Fresh Air Archive, Bart D. Ehrman, May 11, 2007

By: Terry Gross

Audible® was not granted digital rights to today's program. We bring you religion scholar Bart D. Ehrman on this edition of Fresh Air.

Ehrman chairs the Department of Religious Studies at UNC-Chapel Hill. His new book is Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why. He studied the ancient texts in their original languages, and in his book, he looks at the mistakes and intentional alterations that were made by early scribes and the impact they have on the Bible today. Ehrman, who was raised an evangelical Christian, writes in the intro that this knowledge (which he first came to understand 30 years ago) shifted his way of thinking about the Bible.

Ehrman is also the author of Lost Christianities: The Battle for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew, which chronicles the period before Christianity as we know it came to be, when conflicting ideas about the religion were fighting for prominence in the second and third centuries. He also edited a collection of the early non-canonical texts from the first centuries after Christ, entitled Lost Scriptures: Books that Did Not Make It into the New Testament. (Original Airdate: 12/14/2005) [Broadcast Date: May 11, 2007]

Then, hear Misquoting Jesus and more by Bart D. Ehrman.

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