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Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why (Plus)
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Average Rating:  out of 373 Reviews
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Price: $14.95
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Sale: $8.50
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Manufacturer: HarperOne
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EAN (European Article Number): 9780060859510
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Number of Items: 1
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Binding: Paperback
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Author: Bart D. Ehrman
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Publisher: HarperOne
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Dewey Decimal Number: 230
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Publication Date: 2007-02-05
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Reading Level: 272
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Description: 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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Customer Reviews
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Review Summary: Another home run for Ehrman! |
Date: 2005-11-13 |
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Details: In a little over 200 pages, Ehrman gets to the point of how the New Testament came to be what it is today. No, it didn't just appear leather-bound, shiny, and new after Jesus' resurrection; rather, it was painstakingly cobbled together decades after Jesus' crucifixion from copies of copies of copies of (you get the point) the original writings of the New Testament authors, which were slowly altered over time by scribes that handed them down (sometimes by accident or othertimes intentionally by those meaning to "correct" things in the scriptures that didn't make sense). All in all, Ehrman makes his case well, that even if the New Testament scriptures started out as the inspired word of God, we humans have certainly gotten our filthy little hands on it and have made it quite difficult to discern what the "original" writers (whose texts have been lost) actually wrote. Thus, we can only try to piece it together through the challenging art of textual criticism, which is what this book is largely about. |
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Review Summary: An excellent starting place for anyone wishing to know about New Testament textual criticism and the problems with the texts! |
Date: 2005-12-09 |
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Details: Ehrman's book can be described as an introduction to New Testament textual criticism for the beginners, in which he explains the subject in the context of his own background, relating his journey from being an Evangelical Christian to becoming a world renowned New Testament scholar. Besides D. C. Parker's "Living Text of the Gospels," Ehrman's "Misquoting Jesus" seems to be the only book on textual criticism designed specifically for the non-expert readers.
In short, Prof. Ehrman explains the copying practises of the earliest period and how the texts of the New Testament writings were corrupted as they were copied and recopied. He begins by introducing the diverse writings produced by the early Christians, such as gospels, Acts, apocalypses, Church orders, apologies etc. Briefly, the formation of the canon is also discussed and we are informed about the literacy level among the early Christians. Thereafter we are introduced to the world of the copyists and Ehrman explains how the early scribes copied texts and the problems associated with the copying of texts.
It is quite interesting to learn that even pagan critics of Christianity, such as Celsus, were quite aware at an early date that the Christian writings were being corrupted by the scribes and even Origen had to complain about the numerous differences between the gospel manuscripts. Marcion, an early Christian, corrupted the text of certain New Testament writings available to him and Dionysius is quoted who complains that his own writings have been modified just as "the word of the Lord" had been tampered. Marcion, of course, accused other Christians of corrupting the texts. In an earlier writings, "The Orthodox Corruption of Scriptures", Ehrman demonstrated in detail how proto-orthodox Christians corrupted the New Testament writings on occasions. It seems that the early Christians were quite aware that the writings in their possession had underwent corruption and were still being corrupted and they frequently accused each other of tampering with the texts.
I was quite surprised to learn how statistically small additions or deletions within the text changed the entire meaning of passages and even books. Ehrman discusses at length certain examples in this regard and shows that even unintentional changes can result in changes that change the meaning of texts. A previous disgruntled reviewer said that "all of the basic beliefs of the faith are clearly outlined throughout the New Testament and are not in any way in question." However, Ehrman lists a number of theologically important issues which rest upon textually uncertain passages. To quote Ehrman (pp. 207-208):
"It would be wrong, however, to say - as people sometimes do - that the changes in our text have no real bearing on what the texts mean or on the theological conclusions that one draws from them. We have seen, in fact, that just the opposite is the case. In some instances, the very meaning is at stake depending on how one resolves a textual problem: Was Jesus an angry man? Was the completely distraught in the face of death? Did he tell his disciples that they could drink poison without being harmed? Did he let an adulteress off the hook with nothing but a mild warning? Is the doctrine of the Trinity explicitly taught in the New Testament? Is Jesus actually called the "unique God" there? Does the New Testament indicate that even the Son of God does not know when the end will come? The questions go on and on, and all of them are related to how one resolves difficulties in the manuscript tradition as it has come down to us."
The above are just a few problems. Another interesting problem is whether the doctrine of the atonement is taught in the gospel according to Luke? Further, there are immense textual problems with passages such as the sayings on divorce and remarriage in the gospels (not discussed by Ehrman but addressed in detail in D. C. Parker's - The Living Text of the Gospels) and the Lord's Prayer among others. Therefore, it seems clear that the Gospels are not so well textually preserved as some people would have us imagine and that there exist many variations which have profound effects upon the meaning of texts and theological issues.
