He knows the Bible too well to believe it.

Bart Ehrman is a New Testament scholar. Here was a man who graduated from Moody Bible Institute, a bastion of American fundamentalism. He is a man who studied the Bible constantly and the deeper he looked into this book the more it challenged him. He started out thinking the Bible was the word of God and without error. He ended up a skeptic

Ehrman is the author of a book on New Testament scholarship that is on the New York Times list of best sellers. He teaches religion at the university level now. The New York Times discusses one of Ehrman’s classes:

But as he paces back and forth across the stage, Ehrman ruthlessly pounces on the anomalies -- in this Gospel, Jesus isn't born in Bethlehem, he doesn't tell any parables, he never casts out a demon, there's no last supper. "None of that is found in John!" The crucifixion stories are different -- in Mark, Jesus is terrified on the cross; in John, he's perfectly composed. Key dates are different. The resurrection stories are different. Ehrman reels them off, rapid-fire, shell bursts against the bulwark of tradition.

"In Matthew, Mark and Luke, you find no trace of Jesus being divine," he says, his voice urgent. "In John, you do." He points out that in the other three books, it takes the disciples nearly half of Christ's ministry to learn who he is. John says no, no, everyone knew it from the beginning. "You shouldn't think something just because you believe it. You need reasons. That applies to religion. That applies to politics . . . just because your parents believe something isn't good enough."

Ehrman was converted to fundamentalist Christianity as a teen. He converted his family to the same faith. He feel in love with the Bible and memorized large sections of it. He studied at evangelical schools like Moody and Wheaton College. And he discovered a talent for ancient languages. Now, for the first time, he could read the translations of the Bible that existed from various periods of time. He could read the ancient texts not just the modern English like most Christians. What he found was not pretty for a fundamentalist.

Ancient fragments of the Bible exist but they have different versions of the same story. There are over 200,000 differences between the various texts. Ehrman told the Times: “Put it this way: There are more variances among our manuscripts than there are words in the New Testament.”

Ehrman says many are merely grammatical differences but some are very profound. He notes that 12 verses in Mark were added after the original was written. They are the only NT verses which say Christ appeared after his death. In another section the only verses outlining the doctrine of the Trinity was added to the New Testament a few centuries after the original was written.

The more Ehrman studied the more he realized that the New Testament is not a trustworthy document. It is not historical at all. Again the Times reports on this:

"I just began to lose it," Ehrman says now, in a conversation that stretches from late afternoon into the evening. "It wasn't for lack of trying. But I just couldn't believe there was a God in charge of this mess . . . It was so emotionally charged. This whole business of 'the Bible is your life, and anyone who doesn't believe it is going to roast in hell.' "