[close] Bart D. Ehrman is a New Testament scholar and textual critic of early Christianity. He is is the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor and Chair of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has researched the source materials for the Bible. His research demonstrates that the Biblical text was unintentionally altered by scribes and intentionally altered for a variety of reasons.

Two major themes run throughout nearly all of his books and lectures. First is the desire to analyze the historicity of claims made by ancient texts used in the creation of the New Testament, as well as many books left out of the Christian canon, and subject them to a series of criteria. Second is the desire to reveal the thousands of differences and changes in the texts some people take to be the inerrant and literal "Word of God," who it was that changed the originals (the whole of which we no longer have), and what motivations or theological benefit could lie behind such changes being made. [close]