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Disclaimer: This letter is intended for a hypothetical college student who has just read Jesus Before the Gospels (Bart Ehrman), and in doing so, has experienced an acute crisis of faith. This was originally written to satisfy a doctoral seminar requirement at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. 

Greetings, 

It was great to see you during winter break, and I rejoice in hearing that you enjoyed a successful first semester at college. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) is a terrific institution and will provide you with a superb education as you prepare to major in Business Administration. There is a famine of American businessmen who strive for the highest degree of vocational excellence and seek to reflect Christlike integrity in all of their occupational endeavors. As your former Youth Pastor, my prayer is for God to work mightily in your life as He uses your time at UNC to prepare you for a future in the corporate world (Col. 3:23-24). I am eager to see what ministry opportunities our Lord provides you with as you continue to prepare for the vocational calling that He has bestowed upon your life. In the meantime, I hope that this letter will be a means of encouraging you to press on in your academic affairs, and especially in your devotion to the triune God. 

I recognize that your first semester at UNC provided many challenges to your Christian faith, perhaps none more potent than your interaction with Bart Ehrman’s Jesus Before the Gospels. You’ll recall that before you left for college, we talked about Ehrman’s presence at UNC and his influence throughout the world. Nevertheless, I fear that nothing I said could have adequately warned you about the staunchly non-Christian context that you have been exposed to at college. It goes without saying that Ehrman is one of the twenty first century’s leading authorities on the higher criticism of the New Testament. He is extremely well-educated, well-spoken and is a prolific author. Ehrman is also a very confident scholar, and I can sympathize greatly with your feelings of insecurity when engaging with some of the bold challenges that he makes against the trustworthiness of Scripture. It must be a very discouraging experience to not only be a Christian at an irreligious institution, but to personally see the effect that Ehrman’s ideologies have on your classmates who take his courses on the New Testament. 

In reflecting on your current circumstances, I believe you have now experienced firsthand what the Apostle Paul describes in 2 Corinthians 10:4-5. In this fallen world, there is an abundance of man-centered speculations and lofty pretensions that have been raised up against the knowledge of God. Satan has erected mighty and persuasive fortresses of ideas, intending to usurp every component of the Christian worldview. The father of lies will not rest until he has aptly challenged every gracious revelation that the God of truth has disclosed throughout created reality (John 8:44; 16:13). However, as Christians, we believe that there is no greater standard or source of truth than what God has revealed to us in Scripture (2 Tim. 3:14-17). Therefore, when the Bible’s authority and trustworthiness is attacked by critics, it is imperative that we make every effort to correct them. As Paul states in 2 Timothy 2:25-26, “perhaps God may grant [unbelievers who are in opposition to His Word with] repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth, [so that] they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil.” This should be our ultimate prayer for the Bart Ehrman’s of the world, and I would encourage you to see your present context as a divinely appointed opportunity to grow in at least three key areas: 

1. To acquire a greater understanding of what you believe as a Christian. 
2. To acquire a greater understanding of what you believe as a Christian. 
3. To acquire a greater understanding of what you believe as a Christian. 

With each of these pertinent areas in mind, it is my desire to use the rest of this letter to further equip you to stand firm in your faith against the challenges you have encountered from Ehrman’s book, and that you have heard raised by his devoted students at UNC. This letter will by no means be an exhaustive critique of Ehrman’s book, nor will it attempt to address every objection that he raises against the fidelity of Scripture. Rather, it is my fundamental intention to emphasize how something as astutely written as Jesus Before the Gospels demonstrates the irrationality of Ehrman’s worldview. In fact, as I’ll discuss in greater detail below, Ehrman actually has to presuppose the trustworthiness of the Bible (and its corresponding worldview) in order to articulate an argument against its trustworthiness. In a twist of irony that Ehrman himself would try to emphatically deny, he subconsciously assumes the very truthfulness of the document that he works so hard to refute throughout the entirety of Jesus Before the Gospels. I will be sure to provide a few (of many) citations from the book that will demonstrate the basis for these particular claims and will do my very best to make my critical assessment as cogent as possible.

