White, Ehrman and radical skepticism

In his 2009/1/13 Dividing Line, and several previous, Dr White amuses himself as Ehrman, a scholar and skeptic argues with a radical skeptic (“infidel guy”). Dr White is amused at the fireworks when a skeptic meets someone even more skeptical skeptic.

From my point of view, I have the same amusement with Dr White, as he is a skeptic of many things, meeting Ehrman as a more radical skeptic.

A lot of Dr White’s comments and arguments have been assertively pointing to the Christian community of the 1st century acting as a confirmation that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John wouldn’t have embellished or changed the story about Jesus, because the community would notice such a change and reject it.

Well ok, why can’t I argue that early figures like Clement, Ignatius and  Polycarp who knew the apostles could have served the same function with apostolic teachings as the community did in safeguarding Jesus’ teachings much earlier?

Why can’t I argue that the Christian community of the 2nd century acted as a community to not allow any changes to the apostolically mandated practices? Why can’t I point to Tertullian and Cyril of Alexandria and other very early Christian figures who take Chrismation for granted as an apostolic practice and make the same argument as Dr White that only radical skepticism would argue that the Church could have corrupted the teaching, seeing as the community would have safeguarded it?

How is doubting these things different to doubting the apostolicity of the pastoral epistles for example? In this very episode White advocates throwing out the periscope of the adulterer because it is not originally in John. Even if not originally in John, how does he demonstrate that it is not aposotolic and/or not scripture? Yet he is keen to toss it out of the bible altogether. What substantive objection could he raise against throwing out all the pastoral epistles? He would be left to argue about percentage points of probability, but couldn’t actually say anything decisive against someone in his church if they decided they weren’t going to accept the pastorals as authoritative, when Dr White is making his own emendations.

Why couldn’t I move the argument into the 3rd century? It merely becomes a matter of degree of skepticism how far you go forward before skepticism gets the better of you.

So if this is Dr White’s big argument, didn’t he just explode his entire epistemology which is to doubt the apostolicity of the early extra-scriptural practices? Isn’t inconsistency the sign of a failed argument?

Dr White is left in the difficult position of arguing that his particular level of skepticism is the appropriate one. How could he criticise me for being less skeptical?

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