I received an email asking about Bart Ehrman. I am quite familiar with Ehrman and his books. He is a once-self-proclaimed evangelical who morphed into agnosticism and now is openly atheist. He has impressive credentials with a PhD (see here.) Bart Ehrman’s book Misquoting Jesus, originally published in 2009, was a best-seller ultimately ending up on the New York Times bestseller list. Ehrman is somewhat unique in that he acknowledges many true things regarding New Testament textual criticism scholarship, while at the same time (and sometimes in virtually the same breath), drawing questionable conclusions and even postulating blatant falsehood. While Ehrman’s background in scholarship is unquestionable, his book is a confusing mixture of fact and falsehood, requiring a discerning and knowledgeable reader to glean the truth.

Ehrman’s central thesis in Misquoting Jesus is that the New Testament was radically altered at the hands of unprofessional copyist scribes in the ancient church “who were not only conserving scripture but also changing it and thereby rendering the doctrine of inspiration irrelevant.” Much of the historical background that he provides is indeed reputable scholarship such as his description of the development of Marcion’s Canon (p. 40-41), the identification of scriptuo continua in ancient Greek manuscripts (p. 55), the admission that the vast majority of copying errors were simple mistakes consisting of accidental omissions, inadvertent additions and misspelled words (p.63), the recognition of the superior quality of Alexandrian manuscripts (p. 82), the rise of Christian scriptoria with professional scribes (p. 83), the enormous impact of the invention of the printing press (p. 86), the fact that the Textus Receptus is not based on the oldest and best manuscripts but on the text originally published by Erasmus (p. 94), and the thirty thousand variants in New Testament manuscripts uncovered by John Mill after thirty years of hard work (p. 95).

Reading through the entirety of Misquoting Jesus, I come away with the impression that Ehrman approaches New Testament scholarship with preconceived notions driving his understanding and conclusions instead of letting the facts dictate the findings. It is probably more than coincidental that he mentions The Da Vinci Code in passing reference in Misquoting Jesus. The Da Vinci Code significantly echoes much of Ehrman’s position on New Testament scholarship. Daniel Wallace, of Dallas Theological and one of the premier experts in the world in New Testament textual criticism, warns “Unfortunately, the average layperson will leave Misquoting Jesus with far greater doubts about the wording and teachings of the NT than any textual critic would ever entertain.” In 2020, Randy Alcorn explored the inevitable consequence of Ehrman’s worldview in A Case Study: Bart Ehrman, a “Christian” Who Lost His Faith writing, “Ehrman lost faith in Scripture before losing faith in God.” Ehrman admitted in 2008, a year before publishing Misquoting Jesus, that he no longer considered himself a Christian. Ehrman serves as a tragic warning of the apostasy depicted in Heb 6:4-6 and admits what started his trajectory towards his ultimate loss of faith writing, “Once I made that admission, the floodgates opened. For if there could be one little, picayune mistake in Mark 2, maybe there could be mistakes in other places as well.”

When all is said and done, as Hixson and Gurry point out, “the very worst Greek manuscript now in existence . . . contains enough of the Gospel in unadulterated form to lead the reader into the way of salvation.” (Elijah Hixson & Peter J. Gurry (editors), Myths and Mistakes in New Testament Textual Criticism, (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic), 2019).

Another of Bart Ehrman’s books Jesus Before The Gospels is an interesting read that will force the reader to reexamine the foundation for their faith. If our faith is built on sand (Matt 7:24-27), it will crumble when exposed to arguments like Ehrman’s. But if our faith is built on the rock of Christ, it will withstand even the fiercest onslaught of unbelief. As I told someone else recently when the subject of Bart Ehrman came up, while Ehrman’s background in scholarship is unquestionable, his books tend to be a confusing mixture of fact and falsehood, requiring a discerning and knowledgeable reader to glean the truth. In Jesus Before The Gospels, Erhman contends that in the decades before the gospels were written, the knowledge of Jesus was altered by a “mysterious period of oral transmission.” Ehrman spends considerable time attacking the reliability of memory, quoting sociologists, anthropologists, psychologists and psychiatrists on the unreliability of memory which he characterizes as “frail” and “faulty” because “what we are experiencing in the present radically affects how we remember the past.” Yet he simultaneously and ironically states that we “remember pretty well.” Ehrman quotes at length from the spurious gnostic gospels but fails to acknowledge that the early church universally rejected all of them as forgeries.

While Ehrman believes that Mark was written around 70 AD, some reputable scholars date it to the early-mid 50s. Even if Mark was written in 70 AD, that is only some 40 years after the crucifixion and resurrection and well within the lifetime of many eyewitnesses. I can clearly and accurately recall events from 40 years ago in my life—particularly traumatic and memorable events. The crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus would have been particularly traumatic events to witness. I remember with clarity the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger in Jan of 1986. If Mark was written in 70 AD, there were still many eyewitnesses alive to refute any inaccuracies in the gospel. Forty years is not sufficient time for a legend to develop. Ehrman argues that none of the gospels were written by an eyewitness, but by an anonymous author. However, you should know that all of the gospel manuscripts that we possess attribute authorship in the gospel title to either Matthew, Mark, Luke or John. There are no anonymous manuscripts in support of Ehrman’s thesis.

Ehrman postulates enough truth to be attractive, but spins a web of deceit that is ultimately fatal. If he is correct, we must jettison our current understanding of the value of eyewitnesses in courts of law. While focusing on a “historical” and “remembered Jesus,” he fatally ignores the transcendent Jesus. Ehrman is a good illustration of why Christians should not only know what they believe, but why they believe. Apologetics can help do that.

I recommend Myths and Mistakes in New Testament Textual Criticism for anyone seeking to understand New Testament textual criticism and identify where Ehrman fails. For a respectful refutation of Ehrman, I recommend Misquoting Truth by Timothy Paul Jones.

Jones, Timothy Paul. Misquoting Truth, a Guide to the Fallacies of Bart Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus. (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press). 2007