Jonathon Wilder

What do you know about him?

Toto

This is a bit broad. Bart Ehrman is a former fundamentalist, but now calls himself an agnostic. He teaches New Testament studies and has written several books aimed at the general audience. He has appeard on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

What part of his life or work would you like to discuss?

dockeen

He has also appeared on NPR a number of times. You can get free downloads
of these appearances through iTunes I think.

Is the question intended to produce a reply of the form "I think he's right
because ...", or "I think he's wrong because ..."?

I have read several of his books. You can also find many on the web that
have counter arguments / complaints / vitriol against him.

DCHindley

I don't think he characterizes it as "fundamentalist" but it was more like conservative evangelical. He avoids mentioning a specific denomination, although someone here may know what it is (I don't). He first studied bible in the original languages at Moody Bible Institute, a non-accredited conservative evangelical bible college.

Here is their Doctrinal Statement:

ARTICLE I
God is a Person who has revealed Himself as a Trinity in unity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, three Persons and yet but one God.
(Deuteronomy 6:4; Matthew 28:19; 1 Corinthians 8:6)

ARTICLE II
The Bible, including both the Old and the New Testaments, is a divine revelation, the original autographs of which were verbally inspired by the Holy Spirit.
(2 Timothy 3:16; 2 Peter 1:21)

ARTICLE III
Jesus Christ is the image of the invisible God, which to say, He is Himself very God; He took upon Him our nature, being conceived by the Holy Ghost and born of the Virgin Mary; He died upon the cross as a substitutionary sacrifice for the sin of the world; He arose from the dead in the body in which He was crucified; He ascended into heaven in that body glorified, where He is now, our interceding High Priest; He will come again personally and visibly to set up His kingdom* and to judge the quick and the dead.
(Colossians 1:15; Philippians 2:5-8; Matthew 1:18-25; 1 Peter 2:24-25; Luke 24; Hebrews 4:14-16; Acts 1:9-11; 1 Thessalonians 4:16-18; Matthew 25:31-46; Revelation 11:15-17;20:4-6, 11-15)

[* It is MBI's position that this refers to the premillennial return of Christ at which time He will set up His millennial reign, during which time He will fulfill His promises to Israel.]

ARTICLE IV
Man was created in the image of God but fell into sin, and, in that sense, is lost; this is true of all men, and except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God; salvation is by grace through faith in Christ who His own self bore our sins in His own body on the tree; the retribution of the wicked and unbelieving and the reward of the righteous are everlasting, and as the reward is conscious, so is the retribution.
(Genesis 1:26-27; Romans 3:10, 23; John 3:3; Acts 13:38, 39; 4:12; John 3:16; Matthew 25:46; 2 Corinthians 5:1; 2 Thessalonians 1:7-10)

ARTICLE V
The Church is an elect company of believers baptized by the Holy Spirit into one body; its mission is to witness concerning its Head, Jesus Christ, preaching the gospel among all nations; it will be caught up to meet the Lord in the air ere He appears to set up His kingdom.*
(Acts 2:41; 15:13-17; Ephesians 1:3-6; 1 Corinthians 12:12-13; Matthew 28:19-20; 1 Thessalonians 4:16-18)

[* Christ will return in the air preceding the seven-year Tribulation at which time He will receive into heaven all believers who constitute His church. During that tribulation period, God will bring salvation to Israel and the nations while exercising judgment on unbelievers.]

This is basically Calvinistic theology. "In the late 19th century, Dwight W. Moody was regarded as the most influential preacher in America. His message was the love of God. His theology, though basically orthodox, was eclectic and ambiguous. Moody hated controversy. He had no formal denominational connections, choosing, rather, to build his evangelistic empire through extra-ecclesiastical organizations." He promoted Revivalism (think Charles Spurgeon) and his end times theology is premillenial.

"Historic, or Classic Premillennialism is distinctively non-dispensational. This means that it sees no radical theological distinction between Israel and the Church. It is often post tribulational meaning that the rapture of the church will occur after a period of tribulation. Historic premillennialism maintains chiliasm because of its view that the church will be caught up to meet Christ in the air and then escort him to the earth in order to share in his literal thousand year rule."

"Though Moody himself was never a preacher of [Darbyite] dispensationalism, he often included premillennialism in his preaching, and at [Summer Confrences in his hometown of] Northfield [Massachusetts] gave premillennialists what was probably an unparalleled opportunity to make an impact upon evangelical Christianity."

Moody's kind of evangelical Christianity is conservative, but can also have many liberal or progressive social ideas, especially as it relates to missions. For example, John Hogg, an evangelical Scottish Presbyterian of this type, welcomed Muslims every bit as much as Christians to his colleges, and was a champion of the education of women, which was foreign to that region. One of his graduates went on to marry the Grand Mufti, a stupendous coup for women's education at the time. His son Hope Hogg went on to become a respected biblical critic specializing in Semitic languages (he is the translator of the Diatesseron that appears in volume 2 of R. H. Charles' Apocrypha & Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament, adopting a more progressive personal theology.

However, many churches and individuals dedicated to Darbyite dispensationalism, which is the basic world-view of Christian Fundamentalism, have been trained at his Bible Institute.

"Dispensational premillennialism ... generally holds that Israel and the Church are distinct entities. It also widely holds to the pretribulational return of Christ, which believes that Jesus will return to take up Christians into heaven by means of a rapture immediately before a seven year worldwide Tribulation. This will be followed by an additional return of Christ with his saints ...

Dispensationalism traces its roots to the 1830s and John Nelson Darby (1800–1882), a Calvinist theologian and a founder of the Plymouth Brethren. In the US, the dispensational form of premillennialism was propagated on the popular level largely through the Scofield Reference Bible and on the academic level with Lewis Sperry Chafer’s eight volume Systematic Theology." FWIW, Hogg preached against the teachings of Darby's Plymouth Bretheren.

I know, I know, TMI. But if you want an education, visit a bible study at a "Bible" church, whether associated with the Lutherans, Presbyterians, Baptists or independent. THAT is the world from which Bart Ehrman comes. If you find tracts that tell you the RCC is the Whore of Babylon and warns of secret plans to establish a One World Government led by the Antichrist, and that the EU is the beast with 7 heads and 10 horns, and warns of a huge war of Armageddon happening in Israel, then you are in a Fundamentalist church.

DCH

JGL53

Well, whatever the heck he was he is a good guy now, thank Science.

Loomis

Does he own any pets?

Minimalist

On Page 3 of Misquoting Jesus (or via: amazon.co.uk) ( the introduction) Ehrman writes:



Frankly, he sounds like he was your basic fundie nut job at that time.

Glad it wore off.

bleubird

I found his lose of faith a very interesting story.I am inclined to trust his interpretation of the bible based on his investigation of the subject.
IMHO.

Joan of Bark

I've read two of his books (Misquoting Jesus (or via: amazon.co.uk)and Jesus: Interrupted (or via: amazon.co.uk)) and found them to be the best popular books about the Bible I've ever encountered. He makes a complex subject (the way the Bible has been [mis]copied and reproduced) very accessible ... he's the Isaac Asimov of Biblical studies.

His God's Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer our Most Important Question -- Why We Suffer (or via: amazon.co.uk) summarizes my main problem with the Judeo-Christian-Islamic God hypothesis.

Jonathon Wilder

Well, I see you do know him. You see my plan is to bring forward that there was a man, Jesus Christ, who was the foundation of the Christian Church. You see, I was recommended Bart Ehrman by my scholar friend Daniel McKinlay, in bringing forward that there was a historical Jesus Christ, and that he is not just some a myth.