Historians can establish only what probably happened in the past, but miracles, by their very nature, are always the least probable explanation for what happened. This is true whether you are a believer or not. [...] If historians can only establish what probably happened, and miracles by their definition are the least probable occurrences, then more or less by definition, historians cannot establish that miracles have ever probably happened.
Bart D. Ehrman Carolinian
Source
No citation is recorded for this quotation.
- work
- Jesus, Interrupted (2009)
- year
- 2009
no citation recorded
Cite this record
“Historians can establish only what probably happened in the …” Bart D. Ehrman. Carolina Quotes, record CQ-89D8819680. https://carolinaquotes.com/quote/89d8819680
More from Bart D. Ehrman
For the only reason (I came to think) for God to inspire the Bible would be so that his people would have his actual words; but if he really wanted to have his actual words, surely he would have miraculously preserved those words, just as he had miraculously inspired them in the first place.
Even though Jesus may be the only miracleworking Son of God that people know about today, there were lots of people like this in the ancient world.
The only way to make sense of a text is to read it, and the only way to read it is by putting it in other words, and the only way to put it in other words is by having other words to put it into, and the only way you have other words to put it into is that you have a life, and the only way to have a life is by being filled with desires, longings, needs, wants, beliefs, perspectives, worldviews, opinions, likes, dislikes— and all the other things that make human beings human. And so to read a text is, necessarily, to change a text.