Bart D. Ehrman

Bart D. Ehrman
Ehrman in 2012
Born	Bart Denton Ehrman (1955-10-05) October 5, 1955 Lawrence, Kansas, U.S.
Nationality	American
Spouse	Sarah Beckwith
Awards	Religious Liberty Award, American Humanist Association, 2011 Fellow, National Humanities Center, 2009–10, 2018–19 John William Pope Center Spirit of Inquiry Teaching Award, 2008
Academic background
Education	Wheaton College (BA, 1978) Princeton Theological Seminary (MDiv, 1981; PhD, 1985)
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	Textual criticism of the New Testament Historical Jesus Early Christian literature Apostolic Fathers
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) Journeys to Heaven and Hell (2022) Armageddon: What the Bible Really Says about the End (2023)
Website	bartehrman.com

Bart Denton Ehrman (born October 5, 1955) is an American New Testament scholar whose research focuses on the textual criticism of the New Testament, the historical Jesus, and the origins and development of early Christianity. He is James A. Gray Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is the author or editor of more than thirty books, including six New York Times bestsellers, and he has created nine lecture series with The Great Courses. He also runs a membership blog whose proceeds support charities that address hunger and homelessness, which reported more than three million dollars raised by March 2025.

Early life and education

Ehrman was born in Lawrence, Kansas, and grew up there. He studied at Moody Bible Institute, where he completed the institute's three year diploma before transferring credits to Wheaton College. He earned a BA at Wheaton College in 1978, and an MDiv in 1981 and PhD in 1985 at Princeton Theological Seminary, where he studied with textual critic Bruce Metzger. His dissertation on the gospel quotations of Didymus the Blind informed his first scholarly monograph, Didymus the Blind and the Text of the Gospels.

Career

Ehrman taught at Rutgers University from 1985 to 1988, then joined the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he has taught since 1988 and served as department chair from 2000 to 2006. He was named James A. Gray Distinguished Professor in 2003. He has recorded multiple courses with The Teaching Company, including series on the New Testament and the historical Jesus. He is the author of widely assigned textbooks with Oxford University Press, including The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings, eighth edition 2023.

Scholarship and writings

Much of Ehrman's early scholarship addressed the Greek manuscript tradition of the New Testament and the ways theological controversy shaped textual transmission. His The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture argues that some scribal changes reflect early Christological debates. His Forgery and Counterforgery analyzes literary deceit and ancient charges of pseudepigraphy in early Christian polemics.

Ehrman has written for broader audiences on the historical Jesus and the development of Christian belief. Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium presents Jesus as a first century Jewish apocalyptic preacher. Did Jesus Exist? defends the historical existence of Jesus against mythicist claims. Heaven and Hell: A History of the Afterlife and Journeys to Heaven and Hell study ancient afterlife traditions and their reception in early Christianity. Armageddon: What the Bible Really Says about the End examines the Book of Revelation and modern apocalyptic interpretation. Simon & Schuster lists a forthcoming trade book, Love Thy Stranger, scheduled for March 24, 2026.

Public engagement

Ehrman regularly lectures for public audiences and appears in media. He has recorded multiple series with The Great Courses and maintains a membership blog, The Bart Ehrman Blog, that donates all membership fees to charity, with more than three million dollars reported raised by 2025. A 2020 TIME essay summarized key claims in Heaven and Hell for general readers.

Awards and honors

Ehrman received the Religious Liberty Award from the American Humanist Association in 2011. He held National Humanities Center fellowships in 2009–10 and 2018–19 for projects on ancient forgery and on early Christian afterlife narratives. He has received multiple university teaching awards at UNC, including the Pope Center Spirit of Inquiry Teaching Award and the Undergraduate Students' Teaching Award. He was named a Guggenheim Fellow in 2018 in the field of Religion.

Religious views

Ehrman describes a progression from evangelical belief to agnosticism, identifying the problem of suffering as decisive. He writes that "the problem of suffering became for me the problem of faith". He later stated, "I no longer go to church, no longer believe, no longer consider myself a Christian". In a 2008 interview he explained the transition in empirical terms, "I simply didn't believe that there was a God of any sort".

On self-identification, Ehrman has written that he is both agnostic and atheist, "I usually confuse people when I tell them I'm both", and that "atheism is a statement about faith and agnosticism is a statement about epistemology".

