I did my very best to hold on to my faith that the Bible was the inspired word of God with no mistakes and that lasted for about two years I realized that at the time we had over 5,000 manuscripts of the New Testament, and no two of them are exactly alike. During such studies at Princeton, however, he became convinced that there are contradictions and discrepancies in the biblical manuscripts that could not be harmonized or reconciled: His desire to understand the original words of the Bible led him to study ancient languages, particularly Koine Greek, and textual criticism. In Misquoting Jesus, he recounts being certain in his youthful enthusiasm that God had inspired the wording of the Bible and protected its texts from all error. Career Įhrman was raised as an Anglican in the Episcopal Church as a teenager, he became a born-again evangelical. Both the baccalaureate and doctorate were conferred magna cum laude. He later earned an MDiv from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1981 and a PhD in 1985, where he studied textual criticism of the Bible, development of the New Testament canon and New Testament apocrypha under Bruce Metzger. He earned his BA from Wheaton College in Illinois in 1978. He began studying the Bible, biblical theology, and biblical languages at Moody Bible Institute, where he earned the school's three-year diploma in 1976. Gray Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.īorn on October 5, 1955, Ehrman grew up in Lawrence, Kansas, and attended Lawrence High School, where he was on the state champion debate team in 1973.

He has also authored six New York Times bestsellers. He has written and edited 30 books, including three college textbooks. Heaven and Hell: A History of the Afterlife (2020)īart Denton Ehrman (born October 5, 1955) is an American New Testament scholar focusing on textual criticism of the New Testament, the historical Jesus, and the origins and development of early Christianity.Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium (1999).

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