Accordingly, for the sake of your clarification, I have chosen to structure the remainder of this letter under two central headings: An Analysis of Bart Ehrman’s Worldview and An Analysis of Bart Ehrman’s Philosophical Inconsistencies. You’ll notice that the content associated with each section is intended to build off of one another. That is to say, the second heading’s material will further develop the assessment provided under the first heading. By God’s grace, I trust that my feedback will provide you with adequate answers to the objections that you have been confronted with at UNC, and within the covers of Jesus Before the Gospels (1 Pet. 3:15). 

An Analysis of Bart Ehrman’s Worldview

The first major critique that I alluded to in the previous paragraph was the philosophical irrationality of Ehrman’s worldview. However, before we can begin to dissect Ehrman’s worldview, we must first ensure that we are aware of the specific worldview that Ehrman is operating within. While it is certainly true that the focus of Jesus Before the Gospels is not about worldviews, nor does it exhaustively delineate the worldview of Bart Ehrman, this book can still provide us with extensive insight into the way that Ehrman understands reality. Perhaps you remember the apologetics series that I conducted during your junior year of high school, in which we studied this concept of “worldview.” During that series, we utilized many audio and written resources from Reformed Theological Seminary, particularly that of which was associated with the apologetics courses taught by James Anderson. Given the nature of your situation at UNC, I believe that it is appropriate to remind you of the helpful definition that Anderson provided in his book, What’s Your Worldview? 

Just as the word itself suggests, a worldview is an overall view of the world. It’s not a       physical view of the world, like the sight of planet Earth you might get from an orbiting space station. Rather, it’s a philosophical view of the world—and not just of our planet,    but of all of reality. A worldview is an all-encompassing perspective on everything that exists and matters to us. Your worldview represents your most fundamental beliefs and assumptions about the universe you inhabit. It reflects how you would answer all the “big questions” of human existence, the fundamental questions we ask about life, the universe,          and everything… Worldviews are like belly buttons. Everyone has one, but we don’t talk about them very often. Or perhaps it would be better to say that worldviews are like cerebellums: everyone has one and we can’t live without them, but not everyone knows that he has one… Your worldview shapes and informs your experiences of the world around you. Like a pair of spectacles with colored lenses, it affects what you         see and how you see it. Depending on the “color” of the lenses, you see some things more easily, while other things are de-emphasized or distorted. In some cases, you don’t see things at all.[1] 

I realize that quote from Anderson’s book was lengthy, but I believe it is a very simple and straightforward definition to remind you of what is meant when one speaks of “worldview.” Now, as Anderson rightly acknowledges in the aforementioned quote, our worldview affects what we see and how we see it. This observation is just as true for you and me as it is for Bart Ehrman. As such, when you read a book like Jesus Before the Gospels, it is imperative to constantly remind yourself that the arguments being presented are largely a byproduct of the author’s worldview. It is not as if Ehrman (or any unbeliever) is able to argue their case against the Bible’s trustworthiness from a position of intellectual neutrality, while Christians are the ones who are trying to take every drastic measure to validate their beliefs about Scripture. On the contrary, it is philosophically impossible for anybody to engage in “neutral” reasoning because the very assertion that reasoning must be done in a neutral fashion inherently violates the principle of neutrality. That is to say, the very act of instructing somebody to do something (i.e.- to be neutral in one’s reasoning) is positive instruction, thereby indicating a non-neutral preference or ideology. This observation has led some philosophers and theologians to identify those who purport to “evaluate evidence neutrally” as being guilty of engaging in the pretended neutrality fallacy.[2] Upon reading Jesus Before the Gospels, it quickly becomes clear that Ehrman is susceptible to this specific error in logic. 

