Sign up for the Scribal Corruption of Scripture here: gmskeptic--ehrman.thrivecart.com/corruption-of-scripture/

My favorite form this takes is when you ask a Christian what mechanism they used to call upon to KNOW that their Bible is true. And they say something along the lines of: “You just need to read the scriptures, accept Jesus into your heart and you will KNOW it’s true”. Then someone does all of that and has ZERO change happen and the Christian retorts that, the reason it didn’t happen is because that person did something wrong. They didn’t read the scriptures thoroughly enough. They didn’t pray hard enough. They didn’t REALLY accept Jesus into their heart. Because they have started with the answer being unequivocally, correct, from the start. So, there is no possible way whatsoever that the premise ITSELF can be wrong. It’s YOU who did something wrong because I did all of that and got the answer I was told I was going to find. Cognitive dissonance in a nutshell.

This is (partly) why I’m a progressive Christian who sees Scripture as a library of different perspectives. I don’t need to defend it on the grounds that it is consistent and perfect. It’s not, and that doesn’t undermine my faith.

"They felt ganged up on" The persecution complex does seem like the most consistent Christian core tenet.

I remember struggling with the cognitive dissonance between the fact that the truth about the bible is so clear and obvious, and that most of the people I preached "the truth" to didn't agree with me and yet they seemed to be perfectly nice and reasonable. Even as a devout Christian, it was hard for me to reconcile that one.

Ex-fundie here, trying to get through to my parents about me being a trans girl. Your videos have been crucial, and I thank you so much ❤

I love how excited Dr. Ehrman looks at 11:40. You can tell he really loves his job and is excited to share his research with people! As a teacher, I've totally felt that before, and it's wonderful to see that in someone else.

Bias is like optical illusions. It shows how many short cuts our brain takes in order to process effiently in real time. Seeing and understanding biases makes you way smarter, not a snowflake. But also, being biased is absolutely normal, and to some degree quite useful.

I'm a progressive minister in the U.S. (and progressive bible reader, with some videos of examples of what that can look like), and I really appreciate your capacity to speak honestly about the bible, in a nuanced way, recognizing the bible's own diversity and complexity, without denigrating it or denigrating those who seek social and spiritual guidance from it. While it definitely is filled with bias and all kinds of darker aspects of humanity, there are ways to receive it holistically (especially with focusing on Jesus' teaching) that promote progressive values and vision for human and ecological healing and wholeness. Even Paul's theology leads him to make incredibly progressive claims for 1st century Rome. Like Galatians 3:28 where he levels hierarchy based on the absolute universality of God's love. Anyway, great video. Thanks again for the respectful delivery! Peace

I'm a 41 year old who was raised/forced into Evangelical Christianity. As I grew older I was a Christian by my own choice and my studies of the Bible convinced me that it was not true. I still find value in the Bible but only as suggestions (like stop signs in parking lots). I have thoroughly enjoyed watching your videos and hope to see many more.

there's a koan that's similar to the Parable of the Good Samaritan, but about dogmatism: two monks were traveling together. they came to a river flooding its banks that they needed to ford. a woman was there, and asked for their help. without question, one monk lifted her and carried her across the river, then put her down on the other side, and the two monks continued on. some miles later, the other monk turned to him, "you know it's against the rules to touch a woman, what were you doing?" the monk shrugged, "I put her down back by the river, but you've been carrying her this entire time."

“I think what happened with Christianity to put it in its very simple terms is that Jesus was not interested in Doctrine and for some reason Christianity became obsessed with Doctrine with what you believe Jesus was really interested in how you behave and how you live.” This made me tear up. My quarrel has never been with Jesus.

As a Classicist, I learned early about manuscript transmission and scribal errors. My argument was: even if God inspired the first scribe, this isn’t the original manuscript ; there’s no guarantee that the intermediate scribes were inspired.

Paul saying everyone who says they don't believe in God is in denial is weird since he supposedly didn't believe until Jesus showed up to him on the Road to Damascus.

the thing that is very difficult about cognitive biases is how invisible it is when we experience it. It functions by make you feel that you're right, so catching yourself making mistakes is very cognitively difficult

I love your videos. Unlike some other prominent atheist KZfaqrs, I feel like you present things in a way that challenges what I believe as a Christian, without treating me as stupid for being a Christian.

