Misquoting Jesus Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why

by Bart D. Ehrman

U knjizi "Isus to nije rekao", Erman nam pripoveda priču koja leži u pozadini grešaka i izmena koje su drevni pisari načinili u Novom zavetu, ukazujući na veličinu njihovog uticaja na Bibliju koju čitamo danas. Svoj prikaz obogatio je i ličnom pričom o tome kako ga je njegovo izučavanje drevnih grčkih rukopisa nagnalo da napusti svoja ranija ultrakonzervativna gledišta o Bibliji.
Po prvi put Erman otkriva gde i zašto su ove izmene načinjene, predstavljajući istovremeno na jedan popularan način različite metode kojima se naučnici koriste da bi što vernije rekonstruisali originalne reči Novog zaveta.
Rafinirano, ali i na jedan krajnje izazovan način, Erman iznosi dokaze o tome kako je puno omiljenih biblijskih priča i široko prihvaćenih verovanja koje se odnose na Isusovu božanstvenost, Trojstvo, božansko poreklo i nadahnutost Biblije, nastalo kao plod namernih i slučajnih izmena načinjenih od strane drevnih pisara - a ove izmene su, pak, dramatično uticale na sve naredne verzije Biblije.

Genres: Religion, Nonfiction, History, Christianity, Theology, Philosophy, Spirituality

Unknown Binding

First published November 1, 2005

About the author

Bart Denton Ehrman is an American New Testament scholar focusing on textual criticism of the New Testament, the historical Jesus, and the origins and development of early Christianity. He has written and edited 30 books, including three college textbooks. He has also authored six New York Times bestsellers. He is the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Reviews

[Trevor · Rating 5 out of 5]

This really is a fantastic book. When Wendy recommended it I thought that it would be pretty much the same old stuff that one would expect when an Atheist recommends a book on Religion. Let me explain why this isn’t what you might expect.

Firstly, it is written by someone who I assume still considers himself a Christian. He begins this book by telling the reader his ‘life story’ – how he became a born again Christian at fifteen and how this lead him to become fascinated in The Bible. Not in the way other fundamentalists necessarily become fascinated by The Bible, but rather really fascinated – perhaps obsessed is a better word if you can view that word positively. He knew that The Bible was the ‘inspired word of God’ – but he also knew a few other things, like that it wasn’t originally written in English. So, he wanted to know, how close is the ‘current’ Bible to the ‘original’ Bible? That is the sort of question that can send one off on a lifetime’s adventure – and that is precisely what happens in this book.

He learns Ancient languages, including Greek, Latin and god knows what else. He studies in various (and, to a fundamentalist Christian, increasingly challenging) universities and finally has his faith – the simple-minded faith he started with – rocked to the core by what he learns.

When someone is this engaged, this excited and this informed about what they are writing and obsessed in it is impossible not to feel your pulse race as you read. And this guy loves his stuff.

I also really like it when someone says something that initially sounds paradoxical and then, once it is explained, makes complete sense. Take, for example, his maxim that if you have two versions of the same text and one version is easy to read and understand and the other is difficult, then the difficult one is most likely to be the original. This sounds almost perverse, but really it is obvious. If you were a scribe and you came across a piece of text, you would be much more likely to change it so as to simplify it than to change it to make it more difficult to understand. Numerous examples are given of parts of the Bible being changed (the last six verses of Mark being added is my favourite and a clear candidate for the most remarkable example) so as to make them easier to understand.

This isn’t a book that is seeking to rub the noses of Christians in the contradictions and mistakes inherent in The Bible, but what it is about is pointing out that rather than being inerrant, the New Testament is very much a human book telling a remarkable story in various and very human ways. The book ends with a wonderful explanation of the differences between the four Gospels and makes a compelling argument for why they cannot be read as if they were one book that need to be read to tell the one story, but rather four different tellings of the one story. It is not the similarities that are important in these stories, but their differences and what these differences mean is what is vitally important.

He spends much time addressing the differences between Mark and Luke – particularly the passion and the remarkably different portrayals of Jesus in these two Gospels. For this stuff alone the book is worth reading.

He also quotes some terribly interesting material regarding the transcription and duplication of the early manuscripts. To be honest, it is hard to imagine that this book survived its origins at all. He quotes one person who is charged with producing a copy of the New Testament who describes how he had to transcribe it letter by letter, given he could not read the language the New Testament he was transcribing was written in. Repeatedly we are told that if you compare the earliest manuscripts of the New Testament you will find that there are more differences between them than there are words in the New Testament. A nice line. Of course, like any evolutionary process, most of these differences are clearly errors and make little or not sense, are easily identified and are almost meaningless. However, some couldn’t be more important to understanding the nature of Jesus and the meaning of his life.

He also describes, and makes compelling cases for, intentional changes to the text made by early groups of Christians and their possible motivations for making these changes. I was particularly interested in this as it turns out Paul may not have been the misogynist old prig I’d always taken him to be. Paul’s requirement that women are not to speak in Church – something I tend to raise every time people talk about Women Bishops or Women Priests as my little contribution illuminating how irrelevant Christianity is in today’s world – is asserted to be probably a later addition and is clearly a view that is contradicted elsewhere in the same letter by Paul. Anything that helps remove or even just undermines some of the more obnoxious and objectionable ideas in the Bible (hatred of women, gays, Jews, blacks for instance) can’t be a bad thing.

Part of the reason the author says it is important to get some idea of the original text of the New Testament – for Christians and Non-Christians alike – is that The Bible is a cornerstone of our culture and this alone makes it an important document to understand. I don’t think this is as compelling an argument as he does – in fact, getting to the ‘original text’ is quite irrelevant to The Bible as a cultural artefact, as it wasn’t the original that impacted on our culture, but the innumerable ‘error filled’ versions throughout the years. Even if one was able to prove that the original version of the New Testament stated that Jesus was not the Son of God, but just a man who lived and died – what would that matter? Two thousand years of Western religious tradition would hardly vanish as a result – no matter how good the proof.