For example, Ehrman appears to believe that serious biblical scholarship is exclusively done by those who don’t believe the Bible to be the inerrant, inspired and infallible word of God. According to Ehrman, the faithful biblical scholar “considers the memories [about Jesus or any biblical reality], studies them as memories [and determines] whether they are rooted in historical realities or instead were invented, either consciously or unconsciously, by later storytellers.”[3] Remarks like these showcase that Ehrman believes the pupil of Scripture must begin the interpretive process by doubting its truthfulness. In addition to the former statement, you’ll likely recall perusing several other quotes that are of a similar sentiment throughout Jesus Before the Gospels. Allow me to give you just two additional citations by way of review: 

“Outside the ranks of conservative evangelical Christians, very few if any biblical scholars have found [this supernatural event] persuasive.”[4]

“Apart from fundamentalists and other strict literalists, there are very few readers credulous enough to think this [supernatural event] can be an accurate memory.”[5] 

It is ironic that Ehrman regards “biblical scholars” as those who don’t actually believe the totality of the Bible’s internal testimony. In keeping with Ehrman’s line of reasoning, a belief in Scripture’s description of supernatural events is simply not justifiable in our modern, intellectually sophisticated age. Surely this viewpoint would not entail men like G. K. Beale, D. A. Carson, Andreas Köstenberger, Michael Kruger and Vern Poythress being deemed as “non-intelligent scholars?” Like Ehrman, each of those men are New Testament scholars and each of them received a PhD from a prestigious European institution or Ivy League school. Perhaps the Apostle Paul was on to something when he stated that “an [unregenerate] person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. But the one who is spiritual (regenerate) discerns all things, yet he himself is discerned by no one” (1 Cor. 2:14-15). 

Furthermore, it is interesting to note that Ehrman champions the unbelieving “Form Critics” of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as “stars” of biblical scholarship,[6] and indicates that they were the facilitators of a “major breakthrough in our understanding of the Gospels.”[7] Of course, the necessary implications of these types of claims are that the Form Critics have finally enabled humanity to rightly interpret the Bible. For those who are of this persuasion, the Bible had either been largely misunderstood until the nineteenth century or was perhaps never accurately interpreted until the Form Critics came onto the scene. It is difficult to miss the academic hubris undergirding statements like these throughout the book. As I mentioned by way of introduction, Ehrman is a very confident scholar and can be intimidating to engage with at times. Nevertheless, be sure that you don’t miss this very important observation that we can glean from these portions of his writings: Ehrman is not a neutral interpreter of biblical history, or of the internal witness recorded in Scripture.

On the contrary, Ehrman is significantly influenced by his own worldview and the presuppositions that are directly associated thereto. Like Christians, Ehrman has his “heroes” that he turns to in order to better understand the Bible: the Form Critics and contemporary unbelieving scholars in secular academia. Moreover, Ehrman has his own perception of how the Bible should be understood in and of itself, as well as in relation to other literature of antiquity. When engaging with other UNC students who are sympathetic towards and/or committed to Ehrman’s views about the Bible, it is imperative for you to reiterate these crucial distinctives of Ehrman’s thought during your discussions. This preliminary commentary now brings us to the crux of this letter’s first central heading-

“What worldview commitment does Bart Ehrman embrace?” 

Based on the observable evidence within Jesus Before the Gospels, it appears that Ehrman holds to a worldview of “Skepticism.” You’ll recall that this was one of several worldviews that we covered during your high school apologetics series, and I believe this was one of your favorites that we studied together. Just to ensure that I’ve done my due diligence, allow me to remind you of the gist of this worldview by revisiting how it’s defined in Anderson’s book, What’s Your Worldview?

