I just picked up Misquoting Jesus by Bart Ehrman and I'm about 2/3 the way through. I have to say that I highly recommend this book. It's a fascinating review of the development of the scripture and how, over the centuries, the text of the New Testament has been corrupted by the copying and re-copying of scribes, particularly in the early centuries of the church. The basic conclusion is that there are many significant and insignificant changes to the text and that many times it is impossible to tell what the originial text should have been. One scholar showed that there were 30,000 differences among the many versions of the New Testament available. Very interesting stuff!
Misquoting Jesus
by jstalin 8 Replies latest watchtower bible
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Terry
http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/10/114644/1.ashx
Right you are!
This book should be required reading before anybody ever goes to a church or Kingdom Hall.
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stevenyc
I picked the book up a couple of days ago, and am about 1/4 way through. Its written for the layman, and so far I'm enjoying it.
A recommendation!
steve
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drew sagan
I too enjoyed the book.
In addition though I would like to say that the book seems to be directed primarily as a challenge to Christian Conservatives in America and their views of the Bible. Many of his arguments are done with this in mind. He somewhat paints the picture that all Christians view the Bible the same way, which really isn't true. The way that wesleyan christianity views the Bible for instance is quite differant and actually welcomes such research as Earhmans. That's why I didn't really look at the book as an attack on faith so as much as it is a way of putting the Bible in a differant context. -
stevenyc
Drew, he also states in the introduction that the bible can be used as a guide book. However, it should not be seen as inerrant. And then, so far in my reading, goes to show how what we have now is not what was originally written. So, in this way he attacks the fundies, but, it is also something to think about for anyone uses this collection of books to be the main repository of information to guide their lives.
steve
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Terry
How many church going Christians can put this sentence in their mouth and speak it aloud:
"Nobody knows what Jesus actually said, taught or intended."
The bible is a mixed bag of agendas filtering hearsay and doctoring the results to perpetrate doctrinal orthodoxy.
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Robdar
My dad loved the book. He says he'll give it back to me the next time we see each other. Before he borrowed it, I had read about 3 chapters and found it to be fascinating.
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Jankyn
This was, hands down, the best introduction to biblical textual criticism I've ever come across. Of course, this makes no difference to fundamentalists and JWs, since "higher criticism" is evil and Satanic to them.
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under_believer
Here's an amazon link to the book, for the lazy.