My love of this channel grows with every video I watch. I love the unwavering compassion and nuance in your tone, and your willingness to discuss difficult and/or complex relational/religious issues in a frank and honest way.

Hi! I am an autistic recovering Roman Catholic with a neuro-diverse trans son, and am doing my best to navigate the situation without completely alienating my very religious extended family, and this channel has been a massive help for me. Thanks so much for approaching this subject in such a non-judgemental way and always (usually) leading with kindness and empathy.

Love the exploration here, and Dr. Ehrman is a clearly knowledgeable and I think it's fantastic that you brought him in on this. I feel like not enough people look at the bible as a human text, and exploring these biases (particularly when it comes to the translations) really hammers that point in. Thanks for everything, Drew. Never stop doing this.

"We sit outside and argue all night long About a God we've never seen But never fails to side with me" Primitive Radio Gods - Standing outside a broken phone booth

Hi Drew! Wanted to thank your constant approaching each engagement with positive intent, and compassion. As someone deconstructing, I find it easy to turn into someone fueled by anger at who I was and what I've done: you always help me reframe this idea.

Always a great day when GMSkeptic uploads.

Makes me think more about some of the christian phrases you hear: "I know because the holy spirit told me so". And conveniently it's almost always in accordance with the beliefs they held prior to that.

He mentioned the Book of Mormon ...now that I am out of the church I am convinced I could read it and find many errors (I don't think I can just yet -- to traumatic.) Brainwashing plays such an interesting role here. There's a few factors I think that stopped me from seeing errors. First, we were encouraged to read it yearly (before I left, twice a year!!) It is long and it is also really boring in parts, so at times you really had to rush through. You didn't want to be "that person" who wasn't up to the challenge. You were also promised that reading it would be special and make you more spiritual. You were promised amazing blessings from God. For me, I would keep this an mind and approach the read from a very emotional standpoint. It was an honour to read it at the time, and my belief in blessings meant that I would sometimes experience euphoria. Then...there's the classic Mormon adage of "doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith" ...and of being wary of anti Mormon literature and negative thinking toward to church, because God is listening to your thoughts. Its times that I delve into it like this that I just want to scream "yes, it is a fucking cult!!" Much love to you and Taylor at this time xx

1:45 That reminds me of my first playthrough of Prey. I got the best possible ending and the game called me a saint, but I didn't agree; Because I didn't do good things because they were the right things to do, I did them because they provided me material advantage, for very little cost.

I used to be a very devout Catholic and I was told that the Bible came to be mostly through churches deciding which books to include based on use in the liturgy, orthodoxy and antiquity (while they stuck with the Greek translation of the Old Testament, that’s why Catholic Bibles have “extra” books like Tobit and 1 and 2 Maccabees), also confirmation bias through apologetics was one of the things that kept me in the Church longer than it should’ve and I would’ve read that passage as referring to the Bible as a whole (other examples include younger me using the Onan story to justify my own repression even though it has nothing to do with self pleasure or how the Adam and Eve story say nothing about Satan and Original Sin if you read it at face value).

"Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true." Acts 17:11.

I can see all of these biases in the Gaza-Israel war right now: Israel is according to the world the best or worst country in the whole world and the same about the palestinians: every one of them are innocent victims or the worst villains, there is nothing in between. it's like nuance doesn't exist and it's driving me to depression

I've never understood why Christians villify Judas, Pilate and the Jewish crowd for helping bring about the death of christ. After all I thought that was the whole point of Christianity, that Christ was sacrificed to forgive our sins. They should surely be praised for helping bring about this destiny. Or have I missed something?

The key problem with the parable of the good Samaritan is that it asks of mortal man to do what God himself isn't willing to do... The moral of the parable is if you see someone in need/grave trouble and you have the power to help them, you should do it just like the good Samaritan did. That's all well and good until you consider that God is said to be omnipotent and omnipresent, YET many times, he does nothing to rescue people and children in grave danger... Think about it, if God is everywhere as the Bible says, that means everytime a child is sexually molested God is in that room watching and doing absolutely nothing to help the kid/s with all the power he is said to have. With that context factored in, the message of the good samaritan paints God as hypocritical because if the biblical God himself does nothing to help when he has the power to, why does he expect his followers to do what even he isn't willing to do. How can one lead where they won't go? That's one of the reasons l left religion, l couldn't reconcile following a God whom l felt as though l had more empathy than.