Skepticism is the view that even if there is objective truth, none of us can know what that truth is. Skeptics think that our minds simply aren’t equipped to determine the truth with any degree of confidence… Skeptics are thus the champions of doubt; if nothing can be known to be true, then everything is subject to doubt.[8] 

This particular worldview description not only fits perfectly with what can be analyzed in Jesus Before the Gospels, but it seamlessly harmonizes with what Ehrman has said publicly about his religious beliefs.[9] Whether surveying Ehrman’s commentary in this book or in a different context, it is apparent that his philosophy of reality is saturated with skepticism. It is for this reason that, despite his vehement claims to the contrary, Ehrman repeatedly portrays anti-supernatural bias and a theory of knowledge (epistemology) that suggests it is impossible to know anything with absolute or perfect certainty. For example, Ehrman’s skepticism is prominently featured at the beginning of every chapter in effort to instill doubt into the minds of his readers.[10] To accomplish this objective, Ehrman references several studies in memory, psychology and anthropology that are intended to show how scientific developments within the past century undermine our ability to trust the reliability of the biblical record. In Ehrman’s reasoning, if it can be proven in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries that human memory is unreliable, how much more so should we expect it to have been unreliable 2,000 years ago? Despite failing to account for the possibility that a sovereign God ensured that the writers of Scripture recalled precisely what He wanted them to say (2 Pet. 1:20-21), and despite Ehrman’s own concession that there are cases in which people are able to remember information photographically,[11] these are remarkable efforts to substantiate his own worldview in supplementation to the main thesis of this book. As evidenced in several of his other publications,[12] and in the context of formal debates that he has conducted with renowned Christian scholars,[13] Ehrman will do whatever it takes to present a compelling argument. 

As you have come to realize during your first semester at UNC, if left unchallenged, Ehrman’s claims can appear irrefutable and representative of the highest degree of scholarship. There is not a doubt in my mind that if you believe the Bible to be the literal self-disclosure of Creator to creature, then you are in a very small minority on your college campus. Nevertheless, you can rest assured that Scripture will always withstand the test of time, and the highest levels of academic scrutiny; God’s Word is truth (John 17:17; Rom. 3:4). Throughout church history, God has never ceased to vindicate the trustworthiness of His Word, largely through the efforts of faithful men proclaiming and defending its contents. As brilliant as Bart Ehrman may be, there are equally (and more) brilliant Christians who have provided a compelling response to seemingly every intellectual objection that could be raised against Scripture. Furthermore, unlike Ehrman and other unbelievers, we possess a worldview that not only allows us to understand reality, but by the grace of God, we possess a worldview that provides us with an objective basis for explaining why reality is the way that it is. It is with this comforting thought in mind that will warrant our transition into the second central heading of this letter.

An Analysis of Bart Ehrman’s Philosophical Inconsistencies

Up to this point in the letter, we have identified the worldview that Ehrman champions throughout his book, Jesus Before the Gospels. We have seen that Ehrman, like all human beings, does not come to Scripture from a posture of neutrality or with a blank slate. Ehrman has deep rooted, underlying presuppositions that shape his worldview and influence every aspect of how he understands reality. By way of drawing this letter to a conclusion, I want to further develop a statement that I made towards the beginning of this letter: 

“Ehrman has to presuppose the trustworthiness of the Bible (and its corresponding worldview) in order to articulate an argument against its trustworthiness. In a twist of irony that Ehrman himself would try to emphatically deny, he subconsciously assumes the very truthfulness of the document that he works so hard to refute throughout the entirety of Jesus Before the Gospels.” 

My friend, your greatest means of showing the absurdity of Ehrman’s criticisms about the Bible is by demonstrating how he depends on the reliability of the Bible during every stage of his reasoning. As Ehrman wrote Jesus Before the Gospels, he presupposed the existence of objective and unchanging laws of logic that are universally binding on mankind. Ehrman assumed that the words that he wrote on every page possessed objective meaning, and that the readers of his book would have the ability to objectively evaluate the arguments that he was communicating. Moreover, by virtue of utilizing certain words to communicate his argument, Ehrman presupposed the uniformity of nature. Ehrman believes that the very laws of logic that govern human interaction and communication will remain in operation both now and in the future. In other words, simply in the act of writing Jesus Before the Gospels, Ehrman makes a faith-based, presuppositional assumption about reality. He believes that the objective and unchanging laws of logic that universally exist in the present, and have always existed in the past, will continue to exist in the future. Now, in what worldview is it even possible to make these assumptions? Does Ehrman’s worldview of Skepticism provide an objective basis for these presuppositional commitments? Absolutely not! But take heart, my dear brother in Christ. The Christian worldview, as concretized by Scripture, does substantiate the prevalence of laws of logic (Col. 2:3), the uniformity of nature (Col. 1:16) and the reliability of human sense perception (Matt. 12:36-37). 

