NT Wright and Bart Ehrman Are Having It Out Re: The Problem of Evil

By Robert Fischer | Published: April 25, 2008

Blogalogue: Is Our Pain God’s Problem?

Bart Ehrman and NT Wright are probably two of the most accessible, insightful, and respected scholars in the field of Christian studies. And they’re taking on the biggest issue in Christianity — the problem of evil.

Bart Ehrman is an agnostic, and his writings betray a pretty clear disdain for at least the contemporary Christian tradition, if not the entire Christian endeavor. But he’s still an incredible scholar, with a heavy amount of work done in the early Christian church.

N.T. Wright is the Bishop of Durham (UK, not NC), and is probably the most influential theologian within the Christian fold right now. His writings have brought a lot of fresh interest and conversation into the field, and a large number of people (including Ann Rice) trace their return to Christianity back to one of his books.

So should be an interesting conversation.

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  • http://hamletdarcy.blogspot.com Hamlet D’Arcy

    While I am no expert, I’ve never detected anything but respect in Ehrmann’s approach to Christianity, based on reading Misquoting Jesus and listening to his excellent lecture series on early Christianity from the Teaching Company. I found the forward to Misquoting Jesus to be a very moving and surprising account of how he became interested in the historical scriptures and was forced away from the fundamentalist/evangelical sects he was a member of (at Moody and Wheaton). I consider this man a true treasure and look forward to reading this, thanks!

  • http://www.linkedin.com/in/robertfischer Robert Fischer

    Have you read his “Lost Christianities”, “Lost Scriptures”, or “God’s Problem”? They’re where I know him from, and at least in those books, he’s pretty down on at least the contemporary Christian organization. But the guy really is a treasure to Christian studies. He’s actually one of the main reasons I am seriously considering Princeton as a place for my seminary — if they can crank out scholars of the skill of Bart Erhmann, they can’t be all bad. :)

  • http://hamletdarcy.blogspot.com Hamlet D’Arcy

    No, I haven’t read any of those yet. Around the same time I also read “The Closing of the Western Mind (The Rise of Faith and the Fall of Reason)”, which has a very negative (disdainful?) tone. Despite being a well researched book on the early church (councils and canon formation, etc), it was incredibly annoying to read because the author almost took glee in pointing out how much politics and power has shaped religion. Whereas reading Misquoting Jesus, I always felt that Ehrman wanted to find the truth about the scriptures for the sake of knowing the truth, not unmasking hypocrisy or undermining modern beliefs. In fact, I was surprised to see him listed as an agnostic in your post (wikipedia confirms it though).

    Perhaps it boils down to what your reference point is. Comparing Ehrman to Billy Graham, Ehrman might seem hyper critical. Comparing Ehrman to the majority of Christian critics (which, in my experience, are mostly a bunch of unhappy post-juveniles whose religious education ended at the 8th grade and whose main rhetorical tool is name calling) … Ehrman can seem quite respectful.

  • http://www.linkedin.com/in/robertfischer Robert Fischer

    Yeah, I totally agree with where you’re coming from. Ehrmann does more for dialog and well-deserved Christian criticism than all of the atheist superstars like Dawkins combined, because at least Ehrmann understands and has sympathy for where Christians are coming from, instead of engaging with straw men and bottom-of-the-barrel theologians. It’s part of the reason I was really excited about this exchange.

    Have you seen the previous conversation on this blog A Note on Terminology? It gets into some of the same issues.

  • http://www.linkedin.com/in/robertfischer Robert Fischer

    I highly suggest “Lost Christianities”, BTW. It’s a good book with a balanced exploration of the alternative early Christian churches. So many books want to prove that these alternative early Christian churches were dens of vice and evil, or they want to prove that these alternative early Christian churches were the suppressed One True Church. Ehrmann does a really nice job of keeping a balanced approach.

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