No, the point is that this book and the story it tells really doesn’t require external motivations to justify its telling. The history it explains is completely fascinating in itself. As someone who has spent the last seven years reading over what has been essentially the same document with very minor changes (enterprise agreements all have maternity leave clauses and hours of work clauses – but all are potentially different) I found this book utterly compelling. I think I could have quite enjoyed a life as a Biblical scholar, tracking changes to texts and researching why those changes might not have been accidental.

There are many people in the world to whom this book really should be made compulsory reading – for the rest of us no compulsion is necessary – it really is a pleasure to read.

[Juhem Navarro · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you read the reviews written in the Barnes and Noble website, you’ll probably see three types of review:

1. The smart ass academic or pseudoacademic who says the book isn’t that good anyway
2. The fundamentalist Christian appalled at the idea of someone doubting the infallibility of the Bible
3. Your average Joe that finds the book quite interesting

In my case, I could be a #1 considering that I’m both a smart ass and an academic (or so I like to think). In the case ofMisquoting Jesus Cover biblical stuff, I’m more like a #3. I wouldn’t say it is the best book I have ever read, but it is a good book in three aspects.

The first aspect is readability. In this case, it is a short and entertaining book. Ehrman doesn’t go into unnecessary details on how textual criticism is conducted, but gives you an idea of how gruesome the process can be. Additionally, the side story of how he converted from a fundie believer in biblical literalism to an agnostic (or if you prefer an “atheist without balls” as Stephen Colbert called him) is both interesting and a little sad.

The second aspect is in the delivery of the goods. Some of the B&N reviewers complained that “Misquoting Jesus” is a misnomer, but I disagree. In several instances he mentions how the things that Jesus [supposedly] said were changed by scribes or even by the gospel authors (yes Luke, you know what you did). In this case the subtitle “The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why” is more revealing. This is because he tells us some of the more common reasons to make mistakes transcribing ancient texts (reason #1: no Microsoft Word, heck! not even Gutenberg Print). People got distracted, people got tired, others weren’t very good at neither reading nor writing yet were considered literate in a time when a very small percentage of people knew how to read or write. And sometimes they changed stuff to meet their beliefs (just like some people overlook the fact that Rick Ankiel probably used HGH because they like him). In this sense the book is revealing because he is not talking about conspiracy theories (sorry DaVinci Code fans) but about how incredibly human is this supposedly divine book.

Finally it provides a little perspective into what was going on during those early days of Christianity. Just like there are many interpretations these days, there were many interpretations in those days (and some way too odd). In a way the bible instead of being inspired, evolved for many many years until some loosely unified theology arose in which most could agree (Jesus is God, God is Jesus, both are the Holy Ghost…and nobody thinks it is a little schizophrenic?). I also used the word evolved combined with bible to piss off the intelligent designers out there.

Why I recommend this book? Because of the reasons stated above and because if it wasn’t for this book, we would need to read all the scholarship out there and maybe even learn Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Coptic, Aramaic, and whatever. Also, because it is pissing off fundies everywhere.

[Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

The title is eye-catching and titillating, isn't it?
It does exactly what good book titles are supposed to do and grabs your attention. But make no mistake, nothing in here is new or particularly controversial.
And I wasn't reading this as some kind of a deciding factor as to whether or not I believe in God.
I'm interested in the subject matter.
How ancient documents were preserved, oral histories, and what was happening socially and politically in the world during the times the original Christians were starting to write stuff down. I think that sort of thing is cool and I fully understand that this is just one guy's take on what he has learned over the years. But having grown up in a family full of pastors and missionaries, I have an ingrained curiosity toward this stuff.



And maybe that's why Bart Ehrman's foreword in this touched me. I also went through something similar to his slow conversion away from evangelical Christianity, while still maintaining a love of the people who practice that faith. I didn't read atheist literature or science journals or take classes on the subject.
I read the Bible over and over and lived a bit and decided that it didn't add up.
That's all.
There was no shaking-my-fist moment at God, I don't think Christians are stupid for being Christians, and I certainly don't spend my free time arguing with or trying to convince anyone that they are wrong.



So the gist of this book is a look at what Biblical scholars have pieced together over the centuries. Before printing presses, we relied on scribes to copy texts. That's just a fact and no one is disputing it. And there are a lot of letters that were written between the learned men of the day complaining to each other about shoddy copying practices or even changes to the original text that were being made on purpose for one reason or another. And that doesn't even take into account that the stories in the Gospels were being passed around orally for about 50 or so years before anyone started writing them down.



I think the big "controversy" is that a lot of Christians are unaware that there isn't just A BIBLE. Some original book (or even books) that all other New Testament Bibles are then copied from.
I'm pretty sure that it would come as a great surprise to most of the churchgoers I know if they were to learn that the King James Bible they have on their nightstand doesn't match up with what the original Greek text says. And one of the reasons for that is because the Greek text is made up of a bunch of different copies (of original letters that don't exist anymore) that aren't quite the same.
Oh, and also because it was translated from an imperfect Latin copy.
In other words, the Word of God isn't exactly as clear-cut as you might have been led to believe.
WHICH IS FINE.
You get the gist of it, right? So maybe you just don't do that nitpicky thing where you pour over the scriptures as though it were one giant book handed down through the ages?



Ehrman, like myself, was taught to believe that each word in the Bible was the divine Word of God.
But as the realization dawned on him over his years studying ancient text that the words are different depending on what you are looking at, he began to wonder why God didn't just preserve the original so we could be sure we had His Word and nothing else.
And it's a good question.



The point this book makes is that we don't have Paul's original letter to the Corinthians.
Or the original copy of the Gospel of Mark.
What we have are various copies that were made over the centuries, some with slight and some major differences between the copies. Most of these variations were probably made with the absolute best of intentions, whether to clarify the text or to correct what mistakes the scribe thought had been made by a previous scribe. Some changes were more than likely made through a slip of the pen, some were seemingly made because they wanted to promote their personal beliefs or their sect's beliefs. None of this is terribly nefarious, and at worse it's just human nature.