It is at this point where things really begin to get interesting in reflecting on the philosophical inconsistencies of Bart Ehrman. In a twist of irony, Ehrman sub-consciously borrows each of the aforementioned presuppositions from the Christian worldview in order to function in this world, while simultaneously denying other components of the Christian worldview that contradict his lifestyle of sin and rebellion (Rom. 1:18-21). For example, despite going to enormous lengths at the beginning of every chapter to cultivate serious doubt about the reliability of human memory, you’ll likewise recall several caveats that Ehrman makes throughout the book that go something along these lines:

Our own memories are, on the whole, reasonably good. If they weren’t, we would not be able to function, or even survive, as human beings in a very complex world. We count on our memories for the thousands of things we do every day, from the moment we wake up in the morning to the time we shut down at night.[14]

When considering statements like these in conjunction with the totality of Jesus Before the Gospels, we see that Ehrman is caught between two opposite extremes. On the one hand, Ehrman takes great measures to ensure that his readers lose hope in the absolute reliability of human memory. On the other hand, he wants to ensure that he doesn’t take his worldview of Skepticism too far, and in doing so, deny that it’s possible to be absolutely certain of anything in reality. However, it’s in Ehrman’s failure to consistently live out his own observable worldview that ultimately confirms the reliability of Scripture itself. As can be seen in the life of a devoted Christian or in the life of Bart Ehrman, all people must play by God’s rules to function in reality. Said differently, because man lives in God’s world and has been created in God’s image (Gen. 1:26-27), he can never exist for a single moment in which he does not bear witness to the truthfulness of Christianity through his pattern of life. At the end of the day, all human beings will exhibit through their lifestyles that they really do believe in the Christian worldview, as solidified in the Bible. How can this be? Because fundamentally, it is impossible for humanity to not presuppose and utilize laws of logic, uniformity in nature and the reliability of human sense perception. This is precisely what can be observed when examining the scholarship and lifestyle of Bart Ehrman. He will do whatever it takes to intellectually justify his state of unbelief despite taking for granted the biblically based presuppositions that make his life experience possible in the first place. Like all unbelievers, Bart Ehrman is a walking, philosophical contradiction. 

Over the past 2,000 years, Christian theologians have been defending the integrity of Scripture against the assaults of unbelievers. For every sophisticated point that one tries to raise as to why the Bible is unreliable and/or contradicts itself, there is a completely viable rebuttal. As I was preparing this letter for you, I took the time to cross-reference every alleged “biblical contradiction” that Ehrman documents in his book with some Christian publications that were designed to explain the most difficult passages of Scripture. Literally every single one of the alleged contradictions cited by Ehrman have been satisfactorily refuted from scholars who believe that the Bible is God’s inerrant, inspired and infallible self-disclosure. For your own benefit, I have included those literary works at the conclusion of this letter, and I would highly encourage you to purchase them as soon as possible. You can rest assured that for every objection raised by the unbeliever about the trustworthiness of Scripture, there are more than adequate rebuttals offered by Bible-believing scholars. This is why it is so important to be mindful of the underlying philosophical and worldview commitments of those who attack the Bible. The Christian and non-Christian scholar can examine the same evidence, and in doing so, come away with drastically different conclusions. In the final analysis, evidence will always be interpreted and evaluated through the worldview that the interpreter adheres to. As such, internal worldview critiques are often more vital to discussions about “evidence” than the nature of the evidence itself. I trust that you have now come to realize just how much this applies to the issues that Ehrman canvasses throughout Jesus Before the Gospels. 

