Snarky Sermon on the Blog: What Made The Preacher Man An Agnostic?

Well, what do you know? Studying the existing papyrus scrolls containing the known original Biblical texts has "the power to shake faith."

That's what happened to Bart D. Ehrman, author of the 2005 bestseller "Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why."

Ehrman was a born-again Christian from Kansas when he entered Chicago's Moody Bible Institute at age 18. After three decades of comparing ancient manuscripts in their original languages to try to determine the earliest, most authentic text of the New Testament, he is now an agnostic.

"I thought God had inspired the words inerrantly. But when I examined the historical texts, I realized the words had not been preserved inerrantly, and it would have been no greater miracle to preserve them than to inspire them in the first place," said Ehrman, now chairman of religious studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

The snark in me is wrestling with the urge to scream, "DUH!"

How sad to be raised in some kind of Kansas Dark Ages church, where Ehrman's preacher man knew less than his predecessor... who knew less than the one who preached before him... ad annum domini.

I wonder how Ehrman felt when he learned about the Holy Trinity debate among the bishops at the first Council of Nicea in 325 CE...

The council acknowledged that Christ was God of very God. Although the Father and Son differed in role, they, and the Holy Spirit are truly God. More specifically, Christ is of one substance with the Father. The Greek word homoousios was used to describe this sameness. The term was controversial because it is not used in the Bible. Some preferred a different word that conveyed similarity rather than sameness. But Athanasius and the near unanimous majority of bishops felt that this might eventually result in a lowering of Christ's oneness with the Father. They also argued that Christ was begotten, not made. He is not a created thing in the same class as the rest of the cosmos. They concluded by positing that Christ became human for mankind and its salvation.

Thus Endeth Today's Sermon.

Go forth today, knowing that the same trinity debate continues to this very day: with Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Muslims on one side and Catholics and most mainstream Protestants on the other... while the Agnostics watch from the sidelines.

Just think about it.

I mean it, damn it!

Best bar bet in the world: Delilah didn't do it.
Judges 16:19-- And she made him (Samson) sleep upon her knees; and she called for a man, and she caused him to shave off the seven locks of his head.