Bart Ehrman and the New Popular Skepticism

Introduction

Bart D. Ehrman is the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and arguably the most influential living popularizer of New Testament criticism. His books — including Misquoting Jesus, Lost Christianities, Forged, How Jesus Became God, and Jesus, Interrupted — have collectively sold millions of copies and introduced a vast popular audience to questions about the Bible that were previously confined to seminaries and graduate programs.

Ehrman's personal story adds to his influence: he was once a committed evangelical Christian, a graduate of Moody Bible Institute and Wheaton College, who earned his doctorate under Bruce Metzger at Princeton Theological Seminary before losing his faith. His journey from belief to agnosticism gives his skeptical arguments an autobiographical force that purely academic critiques lack. Christians need to engage Ehrman seriously — not because he is always right, but because he is widely read, rhetorically gifted, and asking questions that deserve honest answers.

Ehrman's Core Arguments

Textual Corruption

In Misquoting Jesus, Ehrman argues that the New Testament text has been changed — sometimes accidentally, sometimes intentionally — by scribes over the centuries. The number of textual variants (more than words in the NT) means we cannot be sure we have the original text. As we saw in earlier lessons, Ehrman's data is largely accurate: there are indeed hundreds of thousands of variants. But his interpretation is maximalist. The vast majority of variants are trivial (spelling differences, word order), and none affects any essential Christian doctrine. Ehrman's own doctoral supervisor, Bruce Metzger, affirmed this throughout his career.

Pseudepigraphy and Forgery

In Forged, Ehrman argues that several New Testament books were not written by their attributed authors — that letters claiming to be from Paul (like Ephesians, Colossians, and the Pastorals) or Peter (2 Peter) were written by later authors who falsely used apostolic names. Ehrman calls this "forgery" and argues it undermines the books' authority. The scholarly reality is more nuanced: pseudepigraphy (writing in another's name) was a recognized literary convention in the ancient world, though its ethical status is debated. Many evangelical scholars accept Pauline authorship of all thirteen letters; others accept that some may be pseudepigraphal while maintaining their canonical authority on other grounds.

The Diversity Thesis

In Lost Christianities, Ehrman popularizes the Bauer thesis — that early Christianity was a diverse collection of competing movements, and "orthodoxy" won by power rather than by truth. As we examined in Lesson 26, this thesis contains a genuine insight (early Christianity was diverse) packaged in a misleading framework (the earliest evidence consistently supports what became orthodoxy, not heresy).

The Divinity of Jesus

In How Jesus Became God, Ehrman argues that Jesus did not claim to be divine and that the doctrine of his divinity was a later development — an "exaltation Christology" that evolved over decades from viewing Jesus as a human prophet to worshiping him as God incarnate. The response: the earliest Christian evidence (Paul's letters, the pre-Pauline creeds) already attributes to Jesus titles, functions, and worship that are reserved for God alone. The "high Christology" is not a late development; it is present from the earliest stratum of the evidence.

How to Engage Ehrman

Effective engagement with Ehrman requires several commitments:

Distinguish data from interpretation. Ehrman's factual observations are usually sound — there are textual variants, pseudepigraphy existed, early Christianity was diverse. His interpretive framework consistently selects the most skeptical possible reading of the evidence. The same data, interpreted within a different framework, supports very different conclusions.

Read his interlocutors. Ehrman has been responded to by serious scholars — Daniel Wallace on textual criticism, Michael Bird on Christology, Craig Evans on the Gospels, Michael Kruger on the canon. Reading both sides of the debate gives a fuller picture than Ehrman's books alone.

Appreciate his contributions. Ehrman has forced the church to reckon with questions it often avoids. Christians who have never heard of textual variants, pseudepigraphy, or the Synoptic Problem are more vulnerable to losing their faith when they encounter these issues for the first time in a skeptical context. Ehrman's popularity is partly the church's fault — if we taught these things honestly in our own communities, Ehrman's books would be less disorienting.