Ehrman argues that Jesus of Nazareth existed historically, and has summarized the claim in popular form, "he did exist, whether we like it or not". His position on Christology is historical rather than confessional. In summarizing How Jesus Became God, NPR recorded his judgment that "Jesus himself didn't call himself God and didn't consider himself God". On afterlife doctrine he has written that postmortem reward and punishment as popularly conceived are not taught by Jesus, "it is not what Jesus himself preached". In a 2020 essay he argued that Jesus proclaimed resurrection and the coming kingdom rather than eternal torment.

Reception

Scholars have assessed Ehrman's trade books as effective popularization and as polemical in tone. Daniel B. Wallace's review of Misquoting Jesus in the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society called the opening chapters "a very good" introduction to New Testament textual criticism, then argued that the book "paints a very bleak picture of scribal activity" and that Ehrman "overstates his case".

Larry Hurtado judged How Jesus Became God to be aimed at lay readers "generally unacquainted with this scholarly work", and warned that "a polemical agenda may well make for a lively discussion, but it also lessens somewhat his ability to give a balanced historical picture". Luke Timothy Johnson, reviewing the same book, described Ehrman as a practitioner of "counter-apologetics" and questioned the handling of resurrection experiences while acknowledging the clarity of the exposition.

Reviewers have also credited specific biblical inerrancy and forgery arguments. Michael J. Kruger wrote in Themelios that Ehrman is "absolutely correct that early Christians simply did not see [pseudonymous writing] this way. To them, forgery was a lie, plain and simple". Academic reviews of the scholarly monograph Forgery and Counterforgery in Novum Testamentum, The Journal of Religion, and The Journal of Theological Studies have discussed the book's scope and definitions of forgery between 100-400AD, praising the documentation while debating the breadth of the term "forgery" and individual case judgments.

Reception of later trade books has been mixed but often notes accessibility. Reviewing The Triumph of Christianity, the Washington Independent Review of Books called it "solidly grounded in first-rate scholarship". Kirkus Reviews characterized the same book as "accessible and intriguing but not groundbreaking".

Alan Kirk argues that in Jesus Before the Gospels Ehrman cites memory research selectively, ignoring that Frederic Bartlett's experiment discovered that stories take on a stable, "schematic" form rather quickly, and that Ehrman also overemphasizes individual transmission instead of community, making a "lethal oversight" about Jan Vansina, whom he quotes as evidence for corruption in the Jesus tradition, changing 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.

Evangelical scholars 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 Ehrman's "positions are those largely embraced by mainstream skeptical scholarship."

Ehrman's popular work has drawn organized rejoinders as well as broad notice. Gary Kamiya wrote that evangelicals "attacked it as exaggerated, unfair and lacking a devotional tone", noting that "no fewer than three books were published in response" to Misquoting Jesus and Jesus, Interrupted. In 2014 Zondervan published a response volume to How Jesus Became God, titled How God Became Jesus, by five scholars who contest aspects of Ehrman's reconstruction on historical and theological grounds.

Personal life

Ehrman lives in North Carolina and is married to Sarah Beckwith, an English professor of medieval literature at Duke University.

Works

Monographs and trade books

• Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium. New York, Oxford University Press, 1999.
• Truth and Fiction in The Da Vinci Code: A Historian Reveals What We Really Know about Jesus, Mary Magdalene, and Constantine. New York, Oxford University Press, 2004.
• Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew. New York, Oxford University Press, 2003.
• Lost Scriptures: Books That Did Not Make It into the New Testament. New York, Oxford University Press, 2003.
• Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why. San Francisco, HarperSanFrancisco, 2005.
• Peter, Paul, and Mary Magdalene: The Followers of Jesus in History and Legend. New York, Oxford University Press, 2006.
• The Lost Gospel of Judas Iscariot: A New Look at Betrayer and Betrayed. New York, Oxford University Press, 2006.
• God's Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question, Why We Suffer. New York, HarperOne, 2008.
• Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible. New York, HarperOne, 2009.
• Forged: Writing in the Name of God. New York, HarperOne, 2011.
• Did Jesus Exist? The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth. New York, HarperOne, 2012.
• Forgery and Counterforgery: The Use of Literary Deceit in Early Christian Polemics. New York, Oxford University Press, 2012.
• How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee. San Francisco, HarperOne, 2014.
• Jesus Before the Gospels: How the Earliest Christians Remembered, Changed, and Invented Their Stories of the Savior. New York, HarperOne, 2016.
• The Triumph of Christianity: How a Forbidden Religion Swept the World. New York, Simon & Schuster, 2018.
• Heaven and Hell: A History of the Afterlife. New York, Simon & Schuster, 2020.
• Journeys to Heaven and Hell: Tours of the Afterlife in the Early Christian Tradition. New Haven, Yale University Press, 2022.
• Armageddon: What the Bible Really Says about the End. New York, Simon & Schuster, 2023.
• Love Thy Stranger. New York, Simon & Schuster, announced for 2026.

