Gaius

Show you where? Bruce Metzger was the worlds foremost leading expert in textual criticism and was a dedicated Christian till the day he died. Everything the man ever wrote spoke of them as being trustworthy. Ehrman on the other hand is agnostic. He actually studied under Bruce Metzger the very subject of textual criticism. (textual criticism is the study of how the Bible was handed down to us over the ages and how the version we now have compares to what the originals must have looked like) Ehrman was a Christian until about 10 years ago when he became agnostic. However his transition to agnosticism had nothing to do with his seeing weaknesses in Christs biographies. He even says as much in his book. Read it. He says that after studying (and becoming an expert in) the transmission of the biographies of Christ to us present day that his faith was unshaken. Rather it was the problem of pain and suffering which brought him towards agnosticism. The dates placed on the four Gospels constitute what I would call roughly 25% of why they should be considered trustworthy. They were written during the times that people were still alive who knew Jesus and so could be criticised and cross checked by believers. Mathew was written by a man who knew Jesus and was His disciple, as was John, Luke was written by well Luke who was Pual's companion and physician. Luke did not only write the Gospel of Luke. He wrote other literary historical workds and guess what?..when cross checked with acrcheaology and other sources it ends up hes an accurate and articulate historian. Then of course you have the Pualine letters which were written mostly in the 50's (17-25 years after the death of Christ.) And they all attest to the same thing as the Gospels. These were the men in the position to know Jesus and well in fact they were not only in a position to but DID know Him. If you want to know something about somebody wouldnt you want the best sources? We have no clue who wrote any of the gnostic gospels. It should go without saying that Judas did not write the gospel of Judas, Mary Magdalene did not write the gospel of Mary. People attatched significant fictitous names to them in order to give them more weight. These gospels not only came MUCH later (Thomas being the only exeption at 50-100 years later) but have no historical base to them. They were written to progogate their perspective gnostic agendas which were invented about 150 years after the death of Christ. Contrast this to the agendas of the Gospel writers who faced nothing but persecution, death, and torture, but did not care as the truth to which they were all witnesses was their only concern.

When asked if scholarship had diluted his faith, Metzger had this to say,

"it has increased the basis of my personal faith to see the firmness with which these materials have come down to us, with a multiplicity of copies, some of which are very very ancient. Ive asked questions all my life, Ive dug into the text, Ive studied this thoroughly and today I know that my confidence in and that my trust in Jesus has been well placed. The last foundation for any doubt that the scriptures have come down to us substantially as they were written has now been removed"- Bruce Metzger, worlds leading New Testament textual critic scholar.