TITLE: Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and WhyAUTHOR: Bart D. Ehrman
STARTED: January 14, 2010
FINISHED: January 28, 2010
PAGES: 272
GENRE: Non-Fiction
FIRST SENTENCE: More than almost anything I've ever written about, the subject of this book has been on my mind for the past thirty years, since I was in my late teens and just beginning my study of the New Testament.
SUMMARY: [From barnesandnoble.com] "The Bible"-its use in the singular can gloss over the fact that we do not have access to the original text, but only to manuscripts of a relatively late provenance produced at different times and places and containing among them thousands of variant wordings. An accomplished scholar of early Christianity, Ehrman (religious studies, Univ. of North Carolina, Chapel Hill) ventures out of the ivory tower in this accessible lay introduction to New Testament textual criticism. He sketches the development of New Testament literature, the gradual accumulation of errors therein through the accidental or intentional revisions of copyists, and attempts (beginning with Erasmus in the 16th century) to reconstruct the original text. Since mainstream study editions of the Bible have long drawn attention to the existence of alternate readings, the reasonably well-informed reader will not find much revolutionary analysis here. But Ehrman convincingly argues that even some generally received passages are late additions, which is particularly interesting in the case of those verses with import for doctrinal issues such as women's ordination or the Atonement.
THOUGHTS: This book = Memories of college religion courses. That equation is not necessarily a bad thing.
I started this book because I was craving non-fiction. I wanted to learn some stuff. What I did not foresee was being railroaded by a cold. I ended up reading this book in very small chunks. This made seeing broader themes and remembering who was related to what more difficult than I would like. Reading in chunks also meant that I was not processing this book too deeply. Luckily, Ehrman is a conversational writer and I understood the bulk of what he was trying to say. I certainly could not pass an exam based on this book, but I can tell you what Ehrman means to say.
Misquoting Jesus chronicles the many ways and whys of how the Bible changed throughout its extremely lengthy history. Ehrman's book takes on tones more of reverence and understanding rather than accusation and denouncement. (He is a born-again Christian who has studied the New Testament for decades.) This take on the material makes it easier to read; I was not distracted by anyone trying to prove the Bible was a sham or raise it upon a holy pedestal. Ehrman's straight-forward take is more historical than moral; he tracks how the modern Bible text came to be. He breaks down changes as they occurred throughout history whether through human error, deliberate story altering, or mistranslation. I applaud his method because it makes the Bible a more fascinating book to me.
While Misquoting Jesus can seem heavily academic at times, the writing is not incredibly scholarly in form. The text is simple, easy to read, follow, and understand. Ehrman also includes personal stories throughout the text which makes it easier to connect with the text.
RATING: 6/10 [Good]
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