Happy New Year!
In case you missed it, Bart Ehrman has retired from teaching at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Ehrman has been a force for good in the world (evangelical ire notwithstanding), both in terms of his scholarship on the Bible as well as the money he has raised through his blog for food banks, the unhoused, and more. Thankfully, retirement for Ehrman doesn’t mean a retreat from public life. He has plans to continue writing and talking about the Bible.
Below is his last lecture, prefaced by laudatory words from colleagues Mark Goodacre and Hugo Mendez. Enjoy!
The Amateur Exegete 
It’s nice to know that the lecture is still available to watch. I wanted to listen to it live last month, but according to Ehrman’s blog it looked like you had to attend in person or become a paid member.
His books were the first substantial works on Bible scholarship that I encountered after becoming a skeptic. I’m probably not the first person to say this, but Misquoting Jesus was an eye-opener into the “stuff they don’t want you to know” church-edition. (I remember coming across a copy while still a Christian and putting it aside because I just couldn’t accept most of the key points given on the back jacket. Several years, later I grabbed a copy from the local library and wondered why I was so reluctant to give it a chance in the first place.)
He has a real talent for presenting the findings of critical scholarship in a way that grabs the reader’s attention. After Misquoting Jesus, I checked out Forged, Forgery and Counter-Forgery, the Orthodox Corruption of Scripture, God’s Problem, Lost Christianities, The Triumph of Christianity, Heaven and Hell, and Jesus, Interrupted. I eventually purchased a copy of his New Testament textbook and was finally able to track down a copy of How Jesus Became God.
It’s extremely disappointing to see many Christians either finding flimsy reasons to dismiss anything he writes (if it’s not simply proving the historicity of Jesus) or trying to figure out what led him away from “the righteous path.” Even one apologist who praised Ehrman’s pieces in scholarly publications mixed this with a dismissal of his “popular works” like How Jesus Became God as “garbage.”
In sum, I’m hoping that Ehrman serves as an inspiring trailblazer for a new generation of skeptical Bible scholars. In a field still dominated by individuals to Judeo-Christian beliefs of some stripe and in an age where people continue to appeal to the Bible for political reasons, we need more scholars willing to express their doubts or call a spade a spade when necessary. As Ehrman demonstrates, though, none of this requires belittling believers or resorting to the patronizing rhetoric common among the New Atheists.
-J Source
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It’s funny that among biblical scholars he’s really very conservative. The more “radical” scholars are out there rejecting Q, arguing for John’s reliance on the Synoptics, etc. That fundamentalists loathe him like they do is a testament to just how out of step they are with the field.
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As entertaining and hilarious as ever, Pastor Ehrman always provides the laughs.
I gave a short form of my paper response to his Revelation book here:
https://commonwealthbronx.org/blog/paper-presentation-at-reformation-bible-society-2025/
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An interesting video! Thanks for sharing!
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Hi Ben, regarding your review of Bart Ehrman’s book on Revelation, I’d like to push back a bit on your comment that the Jesus of the Gospels and the Jesus of Revelation are “difficult to reconcile.” I don’t think that the difference in form and literary register implies a rupture in christological content.
In the Synoptic Gospels, Jesus already speaks in terms that anticipate the glorified and cosmic figure of Revelation. In the eschatological discourse (Mark 13; Matthew 24; Luke 21), he describes the Son of Man coming on the clouds with power and great glory, preceded by judgment and cosmic upheaval—imagery that John later takes up in Revelation 1 and 14. The same Daniel 7 imagery appears at Jesus’ trial (Mark 14:62), where he identifies himself with the exalted, celestial Son of Man even while standing under human judgment.
Likewise, Revelation does not lack continuity with Jesus’ earthly ministry: there he is the Lamb who was slain and the Faithful Witness, directly recalling his sacrificial death and testimony. Paul also serves as an important bridge between the Gospels and Revelation. In early letters such as Philippians 2 and Colossians 1, he already holds together the crucified Christ and the exalted, cosmic Lord, while also speaking of Jesus’ future revelation in judgment (for example, 2 Thessalonians 1).
I’m not suggesting that the portraits are identical, but I don’t see them as contradictory or irreconcilable either. What changes is not Jesus’ identity, but the eschatological moment from which he is portrayed: anticipation in the Gospels and consummation in Revelation.
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I appreciate the perspective you’ve given. Thanks for sharing it!
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