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An Interview with Bart Ehrman
The author of Misquoting Jesus discusses his writing process, his faith journey, and why truth matters in the age of coronavirus
As the son of a Southern Baptist pastor, I was excited to talk to Bart Ehrman.
The University of North Carolina professor writes scholarly monographs. He writes undergraduate textbooks. And he has written six New York Times bestsellers— a rare distinction for a biblical scholar. He has appeared on CNN, NPR, Discovery Channel, The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, and plenty of other places.
After growing up as a fundamentalist Christian, he became an agnostic in his graduate school years, a transition he discusses in several of his books. In fact, that change, more than anything, has been key to his literary career (a fact he mentions often to his wife, who was against this sort of confessional writing).
I talked to Dr. Ehrman by phone at his home in Durham, NC.
Textual criticism is a pretty esoteric topic, yet a number of your books are New York Times bestsellers. What do you think non-academic readers find compelling about this subject?
Technically speaking, only one of my popular books has been about textual criticism because that particular term in my…