The previous reviewer - who is clearly upset at some Muslim reviewers and thus provides a link to an irrelevant polemical article in frustration - also talks about the "the oldest Christian manuscripts" and how these are "most reliable" not realizing that Ehrman, and others, have pointed out numerous times that the earliest manuscripts are precisely the most problematic - revealing the most variations, which indicates that the texts of the gospels were in a state of flux in the earliest period of their transmission. A detailed discussion of the manuscripts of the New Testament, based on writings of scholars such as Prof. Ehrman and others, is to be found here:
http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Bible/Text/Bibaccuracy.html
Moreover, the problem of the "original text" is also discussed by Ehrman and he states that many textual critics are now beginning to doubt even if there is such a thing as an "original" to be restored. In particular, Ehrman explains the problematic nature of the issue and why we cannot get back to the "original" text itself in light of the copying practises of the first three centuries. Therefore, we can only hope to recover early forms of the text, not the "originals," and hope that these early forms are relatively close to the long lost "originals".
Besides the above issues, Ehrman provides a fascinating discussion of how the various New Testament editions were produced, particularly the one by Erasmus, and how Christians reacted when certain individuals here and there stumbled across variant readings. Ehrman also goes on to explain how he eventually came to the conclusion that the New Testament writings were not inspired and that their authors were non-inspired writers.
I would recommend this book to anyone who wishes to learn about the textual criticism and transmission of the New Testament writings! If you know nothing about this complex subject, then this is where you should start. After going through "Misquoting Jesus," it should be much easier for you to read books aimed at those who already know something about the subject.
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Review Summary: A Challenge to the Bible Literalists. |
Date: 2005-11-19 |
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Details: Bart Ehrman, one of my favorite authors, not only knows what he writes about but also how to write it in understandable English. In this book he examines how the New Testament Scripture was altered by successive copying scribes, how we can detect these changes, and why they were made. This is not a new task for Dr. Ehrman, since he published a very similar book ("The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture") in 1993. Whereas the previous one, however, was addressed to scholars, this one has been written for you and me. Perhaps it was written as a response to the growing belief in the literal inerrancy of the Bible that has become so widespread in the last decades. Certainly the book's introduction supports this thought. In it the author describes his personal life travel from a rather theologically-uninterested Episcopal teenager, to a born-again fundamentalist who graduated from Moody Bible Institute and Wheaton College, both in Illinois, before heading for Princeton. This and how he finally shook off literalism makes for a wonderful personal story.
Dr. Ehrman starts by describing the importance of books and letters to the early Christians, but that only a few knew how to read them. So those who knew how, read the Gospels and the letters of Paul to the members of their own church, and made manuscript copies of them to share with neighboring churches. As the years went by the originals were lost or destroyed, as well as their copies, The oldest manuscripts we now have in our possession are copies four or five times removed from the originals. And as these documents were copied, the copying errors in them multiplied, until the ancient documents we now have contain more errors than the number of words in the New Testament. So much for inerrancy.
The rest of the book describes the types of copying alterations that were made: Unintentional copying errors where words or lines were omitted, where the meaning of a word changed because a single letter was miscopied, where abbreviations were misunderstood. And intentional changes made to clarify the meaning, bring the ideas closer to the accepted orthodoxy in the copyists' days, bring the gospels in agreement with each other, explain obscure points. He then discusses how the various Bible translations were carried out and their relative quality. Finally he explains how additional, purposeful changes were made in the Scripture during the first centuries in order to oppose perceived attacks by heretical doctrines. (In this section he occasionally repeats examples previously discussed.)
He concludes with the idea that all texts are interpreted by their readers in the light of their own knowledge, and points out that each evangelist wrote down the information available to him, in his own words as he himself interpreted it. So the four gospels are not meant to be four identical stories, but four different interpretations of whatever each evangelist knew. All in all, this is a very interesting, readable book, and you will learn some fascinating details about your Bible.
(The writer is the author of "Christianity without Fairy Tales: When Science and Religion Merge.")
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Review Summary: Toward a More Complete Education |
Date: 2007-02-07 |
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Details: "There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dream't of in your Philosophy." (Hamlet, Act I, Scene V)
Indeed, like Horatio, most of us are products of incomplete educations, and our understandings are only partial. Thanks to well-researched, authoritative, yet readable books such as MISQUOTING JESUS, we can fill at least a few of our many intellectual holes, and for that I am grateful to academicians and authors such as Bart Ehrman.
Of course we've known for years that the Bible we use today, regardless of the version, is a translation and that we could never read the original manuscripts, even if they still existed, which they in all likelihood do not. Learning Aramaic, the language of Jesus himself; Hebrew, in which the Old testament was written; or Greek, the tongue of the New Testament, is quite beyond the skill of most of us. (How simple life must be for the likes of the poor secretary in my office some years ago who truly believed that her 17th-century King James Version was actually dictated by Jesus, who used the very words that now appear in it.)
In my case at least, the general knowledge that today's bibles are translations of ancient languages did not extend to an appreciation of the extent to which many texts were changed as one manuscript was copied into another over the course of nearly 15 centuries, until Gutenberg's printing press assured more accurate replications. As early as the beginning of the 18th century, scholars were aware of 30,000 discrepancies among the various manuscripts comprising today's version of the New Testament, and later discoveries have increased that number into the hundreds of thousands.
