Bart D. Ehrman

Bart D. Ehrman
Ehrman in 2012
Born	Bart Denton Ehrman (1955-10-05) October 5, 1955 Lawrence, Kansas, U.S.
Spouse	Sarah Beckwith
Academic background
Education	Wheaton College (BA) Princeton Theological Seminary (MDiv, PhD)
Thesis	The Gospel Text of Didymus (1985)
Doctoral advisor	Bruce M. Metzger
Academic work
Discipline	Biblical studies
Institutions	Rutgers University University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Main interests	New Testament authentication New Testament textual variants historical Jesus early Christian writings orthodox corruption of the Bible
Notable works	Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium (1999) Misquoting Jesus (2005) Jesus, Interrupted (2009) Forged (2011) How Jesus Became God (2014) The Triumph of Christianity (2018) Heaven and Hell: A History of the Afterlife (2020)
Website	bartehrman.com

Bart Denton Ehrman (born October 5, 1955) is an American New Testament scholar focusing on textual criticism of the New Testament, the historical Jesus, and the origins and development of early Christianity. He has written and edited 30 books, including three college textbooks. He has also authored six New York Times bestsellers. He is the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Biography

Early life

On October 5, 1955, Ehrman was born in Lawrence, Kansas, and subsequently grew up there before attending Lawrence High School, where he was on the state champion debate team in 1973. He began studying the Bible, biblical theology, and biblical languages at Moody Bible Institute, where he earned the school's three-year diploma in 1976. He earned his BA from Wheaton College in Illinois in 1978. He later earned an MDiv from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1981 and a PhD in 1985, where he studied textual criticism of the Bible, development of the New Testament canon and New Testament apocrypha under Bruce Metzger. Both the baccalaureate and doctorate were conferred magna cum laude.

Career

Ehrman was raised in the Episcopal Church; as a teenager, he became a born-again evangelical. In Misquoting Jesus, he recounts being certain in his youthful enthusiasm that God had inspired the wording of the Bible and protected its texts from all error. His desire to understand the original words of the Bible led him to study ancient languages, particularly Koine Greek, and textual criticism. During such studies at Princeton, however, he became convinced that there were contradictions and discrepancies in the biblical manuscripts that could not be harmonized or reconciled:

I did my very best to hold on to my faith that the Bible was the inspired word of God with no mistakes and that lasted for about two years [...] I realized that at the time we had over 5,000 manuscripts of the New Testament, and no two of them are exactly alike. The scribes were changing them, sometimes in big ways, but lots of times in little ways. And it finally occurred to me that if I really thought that God had inspired this text [...] If he went to the trouble of inspiring the text, why didn't he go to the trouble of preserving the text? Why did he allow scribes to change it?

In the preface to his 2020 book Heaven and Hell: A History of the Afterlife, Ehrman said that he had been scared of going to Hell since he was a child and, when he began to encounter some doubts about his Christian beliefs at college, he became panicked that he might die before he had found the right beliefs, and be sent to Hell.

He subsequently turned into a liberal Christian, remaining in the Episcopal Church for 15 years, but later became an agnostic atheist after struggling with the philosophical problems of evil and suffering.

Works

Books

Ehrman has written widely on issues of the New Testament and early Christianity at both an academic and popular level, much of it based on textual criticism of the New Testament. His thirty books include three college textbooks and six New York Times bestsellers: Misquoting Jesus, Jesus, Interrupted, God's Problem, Forged, How Jesus Became God, and The Triumph of Christianity. More than two million copies of his books have been sold, and his books have been translated into 27 languages.

In Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium, Ehrman agrees with Albert Schweitzer's thesis that Jesus was a Jewish apocalyptic preacher and that his main message was that the end times were near, that God would shortly intervene to overthrow evil and establish his rule on Earth, and that Jesus and his disciples all believed these end time events would occur in their lifetimes.

In Truth and Fiction in The Da Vinci Code, Ehrman expands on his list of ten historical and factual inaccuracies in Dan Brown's novel, previously incorporated in Dan Burstein's Secrets of the Code.

In Misquoting Jesus, Ehrman outlines the development of New Testament manuscripts and the process and cause of manuscript errors in the New Testament.

In Jesus, Interrupted, he describes the progress scholars have made in understanding the Bible over the past two hundred years and the results of their study, which are often unknown among the population at large. He highlights the diversity of views found in the New Testament, the existence of forged books in the New Testament which were written in the names of the apostles by Christian writers who lived decades later, and his belief that Christian doctrines such as the suffering Messiah, the divinity of Jesus, and the Trinity were later inventions. To date, he has changed his mind on several issues, most notably the divinity of Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels.

In Forged, Ehrman posits that some New Testament books are literary forgeries and shows how widely forgery was practiced by early Christian writers—and how it was condemned in the ancient world as fraudulent and illicit. His scholarly book, Forgery and Counterforgery, is an advanced look at the practice of forgery in the New Testament and early Christian literature. It makes a case for considering falsely attributed or pseudepigraphic books in the New Testament and early Christian literature "forgery", looks at why certain New Testament and early Christian works are considered forged, and describes the broader phenomenon of pseudepigraphy in the Greco-Roman world.