I'm horribly guilty of the fundamental attribution error. I'm also a determinist and constantly catch myself committing the error. It's quite absurd

The bible becomes so much more interesting once you accept that it is not literally God's word. It's different authors and versions and interpretations. We know something happened and the goal should be to figure out what that was and not to take any given text at face value and preach it to everyone as if there was certainty.

Namaste! Hindu here, much respect to your content. Peace!

Without Lies Christianity Dies

If you have 12 minutes the first basic part I will go over is about fast/slow thinking. If you want there is a 12 minute video by veritasium called "the science of thinking" that will explain it very well. I think this is knowledge that can really benefit people if they do not know about it. The next part though I dont know any videos for and I dont know if anyone really had the idea I have before. The knowledge of the fast/slow mind is what is relevant from that video and I think a good starting point for the discussion. The video also gives examples of people doing it live, but it most likely will work on you as well so that is how I will show you. I am going to ask you a question, and I am going to predict the answer you will have pop in your mind at first, and predict that will be a wrong answer. This works on most people and you can try if for yourself on others to see too, its an interesting conversation starter. A bat and a ball together cost 1.10, the bat costs 1.00 more then the ball, how much did the ball cost? You might have an answer flash in your head right away with fast inaccurate fast mind but if you check that answer with your slow but more accurate conscious awareness, you can see that answer is wrong but it takes effort to do. The answer of ten cents is not the right answer but most people have that pop in their head because of the fast thinking mind that we rely on most of the time. The fast unconscious mind is taking everything in and trying to make sense of it really fast. Its 11 million bits a second. But sometimes it makes mistakes. The slow conscious mind is 40-50 bits and lazy but it can check things and bringing the unconscious mistake to conscious awareness it can correct it. The next thing to understand is about carl jung and the 4 ways the unconscious complex he called shadow deals with reality. The shadow is an unconscious complex that is defined as the repressed and suppressed aspects of the conscious self. there are constructive and destructive types of shadow. Carl jung emphasized the importance of being aware of shadow material and incorporating it into conscious awareness lest one project these attributes onto others. The human being deals with the reality of shadow in 4 ways. Denial, projection, integration and/or transmutation. Now I believe what is happening when a question that exposes a conflict in a belief, idea, something that someone said, or even about someone they idolize and the question gets avoided, that is the fast unconscious mind going into denial and the response is often a projection. This also can trigger and emotional response activating the amygdala more and the pre frontal cortex less where rational conscious thought is said to happen and the amygdala starts to get the body to flood itself with chemicals/hormones. Its like the fast mind knows conscious awareness will say its wrong. so it blocks it off to defend itself from admitting its wrong. in cases of denial and because it blocked off the rational mind, the responses are often irrational. Like personal attacks do not address the issue or answer the question. I think we can agree people have a very hard time now days admitting when they are wrong, I am not exempt from this myself I do realize. And we can see how badly questions avoidance effects us if you watch political meetings and watch them avoid questions all day long. Ok, so the first thing to go over is denial as that is the main one I expose with questions. A disowning or refusal to acknowledge something I think is a good definition for it here. There is a really good 2 minute video I use as an example of this. A streamer named vegan gains claiming lobsters have brains after some one said he can eat lobsters because they do not have brains. He googles it and starts to read what it says. When he gets to the part where is says neither insects nor lobsters have brains, he skips it and says they literally are insects then skips over that line and continues to read the rest. Just like in the fast thinking video, his fast mind already read that line and refused to acknowledge it in unconscious denial, and just skipped it. The person then tells him he skipped it and he reads it again and sees the line this time. Still being defensive of his claim and refusing to accept he was wrong, he tried to discredit the source and its the lobster institute of maine. If you would like to see the video for yourself its 2 minutes by destiny clips and the video is called " Destiny Reacts To Vegan Gains Ignoring Search Result That Contradicts Him". Justin turdo avoiding the question of how much his family was paid by the we charity 6 times in a row I think is denial as well. I think jordan peterson not being able to answer his own question of does he believe god exists and asking what do and you mean then saying no one knows what any of those words mean while being seemingly angry is think is another really good example of denial... and projection. And while JP find those words difficult, other people understand them easy. Even he does pretty much any other time they are used. So projection is next up. Psychological projection is a defense mechanism people subconsciously employ in order to cope with difficult feelings or emotions. Psychological projection involves projecting undesirable feelings or emotions onto someone else, rather than admitting to or dealing with the unwanted feelings. Many times a mind in denial will use projections for responses. Someone getting mad and telling the other person to not interrupt when they have been doing that a lot themselves would be an example. I have done this myself. The people who tell me I dont understand my own questions and my point is wrong when they do not even know what the point is are all examples as well. I ask them to steel man my position to show then understand my point and they just avoid that question as well clearly showing they do not understand my point. Now we have integration and/or transmutation. Integration is when you bring an unconscious behavior into conscious awareness and accept it. I know that I interrupt people talking sometimes even though I think that is wrong to do. I have a conscious awareness of it, but I have not been able to completely change the behavior.... yet. That is where transmutation comes in. Transmutation is to completely change that unconscious behavior. From being impatient to being patient, of from distrust to trust, hate into understanding and love even. So was this understandable or confusing? if you understand it, do you think its possibly true? Do you have any questions? If you have any tips I am would gladly listen.