True, many of the discrepancies are mere differences in word order or spelling, but some go to the very roots of modern Christian theology, and much of what we think we are told by the authors of what (centuries later) became the New Testament may not be at all what those authors first wrote. Was Jesus angry or compassionate with the leper he healed? Is the concept of the Trinity defended in the New Testament? Was Jesus a carpenter or just the son of a carpenter? Was Jesus divine or human or a human possessed (and deserted) by the divine? Is the god of the Old Testament the same as the god of the New? Is Jesus' admonition to the accusers of an adulteress that the one without sin should cast the first stone actually part of the "original" New Testament? To each of these questions, and to many others, the answer must vary, depending on which ancient manuscript one takes as closest to the now-lost original.
Many of us who were raised under the influence of mid-20th-century Protestant churches were teethed on the King James Version of the Bible. We learned its language and its cadences by heart. Hearing a sonorous reading from it still awakens emotions from our childhoods. Little did we realize that the 17th-century transcribers under King James worked from a Greek text that itself derived from Erasmus' edition, while Erasmus based his on a single 12th-century manuscript "that is [now known to be] one of the worst of the manuscripts that we now have available to us!" (Erhman 209)
In MISQUOTING JESUS, Ehrman clearly explains methodologies used by modern scholars to determine biblical discrepancies and to reconstruct the probable original form of various passages, many of which are fundamental to Christian theology. His book is not an attack on anyone's religious convictions but is a learned yet interesting and readable introduction to identifying the multitudinous alterations that humans have made to the Bible, the New Testament in particular, as they have copied and recopied its contents over the centuries. It is not so much a book for biblical scholars as for general readers, nor is it intended only for those who identify themselves as "Christian." After all, the Bible has influenced Western literature more than any other single source, and anyone who lays claim to literacy must be familiar with it, regardless of his or her philosophical convictions. I suggest that familiarity with the Bible now requires familiarity with Ehrman's book as well, for it will surely correct numerous misapprehensions and faulty assumptions which many of us harbor toward the subject of Christian theology.
To put it simply, do you think you understand the essential history and tenets of Christianity? I'd definitely read MISQUOTING JESUS before answering that question. While we're on the topic, may I also recommend WIDE AS THE WATERS: THE STORY OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE AND THE REVOLUTION IT INSPIRED by Benson Bobrick and IN THE BEGINNING: THE STORY OF THE KING JAMES BIBLE AND HOW IT CHANGED A NATION, A LANGUAGE, AND A CULTURE by Alister McGrath? These are fascinating and intriguing studies and are prefect follow-ons to Ehrman's work.
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Review Summary: A well-written, engaging aid for understanding the Bible |
Date: 2006-01-15 |
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Details: I have always found Dr. Ehrman's work to be clear, sound, and credible. This book is extraordinarily helpful: it is written not specifically for scholars but for laypeople. I'm a professor of religion at a small college and my students (before they hit my classes) have never thought much about how their Bibles were produced; many are not aware that there isn't complete agreement among New Testament texts (or Old Testament texts, for that matter), or that theology can influence the way copyists and translators do their work (just as it influences how readers read).
This is, I think, Ehrman's most personal book. He begins by talking about his spiritual and academic journey, showing how he has moved from a fundamentalist, interrantist position to one in which his understanding of the nature of the Bible is quite different--largely because he was taught undeniably true things about the process through which the Bible was formed that, unfortunately, one seldom hears in church. Although his relationship with the Bible is not the one with which he began, it is still of intense interest to him. This personal reflection is interesting and makes the rest of the book easier to understand.
Ehrman provides helpful and accurate information about how and why ancient copies of biblical books were made, who made them, and the general lack of quality control in the process. His presentation is strengthened by his giving examples of manuscripts having different versions of some verses and passages. He describes how textual criticism is done--its purposes and processes. At times he deals with the words of the Greek text, translating them accurately and explaining their significance in ways that people with no background in the language can easily comprehend. He does all this in language that laypeople can understand--he uses very little jargon--and, even more amazingly, does it without ever seeming to be "writing down" in order to be understood by those outside of his field. His style is clear, concise, and academic without being burdensome. As one who spends a great deal of time reading academic writing (and doing some), let me tell you that this is a hard target to hit.
He also deals with issues involved with the translation process and with movements in early Christianity that were quite opposed to each other, explaining how these disagreements influenced both the writing and the copying of Christian documents. One example of this deals with "Junia," a woman (or a man with a woman's name) who is referred to as "foremost among the apostles" (Romans 16:7); generally translations use the masculine form "Junias" in the belief that a woman could not be an apostle, although there is no instance of that name in Greek literature.
As one who has been active in churches all my life, I think it is a shame that the church does not seem willing to talk about the issues Ehrman discusses, leaving its members to feel shocked and dismayed when encountering them for the first time elsewhere.
This is an informative, fascinating, and well-written book. I encourage anyone who is interested in Bible study to read it. |
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