Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why

I first heard about Ehrman's book when he was interviewed on NPR and wanted to read it ever since. However, I never got around to it until my friend, Steve Weaver, lent me the audio version of the book. Since I have a sizeable commute (about 45 minutes each way), I gave it a listen. And I'm, glad I did.

While this version of the book isn't read by Ehrman himself, it is unabridged, an important stipulation in my book. And the reading is actually done very well. As Steve put it, it was the first book he listened to where he couldn't tell the narrator wasn't the author himself. His enunciation is impeccable, which is important for the topic, since the author quotes a lot of Greek words (to show how similar they can be).

First off, this is not an examination of the entire Bible, but, as the title suggests, just the New Testament (NT). While other parts of the Bible are referred to, Ehrman focusses his examination on the New Testament, the testament with an account of Jesus' mortal ministry.

In short, this is a fantastic book. Ehrman, a textual critic, has studied the New Testament his entire career. He has studied numerous versions of it, but also, more importantly, has studied numerous ancient manuscripts, from which various editions of the New Testament were derived. He also studied them in their original language—usually Greek—so was able to read what the manuscripts say in the original tongue, instead of some translator's personal "spin" on the words. He also has studied several manuscripts that pre-date the ones used for the King James version of the Bible.

Ehrman is successful in explaining the difficulty of translating ancient texts and describes how cumbersome they were to transcribe, even in ancient times, when they were new. He explains how many books of the NT were originally transcribed by amateurs, and sometimes by people who didn't even know what they were transcribing, but just copying what they saw from one page to another, like copying a drawing. He also points out lines in the NT that all schalors know for a fact are later additions, not found anywhere in the original manuscripts. He also explains that the original authors of the NT, that is, the original apostles and Paul, had their own personal agendas that worked their way into their texts. Also, later scribes inserted their own personal spin on texts they transcribed, for personal or sectual reasons. He really proves his thesis that the New Testament has more errors and changes than it does words.

I don't want to reiterate the entire contents of the book here, but just let me say it is a real eye-opener. While I know this book could destroy the faith of most Christians, for me, it just re-affirmed what I already knew: the NT (and the entire Bible, for that matter) is riddled with errors. Joseph Smith passed this information onto us long ago (and his translation of the Bible, by the way, often mirrors what Ehrman says was the original version of the text). If you want a more correct book, read The Book of Mormon. But despite all these problems and differences, the NT is still a powerful testament of the divinity of Jesus Christ.

After this book came out, many Christian apologists (a word which Ehrman gives the origin and true meaning of) blasted it, saying Ehrman was an anti-Christ and leading away true beleivers. They are of course entitled to their opinion, but, in my book, Ehrman did the layman a huge favor by describing the problems with the NT and explaining how it came to be what it is today.

Note: My comments are based on the audio version of the book (which I stated is unabridged). If you read the text version, you'll probably want a Bible handy, to look up the references he often cites.