Bart Ehrman’s last lecture

Bart Ehrman, a noted biblical studies professor at UNC Chapel Hill, announced his retirement on December 7, 2025, after more than 40 years in the classroom. Although he was educated at Princeton under the guidance of conservative theologian Bruce Metzger, Ehrman “de-converted” from Christianity and has written a number of books aimed at poking holes in the truth claims of Christianity and especially the reliability of the biblical text.

Ehrman used his last lecture to again hammer away at the idea that we really don’t know and can’t trust what the Bible says. He claims there are so many “variants” (i.e., differences) in the many biblical manuscripts we have that we’re unable to know what the original books of the Bible said.  

During his farewell lecture, Ehrman stated that after the original biblical authors wrote their books,

“Then, after a while, somebody wanted a copy of it, right? And so, somebody made a copy of it. And then somebody copied the copy, and then somebody copied the copy of the copy, and then somebody copied the copy of the copy of the copy. And it went on like that, it went on like that for centuries … And so, you don’t have originals. You’ve got later copies. The problem is that scribes make mistakes…Today we know of over 5,800 manuscripts. How many variants do we know about? And the recent estimates are around 500,000. So, most of them don’t matter, but some of them matter a lot. Some of them actually change what a verse means, or what a chapter means, or what a book means. Sometimes they change the theology of the whole thing.”

Is that true? Are these manuscript differences mentioned by Ehrman so pronounced that we don’t know what the books of the Bible originally said and meant?

Actually, no. Let me explain why.

What’s a variant?

In his book Misquoting Jesus, Ehrman says there are “more variations among our manuscripts than there are words in the New Testament.” And he’s correct.

However, to quote the movie “The Princess Bride,” that doesn’t mean what you think it means.  

Ehrman’s claim is a partial truth, which leads to many people thinking the veracity of the biblical text is in doubt. The number of variants is large because, for example, one difference of one letter of one word in one verse in say, 2,000 manuscripts, counts as 2,000 variants (and there are nearly 6,000 manuscripts to compare).

But, as Ehrman admits in his farewell lecture, “most of them don’t matter.” The overwhelming majority of variants consist of spelling and numerical differences, sentence word order changes, etc. Thus, scholars have concluded that the New Testament text is 99% pure, with there being only 1% of the text that contains any “meaningful” variants.

OK, but what about that 1%? Is Ehrman right when he claims, “Some of them actually change what a verse means, or what a chapter means, or what a book means. Sometimes they change the theology of the whole thing”?

No.

Let me give you an example of a “meaningful” variant. In 1 Thessalonians 2:7, Paul describes himself either as “gentle” or as “little children,” with there being a one-letter discrepancy with the Greek terms used in the differing manuscripts (epioi vs. nepioi).

That’s a “meaningful” variant.

Can I get a show of hands out there of those whose faith has just been shipwrecked and you’re now bailing on Jesus? No one? Didn’t think so.

In no way are you going to find one book saying Jesus rose from the dead and another one claiming He didn’t; one saying you have to earn your way to Heaven and another saying it’s by grace alone. And so on.

And here’s the thing — Ehrman knows this.

Years ago, Ehrman was interviewed on a Lutheran radio show and was asked point-blank about whether biblical variants equate to us being in the dark about what the New Testament actually says and means. William Lane Craig sums up the conversation this way:

“The interviewer said to Dr. Ehrman, ‘What do you think the original text of the New Testament actually said?’ And Ehrman replied, ‘Well, what do you mean?’ The interviewer said, ‘There have been all these variants, all these changes that have been introduced. What did the original say?’ Bart said, ‘It said pretty much what our Bibles today say.’ The interviewer said, ‘I am confused. I thought there were all these copyist errors.’ Ehrman said, ‘Oh, well yeah, but we have been able to reconstruct the text, so that we know what the original says.’”

And what does this admission mean for you?

It signifies that you are free to declare you don’t believe what the Bible claims — e.g., you think that Jesus didn’t actually rise from the dead — but you can’t cast doubt on what the Bible says and means. Through the science of biblical criticism, we have what the biblical authors wrote, with the few attempts at additions/modifications being identified and well known (and none changing the theology of the text).   

It's disappointing to see someone like Ehrman who is capable of doing so much good for Christianity (for example, his defense regarding the historicity of Jesus in his book, Did Jesus Exist?) be used as a mouthpiece by the enemy to repeat his question in the Garden: “Indeed, has God said?” (Gen. 3:1). Keep up the prayers for Bart everyone and let’s hope he comes to Christ in the near future.