Bart Ehrman

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Bart Ehrman celebrated his 67th birthday a few days ago. He is the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a well-known New Testament scholar specializing in textual criticism (the Greek manuscript tradition of the New Testament), the historical Jesus and the history of early Christianity [1] [2] [3] [4]. His journey from a fundamentalist evangelical (by own admission) to a secular Professor of Religious Studies is an interesting, but not a unique one. As Mark Twain said “The best cure for Christianity is reading the Bible”. Studying the origins of the Bible, its history, the history of Christianity and the history of its dogmas is an even more effective cure, as many of us can testify.

Bart Denton Ehrman was born on 5 October 1955 in Kansas where he completed school in 1973. He then received a 3-year diploma from the Moody Bible Institute, before receiving a bachelor’s degree from Wheaton College in 1978, followed by his M.Div in 1981 and his PhD in 1985, both from Princeton Theological Seminary.

He taught at the Department of Religion of the Rutgers University from 1984 – 1988 and has been teaching at the University of North Carolina ever since. He became Professor in 1999 and served as Chair of their Department of Religious Studies from 2000 – 2006.

Bart was raised in the Episcopal Church of the United States, but became a born-again evangelical as a teenager. The discrepancies and contradictions in the Bible became a problem for his faith during his post-graduate studies at Princeton:

“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?” [4].

He consequently left evangelism and returned to the Episcopal Church for another 15 years, before leaving religion altogether, but continued his career as a secular academic studying the New Testament from a historical perspective.

Bart Ehrman, Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill [Image credit: Wikimedia Commons]

He wrote numerous books, both popular and academic. Some of the most interesting ones are:

  • Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why
  • Jesus Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (And Why We Don’t Know About Them)
  • Forged: Writing in the Name of God – Why the Bible’s Authors Are Not Who We Think They Are
  • Did Jesus Exist? The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth
  • How Jesus Became God. The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee
  • Jesus Before The Gospels
  • Heaven and Hell: A History of the Afterlife, of which he said:

“My most recent popular book is Heaven and Hell: A History of the Afterlife (Simon & Schuster, 2020). In it I explore the still widespread views of the afterlife, arguing that neither the Old Testament nor Jesus taught that at death a person’s soul goes to heaven or hell. The book explores why that became the standard Christian view, down till today.” [3]

Despite his expertise, his measured and evidence-based approach and his respectful tone (which we highly value here at The CSF), Christian apologetics attack him mercilessly and pastors regard him as very dangerous [5]. Comparing Bart Ehrman to Richard Dawkins, pastor Stephen Bedard writes “Having read from both authors, my conclusion is that Bart Ehrman is the greater threat to the Church” [6]. In my view that is quite a compliment.

Bart runs a very useful blog, to which I subscribe and which I can recommend without hesitation: The Bart Ehrman Blog – The Bart Ehrman Blog

Here is an example of one of his YouTube videos in which he discusses some of the contradictions and inaccuracies in the New Testament with a church audience, and also spends time on his personal journey:

Are the Gospels Historically Reliable? The Problem of Contradictions

Author: JJ Brits

Published on thecsf.xyz 9 Oct 2022

Next Secular Thinkers article

Carl Sagan by JJ Brits, scheduled for 2 Dec 2022

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JJ Brits
JJ Britshttps://thecsf.xyz/authors/
JJ runs The CSF as a modest contribution to promote critical thinking, an openly secular lifestyle, and normalizing Secularism, while challenging invalid religious claims and its disproportionate influence. He is based in Australia, and is writing a book on his journey through religion. His primary interest and research focus is Morality, as he is convinced that humanity will have to develop a more rational, tolerant and inclusive morality, in order to survive on our planet. JJ used to be a devout Christian and a qualified Minister of Religion, with a Masters Degree in Theology. He spent two years working on a PhD in Systematic Theology as he contemplated an academic career. These 8 years of full-time studies, seriously looking for answers in Theology, Philosophy, History and Science, led him to leave religion and his career, as the Christian scripture, dogmas, claims and history could not hold up to rational scrutiny.

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2 COMMENTS

  1. Thank you so much for visiting the CSF and for your supportive comment, Babs. Much appreciated. I hope you and more of your subscribers will continue to participate here. It is indeed a very challenging undertaking, but a very worthy cause. Better to light a candle than to curse the darkness…

  2. Being introduced to this new website is like a breath of fresh air. I regard it as a much needed forum for discussions on such challenging topics that you have mentioned. Your call for inclusiivity and respectfulness and your quest for a ‘new morality’ for crossing cultural divides will not be an easy task. Taking into account how arguments in the social media are often driven by emotions and cognitive biases, and mostly lacking facts and scientific ignorance… We wish you well and will follow and support your inthusiasm.

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