I believe that the article noted makes the common error of attributing Dr. Ehrman’s shift in faith to his growing awareness that the Bible was not inerrant. Dr. Ehrman has frequently stated that his shift in faith was mostly a result of his inability to reconcile the faith of his youth with a world that is heavily burdened with pain and suffering, most of it of no discernible purpose. (And in wrestling with that problem, and finding no satisfactory answer, he is by no means alone.)

On the question of inerrancy, I am aware of no definition that would allow the word to be correctly applied to the Bible, neither the Old nor New Testament. There are unquestionable inconsistencies, and while two positions with notable differences might both be wrong, they simply cannot both be right, making at least one necessarily an error (even if specifying which is not practical). And the presence of a clear error would certainly disprove any idea of inerrancy. Beyond that, there are matters of translation and apparent efforts at revisions to impose a greater sense of conformity to a central set of ideas that also raise interesting questions.

The insurmountable problem is only for those who insist on an unquestionable and literal interpretation of the Bible as directly inspired by God (sometimes in the original text and in the translation, which is even more troublesome). Once that shield of (demonstrably false) certainty is dropped, questions are raised and many feel themselves in a sea of doubts. At that point, welcome to the human condition of having questions that cannot really be answered.

That link gives me an error, not that my opinion is worth so much.

Do you mean: ** you do not have permission to see this link **

or maybe: ** you do not have permission to see this link **

Well, just as a personal impression, that article at least makes a more accurate description of Dr. Ehrman’s faith crisis. I think it gets a bit too clever in invoking Ehrman’s expressed fondness for Ecclesiastes. (I admit that the statements there do not fill me with a sense of much guidance in regard to life, but if it works for Ehrman, then I hope it leads him to some happiness.) It is probably unfair to suggest that because Ehrman likes some statements in Ecclesiastes he is bound to accept the rest of the book. I might also like some specific examples to back up the claim made by the author: “Oddly, he thinks that because the Bible’s answers vary, this makes them contradictory. The idea that they supplement one another doesn’t seem to occur to him.” As it stands, it is hard to evaluate his assertion. Most of the rest of the article seems to be the author making his own argument in favor of faith, without really addressing the problems that Ehrman raises.

I would also disagree with his statement that: “We all trust something. When we abandon trust in God’s revelation, we replace it with trust in our own feelings, opinions, and preferences, or those of our friends and teachers—all of which can drift with popular culture, including academic culture.” Some people just end up with doubt and uncertainty. I do think that most people find some reason to get up in the morning and tackle a new day, and that reason may involve a good deal of dubious thinking if examined as closely as the Bible has been subjected to. I know a lot of atheists who adopt the title of being humanists, for example, when there is certainly very little reason to have much faith or confidence in humanity as a species.

I think what Ehrman might be saying with his selection from Ecclesiastes is that God or no God, there is a view of the world that he likes, or at least one he prefers, and he will seek to advocate for that world to the extent that he can. That is presumably one reason that he has marshaled his popularity (dare I say his celebrity) to create this website, which raises a good deal of money for notable charities. Many people accused Ben Franklin of trying to diminish a fear of God by inventing the lightning rod, but Franklin was seeking to solve a problem that caused considerable harm to people and he refused to take financial profit from his discovery because he felt that anything of such benefit should be free to use. Eventually, one of the primary beneficiaries of lightning rods were churches, since they had steeples that tended to make them taller than their surroundings and an obvious target for lightning strikes.

You might find this thread of interest, if a bit long: ** you do not have permission to see this link **

If you are someone who comes from a very confident faith and is feeling that tug of doubt, a public forum might not be the best place to seek answers to difficult questions. If you have a Unitarian Universalist congregation in your area, that might be useful resource, although some congregations are still a bit stuck in the strongly anti-theist stage. I have often said that there is no machine for creating committed atheists quite like conservative Catholicism, although deeply conservative Christianity might also fit the bill.

In the UU church that I attend, we like to say that “your spiritual path is your spiritual path. We can encourage you and point out some potentially helpful resources, but you must find the path yourself.” That can admittedly be very disorienting if one is accustomed to being fed a steady diet of already prepared answers. For myself, I tend to be wary of anyone who is overly confident in having all of the answers, and does not entertain a healthy dose of doubt, or at least a willingness to admit that there are gaps in what we can know that we just have to dodge around, or fill as best we can with what is at hand. For me, the main reason to attend church at all is the sense of support and community it can provide, assuming that one can find a good fit. On the other hand, while I give money to and do quite a lot for my church, I have never actually joined as an official member, but that is a story for another context.

I hope that something in all of that rambling may be of some help.