www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com Gary Habermas, Robert Price Gary Habermas is the closest thing to a New Testament critic one will ever find teaching in the hallowed, but far from hollow, halls of Jerry Falwell's Liberty University. Exceedingly well read, Professor Habermas is the epitome of what James Barr called the "maximal conservative" approach to New Testament scholarship. The maximal conservative proposes to examine an issue in a neutral scholarly way but always comes out defending the traditional view, often explicitly appealing to the (inappropriate) rationale: "innocent until proven guilty," as if the orthodox view of any matter must claim the benefit of the doubt. That is to say, he poses as an objective researcher into open questions regarding the early Christian literature and history, but his conclusions are determined in advance by a dogmatic agenda. As a member of the Liberty University faculty, Dr. Habermas is honor-bound to believe in the absolute inerrancy of the Bible, the dogma that the Bible is free from all historical errors, and even that its authors never expressed differences of opinion on religious matters. The inerrantist believes either that the text of the Bible was verbally dictated by the Almighty (whether or not the human penman knew it at the time) or that at least the result was the same as if God had dictated it, even if "all" he did was to oversee the writing process providentially. Someone with a view like this adopts the posture of ...
