I am a Portland-based writer specializing in religion in public life. I write regularly for USA Today's "On Religion" commentary page as a member of the newspaper's editorial Board of Contributors. My work has also appeared in recent years in Salon, the Los Angeles Times, the Oregonian, and the Philadelphia Inquirer.

A onetime newspaper reporter for the Orange County Register and Associated Press (Minneapolis and Trenton bureaus), I have an undergraduate degree in journalism from the University of Minnesota and a master of liberal arts degree in religion in public life from the University of Pennsylvania. By day, I am an administrator at Lewis & Clark College in Portland (which is a very cool school).

If the Bible is the literal word of God, Ehrman asks, how could it be inconsistent on so many details large and small? Let's start with an example appropriate to the just-concluded Easter season marking the Savior's death and resurrection: As Jesus was dying on the cross, was he in agony, questioning why God had forsaken him? Or was he serene, praying for his executioners? It depends, Ehrman points out, on whether you're reading the Gospel of Mark or Luke. Regarding Jesus' birthplace of Bethlehem, had his parents traveled there for a census (Luke's version) or is it where they happened to live (Matthew's version)? Did Jesus speak of himself as God? (Yes, in John; no, in Matthew.)

Dr. Ehrman ignores the fact that Mark clearly presents Jesus predicting His own death and even speaking of His own burial. He is in fact in complete control in Mark, and His citation of Psalm 22:1 should be understood as being reflective of the Messianic nature of that Psalm and its fulfillment in Him, not as an indication of abandonment. Ehrman's reading forces us to think Luke would contradict Mark while writing for the very same audience that already possessed Mark's gospel. It is only Ehrman's anti-Christian prejudice that precludes his allowing all the data to speak and that forces him to turn Luke and Mark into enemies rather than friends. (113 words)

As the great Princeton scholar B.B. Warfield pointed out nearly a century ago, the evidence for the deity of Christ found in all four Gospels, Matthew included, is overwhelming. In the original context of Matthew's gospel the words and actions of Jesus clearly transcend any merely human prophet. Ehrman is simply in error to say that the Jews of the first century believed the Son of God was merely a human: while a human could be called one of many sons of God, the language Jesus uses in Matthew (11:27 among others) and all the other gospels shows us He is the Son of God in a unique way, a way that plainly indicates deity. (117)

Ehrman's book has met with a fierce reaction from some quarters, which is understandable. Who among us isn't inclined to fight back when our deepest, most cherished beliefs are challenged? But there is no need to demonize him as a "wolf" on the prowl against the church, as one critic has. His ideas, like so many other new thoughts and new insights that keep coming around with the surety of the seasons, need not be regarded as insults against God or bids to prove the Bible false.

One of Ehrman's chief critics is the theologian and author James White, a leading practitioner of apologetics, the branch of theology devoted to defending and proving the orthodox faith. White denounces Ehrman as an apostate guided by deepanti-Christian bias. He charges in one Internet post that Ehrman has "moved far beyond the realm of his narrow expertise in his last three most popular books, all of which are designed to do one thing: destroy Christian faith."
If criticisms of Ehrman veer toward the personal it's because his evidence - the Bible's own text - is what it is. And there is no denying the inconsistencies he surfaces between the various Gospels and letters that form the New Testament.

Ehrman's book has met with a fierce reaction from some quarters, which is understandable. Who among us isn't inclined to fight back when our deepest, most cherished beliefs are challenged? But there is no need to demonize him as a "wolf" on the prowl against the church, as one critic has. His ideas, like so many other new thoughts and new insights that keep coming around with the surety of the seasons, need not be regarded as insults against God or bids to prove the Bible false.

I Don't Do Theology, I'm an Historical Scholar!

03/02/2009 - James White

So says Bart Ehrman when you challenge his highly challengeable theological conclusions and claims. Ehrman's new anti-Christian book, Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (and Why We Don't Know About Them), is lying on my desk, having just arrived. I flipped the book open to the back and my eyes fell upon this statement:

There is not literally a place of eternal torment where God, or the demons doing his will, will torture poor souls for 30 trillion years (as just the beginning) for sins they committed for thirty years. What kind of never-dying eternal divine Nazi would a God like that be? (p. 276).

Now, aside from the inherent problems (poor souls = innocent souls, the issue of divine justice, the continued hatred of those under punishment for God, etc.) in this common atheistic blast, the real issue is, does this book finally signal the end of Ehrman's "I'm not a theologian, I'm just a high-brow scholar so I cannot be held accountable for all the theological pronouncements I make" excuse making? Will those in the "academy" finally see his real intentions, and start to recognize his bias? Personally, I sort of doubt it. Anyone who is embarrassed by the open profession of the lordship of Christ over the mind will not wish to risk their next invitation to some major conference by pointing out Ehrman's bold anti-Christian zealotry. But churchmen who recognize when a wolf is stalking the sheep will do well to cull some of the whopper statements in this book as excellent examples of the fact that Ehrman is no unbiased textual critical scholar. He has moved far beyond the realm of his narrow expertise in his last three most popular books, all of which are designed to do one thing: destroy Christian faith.

I might note that the quote above would be just as applicable to the Islamic view of the fire as well. Just don't ask Bart about that. As he begins his rounds on NPR, do you think someone will ask him, "So, you are saying Allah in the Qur'an is a never-dying eternal divine Nazi?" Yeah, probably not.