Bart D. Ehrman is the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at
the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He spoke this past Friday at
Middle Tennessee State University here in Murfreesboro. His topic was “Misquoting Jesus: Scribes Who Changed the Bible and Readers Who
May Never Know.” He has written over 24
books including Misquoting Jesus
, Jesus Interrupted
, and Lost
Christianities. 
, Jesus Interrupted, and Lost
Christianities.
Ehrman
is an accomplished academic, an engaging speaker, and a Biblical scholar, but
he is not a Christian. The last
statement is not based on my assessment but his own declaration. He is an agnostic; not a combative agnostic
but a professing one nonetheless.
To
his credit, Ehrman did not bring up his religious inclination (or lack thereof)
in his presentation. This surfaced in
the question and answer period afterward, and he was specifically asked to
recount his journey to this position. He
explained briefly that he had been “born again” in a fundamentalist church in
Kansas as a teenager and went on to study at Moody Bible Institute. From there, he went on the more liberal (you
are allowed to smile here) Wheaton College.
There he exhibited a skill in Greek translation and was encouraged by a
professor to attend Princeton Theological Seminary and study under New
Testament scholar Bruce Metzger. After
receiving his master of divinity there, he went on to receive the Ph.D. (magna cum laude) and even pastored a Baptist
church briefly while in graduate studies.
Along
the way, he went from fundamentalism to liberalism to agnosticism, primarily
due to his study of the New Testament documents and his growing awareness of
the “mistakes” and inconsistencies found there.
What really pushed him over the edge, however, was his struggle with the
problem of suffering in the world. From
his perspective, a God who has the power to intervene to relieve the suffering
of the world and chooses not to is not worth worshipping. Therefore, he questions whether there really
is a God.
I have
a great deal of respect for Professor Ehrman.
I was first introduced to the idea of “alternative Christianities” and “proto-orthodox
Christianity” by reading some of his more popular works. He is a brilliant man and is honest about his
point of view. In his lecture, he was
not critical of the Christian faith (although he pointed out how little Christians
really know about the Bible) and responded graciously to those who attempted to
challenge his scholarship and his faith stance.
Professor
Ehrman, however, is as much a literalist as any Christian fundamentalist. It seems to me that he continues to perceive
theological questions out of the worldview he learned as a teenager in a
fundamentalist church. He is either
captive to that worldview or just doesn’t care to consider other
alternatives.
Although
I am not endowed with the scholarly qualifications of Professor Ehrman, may I
suggest that the point of the Christian faith is not the book but the
Christ? Although the present state of
the Biblical documents does reflect human error, neglect, and even deviousness,
the message is still there for us to appropriate in beliefs that give meaning
and direction to our lives. For example, one belief that gives me encouragement
each day is that the present age is not all there is. Although we take seriously the inbreaking of
God’s kingdom into this world, we are just at the beginning of God’s redemption
of humankind. God’s love breaks through
in many ways into the present age, but God’s work will not be finished here.
God
continues to use broken and bent instruments of all kinds to give new meaning
and purpose to humankind. I do not fully
understand the process, but I embrace it.
Comments