It doesn't, however, need to rock anyone's faith if they don't want it to.
I mean, there's something about being human that makes us want to cry out to the universe and ask for help when we're at our lowest point, or to believe in something bigger than ourselves.
There's nothing wrong with believing in God. I personally think you should do it with your eyes open because if you aren't concerned with the letter of the law, I believe it might even make for a better spiritual experience. But that's just my opinion.
You do you.



Regardless of what anyone thinks of its divine origins, I think I can safely say that Christian scripture is fascinating. And that the Christian movement over the centuries is itself fascinating.
I've read/listened to a lot of Ehrman's books at this point, and the reason for that is that I like the way he presents information. He's not an asshole and he's not snarky or condescending toward Christians.
If you're looking for a book that promotes atheism, this isn't it.
However, if you're looking for a reasonably easy to understand book about some of the basic history of Biblical text, you may want to check it out.

[Jeffrey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Please, if you're Christian, read this. If you're religious, read this. If you're atheist, read this. I guess what I'm saying is read this. Misquoting Jesus reminds me of the game we played in elementary school. The teacher whispers a story in the ear of one child and it's whispered from one ear to the next until the last child tells the story out loud. And guess what? It's considerably different from the original. No dah! Well, imagine this . . . A book is copied over and over and over by monks that are human, prone to error, bias, deceit, and so on. And guess what? Jesus' story changes. No dah! Here's another point to consider. Even if the book were in its original form, you'd still have arguments. For what about the law "Thou shall not kill"? Not a lot of detail on what to do here. What if your country asks you to go to war, do you kill? What if someone threatens your child's life, do you kill? During a discussion, a student of mine of a particular Christian sect piped up and desired to end the discussion by saying, "Well, just do what the Bible tells you to do." OK, people have been doing that for years, and if there were only one way of doing things, why so many sects? Just look in the phone book and you get lost in all the churches in there. This is an essential book for anyone who wants a better critical thinking understanding of how "the story" can go astray based on what individuals think, feel, and hear, based on bias and personal filtering. A must read.

[Valeriu Gherghel · Rating 3 out of 5]

O carte excelentă, tradusă și adnotată, din păcate, de un diletant. În US, lucrarea a devenit aproape instantaneu un bestseller. Profesorul Bart D. Ehrman a fost invitat la emisiuni TV, pentru a-și expune opiniile cu privire la arta și intențiile scribilor. Cartea lui a avut parte de recenzii elogioase (sau iritate, ca să nu spun mai mult) în principalele publicații ale vremii.

Despre ce este vorba? Scurt spus, despre numeroasele modificări pe care scribii (copiștii) le-au operat, din diferite motive, în cuprinsul manuscriselor Scripturii (Ehrman se referă numai la Noul Testament, care e scris în greacă). Nu avem, așadar, Cuvîntul lui Dumnezeu întocmai, exact așa cum a fost „dictat" evangheliștilor. Copiștii au modificat considerabil textul și vom vedea mai jos unde, cum și de ce.

Faptul că textul de astăzi nu este întotdeauna textul originar ridică o problemă foarte interesantă, care i-a împărțit pe savanții teologi în două tabere extrem de nervoase. Bart D. Ehrman susține că, atîta vreme cît nu putem reconstitui textul originar, atîta vreme cît avem convingerea că scribii au adăugat (ori au șters) cuvinte sau enunțuri intregi din evanghelii, nu mai putem vorbi de un text infailibil și, mai mult, e greu de admis ideea ca Scriptura e un text inspirat (revelat).

Dacă Dumnezeu ar fi ținut cu tot dinadinsul ca discursul său să se păstreze în literalitatea sa neștirbită, el ar fi supravegheat, probabil, munca fiecărui scrib în parte și ar fi oprit procesul continuu de „corupere" a textului (chiar dacă această corupere a avut, de cele mai multe ori, o motivație pioasă). Ideea aceasta a stîrnit, cum era și de așteptat, un imens scandal.

Să dau și un exemplu de modificare voluntară a textului evanghelic. Orice creștin cunoaște Pilda femeii adultere. Ea se găsește în Ioan 7: 53 - 8: 12. Iisus Christos predică in Templu. Un grup de farisei îi aduc o femeie despre care pretind ca a fost prinsă cu un „alt bărbat". În Lege, pedeapsa pentru adulter este moartea. Cînd i se cere părerea, Iisus nu se grăbește să ofere o soluție, un verdict. Trage de timp. Face niște semne în colbul drumului. Într-un tîrziu, spune: „Cine dintre voi este fără păcat să arunce cel dintii cu piatra în ea". Toata lumea cunoaște deznodămîntul întîmplării...

Ei bine, arată Ehrman, această pildă nu a făcut parte din textul originar. Primele texte păstrate n-o conțin. Toți savanții textologi sînt de acord că este o interpolare, un adaos tîrziu. Stilul fragmentului se deosebește net de stilul lui Ioan. Vocabularul pildei e ciudat. Episodul nu se înscrie perfect în trama evangheliei. Ipoteza specialiștilor este că această „pildă" a circulat o vreme numai în tradiția orală. Mai tîrziu, unul dintre copiști a adaugat-o textului redactat de Ioan. Pare greu de crezut. Și, cu toate acestea, trebuie să-i credităm pe experți. O altă interpolare se referă la ultimele douăsprezece versete din Evanghelia după Marcu. În unele ediții ale Noului Testament, aceste versete sînt puse, de altfel, între paranteze.

Dar ce motive au avut scribii să modifice textul evanghelic sau epistolele sfîntului Pavel? Motivele sînt, în principal, de ordin teologic. În primele secole creștine, disputele hristologice i-au divizat pe creștini și au produs polemici înverșunate. Pentru a atenua o opinie „eretică", scribii și-au luat libertatea de a modifica însuși textul Scripturii. Au clarificat unele propoziții echivoce, care puteau fi interpretate într-un sens eretic. Au schimbat unii termeni. Pe alții i-au eliminat de-a dreptul.

