ancient Rome that we know only by multiple citations of a single source. Similarly, a lot of our Greek knowledge comes form Thucydides or Herodotus. For that matter, without Homer and references to Homer, we would not be able to prove the TrojanWar happened, but Schliemann's excavations prove that pretty well**.

So, as a general rule it is valid, but it ,must be sued carefully. And it appears Ehrman does not exercise care and uses it in reverse which is not valid. You see, more witnesses make it more likely an event happened, but fewer witness do not make it any less likely an event happened. More evidence proves something true, but a paucity of evidence does not disprove it. The ten paid alibi witnesses for a hit man do not invalidate the single eyewitness to the murder, for example. We should be very careful of using this argument the way Ehrman does to say "there is only one primary gospel, so we can't trust it".

The second argument si just silly. I know it is also enshrined in our legal system, but that is due to our legals system's somewhat dubious assumption of rationality on the part of all actors. However, if we took this seriously, then schizophrenics who describe their own evil to us, or the lunatics who call and confess to every publicized crime are more believable than those who refute them. For that matter, this "principle" has been used by con men forever, as they know people believe it to be true, and think by painting themselves in a bad light will "prove" they are honest.

So, given that lengthy history of laymen misapplying this principle, and the disastrous results that would come should we apply it throughout life, I have to say that it is nowhere near a reliable gauge of truth or falsehood.

The final statement may be true to some degree, but it also ignores the potential for extraordinary people or uncharacteristic actions. There are numerous examples throughout Roman history of generals ignoring ill omens***, which would be considered impossible by this theory, as Romans were very strongly attached to their omens in general. Likewise, it would have ignored almost every true originator or great thinker, as almost all were aberrations for their time, that is what makes them great. It is also what makes them noteworthy. History focuses on the aberrant, not the mundane. We could not care less about the Ottoman Sultan who did nothing and died in his sleep, but the heretical Sultan who loves Persian poetry, Bektashi dervishes and imports Persian theologians (all unlikely for an Ottoman to do), is noteworthy, and this noteworthiness, by this criterion, makes him likely to be a lie, despite all the historical evidence to the contrary.

And that is the problem with this principle, it draws too much on the principles of "people's history", seeing history as a record oft he common man. For the common man, or for ordinary events, it probably is somewhat valid. But much of what interests us in history are exceptional individuals and unusual events. If an action is normal and characteristic, if a leader does the expected, it usually passed unnoticed. Especially given the tendency of the ancients to view history as a record of prodigies, history often contains a slew of unusual events. That does not make them falsehoods.

(A better approach would be to ask if the responses of those around him were consistent with the time in question, not whether the central actor was firmly of his time. But that would seem to cut against the argument Ehrman in trying to make.)

But, as I said, I have not read the man himself, so it is possible Wikipedia presents him in a bad light, or misstates his arguments. I will have to do a bit of digging and read his original work. However, until then, I have to say I am not impressed.

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* Whether he was actually spying or acting on orders form, or at least acting with the consent of, George Washington has been debated, however, the fact remains that for his meetings with the British, we have very limited information, at best. Inf act, for most clandestine events we lack multiple witnesses, such is the nature of clandestine affairs.

** Some may argue Schliemann's finds are not the historical Troy, but their correspondence with the Illiad suggests that is is unlikely they are anything else. Though if anyone wants to argue the point, I do enjoy that sort fo dispute quite a bit.

*** The most famous being Scipio's landing in Africa where he tried to turn a slip on disembarking, traditionally a very bad omen, into a good omen by crying "Africa, I hold you".

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POSTSCRIPT

Just a note for those who will argue against my statements. I am not a Christian,and my faith does not rest upon the Torah being an infallible historical record. So I have no dog in this fight, I just find the methods used dubious. And before you accuse me of siding with the Christians because of my conservative principles, read my disagreement with the arguments used by proponents of Intelligent Design, and my arguments against those taking stands all over the spectrum of the abortion debate.

I am interested in truth, first and foremost, and I simply find little of it here.

POSTSCRIPT II

The Wikipedia page produces some other arguments raised against him. Not having the documents themselves to use to evaluate their validity, I won't reproduce them here, but you can see the argument for yourself on the Wikipedia page.

POSTSCRIPT III

Actually, giving this a bit more thought, I have to say that these "Criteria", rather than providing a guideline for evaluating the truth of historical events, are designed more to refute specific events. By these criteria, all we know about much of the ancient world is highly suspect. It also completely ignores several other criteria I would think more valuable. For example, internal consistency, or consistency with other published histories of the period. However, that cuts against the thesis Ehrman is trying to prove, as, obviously, the synoptic Gospels are quite consistent, and not just with one another, but are consistent in painting the character of Jesus. Likewise, as there are a handful of historical records (Josephus, possibly some Talmudic passages) that make mention of Jesus prior to Christianity becoming the state religion of Rome, that criterion would also work against Ehrman's thesis as well.