I definitely remember making up explanations as to how the creation myth could be true and was analogous to what I thought was the scientific consensus Incidentally I'm really into AU fanfiction

"you've got your own problems" What I think when my cat starts running around the house at night

Paul is coming up a lot in my favorite philosophy YT channels lately... My resulting cognitive bias would be the predeterministic "intuition" that Paul was an Exceptionally Foul person...

As a Christian pantheist who grew up traditional Baptist, then went atheist, deist, and now who I am today. I've always valued the content you provide. This video is probably one of my favorites because when re-approaching Christianity, cognitive biases are something I've dealt with growing up Baptist. I hold dearly the question that, if God were to act outside of scripture, who are we to put him (or her) back in that box? I study books left out of the Bible and add them to the total message. I include jewish texts and philosophies of virtue in other beliefs. There's a stark reason Jesus wasn't a fan of concrete religion when the message is applicable to anyone, regardless of who you worship (or dont worship). On top of that, platonic philosophy has done wonders for my understanding of virtue when examining the wholness of being.To remain skeptical to claims held as traditional is paramount. Heck, the book of James says that faith without work is dead. I couldn't help but entirely agree with all of the points mentioned in this video, and applaud you to remain open to face the dogmatism that is 'traditional' Christianity. Keep up the awesome work!

Great ending as well, excellent points. We can be biased and need to treat all texts and media, including those from our favourite influences, with skepticism and being mindful of our biases! And also not assume those influences we may dislike or distrust are wrong about everything!

i think it would be great if a new version of the Bible was made. one separated into 5 sections, including telegraphs noting when the text you're about to read overlaps multiple sections. Old Testament, New Testament, (Known) Genuine Texts, (Known) Forgeries, and Apocrypha. the NRSVUE comes close to this, it has 3/5. OT, NT, & A. but considering it's a religious translation, meant for theological purposes: it sadly does not distinguish. perhaps the titles of the texts from various sections could be color coded. OT = Blue, NT = Green, GT = Golden Yellow, F = Red, A = Purple. if a text overlaps, a squiggly underline in the color of the overlapping section would be used. so for the Gospel of Thecla, the color of the title would be Purple, but it would have a Golden Yellow underline. you could also do things like add Asterisks to denote when a text is doctrinal, when it is canonical, when it is contested, etc. the body text would use ESV, NIV, & NRSVUE as the basis. you'd probably want to host such a resource on a website akin to biblegateway.com (great resource worth checking out for those who haven't.) that way you could add notes, hyperlinks, portal links, etc.

It's worth mentioning that, these days, there are also very strong outgroup bias tendencies amongst many supposedly progressive people on the left towards anyone who expresses doubts or criticism towards their belief system.

