Dr. Tim McGrew on alleged historical errors in the gospels

I see that Brian Auten of Apologetics 315 is posting a lot of Tim McGrew material on his channel. Timothy J. McGrew (University of Scranton BA Philosophy 1988; Vanderbilt University PhD Philosophy 1992) is a Professor of Philosophy at Western Michigan University.

Here are a couple of Dr. McGrew’s videos – with slides! – on alleged errors in the gospels.

Alleged errors in Mark and Matthew:

In this lecture, entitled Alleged Historical Errors in the Gospels, Dr. Timothy McGrew critiques seven of the strongest objections to the historical reliability of the Gospels of Mark and Matthew. This is about 55 minutes of content followed by fifteen minutes of Q&A.

More on this talk here. (including MP3)

Bio of Tim McGrew:

Dr. Timothy McGrew is Professor of Philosophy at Western Michigan University. He specializes in theory of knowledge, logic, probability theory, and the history and philosophy of science, and he has published in numerous journals including Mind, The Monist, Analysis, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, and Philosophia Christi. His most recent publications include the article on “Evidence” in The Routledge Companion to Epistemology (forthcoming), a co-authored anthology in The Philosophy of Science (Blackwell, 2009), and a paper (with Lydia McGrew) on the the argument from miracles in The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology (Blackwell, 2009).

Always remember not to get bogged down in these low-level issues, though, until you have agreement from the skeptic about the higher order issues, e.g. – does God exist? etc. Scientific arguments first, historical and philosophical arguments second, Bible “errors” last of all.

6 thoughts on “Dr. Tim McGrew on alleged historical errors in the gospels”

Dr. McGrew does not have a specialty in textual criticism or textual variants. These videos are only second hand info (He really looked bad against one of his debates with atheist NT scholar Bart Ehrman. Ehrman questioned McGrew on the inerrancy of the Bible. McGrew dodge the question, even though it was a ad hominem ploy by Ehrman to get off topic, McGrew still should’ve addressed it like Evans & Wallace has done). In other words, any preacher or philosopher can create these video who studied philosophical theology. Dr. McGrew doesn’t even have a Ph.D. in Religion or Theology? Dr.McGrew is not on the same level as Craig A. Evans (who put Ehrman back into his place in their debates), Daniel Wallace, N.T. Wright, or WLC.

WK,

Thanks to you, I have a new NT scholar, Richard Bauckham, that I am adding to my list!

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Wintery Knight says:

03/18/2016 at 10:05 PM

Although his formal education isn’t in this area, he actually devotes a huge amount of time to it – it’s one of his areas of interest. I think he is much better at it than you say – you didn’t have any SPECIFIC concerns about anything in the video, did you?

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1. RWL says:
  
  03/18/2016 at 10:26 PM
  
  I listened to half of the first video. After listening to him, I tried to get the debate out of my mind between him and Ehrman (in the debate with Ehrman, he stated: “although I am not a textual critic, I can quote you something from….” I knew it was over. He never should’ve been in that debate). I couldn’t. I had to stop the video. Dr. McGrew speaks as if he just heard the material from someone else. It doesn’t appear to be original (i.e. he speaks as if he is preaching or teaching in an afternoon Bible studies class. As if he is saying: ‘Good morning class. I was just reading and listening to a few debates and articles on WK’s Blog, and I learned this and that……”).
  
  I don’t know if he is trying to make a name for himself in the field of philosophical theology or Christian Theology (one of the reason, as to why I said that this doesn’t sound original) or is he up and coming? What is he know for? You do agree that he is not on the same level as the ‘brass’ of Philosophical Theologians like Richard Swinburne, J.P. Moreland, WLC, Alvin Plantinga. Peter Van Inwagen, Robin Collins, etc…
  
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  1. Jed Chandler says:
    
    03/22/2016 at 10:55 AM
    
    I agree. My discipline is textual criticism and my research area late ancient eastern Christian philosophy, as in textual analysis of. McGrew seems way out of his depth, he really does.
    
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