In 2012, Ehrman published Did Jesus Exist? The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth, defending the historical existence of Jesus of Nazareth in contrast to the mythicist theory that Jesus is an entirely fictitious being.

The 2014 release of How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee examines the historical Jesus, who according to Ehrman neither thought of himself as God nor claimed to be God, and proffers how he came to be thought of as the incarnation of God himself.

In Jesus Before the Gospels, he examines the early Christian oral tradition and its role in shaping the stories about Jesus that are encountered in the New Testament.

The Triumph of Christianity: How a Forbidden Religion Swept the World notes that from the diversity of Christianity "throughout the first four Christian centuries," eventually only one form of Christianity, Nicene Christianity, became dominant under the rule of the Roman Emperor Constantine and his successors.

Heaven and Hell: A History of the Afterlife examines the historical development of the concepts of the afterlife throughout Greek, Jewish, and early Christian cultures, and how they eventually converged into the concepts of Heaven and Hell recognized by modern Christians.

Courses (on DVD/CD)

Ehrman has released nine courses, consisting of 12 or 24 thirty-minute lectures through The Great Courses.

Reception

Ehrman has been the recipient of the 2009 J. W. Pope "Spirit of Inquiry" Teaching Award, the 1993 UNC Undergraduate Student Teaching Award, the 1994 Phillip and Ruth Hettleman Prize for Artistic and Scholarly Achievement, and the Bowman and Gordon Gray Award for excellence in teaching.

Daniel Wallace has praised Ehrman as "one of North America's leading textual critics" and describes him as "one of the most brilliant and creative textual critics I have ever known". Wallace argues, however, that in Misquoting Jesus Ehrman sometimes "overstates his case by assuming that his view is certainly correct". For example, Wallace asserts that Ehrman himself acknowledges the vast majority of textual variants are minor, but his popular writing and speaking sometimes makes the sheer number of them appear to be a major problem for getting to the original New Testament text.

Ehrman's The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings is widely used at American colleges and universities. The textbook holds to a traditional interpretation of the Gospel of Thomas in the context of second-century Christian Gnosticism, a view that has been criticized by Elaine Pagels.

Alan Kirk found Ehrman's writing in Jesus Before the Gospels to cite memory research selectively, neglecting the fact that John Bartlett's experiment discovered that stories quickly took on a stable, 'schematic' form rather quickly. Ehrman also overemphasizes individual transmission instead of community, makes a 'lethal oversight' where Jan Vansina, whom he quoted as evidence for corruption in the Jesus tradition, changed his mind, arguing that information was conveyed through a community that placed controls, rather than through chains of transmission easily subject to change. Kirk does sympathize with Ehrman that appealing to memory cannot automatically guarantee historicity.

Andreas J. Köstenberger, Darrell L. Bock, and Josh D. Chatraw have disputed Ehrman's depiction of scholarly consensus, saying: "It is only by defining scholarship on his own terms and by excluding scholars who disagree with him that Ehrman is able to imply that he is supported by all other scholarship," but Michael R. Licona, scholar and Christian apologist, notes that "his positions are those largely embraced by mainstream skeptical scholarship."

Gary Kamiya states in Salon that "Ehrman's scholarly standing did not soothe the evangelical Christians who were outraged by Misquoting Jesus. Angered by what they took to be the book's subversive import, they attacked it as exaggerated, unfair and lacking a devotional tone. No fewer than three books were published in response to Ehrman's tome". In 2014, Zondervan published How God Became Jesus: The Real Origins of Belief in Jesus' Divine Nature: A Response to Bart D. Ehrman as a planned companion volume to Ehrman's How Jesus Became God. The contributing authors—including Michael F. Bird, Craig A. Evans, and Simon Gathercole—present Ehrman as "prone to profound confusion, botched readings, and scholarly fictions." Bird writes Ehrman's work has received a negative reception from conservative Christians but a warm reception from the non-religious. Charles Gieschen, whose work Ehrman cited, has objected to the latter's usage of his work in How Jesus Became God, instead arguing for a Christology where Jesus is identified with the God of Israel.

Ehrman has participated in several debates on the topic of the historical reliability of the Gospels. This includes a 2014 debate with Protestant apologist James White and a 2022 debate with Roman Catholic apologist Jimmy Akin.

Personal life

Ehrman has been married twice and has two children from his first marriage. He is married to Sarah Beckwith, a professor of medieval literature at Duke University and an Episcopalian. With the exception of sports broadcasting, Ehrman does not watch television, but reportedly does watch a classic Criterion Collection film with Beckwith on a weekly basis.