Și uneori, din rațiuni estetice, au adăugat cîte o pildă de o mare, definitivă frumusețe. Precum Pilda femeii adultere.

[Mary ~Ravager of Tomes~ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Before I write my review, I must emphasize that this book is not making a case against Christianity. It in no way seeks to destroy the your faith, your system of belief, or convert you to atheism/agnosticism. I feel this is an important disclaimer.

Something about me, I always feel very lost when it comes to selecting educational books on my own. I don't like to perpetuate false information, and it's overwhelming to select literature that maintains an interesting narrative while also providing facts and support for its claims.

Those qualifications, however, are exceeded in Misquoting Jesus.

As I stated earlier, this book doesn't set out to destroy your beliefs. Rather, it challenges you to consider how and why one of the most significant books in history was changed from it's original conception into the Bible we know today.

While reading this, I decided to view it in the same way a member of a jury may view a prosecutor's statements in a court case. The goal is not necessarily to prove what "for certain happened", but rather to raise questions based on logic and contextual evidence as to what "could have potentially happened instead."

Through examples, citations, and logical analysis, Ehrman contemplates how differences in the manuscripts of the New Testament were the product of scribes, both intentional and unintentional. While a large portion of these differences tend to be considered irrelevant, the fact that they exist in the first place is important to consider.

If these changes, clarifications, and mistakes exist in what we have of old manuscripts, it is reasonable to consider that the Bible we have today is not the same Bible that was written as the inspired Word of God during it's origination. Because of this, it is also reasonable to take the words of the Bible with a grain of salt.

I found the examples in this book fascinating to say the least, and I feel as though both Christians and non-Christians alike should consider giving this a read. Ehrman backs up his analysis with citations and references, along with a long history of formal education on this topic.

His arguments create a space for one to consider that reading the Bible should not necessarily be a literal experience. As someone who comes from a religious background, I have to agree with this conclusion.

I rated this a 4 stars because there were a couple times when sentences got a little bit convoluted and I was forced to re-read to make sense of it. But overall, a wonderful book that is, for the most part, written in layman's terms. For those of us interested in analyzing the Bible, this is a must-read.

[Kevin · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is a lot of information here to digest, mull over and sort through. Ehrman’s assertions are backed up by over 130 notations citing over 70 sources. This is no study for the faint of heart and anyone who is dismissive after a mere perusal is asinine in their approach.

All preconceptions aside, Misquoting Jesus is not an assault on the Bible. It is an intelligent, well composed refutation of the delusional concept of biblical inerrancy, and even though most of the scriptural inconsistencies (there are literally thousands!) are minor and inconsequential, many are not. Those who insist that the entire aggregate of errors, additions, deletions, and mistranslations are “trivial” either haven’t read the New Testament critically or just aren’t reading the same goddamn book as the rest of us.

[Skylar Burris · Rating 2 out of 5]

While I found it interesting to see what differed in various manuscripts, I did not find any of these changes as sensational, apparently, as the back cover blurb writers did. Ehrman's subject and thesis are interesting, but, unfortunately, he is quite repetitive and his arguments are poorly organized. The introduction and conclusion are the clearest, most arresting portions of the book. The introduction is an intriguing spiritual autobiography, but his conclusion leans a little too heavily towards deconstructionism for my taste: he states there is no meaning inherent in text. It is certainly true that texts give rise to multiple interpretations, but it is equally true that some interpretations are more correct than others.

The book will be disturbing to those who regard the Bible as a single entity sprung full grown like Athena from Zeus's head. It will be far less disturbing to those whose Christianity has been rooted in an appreciation of both scripture and tradition. Although Ehrman's thesis was interesting, the problem is that you can take any of these phrases or words that are found in some New Testament manuscripts and not others and draw from that fact whatever implications you desire. The difference can mean something or next to nothing, and, to Ehrman, they seem to mean a bit too much. I often had the impression that he was making mountains out of molehills. Ehrman also often attributes complicated theological and social motives to scribes when much simpler motives would suffice.

Most of the changes and additions that were made were recognized as such and therefore were not incorporated into our modern Bibles. Even those very few additions or changes that were incorporated into our modern Bibles are inconsequential; it would not alter orthodox doctrine one iota if they were eliminated, because all of the doctrines they bolster find support elsewhere in uncontested passages of the New Testament. In fact, even in Ehrman's own argument, the orthodox ideas were formed and THEN verses were altered to support them; it therefore cannot be reasonably argued that these changes have in any way affected the formation of orthodox doctrine. It is not as if the creedal doctrines we have today are based on some misquoted text; the ideas came first, even before the textual changes; they were drawn from the scriptures as a whole, and not from any one single verse. What Ehrman does make a good case for (though this does not at all seem to be his goal) is the idea that the orthodox tradition is as valuable as scripture, which many denominations recognize explicitly and most recognize implicitly (by the fact that they accept the canon as a canon at all).

In the end, Ehrman is not saying anything new, anything that has not been said by textual critics for years and years and years. Somehow, though, he has managed to break through to a more general audience, and that takes talent. Unfortunately, however, that general audience may be ill informed about Christian history and theology and doctrine and its origins and may not be able to put the facts he reveals into context. I believe anyone who reads this should, for the sake of balance, also read Timothy Paul Jones's "Misquoting Truth."

[Alejandro · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great reading about the foundation of Christian religion


THAT HOLY BOOK

The Bible, one of the most read book in the world, it's curious and quite ingenious how in the early beginning of Christian religion was selected and manipulated the several tons of scriptures that they were around and somebody needs to put them in some controlled order.

How the most "popular" scriptures were chosen to be the "official" ones, and how the Christian religion had to take over other popular celebrations to make its way to the people and becoming one of the most followed religious doctrines.

Also, how people often "quote" the Bible, when in many, MANY times, they are misquoting the Holy Book, but it's not anybody's fault in many cases, since even when a lot of the published stuff was put "in order", kings and scholars "changed" the canon, but not only from holy sources, but even from folk stories that comply with their wishes in how they wanted to conduct the collective mind.

