The Reliability of the Gospels

[Ernie]

I nearly took a similar route as Bart Ehrman some years ago. One of my closest friends, a pastor, did take this route.

The one thing in common that I notice about many folks who take the belief>agnostic/atheistic route is how much they trust their own judgment and ability to discern. I see the same characteristic among those who veer into doctrinal error and misguided prophecy/spiritual manifestations.

The other ditch is to give up one's own beliefs and just trust an ancient church organization to decide everything for you. This is probably better than the former when it comes to belief, since the ancient churches at least hold to some doctrines. But it creates different beliefs/problems that are just as challenging to uproot.

[Soloist]

Unless I’m mistaken, he was quite convincing as to the dangers of textual criticism to me.

Because he opposed it or because he embraced it?

I was also puzzled about this comment.
Personally, I regard efforts to establish 'purity of the text' in the same way as I see efforts to maintain personal and corporate purity in the Church, as well as doctrinal purity. (It IS true that all of these objectives can 'run amuck' if not conducted within, and governed by, an environment of piety and brotherhood.)

EDIT: I'll have to listen to the video at another time. It appears to be quite long, and so maybe on a Sunday afternoon.

This was several years ago but I had got started down the bunny trail of textual criticism after reading the NASB? And it was different then the KJV and it was fairly awkward sitting there as everyone stared at me until finally the Sunday school teacher finished the verse and asked if I didn’t have it. It was on divorce and remarriage out of Matthew.
Anyway I started reading and having my views on Islam and their own textual problems I was disillusioned with the historical chain and the arguments about one verse over another… it’s not as clear as people would like to say. This resulted in making a conscious decision not to look further and I decided for myself that the Bible God preserved for nearly 1000 years was good enough for me. The fact that it was the oldest complete Bible helped so the Latin Vulgate is my source of authority if something is debatable and if I have further questions I dig into the actual Jerome copy rather then the updated.
As for the Old Testament, I’m confident in the Septuagint or the Masoretic are close enough to God’s intended word with a preference for the Septuagint.

[JohnH]

I would argue that faith in fundamentalism (which is part of modernism) has a poor foundation, being a "house built on sand"; so when the winds and storms of analysis like Bert Ehrman went through come, that faith tumbles and falls.

The firm foundation is that of "hearing Jesus' words and doing them", but that requires abandoning modernism.