From what I’ve read, there are many scholars, some conservative even, that think Ehrman has done some excellent work, particularly in making the minutiae of text criticism easily accessible to the masses. What liberal and conservative scholars seem to agree on though is that Bart is particularly provocative about his biblical “discoveries” even when it has been severely criticized by many of his peers in the past:
From Dan Wallace:
“These criticisms were made of his earlier work, Orthodox Corruption of Scripture, which Misquoting Jesus has drawn from extensively. Yet, the conclusions that he put forth there are still stated here without recognition of some of the severe criticisms of his work the first go-around. For a book geared toward a lay audience, one would think that he would want to have his discussion nuanced a bit more, especially with all the theological weight that he says is on the line. One almost gets the impression that he is encouraging the Chicken Littles in the Christian community to panic at data that they are simply not prepared to wrestle with. Time and time again in the book, highly charged statements are put forth that the untrained person simply cannot sift through. And that approach resembles more an alarmist mentality than what a mature, master teacher is able to offer. Regarding the evidence, suffice it to say that significant textual variants that alter core doctrines of the NT have not yet been produced.”
Ehrman makes no bones about his bias and underlying presuppositions in the introduction to Misquoting Jesus and, of course, God’s Problem.
I find it ironic that Christian scholars are lashed for their biases but I’ve read few books on text criticism or even theology by Christians that start with a personal testimony of how they became a believer in Christ and what their particular worldview is. It’s simply not the venue for it.
