Misquoting Jesus
The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why
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Average rating3.7
For almost 1,500 years, the New Testament manuscripts were copied by hand — — and mistakes and intentional changes abound in the competing manuscript versions. Religious and biblical scholar Bart Ehrman makes the provocative case that many of our widely held beliefs concerning the divinity of Jesus, the Trinity, and the divine origins of the Bible itself are the results of both intentional and accidental alterations by scribes. In this compelling and fascinating book, Ehrman shows where and why changes were made in our earliest surviving manuscripts, explaining for the first time how the many variations of our cherished biblical stories came to be, and why only certain versions of the stories qualify for publication in the Bibles we read today. Ehrman frames his account with personal reflections on how his study of the Greek manuscripts made him abandon his once ultra — conservative views of the Bible.
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There are few times that I miss my first husband, but this is one of them. I do wish that I had someone with whom I could seriously discuss this book, someone who would also read it and Ehrman's other works. I participate in a Facebook group that provides some of that need, but it isn't quite the same as a face-to-face conversation.
Anyway, I finished the book today. It was wonderful. Now I want a copy of the New Testament with all of these changes that Ehrman points out marked. I don't know what translation to trust, or if any of them are trustworthy! And what about the Old Testament - he doesn't even address that! Even if one were fluent in all the languages in question, who would have access to all the relevant manuscripts, let alone the lifetime it would take to compare them all? No, it's been done by various scholars, so a definitive “this is what we THINK is what the autographs said” version needs to be in print.
Author concluded that, because God did not preserve texts of New Testament, even though He could have, they therefore are not divinely inspired.
Errors were made as a result of accieent - wrong word, skipped lines, etc.
Changes made deliberately to emphasize point being made by individual authors.
I had never thought of the books in the Bible as either literary or political texts before - e.g. why do the four Gospels have different versions of the Passion - depends on what each author wanted to emphasize. “Duh” moment for me.
“Genealogy” of individual manuscripts is traceable through common errors.
King James Version of the Bible is complete crap.
(Recommended reading: Living Text of the Gospels by David C. Parker 1997 Columbia Univ. Press)
This was really fascinating, just had some repetitive moments.
The book describes the field of textual analysis, where biblical researchers go back through manuscripts to try and ascertain which sources for the New Testament are oldest and/or best based on variations in words and phrases.
It's incredibly cool. The entire chapter on the gospel of Mark was so intriguing. I read the first half of this book with Wikipedia open on my laptop so I could research all the apologists and heretics who are referenced.
I went to Catholic school and let me tell you, we never did anything like this. Every bit of the Bible we read was parceled out in isolation. I don't remember reading any part of the the NT in context to another, despite the fact that MMLJ share so much in common. In fact, I don't really remember understanding the context of why Paul and Timothy wrote all the letters they did.
It would have been a gripping history/historiography class.
