Bart Ehrman.

[Paul Younan]

Has anyone had a chance to verify his claims, or bold enough to dismiss him as merely a frustrated former-evangelical agnostic looking to make fast bucks?

Barts claims are pretty much in line with what scholars conclude about the NT, when they don't consider the evidence for peshitta primacy.
Peshitta primacy is quite radical. It over throws a large proportion of NT scholarship. Not everything though. things such as marcan priority would most likely still remian.
If peshitta priority is correct then a whole industry is on the wrong path, millions of people around the globe who study NT greek are looking in the wrong place, so it's not surprising it maintains its dominance.

Now if we leave the peshitta aside and only look at the greek NT, then waht is a reasonable person to conclude. We have texts which differ. We need to find an explanation for why they differ.
Either they were changed deliberately or accidenatally.
Take alook at mark 1:41. <!-- l --><a class="postlink-local" href="http://www.peshitta.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=1505">viewtopic.php?f=10&t=1505</a><!-- l -->

Hre we have two different greek texts. the two words that differ in greek dont look alike, so it's hard to imagine how this difference could have arisen by accident. So a reasonable person migh conclude that the change was deliberate.
There is aprinciple used in textual analysis called , Lectio difficilior potior, <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lectio_difficilior_potior">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lectio_difficilior_potior</a><!-- m --> , meaing that the more difficult reading is probably the original.
Using that, it is quite reasonable to conclude that the NT text was changed deliberately in the way Erhman thinks. In lieu of that we are left without an explanation, and an explanation that makes some sense is better than none at all.

When peshitta primacy is considered another story emerges though, which seems to have better explanatory power.

Akhan Judge,

It's a rare event when I read a post and feel compelled to just say thanks for the eloquent wording and the relevance to our "mission" here.

+Shamasha