Thank you Drew for these very-well made and carefully thought out videos! Cheers from the Czech republic!

I am often biased towards thinking I might be wrong. Turns out that is my only flaw because the hypothesis of me having made a mistake doesn't hold up to scrutiny.

My cognitive bias of Drew being adorable with the dog friend immediately makes me clicking the like button, and rewinding to see him being wholesome again.

15:49 "If you've got these books that aren't towing the theological line... they can't be written by the apostles." So it's inapostleable?

The Eagles lost to the Cowboys because they didn’t have the desire to win. Or maybe the Cowboys defense prevailed in reading the Eagles’ play selection, but that would require me to understand football and pay attention. Attribution bias gets me off the hook here.

The only thing that irks me with your channel and others like it is that the list is always “Christian, Jewish, Muslim, pagan” when there are many other worldviews that don’t have anything to do with the ones listed. Other than that, this was a good video. Good job 👌

The necessity to tell my students about the bad wiring in human brains on a 3 month basis never declines.....

Belief is not truth. If it were, then all opinions must be treated equally and without need for reconfirmation. They would have the same value as known fact.

I love you guys! Just trying to support in this trying time ❤❤

"The Bible says so, so it's true, because it's written in the Bible" lies at the core of every argument.

Why did God need a human to write the Bible why could he just not give the Bible fully written to say a follower?

Love to see Rabbi Tovia Singer on your channel discussing the antisemitism in the Gospels.

Having Bart Ehrman speak on biases has me questioning his partiality as well.

This is a bit late (6 days late to be exact), but thank you for this video. This kinda validates my feelings about the bible and why I gravitate to certiant stories over others within it in, but also why I feel like exploring what I feel are either counterdictory or even stiffling for me is valid in understanding why I feel the way I do. I may have left being Catholic, but I do enjoy the stories still and live by the messages of stories like the good Samaritan (probably the one that stuck with me the most honestly). I do the same thing with Asopes fables as well as Fairy tales. In a way some of them are reflective of the culture of the time while others talk about the teachings of how to treat others. And I'm glad that you brought on someone who can explain in deeper details on how I felt on some of them because there were things I felt uncomfortable, as someone who was born a woman, but feels more Agender Fem-fluid. And it took me to accept that I haven't fully taken it out of my life, just morphed it into something that I can process things and accept aspects of myself.

"If you are a human, you experience cognitive bias regularly." Good thing I'm not a silly human XD Can you imagine?

Paul uses such a large amount of motivated reasoning to try and explain why not everyone believes in his god. I believe that part of Romans serves as evidence that the tradition of "huffing copium" dates back to the first century

Always appreciate the work you and your lovely wife do ❤

I heard a scholar once say that "God Breathed" in reference to all Scripture being so meant that Scripture was life giving, not inerrant. I'd be interested in hearing Bart's take on this

I see these cognitive dissonance all the time when we talk about animal experiments, animal abuse, and tossing 1 day old male chick's into a blender.

I just love the brain analogy at the beginning. That gave me a strong laugh lol

Congratulations on reaching 666K subscribers, Drew!

It wasn't until I left my catholic upbringing that I could recognize the contradictions in God's Holy Word. A contradiction consists of two opposing ideas which are self canceling.

"give into that our brains are basically meet computers that use less power than a light bulb and run off chicken nuggets". Dude you are a word smith of the hughest caliber. I love it. This was an awesome line. 😂👍

It's sort of funny that the Good Samaritan gets regarded as this great moral teaching when it contains a slander against the contemporary Jews from the time that the story was manufactured.

Love listening to Dr Ehrman's ideas. Got to study under one of his students, Dr Norman. Her NT course using your textbook was super important in starting my deconstruction.

While you're very unique in what you do and who you are, you've got a good fusion of Cosmic Skeptic and Paulogia going on in the mix which I love about you.

I certainly have out-group bias against conservative science-deniers, attributing poor motives to them. But they reinforce my negative opinions of them at every turn.

Yes - I'm a recent Dr Ehrman discoverer- and you two together is awesome. The good Dr does some amazing collaborations, this is gold!

