Published debate record
14 eligible one-on-one scorecards. Average published score: 85.6/100. Scores describe these debates, not the person's overall ability or worth.
Dinesh D'Souza vs Bart Ehrman: God, Suffering, and Evil · 2025
D'Souza defended theistic compatibility through epistemic limits, freedom, and natural order; Ehrman pressed suffering's scale, preventability, and unexplained intervention gap.
Dinesh D'Souza: 79 · Bart Ehrman: 87. Scores assess the reasoning in this debate.
Bart Ehrman vs Justin Bass: Did Jesus of Nazareth Rise From the Dead? · 2023
Bass builds a cumulative resurrection case from appearances, unexpected belief, expansion, and visions; Ehrman answers through source criticism, ordinary alternatives, and comparative evidence.
Justin Bass: 78 · Bart Ehrman: 88. Scores assess the reasoning in this debate.
Sean McDowell vs Bart Ehrman: The Moral Argument, Guilt, and the Teachings of Jesus · 2026
McDowell presses objective obligation and progress; Ehrman explains universal charity historically while separating human moral experience from mind-independent grounding.
Sean McDowell: 86 · Bart Ehrman: 82. Scores assess the reasoning in this debate.
Jimmy Akin vs Bart Ehrman: Are the Gospels Historically Reliable? · 2022
Akin defended cumulative Gospel reliability through ancient conventions and possible harmonizations; Ehrman pressed consequential narrative conflicts, compositional reshaping, and discontinuous self-presentation.
Jimmy Akin: 81 · Bart Ehrman: 88. Scores assess the reasoning in this debate.
Bart Ehrman vs Robert Price: Did Jesus Exist? · 2016
Ehrman advances convergent historical evidence for Jesus; Price challenges source independence, terrestrial Pauline readings, chronology, and whether an ordinary founder explains Christianity.
Bart Ehrman: 86 · Robert Price: 81. Scores assess the reasoning in this debate.
Ross Douthat vs Bart Ehrman: Did Jesus Rise From the Dead? · 2026
Douthat pressed witness continuity and resurrection strangeness; Ehrman narrowly prevailed through source criticism, calibrated historical method, and a multistage visionary reconstruction.
Ross Douthat: 84 · Bart Ehrman: 86. Scores assess the reasoning in this debate.
Bart Ehrman vs Peter J. Williams: Are the Gospels Historically Reliable? · 2018
Williams defended cumulative contextual and theological continuity, while Ehrman more successfully separated informed settings from reliable events, highlighting provenance gaps and narrative conflicts.
Peter J. Williams: 83 · Bart Ehrman: 86. Scores assess the reasoning in this debate.
Bart Ehrman vs Daniel B. Wallace: Can We Trust the Text of the New Testament? · 2011
Wallace defended probabilistic textual recovery through abundant branching witnesses; Ehrman conceded broad continuity but showed that reconstructing their ancestor does not establish autographic identity.
Daniel B. Wallace: 83 · Bart Ehrman: 88. Scores assess the reasoning in this debate.
Bart Ehrman vs Michael Licona: Who Wrote the Gospels? · 2025
Licona defended traditional Gospel authority through convergent testimony and collaboration; Ehrman prevailed by separating compatibility and reliability from identity-specific authorship evidence.
Michael Licona: 81 · Bart Ehrman: 87. Scores assess the reasoning in this debate.
William Lane Craig vs Bart Ehrman: Is There Historical Evidence for the Resurrection? · 2006
Craig defended resurrection through cumulative explanatory comparison; Ehrman challenged source reliability, supernatural inference, and whether historical standards can distinguish bodily resurrection from alternatives.
William Lane Craig: 84 · Bart Ehrman: 83. Scores assess the reasoning in this debate.
Does the New Testament Misquote Jesus? Bart Ehrman vs. Craig Evans · 2010
Ehrman wins 85–83, chiefly through concrete contradictions and saying-level variants; Evans nearly matches him with historically secure cores, eyewitness-linked transmission, and contextual corroboration.
Bart Ehrman: 85 · Craig Evans: 83. Scores assess the reasoning in this debate.
Michael Licona vs Bart Ehrman: Can Historians Prove the Resurrection? · 2008
Ehrman prevailed 79–78 by narrowly pairing strong source criticism and public-evidence burdens against Licona’s comparatively sophisticated but incompletely warranted resurrection inference.
Michael Licona: 78 · Bart Ehrman: 79. Scores assess the reasoning in this debate.
Richard Swinburne vs Bart Ehrman — God and Suffering · 2009
Ehrman’s victim-centered, natural-evil, and scriptural challenges outweighed Swinburne’s coherent but incompletely warranted account of responsible freedom, sanctity, redemption, and heaven.
Richard Swinburne: 78 · Bart Ehrman: 85. Scores assess the reasoning in this debate.
Bart Ehrman vs James White — Does the Bible Misquote Jesus? · 2009
Ehrman narrowly prevailed by proving consequential local misattributions, while White strongly defended recoverable textual and theological continuity.
Bart Ehrman: 88 · James White: 86. Scores assess the reasoning in this debate.