Ehrman received his Ph.D and M.Div. from Princeton Theological Seminary where he studied under Bruce Metzger. He currently serves as the chairman of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He was the President of the Southeast Region of the Society of Biblical Literature, and worked closely as an editor on a number of the Society's publications. Currently, he co-edits the series New Testament Tools and Studies.
Ehrman became an Evangelical Christian as a teen. He attended Moody Bible Institute and Wheaton College (B.A., 1978). His desire to know the original words of the Bible led him to textual criticism, which in turn undermined his faith in the Bible as the inerrant word of God. Ehrman now considers himself an agnostic.