Mormons Meet Bible Scholar Bart Ehrman | Ep. 2120

When Bart Ehrman Meets the Mormons: What Bible Scholarship Actually Does to Faith Claims

Most Latter-day Saints have never heard of Bart Ehrman. That is worth pausing on, because Ehrman is arguably the most widely read Bible scholar in the English-speaking world, and what he teaches in his university classrooms strikes at the same foundations that prop up LDS scripture, prophetic authority, and the historical narrative Joseph Smith built.

A February 2026 episode of the Mormon Stories Podcast (Episode 2120) brought Ehrman back for a wide-ranging conversation with host John Dehlin. The timing is significant: Ehrman has a new book arriving in March 2026, "Love Thy Stranger: How the Teachings of Jesus Transformed the Moral Conscience of the West," and his scholarship is sharper and more accessible than ever.

Ehrman's Background and Why It Matters for Mormon Truth Claims

Ehrman started as an evangelical Christian. He attended Moody Bible Institute, then Wheaton College, then Princeton Theological Seminary, where he spent seven years earning his master's and doctoral degrees. He went to Princeton to study under the legendary textual critic Bruce Metzger, a man who believed deeply in the reliability of the New Testament text.

The intellectual unraveling happened gradually. Ehrman describes a turning point in a seminary course on the Gospel of Mark, where he wrote a thirty-page term paper defending the accuracy of a passage where Jesus appears to name the wrong high priest. The professor's response was simple and deflating: "Maybe Mark just made a mistake." That sentence, Ehrman has said, cracked the dam.