Moving forward, try not to view your ability to engage with Ehrman’s literature and devoted fans at UNC as being contingent upon your ability to extemporaneously cite “evidence” to support your convictions. Although evidence certainly does have its place in such discussions, I believe that there is an even more important approach that you should focus on implementing into your defense of Scripture’s trustworthiness. You could summarize this approach in three simple steps: 

1. Articulate the cogency of the Christian worldview, as grounded in Scripture. 
2. Demonstrate the philosophical superiority of the Christian worldview to every other philosophy of reality.  
3. Showcase how the truthfulness of the Bible is presupposed by all human beings at every moment of their lives, thereby validating the legitimacy of the Christian worldview.

With this advice in mind, it may be time to dust off some of those apologetics resources that I provided you with during your time in my Youth ministry. Just in case you left those resources back home, I’ve also included a list of those books that you can purchase online (see below). Moving forward, feel free to use this letter as a reference guide as you strive to grow in your ability to know what you believe, why you believe what you believe and how to share what you believe with others. Please never hesitate to reach out to me if you should ever have any additional questions and/or concerns about what you’re encountering at UNC. Even though you’re no longer in my Youth ministry, you will always be my brother in Christ. As such, I am here to serve you until the Lord returns or calls me home. May God continue to richly bless your efforts to honor Him during your time at UNC (Num. 6:24-26). Press on! 

In Christ, 

Brother Dewey 

Recommended Resources for Addressing Bible Difficulties and Alleged Contradictions

Archer, Gleason L. Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Pub. House, 1982. 

Arndt, William F., Robert G. Hoerber, and Walter R. Roehrs. Bible Difficulties and Seeming Contradictions. St. Louis, MO: Concordia Pub. House, 1987. 

Geisler, Norman L., and Thomas A. Howe. The Big Book of Bible Difficulties. Grand Rapids, MI: BakerBooks, 2008. 

Recommended Resources for Apologetics

Anderson, James. What’s Your Worldview? Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2014. 

Bahnsen, Greg L., and Robert R. Booth. Always Ready: Directions for Defending the Faith. Nacogdoches, TX: Covenant Media Foundation, 2000. 

Bahnsen, Greg L. Van Til’s Apologetic: Readings and Analysis. Phillipsburg, NJ: P & R Publishing, 1998. 

Jones, Timothy Paul. Why Should I Trust the Bible? Ross-shire: Christian Focus, 2020.

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[1]           James Anderson, What’s Your Worldview? An Interactive Approach to Life’s Big Questions (Wheaton IL: Crossway, 2014), Pages 12-13.

[2]           Jason Lisle, The Ultimate Proof of Creation: Resolving the Origins Debate (Green Forest, AR: Master Books, 2017), Page 36.

[3]           Bart D. Ehrman, Jesus Before the Gospels (New York, NY: HarperOne, 2017), Page 47.

[4]           Ehrman, Jesus Before the Gospels, Page 101.

[5]           Ibid, Page 174.

[6]           Ibid, Page 61.

[7]           Ibid, Page 58. 

[8]           James Anderson, What’s Your Worldview? An Interactive Approach to Life’s Big Questions (Wheaton IL: Crossway, 2014), Page 93.

[9]           Bart Ehrman, “Why Would I Call Myself Both an Agnostic or an Atheist? A Blast From the Past,” The Bart Ehrman Blog, June 10, 2018, https://ehrmanblog.org/am-i-an-agnostic-or-an-atheist-a-blast-from-the-past/.

[10]         The “Acknowledgements” chapter at the conclusion of Jesus Before the Gospels is the only section that does not model this approach.

[11]         Ehrman, Jesus Before the Gospels, Pages 179-180.

[12]         See: Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why (New York, NY: HarperOne, 2007).

[13]         See formal debates with Daniel Wallace, James White and Peter Williams.

[14]         Ehrman, Jesus Before the Gospels, Page 3.