Reviewed 12/29/2006
This book is a very good introduction to the history of the development of NT canonical text. Ehrman, a historian, provides a historian's rigor and standards to this publication while presenting his findings in a very readable narrative style. "Misquoting Jesus" is a short, fast read which intentionally doesn't attempt to cover all the questions scholars actively research...
more Reviewed 12/29/2006
This book is a very good introduction to the history of the development of NT canonical text. Ehrman, a historian, provides a historian's rigor and standards to this publication while presenting his findings in a very readable narrative style. "Misquoting Jesus" is a short, fast read which intentionally doesn't attempt to cover all the questions scholars actively research and analyze between historical reality and the versions of manuscripts current laymen read. Instead, Ehrman provides a pleasant wade, especially for those readers unfamiliar with output by credentialed scholars such as Ehrman. He provides a perfect start to a journey towards an intellectual understanding of early Christianity.
Ehrman stays away from theological arguments and exegesis of some of the more topical controversies (e.g., Paul's perception of the life of Christ prior to his crucifixion is not covered, nor are textual criticism methods to test the veracity of claims covered, like the criterion of dissimilarity test that would dismiss the Jesus counting fishes miracle since it's the same story as a much earlier Pythagoras story - even down to the fish count). Instead Ehrman focuses on what the manuscripts say, and how we know that some parts have changed over time by comparing texts. Ehrman does cover theories on why they were changed though he does so briefly without getting bogged down in any dense analysis to prove his point.
Another reason this is a good introduction to the study of early Christianity is that Ehrman avoids most of the controversies within scholarly circles regarding the divinity of Jesus. I assume this is because to many conservative Christians who appear to be one of Ehrman's primary target audiences, discovering the ease at which scholars have proven the Bible is errant as reported in this book will be contrary to what they've been indoctrinated into by many churches; with that being enough provocation to deal with in an introductory book. My assumption is based on Ehrman's introduction, a short memoir of his own intellectual journey from being an ignorant evangelical to enlightened historian, a "hey, if I can take this journey, so can you" essay I believe would have been more appropriate as an appendix.
I don't believe Ehrman is dishonest by avoiding the historical veracity of NT claims for a divine Jesus; most of those controversies require that readers have some foreknowledge of what we know regarding early manuscripts well beyond the scope of an introductory book along with some skills in exegesis to understand the theories presented that challenge a literal reading. However, due to the relative shortness of this book and Ehrman's narrative skills, I believe Ehrman had plenty of room to include some of the easier conceptual contradictions between manuscripts and outside source material, e.g., the corruption of the Josephus texts or some of the miracle stories and how they compared to earlier non-Christian texts. This is my one major criticism of this book; Ehrman would have made a more powerful presentation by adding additional case studies that are conceptually easy to understand for even casual readers.
Regarding the claims by some readers who were put off by this book and accuse Ehrman of bias for not better representing the fundamentalist dogma they support. There are very few instances in this book where Ehrman wades into waters where there isn't a peer-accepted theory. Those instances are ones in which Ehrman presents earlier manuscripts with less corruption of text as closer to the original author's version, but these Byzantine texts also challenge current conservative Christian beliefs which use later, more corrupt manuscripts, like the Middle Ages' Textus Receptus. Ehrman does an adequate job in this book of providing a small portion of the empirical evidence available to destroy any notion that this particular manuscript is a trust-worthy source given the lack of source material used along with the suspect quality of source material to develop the Textus Receptus, which was the subsequent primary source for the King James Version. All areas of study have their flat-earthers; ignoring the apologists who are unable or unwilling to use the scientific method as Ehrman does do not deserve attention when one is seeking truth. In fact, I would argue Ehrman bent over backwards by not delving into the more radical claims which do have some empirical evidence supporting them and are reasonable claims (Robert Price's deconstruction of Jesus or Earl Doherty's construction of Jesus from Paul's Christ being two examples).
Ehrman's objective with this book is to kick-start an intellectual journey for laymen to bring some intellectual knowledge to their beliefs beyond the traditional paradigm of indoctrination, I can't imagine anyone not appreciating the information Ehrman provides to his readers, even the flat-earthers themselves. While I appreciate his effort, I'm still waiting for Ehrman, due to his talent and skill as a writer, to let us have it with both barrels by writing a more comprehensive analysis of the status of textual criticism of the early Christian manuscripts.
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