Raf

Oh come on, people. Godfather III

Flip the titles, George...

Martial Law and Order

Ruthless People Helen Slater The Legend of Billie Jean

Yes!

Nope. "I'm a priest, not a saint." ... "How did I escape? With difficulty. How did I plan this moment? With pleasure!"

"What's your sole purpose in this army?" "To do whatever you tell me, drill sergeant!" "God damn it, ----! You're a god damn genius! This is the most outstanding answer I have ever heard. You must have a goddamn I.Q. of 160. You are goddamn gifted, Private ---!"

"Why not just kill them? I'll do it! I'll run up to Paris - bam, bam, bam, bam. I'm back before week's end. We spend the treasure. How is this a bad plan?"

Dirty Harry

Stepford Wives

Matt Damon Good Will Hunting Minnie Driver

William H. Macy Pleasantville Jeff Daniels

Your move

"The Russians need to take us in one piece, and that's why they're here. That's why they won't use nukes anymore; and we won't either, not on our own soil. The whole damn thing's pretty conventional now. Who knows? Maybe next week will be swords." "What started it?" "I don't know. Two toughest kids on the block, I guess. Sooner or later, they're gonna fight." "That simple, is it?" "Or maybe somebody just forget what it was like." "...Well, who is on our side?" "Six hundred million screaming Chinamen." "Last I heard, there were a billion screaming Chinamen." "There were."

Blade Runner

"I want the original scores reinstated."

Considering that I would have known Frequency had I read the quotes in time, I'll jump in: "Tough guys don't do math. Tough guys fry chicken for a living"

I think it's important to distinguish several things and to evaluate claims accordingly. Bart Ehrman is a former evangelical believer in inerrantism who is now an agnostic. His popular books have sensational titles, but the books themselves don't quite live up to them. Forged, for example, is packaged to give you the impression that the New Testament is a bunch of forgeries. His actual argument is more nuanced: he thinks some books are flat-out forged (written by someone claiming to be someone else). Others he claims were originally anonymous and later attributed to known authors (he puts the gospels, Acts and Hebrews into this category). Still others were written by people mistakenly believed to be OTHER people with the same name (James, Revelation). Others were actually written by their attributed authors. This is all according to Bart Ehrman. His agnosticism comes into play because of the possibility that it makes him more willing to discard traditional authorship even though the evidence for that position might not warrant it. As for those who have "rebutted" Ehrman, their bias comes into play, too. The field of Biblical research is overwhelmed by professing Christians who have a vested interest in upholding traditional views (and in some cases, a vested interest in upholding inerrancy), even if the evidence does not warrant maintaining that position. If Ehrman's agnosticism is fair game for consideration in evaluating his claims, the faith of his critics is also fair game in evaluating their rebuttals of his claims. That's why Wallace (mentioned in earlier posts regarding Luke 2:2) is so valuable. Here is a guy whose bias is clear: he is a Bible-believing inerrantist who believes all scripture is God-breathed, without error or contradiction. He's got a vested interest in dispelling the doubt raised by the traditional interpretation of Luke 2:2. He's got the knowledge base and expertise to render an informed opinion. Yet he refuses to change the text to get it to say what he wishes it had said. He recognizes that Luke 2:2 is a problem for his position, yet he refuses to change Luke 2:2 to salvage his position. Where I come from, we call that integrity. I don't place inordinate trust in Ehrman, nor do I put inordinate trust in his critics. Both sides have an agenda. It's important when weighing both their claims that we recognize their agenda and evaluate them accordingly. All of this is to say: just because Ehrman has been rebutted doesn't make those rebuttals valid. They are in many ways as tainted as what they're criticizing, and it's important to evaluate the claims, not just the people who are making them. I'll say this against Ehrman, for what it's worth: His popular books express his opinion and his understanding of the consensus of Biblical scholarship and textual criticism. What he does not do, except in a very cursory manner, is set out to prove his case (in those books). It doesn't mean that he is wrong, or that he doesn't have proof. It just means what is says: his books don't present the proof. You'll see sentences like "the majority of Bible scholars have known this for more than a hundred years. This isn't just my opinion." He may be correct, but he has not shown why. He has only shown that he is not alone in claiming what he claims. Dutifully recognized and expanded upon.

Funny thing, that whole Lucifer explanation: It's non-Biblical. You seriously CANNOT derive that doctrine from the scriptures. It's just not there. You have to cut this verse from here, that verse from there, wedge those two patches into this verse over here, and PRESTO! Rightly-divided!

Way to encourage intellectual honesty and integrity!

You're up.

Interesting how much debate this is not generating. Am I the last one to this party?

A newspaper editor uses every trick in the book to keep his ex-wife, a reporter, from marrying a madman who's killing teenagers at a summer camp.

Shoot to Kill a Mockingbird

Wallace strikes me as someone who is an inerrantist in principle but not in practice. He probably would agree that God-breathed implies inerrancy, but is not willing to twist existing evidence into a pretzel to force it to conform to his conclusion. While I no longer consider myself an inerrantist (and have not for more than a decade, which is part of why you don't see me in Doctrinal as much as you used to), I think Wallace's honesty is the best one can expect from someone who still holds to that position. It is a matter of faith, a faith in "original" documents we no longer have. Reading the Bible on its own terms, without forcing it to conform to my preconceived notions about it, leads me to believe that its writers never claimed to be producing something inerrant in the first place. So while I may be impressed if further information validates Luke's account, I'm not expecting it and I won't lose sleep if it never happens. Nobody's perfect.