Bart Ehrman: Without Peer… Review

Bart Ehrman has become the new media darling of the 21stcentury. He’s been on seemingly every major media outlet, from Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show to the Washington Post. Publisher’s Weekly ran an article not too long ago called “TheEhrman Effect,” showing that books by Ehrman as well as those stimulated by hiswritings (both pro and con) have captured a very large market. Beginning with Misquoting Jesus (2005), followed by God’s Problem (2008), and most recently, Jesus, Interrupted (2009), Ehrman’sbooks have sold by the hundreds of thousands, garnering a very high spot on the New York Times Bestseller’s List more than once.  What makes him so popular? Essentially, he’s a former evangelical who is becoming increasingly outspoken about leaving the faith, and he’s a bona fide biblical scholar. The media are fascinated by him. Most recently, CNN ran a story on him (May 15,2009) entitled, “Former fundamentalist ‘debunks’ Bible” (http://edition.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/05/15/bible.critic/index.html).The quotation marks around ‘debunks’ was clever: it may well have saved their hide from countless ticked-off fundamentalists.  To those who live in the world of biblical studies, CNN’s headline is a yawn. A friend of mine who is theologically liberal and a fine scholar once suggested that, as far as he was aware, 100% of all theological liberals came from an evangelical or fundamentalist background. I thought his numbers were a tad high since I had once met a liberal scholar who did not come from such a background. I’d give it 99%.  Whether it’s 99%, 100%, or only 75%, the fact is that overwhelmingly, theological liberals do not start their academic study of the scriptures as theological liberals. They become liberal somewhere along theroad. In this respect, Bart Ehrman is hardly unique.  But what makes Ehrman different is that here’s a liberal scholar who not only writes for the public square; he also speaks about his own spiritual journey in those books. And it doesn’t hurt that he is a gifted communicator who knows how to write.  What some liberal scholars may have dabbled at, Erhman has taken to a new art form: bringing liberal ideas to layfolks without those particular ideas first being rigorously examined by other biblical scholars. The process known as‘peer review’ is a time-honored approach used by almost all theological journals (and certainly by the better ones): An article is submitted to the editor, and the editor sends the manuscript to one or two scholars who are intimately acquainted with the subdiscipline to which the manuscript belongs.They are the author’s peers. They have the power to reject a piece that is flawed in its methods, resources, attitude, format, use of secondary literature, coherence of argumentation, logic, analysis, use of ancient languages, etc. When a scholar takes ideas that have not been peer-reviewed directly to the public, what he publishes is without peer review. Scholars for the most part have submitted their views to each other at academic conferences and in academic journals before they ever launch them on an unsuspecting public.  What marks Ehrman’s popular writings ist hat he has to a large degree bypassed the peer-review stage and has appealed right to hoi polloi. But what most layfolks don’t realize is that many of his arguments have been responded to—some more adequately than others—in a healthy academic environment. Yet Ehrman’s style of argument in Jesus, Interrupted hardly mentions opposing viewpoints, and when it does it’s usually a straw-man argument or one that has long since been relegated to the round file. Unfortunately, too many evangelical scholars see Ehrman’s popular books as old news that is no real threat to them. What they are missing is that they—evangelical scholars—are servants of the Church, and therefore they have an obligation to help bridge the gap between the professor’s podium and the parish’s pews. Frankly, I think that what Ehrman is doing may eventually strengthen the Church in the long haul, because after awhile the strange views of the theological left will no longer catch the average Christian off-guard. Thanks, Bart.