Sometimes the reasons were well intended, sometimes don't, but at the end, it's the reader who decides how those scriptures helped to find spiritual help, mental guidance, or just a most needed relieve.

Amen.

[Mohamed · Rating 5 out of 5]

مسك ختام قراءات هذا العام قراءة هذا الكتاب القيم والمهم جدا
والذي يتحدث عن مخطوطات العهد الجديد والفروقات الموجودة بينها وفي كيفية تغير نصوص الكتاب المقدس وأسبابها المختلفة للدكتور بارت ايرمان عالم اللاهوت وأحد أهم علماء النقد النصي في العصر الحديث

نبذة عن المؤلف
https://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D8%A8%...

يحكي بارت ايرمان عن نشأته المسيحية المحافظة ودراسته الانجيل في معهد مودي ومروره بتجربة "ولادة من جديد" وايمانه بوحي الكتاب المقدس وبعصمته
كانت بداية بحثه عندما ناقش مع استاذه كالين ستوري التضارب في اسم الكاهن أيام داود هل هو أبيثار كما استشهد بها المسيح في انجيل مرقص الاصحاح الثاني أما هو أبوه أهيميليخ الذي ورد أسمه في نفس الحادثة التي استشهد بها المسيح من سفر صاموئيل
فكان رد أستاذه: ربما كان مرقس قد أقترف خطأ بالفعل

كانت هذه بداية تعرف بارت على ان الإنجيل ليس معصوما من الخطأ على الاطلاق ولكنه يحوي أخطاء
مع توالى دراسته وتعمقها بدأ يدرس اللغات القديمة للاطلاع على أقدم المخطوطات بلغاتها الاصلية العبرية واليونانية واللاتينية والسريانية و القبطية فضلا عن اللغات الأوربية الجديدة كالألمانية و الفرنسية للاطلاع على ما كتبه باحثون آخرون وبدأ يتكشف له كم التحريف و التغيير في النص من مخطوطة لأخرى
والاضافات اللاحقة على النصوص الأقدم ومن ثم دراسة الدوافع التي دفعت النساخ لهذا التغيير وأخذ يضرب أمثلة بعينها على ذلك للرد على طوائف معينة كاليهود والوثنيين والنساء أو عدم استخدمها من قبل طوائف مسيحية مبكرة كمسيحي التبني أو مسيحي التجلي أو مسيحي الانفصال

يحكي فيه ايرمان كيف تغيرالنصوص أما بأسباب أخطاء النساخ في نقل النصوص أو في ترجمتها من لغة أخرى أو لتعديلها وفقا لمذهب الناسخ او لتحسينها في اعتقاد الناسخ أو ظنه أنها هذه هي الكمات الأصلية للأنجيل
هذا فضلا عن الاضافات المتعمدة لاثبات عقيدة لاهوتية معينة كالتثليث مثلا في اضافة في ما يعرف بفاصلة يوحنا 5:7,8 وإضافة قصة المرآة الزانية الغير موجودة في المخطوطات الأقدم



من النقاط العجيبة في مخطوطة ايراسموس هو بعد قيامه بحذف فاصلة يوحنا لعدم وجودها في النسخة اليونانية
!! غضب اللاهوتيين لذلك طالبهم طالبهم بمخطوطة يونانية بها هذه الآية فجاؤا له بمخطوطة يونانية من القرن السادس عشر فأرجع الآية

من الطرائف الواردة في الكتاب حادثة تقسيم استيفانوس النص إلى آيات وهو مسافر قام ببعضها و هو على ظهر حصانه فوضعت فواصل الآيات في أماكن شاذة -غير مناسبة وخاطئة من النص- مازالت في الترجمة الإنجليزية للعهد الجديد

كما يذكر بعض الأناجيل الأخرى كأنجيل فيليبوس ويهوذا وتوما ومرافقته مريم المجدلية
واناجيل أخرى فقدت وأقدمها ما أشار إليه الباحثون لها بالمصدر َQ
والذي كان يعتقد أنه يحوي على كلمات ووصايا السيد المسيح وكان مصدر أعتمد عليه مرقس ومتى
هذا غير الرسائل المفقودة كرسالة بولس إلى كنيسة اللاودكيين الوارد ذكرها في رسالة كولوسي

******** من أقواله*******
ببساطة أن الكتاب المقدس لم يكن خاليا من الأخطاء. الأخطاء زادت أضعافاً مضاعفة كلما تتبع الترجمات عبر القرون. هناك بعض المخطوطات اليونانية القديمة التى تصل إلى 5700 مخطوطة هي أساس الإصدارات الحديثة من العهد الجديد ، وقد كشف العلماء الاختلافات في أكثر من 200 ألف موضع في تلك النصوص.

"ولكى تفكر بهذه الطريقة: فإن الواقع أن هناك من الأخطاء داخل تلك المخطوطات أكثر من الكلمات في العهد الجديد", يلخص إيرمان.

معظم هذه الأخطاء غير منطقي في التدقيق النحوي أو الاستعارات. ولكن البعض الآخر عميق أكثر. في "إنجيل مرقس" ال 12 آية الأخيرة يبدو أنها قد أضيفت إلى النص في وقت لاحق , مما يعنى أنها لم تكن موجودة من قبل وهذه هي الآيات الوحيدة في هذا الإنجيل التي تتكلم من معاودة ظهور المسيح بعد وفاته.

