Bart Ehrman made me a better apologist.

Bart Ehrman is very frustrating. He does, in my estimation, a poor job of realizing his own biases and presuppositions and therefore fails to see how they affect his conclusions. However, Dr. Ehrman is a very smart man, and he is an excellent New Testament scholar. The other day he made me a better apologist, by pointing out an aspect of a favorite argument of mine that I had failed to address to this point. Let's break down the argument, Erhman's objection, and a possible response.

The Argument

When discussing the resurrection of Jesus, we often make the case that the resurrection of Jesus is the best historical explanation of the facts given the alternate possibilities. The three primary alternative theories are 'Swoon' theories, 'Stolen Body' theories, and 'Mass Hallucination' theories. Each of these are shown one by one to be very unlikely, if not impossible. 

Dr. Ehrman holds to a Mass Hallucination theory, which has always been dismissed by Protestants like myself due to what we see as the extreme unlikelihood of hundreds of people having the same hallucination at the same time. This seems to be extremely unlikely and even harder to prove. 

Ehrman's Response

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAhw2cVRVsA&list=WL

^This is a good video. I obviously disagree with Ehrman's conclusions, but I respect the way he carries himself here, and from the 45:00 mark on he makes some really good points about problems with Humanism and there is also a very interesting question and answer session. 

Ehrman believes that Jesus' body was never found because he was never buried, and that the sightings of Jesus after his death were Mass Hallucination. He points out, very excellently, in my opinion, that Catholics often claim en mass to have seen the Virgin Mary and we as Protestants think that this is a Mass Hallucination. He's absolutely correct that if a Protestant holds these views simultaneously that he is incoherent with himself. 

One possible response

As you read this, I don't know what your view is on Demonology, depending on what that is changes whether or not my solution is of any value to you. But even if my solution is not one you agree with, keep in mind that if you hold both views stated above, there is a contradiction that really needs to be resolved. 

As Christians we believe that we 'wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers...' (Ephesians 6). We believe that our adversary, Satan, has at his disposal legions of demons. Famous atheist Richard Dawkins likes to say that we are all atheists, and that he is just believes in one less God than the Christian does. Well, on one hand he is right, he believes in one less god but he believes in countless fewer spiritual beings. I have no problem saying that people of other faiths have very real spiritual experiences, because there are demons that are the enemies of God who are at work in this world. When a Muslim says he encounters a jinni, I am not really surprised. By the same principle, if I believe that the sightings of Mary are not genuine, and I do, I can say so without violating the consistency of my own viewpoint by pointing out that my view accommodates a third option, rendering Ehrman's challenge a false dilemma. In this way his assertion of the Mass Hallucination theories fails to breach the Christian faith in any meaningful way.

For more on the resurrection of Jesus, see the following:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Son-Rises-Historical-Resurrection/dp/1579104649/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1408538457&sr=8-2&keywords=craig+resurrection

http://www.amazon.com/Case-Resurrection-Jesus-Gary-Habermas-ebook/dp/B001QOGJY0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1408538492&sr=8-1&keywords=habermas+resurrection