Jesus: Man, Messenger, Messiah · Introduction

Who Bart Ehrman is, and why that matters

Handle with care. Do not call Ehrman a Christian, a believer, or someone who accepts Islam. He is an agnostic and he rejects the Qur'anic account of Jesus (PBUH) as well. Quote him for manuscript data, never as a witness for Islam.

In short

• 1.Born-again evangelical; Moody Bible Institute, then Wheaton College, then a PhD at Princeton Theological Seminary.
• 2.Studied under Bruce M. Metzger, the most respected New Testament textual critic of the twentieth century — the book is dedicated to him.
• 3.He is now an agnostic historian, not a believer of any tradition, and he says so openly.
• 4.His field is textual criticism: comparing manuscripts to work out what the earliest recoverable wording was.

The claim being examined

Ehrman is cited constantly in interfaith conversation, and just as often dismissed as an anti-Christian activist. Knowing his actual position stops the conversation from collapsing into a fight about the man.

The Islamic position

His biography is not the argument, but it does establish that his conclusions were reached against his own wishes: he set out to defend the text and the manuscripts changed his mind.

Analysis

Ehrman tells his own story in the Introduction: a teenage born-again experience, Moody's teaching that every word of the Bible is without error, then Greek at Wheaton, then Princeton, where defending that position on scholarly grounds gradually became impossible for him. In conversation the useful point is not the biography but the standing: he is a mainstream, credentialled textual critic (a specialist who compares old copies to recover the earliest wording), publishing through university and trade presses. His interpretations are argued over; his data — the manuscripts and their variants — are the common property of the field.

Sources

More in Introduction

• Mark 2:26 and Abiathar: the verse that broke inerrancy for Ehrman
• The question the book actually asks