تظهر الآن نقطة حاسمة دقيقة في يوحنا 1 ، الذي يحدد صراحة الثالوث المقدس (الأب والابن والروح القدس). حجر زاوية في اللاهوت المسيحي ، وهذا هو المكان الوحيد , في الكتاب المقدس كاملا الذي أتى فيه ذكر الثالوث المقدس -لكن يبدو أنها قد أضيفت إلى النص قرون عديدة بعد تسطير يوحنا لإنجيله في وقت لاحق، والكاتب غير معروف


يقول : ما الفائدة من قول أن المخطوطات الأصلية كانت منزلة ؟ نحن لا نملك المخطوطات الأصلية
لدينا فقط نسخ مملوءة بالأخطاء والأغلبية العظمى منها منزوعة من المخطوطات الأصلية ومختلفة عنها بآلاف الطرق

من الصعب أن نعرف معنى كلمات الإنجيل إذا كنا لا نعرف ما هي كلمات الإنجيل


إن نسخة الملك جيمس مملوءة بالأماكن التي أستند فيها المترجمون على نص يوناني مأخوذ بالكامل من مخطوطة ايراسموس التي أستندت على مخطوطة واحدة من القرن الثاني عشر والتي تعد من أسوأ المخطوطات الباقية لدينا اليوم
ولا عجب أن تختلف الترجمات المعاصرة عن ترجمة الملك جيمس
ولا عجب أن يكون الناس المؤمنون بالإنجيل يفضلون الاعتقاد أنه ليس هناك مشكلة بما أن الله أوحى إنجيل الملك جيمس بدلا من الإنجيل اليوناني
كما يقول المثل المأثور القديم: إذا كان الملك جيمس جيد كفاية بالنسبة للقديس بولس فهو جيد كفاية بالنسبة لي


يقول: بدأ الانجيل يبدو لي ككتاب بشري للغاية فكما أن النساخ نسخوا وعدلوا نصوص المخطوطات كذلك قام مؤلفون بشر بكتابة النصوص الإنجيلية كان هذا كتابا بشريا من البداية إلى النهاية لقد كُتب من قبل بشر مختلفين في أزمنة مختلفة وأماكن مختلفة لعلاج حاجات مختلفة
شعر العديد من هؤلاء الكتاب دون شك أنهم كانوا يتلقون الوحي من الله ليقولوا ما قالوه ولكن كان لديهم منظوراتهم الشخصية ومعتقداتهم الخاصة وآراءهم الخاصة حاجاتهم الخاصة رغباتهم الخاصة مفاهيمهم الخاصة نظرياتهم اللاهوتية الخاصة
وهذه المنظورات والمعتقدات والآراء والحاجات والرغبات والمفاهيم والنظريات اللاهوتية تدخلت في كل شئ قالوه و أختلف بعضهم عن بعض في كل هذه الطرق



كما يستعرض بارت ايرمان جهود علماء النقد النصي منذ القرن السابع عشر كريتشارد سيمون وريتشارد بنتلي ويوهان ألبريخت بينغل ويوهان ويتشتاين وكارل لايخمان ولوييغوت فريدريخ كونستانتين وفون تسيخيندروف وبروك فوس ويستكوت وفينتون جون أنتوني هورت وبحثهم عما ذكر في الانجيل الأصلي أو ما قد قاله حقا مؤلفو كتب العهد الجديد

[Shaun · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was pretty good for what it was, a textual criticism of the Bible. Sure it's a little repetitive at times, but I think this is the result of the author trying to simplify and explain a complex topic to an ignorant (at least relatively ignorant) audience.

Bart Ehrman attended Moody Bible College and finished his Bachelors degree at Wheaton College. He then received his PhD and M.Div from Princeton Theological Seminary.

A born-again Christian, Ehrman's desire to understand the Bible led him to study ancient languages and develop the art and skill of textual criticism, a branch of text scholarship which concerns itself with the identification and removal of errors from text.

Through his studies he began to doubt that the Bible was indeed the inerrant word of God based on the fact that it suffered from centuries of editing problems. In his opinion, how can we trust that the Bible is God's word if the words have been (repeatedly) either intentionally or unintentionally changed.

Aside from the obvious indication that the Bible is not the absolute perfect word of God, or if it is, then surely the words of an incompetent one as the Bible was manipulated throughout history, I found this to be an interesting read.

I now better understand the origin of the Christian religion and it's refinement.

Reading this, I was reminded of discussions that we have in the US over our constitution and the "original" intent and our present interpretation. The fact that we've needed to amend our constitution speaks volume about the complications innate in trying to live by a document that was written in a different time and that's when we can verify and agree on the original wording.

Some things I learned:

Though this might seem obvious to others, the point that most if not all early Christians were unable to read had not been something I gave much thought to before. Even many of the early translators could not read and were merely reproducing symbols. This would seem to encourage errors of all kinds.

I had heard that the Bible was an incomplete canon representing various literary works at the time, but did not realize how many were excluded or how many of those included were collections of letters, some written by the original speaker and others written by others using that person's name.

I learned that at the time of Christ, there were three distinct groups of believers...those who believed he was merely a man, those that believed he was both man and "god" simultaneously, and those who believed he was a man inhabited by Christ's spirit. I also did not realize that a number of Christians believed that the God of the Old Testament was a different God from that of the New Testament. Thus the Christianity we know today was not born in its "pure" form but evolved over time. This seems like a no brainer, but until reading this book and despite being brought up a Christian, I had never explored this idea thoroughly.

I had no idea, nor did I think about, how many copies of the Bible were made using the most antiquated form of publication. I liked that Ehrman provided a number of examples of passages that were changed/added or taken away and the cultural context under which this was done. He also provided examples of the unintentional/editing errors that a process of dictation and hand copying texts that used no punctuation or spacing would tend to produce under even the best circumstances.

I also have a better understanding of the rift between Christianity and Judaism.

I definitely learned what textual criticism is and how it was/is (because we continue to fine new texts) used to try and recreate the original texts of the Bible as well as all the complications that make it difficult to actually do.

Interestingly, I read a review this morning that said most Christians already know all about these "problems" and they don't care, but I don't find that to be the case. I'm sure many Christians I know would find ways to rationalize the inconsistencies away, but the origin and possible errors in the Bible are not something that is openly discussed in most Churches and not something the masses are aware of.

I'm not sure whom I would recommend this to. Prior to reading this book, I did not view the Bible as the inerrant word of God (though I know many who do), but still I appreciated the history. I'm not sure how a believer would react to this. Yet whether a Christian or not, Christianity is a major player in the world we live in, and understanding it (good and bad) somehow seems worthwhile.