Bibliography

• Didymus the Blind and the Text of the Gospels (The New Testament in the Greek Fathers; No. 1). Society of Biblical Literature. 1987. ISBN 1-55540-084-1.
• The Text of the Fourth Gospel in the Writings of Origen (The New Testament in the Greek Fathers; vol. 1). Society of Biblical Literature. 1992. ISBN 1555407897.
• The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture: The Effect of Early Christological Controversies on the Text of the New Testament. Oxford University Press, US. 2011 [1993]. ISBN 978-0-19-973978-3.
• The Text of the New Testament in Contemporary Research: Essays on the Status Quaestionis. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. 1995. ISBN 0-8028-4824-9.
• The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings. Oxford University Press, US. 1997. ISBN 0-19-515462-2.
• The New Testament and Other Early Christian Writings: A Reader. Oxford University Press, US. 1998. ISBN 0-19-515464-9.
• After the New Testament: A Reader in Early Christianity. Oxford University Press, US. 1998. ISBN 0-19-511445-0.
• Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium. Oxford University Press, US. 1999. ISBN 0-19-512474-X.
• The Apostolic Fathers: Volume I. I Clement. II Clement. Ignatius. Polycarp. Didache. Harvard University Press. 2003. ISBN 0-674-99607-0.
• The Apostolic Fathers: Volume II. Epistle of Barnabas. Papias and Quadratus. Epistle to Diognetus. The Shepherd of Hermas. Harvard University Press. 2003. ISBN 0-674-99608-9.
• Lost Scriptures: Books that Did Not Make It into the New Testament. Oxford University Press, US. 2003. ISBN 0-19-514182-2.
• Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew. Oxford University Press, US. 2003. ISBN 0-19-514183-0.
• Ehrman, Bart; Jacobs, Andrew S. (2003). Christianity in Late Antiquity, 300–450 C.E.: A Reader. Oxford University Press, US. ISBN 0-19-515461-4.
• A Brief Introduction to the New Testament. Oxford University Press, US. 2004. ISBN 0-19-516123-8.
• Truth and Fiction in The Da Vinci Code: A Historian Reveals What We Really Know about Jesus, Mary Magdalene, and Constantine. Oxford University Press, US. 2004. ISBN 0-19-518140-9.
• Metzger, Bruce M.; Ehrman, Bart (2005). The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration. Oxford University Press, US. ISBN 0-19-516667-1.
• Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why. HarperSanFrancisco. 2005. ISBN 0-06-073817-0.
• Peter, Paul, and Mary Magdalene: The Followers of Jesus in History and Legend. Oxford University Press, US. 2006. ISBN 0-19-530013-0.
• Studies in the Textual Criticism of the New Testament. Brill Publishers, US. 2006. ISBN 90-04-15032-3.
• The Lost Gospel of Judas Iscariot: A New Look at Betrayer and Betrayed. Oxford University Press, US. 2006. ISBN 978-0-19-531460-1.
• God's Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question – Why We Suffer. HarperCollins, US. 2008. ISBN 978-0-06-117397-4.
• Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (And Why We Don't Know About Them). HarperCollins, US. 2009. ISBN 978-0-06-117394-3.
• Forged: Writing in the Name of God – Why the Bible's Authors Are Not Who We Think They Are. HarperCollins, US. 2011. ISBN 978-0-06-201261-6.
• Ehrman, Bart; Pleše, Zlatko (2011). The Apocryphal Gospels: Texts and Translations. Oxford University Press, US. ISBN 978-0-19-973210-4.
• Did Jesus Exist? The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth. HarperCollins, US. 2012. ISBN 978-0-06-220460-8.
• Forgery and Counterforgery: The Use of Literary Deceit in Early Christian Polemics. Oxford University Press, US. 2012. ISBN 978-0-19-992803-3.
• The Bible: A Historical and Literary Introduction. Oxford University Press, US. 2013. ISBN 978-0-19-530816-7.
• The Other Gospels: Accounts of Jesus from Outside the New Testament. Oxford University Press, US. 2013. ISBN 978-0-19-933522-0.
• How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee. HarperOne, US. 2014. ISBN 978-0-06-177818-6.
• Jesus Before the Gospels: How the Earliest Christians Remembered, Changed, and Invented Their Stories of the Savior. HarperOne, US. 2016. ISBN 978-0062285201.
• The Triumph of Christianity: How a Forbidden Religion Swept the World. Simon & Schuster, US. 2018. ISBN 978-1501136702.
• Heaven and Hell: A History of the Afterlife. Simon & Schuster, US. 2020. ISBN 978-1501136733.
• Journeys to Heaven and Hell: Tours of the Afterlife in the Early Christian Tradition. Yale University Press, US. 2022. ISBN 978-0300257007.
• Armageddon: What the Bible Really Says about the End. Simon & Schuster, US. 2023. ISBN 978-1982147990.

Further reading

• Price, Robert M. (2018), Bart Ehrman Interpreted: How One Radical New Testament Scholar Understands Another, Durham, NC: Pitchstone Publishing (US&CA), ISBN 978-1634311588, OCLC 1020301095
• Kinlaw, Robert; Stasio, Frank (March 5, 2018). "The Sunday School Teacher Turned Skeptic: Meet Bart Ehrman" (pod). State of Things. WUNC (NPR).

External links

• Official website
• "Ehrman's blog". Christianity in Antiquity (CIA)
• "Bart D. Ehrman". Faculty. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina.
• "Bart D. Ehrman". The Teaching Company.