Textbooks and readers

• The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings. New York, Oxford University Press, 1997, 8th ed. 2023.
• A Brief Introduction to the New Testament. New York, Oxford University Press, multiple eds., 5th ed. 2020.
• The Bible: A Historical and Literary Introduction. New York, Oxford University Press, 2013, 2nd ed. 2017.
• The New Testament and Other Early Christian Writings: A Reader. New York, Oxford University Press, 1998, 2nd ed. 2003.
• After the New Testament: 100–300 C.E., A Reader in Early Christianity. New York, Oxford University Press, 1999, 2nd ed. 2014.
• with Andrew S. Jacobs, Christianity in Late Antiquity, 300–450 C.E., A Reader. New York, Oxford University Press, 2004.

Critical editions and translations

• The Apostolic Fathers, Volume I and Volume II, Greek with English translation. Loeb Classical Library 24 and 25. Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 2003.
• with Zlatko Pleše, The Apocryphal Gospels: Texts and Translations. New York, Oxford University Press, 2011.
• with Zlatko Pleše, The Other Gospels: Accounts of Jesus from Outside the New Testament. New York, Oxford University Press, 2014.
• Didymus the Blind and the Text of the Gospels. Atlanta, Scholars Press for the Society of Biblical Literature, 1986.
• with Gordon D. Fee and Michael W. Holmes, The Text of the Fourth Gospel in the Writings of Origen, vol. 1. Atlanta, Scholars Press for the Society of Biblical Literature, 1992.

Edited volumes and collected essays

• with Michael W. Holmes, eds., The Text of the New Testament in Contemporary Research: Essays on the Status Quaestionis. Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 1995, 2nd ed. Leiden, Brill, 2012.
• Studies in the Textual Criticism of the New Testament. Leiden, Brill, 2006.

Selected articles and essays

A full list appears in his curriculum vitae. The following items are frequently cited in scholarship.

• "Jesus' Trial Before Pilate: John 18:28–19:16". Religion 13, 1983.
• "Cephas and Peter". Journal of Biblical Literature 109, 1990, 463–474.
• "Heracleon, Origen, and the Text of the Fourth Gospel". Vigiliae Christianae 47, 1993, 105–118.
• "A Leper in the Hands of an Angry Jesus". in Studies in the Textual Criticism of the New Testament. Leiden, Brill, 2006.
• "The Text of the Gospels at the End of the Second Century". in C.-B. Amphoux and others, eds., Codex Bezae: Studies from the Lunel Colloquium. Turnhout, Brepols, 1996.

Courses

The Great Courses video or audio lecture series, 24 or 12 lectures unless noted

• The Historical Jesus.
• Lost Christianities: Christian Scriptures and the Battles over Authentication.
• From Jesus to Constantine: A History of Early Christianity.
• After the New Testament: The Writings of the Apostolic Fathers.
• History of the Bible: The Making of the New Testament Canon.
• The New Testament.
• The Triumph of Christianity.
• How Jesus Became God.
• The Greatest Controversies of Early Christian History.

Online short courses and webinars offered on BartEhrman.com

• Paul and Jesus: The Great Divide.
• Will You Be Left Behind? A History of the Rapture.
• Jesus the Secret Messiah.
• Finding Moses.
• The Other Virgin Births in Antiquity.
• The Unknown Gospels.
• In the Beginning: History, Legend, and Myth in Genesis.
• Did Jesus Think He Was God? A Closer Look at the Evidence.
• Did the Resurrection of Jesus Really Happen? debate with Michael Licona, webinar recording.
• Did the Christmas Story Really Happen? webinar.

Reference works

• with Bruce M. Metzger, The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration, 4th ed., co-editor. New York, Oxford University Press, 2005.

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.

External links

• Official website
• "Bart D. Ehrman, UNC faculty profile".

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).