“In the debate Mike and I defended two contentions: (1) The texts of the New Testament teach that Jesus' resurrection was a physical, historical event; and (2) There's no good reason to deny this traditional understanding of the texts. In my opening speech I defended our first contention, and we planned that Mike would defend our second contention in response to any criticisms that Spangenberg might offer in his opening speech. Well, to our shock Spangenberg got up and rambled on about irrelevancies and never got around to saying anything about the question under debate, so that poor Mike had virtually nothing to respond to! So he had to reply to criticisms that Spangenberg has offered in his published work, even though he didn't bring them up in the debate. Wolmarans then got up and, of all things, defended the mythological view of Jesus! (In my nearly 30 years of debate experience with scholars like Crossan, Borg, Lüdemann, Ehrman, et al., I have never encountered anyone who defends this line, and both of my opponents in South Africa espouse this silliness!) In my rebuttal I explained why this view of Christian origins has been eclipsed among New Testament scholars and then reviewed some of the evidence for the historicity of the events of Easter. A very angry Spangenberg then came to the podium and began to rail against apartheid and Christianity's connection to it. It was unbelievable. Mike then explained that all the points raised by Prof. Spangenberg, though important and interesting in and of themselves, were just one red herring after another in the context of the debate that night. Then he closed with a very personal appeal to the Christians of South Africa not to be fooled by the false claims and superficial arguments (what arguments?) of those in the New Reformation movement. Wolmarans closed out the debate by telling a rambling and sentimental story about a baker and the parents of a little boy killed in a car accident. (I know--nobody else understood its relevance either.) “
“In the debate Mike and I defended two contentions: (1) The texts of the New Testament teach that Jesus' resurrection was a physical, historical event; and (2) There's no good reason to deny this traditional understanding of the texts.
ReplyDeleteIn my opening speech I defended our first contention, and we planned that Mike would defend our second contention in response to any criticisms that Spangenberg might offer in his opening speech. Well, to our shock Spangenberg got up and rambled on about irrelevancies and never got around to saying anything about the question under debate, so that poor Mike had virtually nothing to respond to! So he had to reply to criticisms that Spangenberg has offered in his published work, even though he didn't bring them up in the debate. Wolmarans then got up and, of all things, defended the mythological view of Jesus! (In my nearly 30 years of debate experience with scholars like Crossan, Borg, Lüdemann, Ehrman, et al., I have never encountered anyone who defends this line, and both of my opponents in South Africa espouse this silliness!)
In my rebuttal I explained why this view of Christian origins has been eclipsed among New Testament scholars and then reviewed some of the evidence for the historicity of the events of Easter. A very angry Spangenberg then came to the podium and began to rail against apartheid and Christianity's connection to it. It was unbelievable. Mike then explained that all the points raised by Prof. Spangenberg, though important and interesting in and of themselves, were just one red herring after another in the context of the debate that night. Then he closed with a very personal appeal to the Christians of South Africa not to be fooled by the false claims and superficial arguments (what arguments?) of those in the New Reformation movement. Wolmarans closed out the debate by telling a rambling and sentimental story about a baker and the parents of a little boy killed in a car accident. (I know--nobody else understood its relevance either.) “
And even more can be read here:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.discerningtheworld.com/2010/05/25/faith-reason-conference-sat-15-may-2010/#more-8449
Says Ray Ciervo:
ReplyDelete“To say that Craig and Licona won the debate would be an understatement”.
(Read here: http://www.rayciervo.com/mediafiles/south-africa.pdf)