A readable book that reveals the actual history of the New Testament text

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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

Very Good Scholarly History of Scripture Text for Lay readers

`Misquoting Jesus' by leading New Testament scholar, Bart Ehrman is `must reading' for anyone who questions the need for textual criticism of Biblical texts, possibly believing, as Ehrman did in his early years of seminary study, that such critical interpretations were heretical, since they gave the appearance of questioning the absolute authority of scripture. In a nutshell, the book is a history of the documents containing the Christian `New Testament' scriptures.
Ehrman has become something of a scholarly celebrity, as a result of his writing several books on early scriptures for the lay audience, of which this is one of his most interesting. This celebrity must not obscure the fact that Ehrman is also one of the very best scholars working with scripture and other early Greek texts. For example, several of the volumes of Greek translations in the Loeb Classical Library published by Harvard are edited and translated by Professor Ehrman.
Ehrman begins with a heartfelt story of how he came to be a Greek Biblical scholar, motivated by his dedication to a Fundamentalist reading of scriptures. His epiphany regarding the nature of his task came when he did a scholarly paper on a famous passage from his favorite Gospel, the Gospel of Mark, regarding Jesus' citing the episode (Mark 2:25 - 26) of King David requisitioning sacred loaves of bread from the temple (1 Samuel 21:1 - 6). There is some inconsistency between these two passages, and young Bart worked up an elaborate explanation attempting to preserve the veracity of Mark. The moment of illumination came when his professor, a pious scholar, flatly stated that `...perhaps Mark made a mistake'.
The lion's share of the book deals with descriptions of mistakes made in copying and editing early Biblical texts. Some mistakes lasted long enough to even affect our most important English translation, the King James Bible. Ehrman cites numerous documentary facts about early Christian copyists which reveal that rather than being rare, mistakes were probably quite common, leading to hundreds of changes in the text. This is why our modern authoritative Greek text is a synthesis of 300,000 different sources! One of the most famous editing changes is the augmented ending to Mark, which tacks on twelve verses which are not found in the very earliest texts.
After the initial surprise, a bit of reflection should tell us these facts are quite consistent with the way things work in the world. One can even look at some scriptures themselves and find evidence of real editing at work from the earliest times. The prologue to The Gospel of Luke, for example, gives us the author stating that his work is an (implied) correction of several earlier accounts, emphasizing an historically more accurate telling of the story.
A second `chaotic' influence on the content of our scriptures are the modifications made by groups of early Christians which held theological positions which were contrary to the strongest factions in the church. The earliest and most famous of these was the canon of Marcion, who espoused a doctrine very close to the Gnostic Christians who pop up in so many popular works these days on alternate Gospels. Marcion `published' the very first canonical collection of Christian scriptures, including a bowdlerized version of Luke, removing all of the direct quotes from the Hebrew Scriptures.
The book ends with an interview with Ehrman where he states that his studies over the years lead him away from a belief in the Bible as the inerrant word of God to a more mainstream position. He now finds himself a `happy agnostic'. Oddly enough, I believe there are thousands of both professional and lay students of the scriptures which know all the same facts, but who do not find their reasons for abandoning the Christian faith. Like the quintessential scholar who insisted on the importance of scripture, Martin Luther, there are elements of Christian faith which are irreducibly mysterious. One can accept errors in the scriptures, and accept a certain open-endedness of certain ideas such as the trinity and the dual nature of Christ, and Christianity will be just as rewarding, as or maybe even more rewarding than the uncritical reading of scripture.
Ehrman's presentation of his material is lucid, in spite of some neatly hidden scholarly accessories. Anyone who has a passing familiarity with Biblical texts will have no trouble. Those who know the Bible well will get even more from the discussion.

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101 Myths Better, But This is Solid Back-Up

See my review of 101 Myths of the Bible for both extended comments and a list of two DVDs and several books that capture my history of reading of about religion.

With so many other reviews, this one is primarily to highlight and summarize the book for those that use me as a surrogate browser of non-fiction.

What struck me most about this book and its learned "born again" Christian was that it deconstructed the Bible so ably, but strives to retain the immutability of the Bible.

The author excels at telling his personal story of discovery, and doess a better job than 101 Myths at capturing and explaining:

+ We have no originals

+ The Bible is copies of copies over centuries

+ The Bible is a human book, full of mistakes

+ The Bible has been consistently revised by generations inserting their own historical contexts and agendas

+ Radical (the aurhot's word) alterations abound.

This book is a scholarly work that respects the contributions of a number of key scholars, but strangely makes no reference I could find to 101 Myths.

I value the book for the above, but if you buy only one book, I recommend you consider The Complete Conversations with God (Boxed Set) and ideally also 101 Myths.

Religion has been fradulent and abusive. I agree with Rabbi Lerner, author of The Left Hand of God: Taking Back Our Country from the Religious Right, on the importance of reintegrating a culture of compassion back into our social and political lives, but I am now inclined to reject all organized religion as a form of organized crime, cult, and theater.

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Misquoting Jesus

A challenging book that most fundamentalists simply will not agree with, given that it concentrates on the historical people and events that shaped the books which were ultimately included in our Bible today, from one of the foremost scholars of early Christianity.

A readable book that reveals the actual history of the New Testament text

This book is an enlightening and satisfying read! It should benefit three kinds of people:

First, Christians who want solid knowledge concerning the text of the New Testament; not just some blithe and mind-closing ideology of "it's the Word of God and it's all inspired;" but a literary and historcal appreciation of the text. Ehrman leads the reader though the maze that constitutes the history of the text that became the New Testament. He reveals - for the ordinary person - the nuances and complexities of the Greek text (the language in which the New Testament was written) in a way that anyone can understand. If you care about the Bible as the Word of God, then you need to become familiar all of the various versions of the books of the NT. This book will help you do this.

Second, if you are someone who is not religious but who nevertheless sees the the Bible as an important literary text in the history of Western culture, and who wants to understand it, this book will help you grasp the development of the New Testament in its original context and then its transmission across several centuries, showing what happened to it in that process. Understanding what the New Testament is; how its texts were composed - where and when - and how it came to be in its present form are essential for knowing that the New Testament is.

Third, if you are a recovering Christian - especially a recovering fundamentalist, charismatic, or evangelical - and you are still haunted by the mystique of the Bible as some monolithic "Word of God" that people used to hold over you and threaten you with, this book will help you to break free of that ideology (as will most of Ehrman's books). It will help you see the Bible for what it is; a very human book with limitations. The best way to break free of a narrow-minded religiosity is to learn what the Bible really is. Ehrman's book will be for you a good first step in that process.

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If you think the Bible is without error, read this book.

This is a fascinating book, the product of great scholarship. As can be seen in the other reviews, it drives Christian Fundamentalists over the edge because it seriously undermines the concept of inerrancy of scripture.

reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, page 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17

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