Ehrman is now an atheist. I would be interested in reading a book from a believer's perspective. It would be worthwhile, I think, to see how that person would deal with the issues Ehrman has brought up.

[Wendy · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a biblical scholar, the author wanted to read the Bible in the languages in which it was first written and so studied them and went deeper into the texts. His decision to go deeper, to fully appreciate it, led him to find out as the old saying goes more than he bargained for. It led him to reevaluate his faith which had been based on a belief in the literal truth of what he had been taught it said and in the inerrancy of it as brought down thru the ages..as it was originally written.

What he discovered was that the Bible had been changed many times by those who were translating it, copying in, interpreting it, and even adding to it for a variety of reasons. He learned of all the various debates over the nature of Jesus and God and the schools of thought which were responded to by later copyists who "clarified" and reinforced their side of the debates by adding to the text.

He applied his expertise in analyzing the multilayered mysteries of alterations and has provided us a rich and fascinating glimpse into history including the context of various forms of Christian beliefs through the centuries, the purpose of some of the writers and the identification of multiple or single more ancient sources for some of the writing and its authorship and of controversies about the role and nature of Jesus which sparked such changes and forever changes the readers understanding of what the Bible can provide.

I thought perhaps one of the most interesting insights I gained is how rewriting, adding or editing was an accepted practice and not as so many today would imagine as sacrilidge and evil and not in keeping with the Biblical writings being "holy or sacred" texts.

The last person who consciously edited the new testament to strip it of what he thought was wrong, false, and irrelevant to its message was Thomas Jefferson who did so not as a surreptitious amender but who set off his version as standing on its own as an independent book, a slim volume known as The Jefferson Bible.
Not something that a current President or crop of candidates would DARE to admit to even thinking of doing in this time of evangelical religiousity .
Again, much is revealed about the temper of the times and how attitudes toward the Bible and its use has changed over time even within the last few hundred years thru books such as these. I heartily recommend it.

[Mitch · Rating 1 out of 5]

First of all, for a man who values the exact words written down by writers and copyists, it is ironic that this book is so titled. In all of the examples the author uses to show how New Testament texts have been altered, almost none contain anything Jesus actually said.

I can only surmise that falsely leading readers into believing the opposite would sell more books.

But let's move on to the content.

Textual criticism is not a science. It takes hold of old manuscripts, compares them, applies certain principles and then each individual scholar doing this pronounces his learned opinion on something he can never prove. In brief, he piles conjectures on top of suppositions.

Granted, some of these are more convincing than others, but in the end conclusions are left to the belief of the audience.

Historically, textural critics have strongly disagreed with one another's conclusions and that continues today. If the scholars argue and don't agree, then how does this help the layman?

In view of this, it's hard to appreciate the lofty value that textual critics hold of their work.

Additionally, I found that most of the texts listed as examples made no difference to me personally no matter which way they were interpreted.

All this led me to wonder what Jesus would have made of all this. I think he would have wanted them to stop micro-analyzing every word and start living them. But that's just my unscholarly opinion.

[Martin Pierce · Rating 1 out of 5]

There were minor variations in the New Testament manuscripts. This is old news.

Unfortunately, Ehrman, a former fundamentalist Christian, thinks it's such a big deal that it casts doubt on the veracity of the Christian faith. Practically nobody agrees, except for people like atheists who already have a bone to pick with Christians.

The truth is that no other ancient text is as well supported as the New Testament. Minor variations are to be expected. The ones we find the the NT manuscripts don't affect any significant doctrines.

[Nat · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must for anyone who wants to know WHY the Bible isn't inerrant. A wonderful work by a biblical scholar who was motivated by his deep faith and only wanted to find the truth. One of the most interesting aspects is that the reader will come to understand how biblical scholars work and the methods they use to decide which text represents an older tradition than another text. Also, those new to the study of comparative religion will probably be amazed to learn (or refuse to believe) that some parts of the Bible were deliberately changed for political purposes, while others were changed due to mistakes, either of interpretation or of copy-error. In any case, a fascinating and well-written book.

[Tanja Berg · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wanted to read this book for years, but it wasn’t on audio. I finally bought a paper back, which is a cherished possession now. I finished this book in April and have been waiting to write the most amazing review. You can do better and look elsewhere I am afraid. It’s a brilliant, thorough book that anyone interested in early Christianity and the bible should read. Particularly the people who think the word of god is infallible.

The author shows in a multitude of examples how the new testament has been changed to suit the times and the copyist’s proclivities. Some of our best loved stories, such as Jesus and the prostitute, “may he that is without sin among you cast the first stone” (John 8:7), is a later addition.

It’s just one of many though, particularly as Jesus went from being an apocalyptic prophet to the son of god in the evolution of early Christianity. The rapture is another thing that isn’t actually in the bible, it’s just an unlikely interpretation.

Regardless of your religious inclinations, this is a fascinating read. After all, Christianity has had profound influence on world history. It’s good to know how we got here. It’s also good to know where we are headed, particularly as the United States is taking such a conservative view and this directly influence, for example, Middle East politics and the support of the Jewish state. It’s fulfilling prophecy and I am sorry to say this is not fantasy.

[Lena · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ehrman was just a teenager when he had a born-again experience that led him to devote his life to the study of Christianity. Hoping to help defend the Bible as the true word of God, he focused his studies on the origins of the Bible, only to discover that the history of a book whose words many faithful take as infallible truth is nowhere near as clear as most people would like to believe. It seems that God suffered the same fate as many great writers and had his words altered by numerous editors, from sloppy scribes to church leaders seeking to make the Bible support their particular interpretation the gospel. Ehrman details with convincing clarity how earlier versions of the Bible vary greatly on such teachings as the role of women in the church and even the divinity of Christ himself. Highly recommended for anyone affected by the idea that the Bible is the true and unaltered word of God.