Wow this is an amazing video, your channel has really helped me as a philosophy student, thanks!

I experience no cognitive bias ever I AM COMPLETELY OBJECTIVE IN ALL TH

this is fantastic

Loved that intro!

I love this! Super useful!

Puggles can't help bein' a lil stupid. He is a pug, after all

I am the most biased. Hope this helps 😊

This is a PERFECT example of the buttload of contradictions in the bible. and If I were to overlook all the contradictions? that would be a contradiction in itself.

Thank you Drew!!! Great video!

Dr. Ehrman is always amazing Loved the video

I'm immune to cognitive biases because my attention span is too short to form them.

Would you consider making a video on the origins of how the bible was made? I really appreciate the way you reference sources and don't see that in other videos on the topic.

I'm not wrong I'm never wrong

The channel is at 666k subscribers at the time of writing this comment 😂

Meat computers LOL

Hey, so i recently discovered your channel, and I'm curious. are there and religious creators that you respect that offer a civilized and thought out opposing perspective to your own? I'm an avid atheist, but I do try and keep myself from being surrounded by only one viewpoint. I really respect your channel for being very patient and logical and would be curious if there are any creators that make similarly rational arguments

I have attribution bias. I look at business people and politicians who actively promote the use of fossil fuels and believe they are acting wickedly just to increase their wealth or to stir up culture wars for political advantage.

First

Attribution bias is typical for all authors from Antiquity. It would have been very surprising if Paulus of Tarsus weren't. Ehrman doesn't mention that th Roman authorities widened the rift between rabbinical judaism (the successors of the farisees) and early christianity (the only jewish sects that survived the Destruction of the Temple) with the law called Fiscus Judaicus.

There's a guy who loves his work!

Great discussion especially around bias and the reality of our brain. My favorite analysis of the brain is that it is this remarkable carbon based parallel processor capable of amazing outputs but unfortunately and fortunately at the same time it resides in a concoction of turbo charging hormones that allow it to become frighteningly unstable at times.

Hey guys to anyone who has been hurt by religion it sucks and from someone with trama I can understand the pain you must be feeling. God still loves you and always will ❤❤❤

Thank you.

Ironically, the literalism of Fundamentalists owes more to Enlightenment era philosophy- increasingly discredited by evidence in the very fields of science whence it originated - than to the worldview that appears to have been normative among the ancient composers of scripture. My understanding is that the very structure of Semitic languages, whether Hebrew or Aramaic (or Arabic, in the context of the Quran) works against neat compartments, naturally inclining to a poetic density of meanings.

I cannot believe I have only just learned of Thecla this year. If I'd learned about her when I was searching, I might have become a devout Christian. Instead I got 'women must always be in subjugation to men' and couldn't circle that square so I abandoned the whole religion.

Deuteronomy 20: 10 and 22: 18 are both biblical laws that are contrary to the supposed all loving god.

I wish you would supply access to a complete text of your intelligent and well thought dissertations.

Cool! Just got done with Paulogia. Can't wait for this

Hey Drew, I've noticed that between you, Paul (Paulogia) and some others in this youtube sphere it has been particularly common that you advertise the paid servies of your guests (particular Ehrman's courses) and indeed receive commissions from this. This is not too different from youtubes profit motive, you are transparent about all of the arrangement, and I am supportive of the work all of you are doing, however I think it is important to pause and consider the systemic factors this kind of precident and action creates. The development if a "Athiestic Biblical criticism Industrial Complex" further centres profit, and creates a hedgemonic set of views within the community. While I believe that at this point everyone involved in this is honest, accepting of diversity of views, and would centre humans above profit, that is not what the systemic pressures of this kind of arrangement. Like seeing a democracy turn into a benevolent dictatoeiship, my concern is for what this kind results this of centralised structure with greater vulnerability to the profit motive will incentivise. It is naive to think that good people can stave off the harms of the profit motive and centralised power. This is not a condemnation, just my sincire thoughts that it might be good to reflect on whether anh arrangements can be adjusted to keep people's integrity and production fully Independent and as unconstrained from profit and dogma as possible.

However while Jesus is on the cross, he says this. “God forgive them for they don’t know what they are doing”. This could support this theory.