William

I have recently begun reading Bart Ehrman's "Misquoting Jesus" which I am enjoying quite a bit so far! While some consider him the most prominent Bible scholar alive today, others (not just the religious) have criticized him and his assertions for one reason or another. I was just curious for those of you that have seen him debate or lecture, read his books, or taken his classes, what do you think of him and his general conclusions?

Here is a wikipedia abstract... Cheers!
~William

Nimes

I’ve read Misquoting Jesus (or via: amazon.co.uk) and Lost Christianities (or via: amazon.co.uk). I’ve also dipped into his Historical Introduction to the New Testament (or via: amazon.co.uk) and read a few articles by him. In my view Ehrman is vilified unjustly by conservatives and fundamentalists who simply don’t like his conclusions, particularly as he is good at writing for a non-specialist audience. He seems to me to represent pretty mainstream biblical critical thought these days.

He has very much developed the work of Walter Bauer, and applied this to his speciality – textual criticism of the NT. This leads him to some surprisingly conservative conclusions (e.g. his rehabilitation of Luke 23:34 – compare this to NA27’s square brackets). He studied under Bruce Metzger, and has now edited the fourth edition of Metzger’s seminal work The Text of the New Testament (I have the 3rd edition and must sometime get a hold of Ehrman’s edition).

I think it is fine to disagree with him on individual points – informed criticism is how progress is made. But I don’t like the way fundamentalists dismiss him wholesale.

DCHindley

I think some of the criticism directed at Bart is due to the fact that he has several times stated that he came from an evangelical background. To conservative evangelicals and fundamentalists, that is the same as being an "apostate" (someone who has willingly turned from the "truth") and thus makes him a *bad* man, baaaaaad!

DCH

ApostateAbe

I would not count him as the most prominent scholar, except in terms of general popularity. As a scholar, he is just one among many. He did a lot to popularize the most accepted critical scholarly viewpoint on Jesus, and he deserves a lot of credit for that. I have read Misquoting Jesus (or via: amazon.co.uk), Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium (or via: amazon.co.uk) (I enjoyed that book a lot more), and Lost Christianities (or via: amazon.co.uk). He is not an anti-religious activist, and I think that contrasts him favorably with other critical Bible scholars who are popular on the Internet.

-Jay-

He's either portrayed as an apostate, or as one who was never really of the faith to begin with (not a true Scotsman, in other words).

I've found Ehrman's popular books to be good, general works. His more technical/text-book writings obviously contain a lot more detail. He's unusual in the sense that he has a fair amount of material in both the popular realm and the scholarly realm, which (to me) is a point in his favor - one can read one of his popular books, then turn to his text writing for a deeper understanding.

regards,

NinJay

Diogenes the Cynic

I've read several of his books. I think his material is generally pretty mainstream and uncontrversial. Nothing I've read by him proposes anything radically new. His strength and popular appeal lie in his readability. He has the ability to communicate well to a lay audience. He's accessible, fairly humorous and comprehensible.

There's a lot of backlash against Ehrman from religionists and apologists, but that's not because he's saying anything new, but mostly because he's been able to break some information through to the rabble and get some media attention.

I find the anti-Ehrman angst kind of amusing since Ehrman's scholarship and conclusions are straight down the middle of the fairway in terms of mainstream NT scholarship. They try to turn him into a mouthbreathing, apostate radical when he's nothing of the kind.

Ben C Smith

To be fair, Ehrman is also more vocal about his past (Christian conservative turned apostate) than most scholars of similar views. Christian fundamentalism, in my experience, tends to think it is almost impossible to reject its own claims without harboring some sort of anti-Christian bias or grudge, and Ehrman fits this preconception better than someone like E. P. Sanders does.

Ben.

Minimalist

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cK3Ry_icJo


It's in 10 parts. You can see him for yourself and decide.

peanutaxis

I've read his populist books, and listened to a lot of his lectures.

First link is a non-dispassionate criticism of Misquoting Jesus by an aparently equally erudite scholar. Very technical but essentially he can't fault him.
Second link is to his lectures(!!) I recommend The Historical Jesus It's, like, 10 hours or something.

http://www.bible.org/page.php?page_id=4000
http://guelphskeptics.org/?p=60