Great Book, But Could do with Less Bias

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	• Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why (Plus) Bart D. Ehrman HarperOne, 2007 - 272 pages average customer review:based on 367 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Great Book, But Could do with Less Bias

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, as it has opened my eyes to the field of textual criticism, and actually motivated me to teach myself Greek so that I could read the various codices myself. With that said, the book is very clearly seething with bias about how much credibility the author puts in the various manuscripts. This isn't necessarily a terrible thing, as the author makes it very obvious that he is biased. At the same time, it gets a little old after a while, and it would have made for a better book if he also included some counter opinions from other colleagues in the field. The book also seems a bit alarmist in its attack, as Ehrman highlights many of the significant issues with scripture. What he fails to convey, however, is that these are by and far the worse cast examples in the field. Of the 200,000 - 400,000 variations he claims in new testament scripture, I'd say a vast majority of them are minor and insignificant. Outside of the content covered in this book, there appears to be very little issue with the rest of scripture. His book motivated me to sit down and read some of the scans of manuscript he had been referring to, and so I think any book that motivates people to think for themselves is obviously a good one. I entirely disagree with his conclusions, and think he's gone from being a textual critic to a textual skeptic - and based on my conversations with other scholars in the field, his conclusions do not appear to represent the majority. Approaching this book understanding this, however, will give you an enjoyable experience nonetheless.

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Bible de-mythologized

Wednesday, November 08, 2006
"Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why" by Bart D. Ehrman
This is a book I read at Borders while drinking coffee over the course of a year or so. I thank Borders for alowing this use of their space and books.
The interesting part of this book is that the Bible is not what we think of as "The Bible", it is various interpretations of various writings. It is best read in the language that the books were written in, but how many of us can do that? It also significant that the Bible is not simply a book that has stood the test of time, but also has adjusted according to the interests or politics of the scribe. I remember hearing that in the Dead Sea Scrolls, there are parts of Old Testament books that have not been seen in the last thousand years that may answer or qualify some New Testament parts that refer to them. How much else is lost or left out we may never know, but it is important to understand that even if we could accumulate all the pieces of the Bible, parts of it would not pass religious muster to be part of the Canon we call the Bible.

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factual but not judgemental

Excellent review of the hazards and potential errors of the early transcription process. Erhman provides a surprisingly unbiased account of the reasons for transcription errors, both accidental and intentional, without imposing his own personal and theological judgement. Wonderful illustrative arguements are documented to support all aspects of transcription modifications. The reader is left to draw his/her own theological decisions, but now with a more open and more complete understanding of how the original words of the New Testament can never be fully known. Easy for the uninitiated in textual criticism to follow.

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Less than I expected

Well, I learned a few things from reading this book, but, at the end, I came away asking myself, "so what?" I suppose if I had gone into this believing that every word in the New Testament was exactly right, I'd come away from this book thinking differently. But that's not how I came to it. I found this much less thought-providing than, say, the Gospel of Thomas. After I finished reading this book, I offered it to several Christian friends, but no one wanted it--apparently the author's reputation as a Christian-turned-agnostic prompted an "I don't want to read this and have that happen to me" attitude.

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reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, page 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15

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