[Eric_W · Rating 5 out of 5]

There was no New Testament until the fourth century. Until that time assorted factions warred over all sorts of different beliefs about Jesus. Some thought he was all human, others he was all God. Some believed there were many gods, others there must be only a few. Their assorted beliefs were transcribed by the individual congregations themselves, obviously representing their own particular view of reality. What happened to those oral and written traditions and documents and how they evolved and were eventually codified is the subject of Ehrman's fascinating book.

Ehrman had a born-again experience in high school and was persuaded to go to Moody Bible Institute to further his understanding. He became interested in scriptural exegesis and transferred to Wheaton, another evangelical fortress, (although considered far too liberal by the Moody folks. Thinking it was impossible to learn the true meaning in translation he found himself soon at Princeton Theological Seminary, a downright bastion liberal thinking where he studied Greek and eventually Hebrew. Already at Moody he had become fascinated by scriptural differences and seeming contradictions. The details of the Crucifixion differ between Mark and John, for example. Could one of them have made a mistake. And when Jesus said the mustard seed was the smallest of all the seeds on earth in the parable, did he make a mistake as we know it's not the smallest seed. Was it incorrectly translated? Was information copied incorrectly? He learned that we have no originals and the copies we do have of Scripture are copies of copies and we lack even the copies closest to the originals. How can we know what the word of God means if we don't know what those words area? These are the puzzles that intrigued Ehrman and ultimately resulted in a shift from a literal and inerrant view of the Bible to a view of it as a very humanly created document.

The problem of determining what was actually intended by the original writer was made difficult through a number of factors. The copyists were often illiterate; those who were not would often (there are numerous contemporary complaints of this) change words to suit their own purposes, sometimes to change the meaning, other times by mistake, or sometimes thinking they were correcting an earlier mistake. To make things worse, the manuscripts were often in scriptio continua where there are no capital letters, nor punctuation, nor spaces between the words, e.g. ΜΟΥΣΑΩΝΕΛΙΚΩΝΙΑΔΩΝΑΡΧΩΜΕΘΑΕΙΔΕΙΝΑΙΘΕΛΙΚΩΝΟΣΕΧΟΥΣΙΝΟΡΟΣΜΕΓΑΤΕΖΑΘΕΟΝΤΕΚΑΙΠΕΡΙΚΡΗΝΗΙΟΕΙΔΕΑΠΟΣΣΑΠΑΛΟΙΣΙΝΟΡΧΕΥΝΤΑΙΚΑΙΒΩΜΟΝΕΡΙΣΘΕΝΕΟΣΚΡΟΝΙΩΝΟΣ. In modern Greek that would be Μουσάων Ἑλικωνιάδων ἀρχώμεθ᾽ ἀείδειν, αἵ θ᾽ Ἑλικῶνος ἔχουσιν ὄρος μέγα τε ζάθεόν τε καί τε περὶ κρήνην ἰοειδέα πόσσ᾽ ἁπαλοῖσιν ὀρχεῦνται καὶ βωμὸν ἐρισθενέος Κρονίωνος. Often the earliest manuscripts we have date from centuries after they were originally written and many generations of copies later.

This led inevitably to entire lines being dropped as a copier, often illiterate, might skip a line, especially when two lines ended with the same or similar letters.

All of this uncertainty was an especial problem for Protestants whose faith relied on the "word" as delivered in the Bible, but if that "word" was uncertain then doesn't that weaken the foundations of that faith? Celsus and Origen in the 2nd century were already noting the substantial number of differences between the texts and a century later Pope Damascus commissioned Jerome to examine the texts and see if he could determine the original version.

In just one illustration of many of the effect this cold have on faith is the example of J.J. Wettstein, who, in the early 18th century, sought to find the original words and he given access to the Codex Alexandrinus where is was startled to note problems with Timothy 1 3:16, a passage that had been used to justify the belief that Jesus was God.

For the text, in most manuscripts, refers to Christ as "God made manifest in the flesh, and justified in the Spirit." Most manuscripts abbreviate sacred names (the so­-called nomina sacra), and that is the case here as well, where the Greek word God (theos)is abbreviated in two letters, theta and sigma, with a line drawn over the top to indicate that it is an abbreviation What Wettstein noticed in examining Codex Alexandri­nus was that the line over the top had been drawn in a different ink from the surrounding words, and so appeared to be from a later hand (i.e., written by a later scribe). Moreover, the horizontal line in the middle of the first letter, theta, was not actually a part of the letter but was a line that had bled through from the other side of the old vellum. In other words, rather than being the abbreviation (theta­ sigma) for "God", the word was actually an omicron and a sigma, a different word altogether, which simply means "who." The original reading of the manuscript thus did not speak of Christ as "God made manifest in the flesh" but of Christ "who was made manifest in the flesh." According to the ancient testimony of the Codex Alexandri­nus, Christ is no longer explicitly called God in this passage.

Well, this was a bit much for Wettstein who began to question his own faith and he remarked how rarely in the New Testament that Jesus is called God. Becoming rather vocal about the problem (shades of Arius v Athanasius )-- see href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... "he aroused the ire of the orthodox. "Deacon Wettstein is preaching what is un­orthodox, is making statements in his lectures opposed to the teaching of the Reformed Church, and has in hand the printing of a Greek New Testament in which some dangerous innovations very suspect of Socinianism [a doctrine that denied the divinity of Christ] will appear." Called to account for his views before the university senate, he was found to have "rationalistic" views that denied the plenary inspiration of scripture and the existence of the devil and demons, and that focused attention on scriptural obscurities."

It's a thrilling book, really interesting as an example of how scholars work through textual history, but one that is perhaps a bit misleading. A review on an atheist website noted that something Ehrman doesn't emphasize is that because we have so many variants and texts available to us does not question the validity of what we now have, but rather helps in the determination of the actual original text from which they might be derived. (That review is worth reading: http://commonsenseatheism.com/?p=27)

[Brian Griffith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ehrman believes the history of our great stories matters, and his exploration of the New Testament's evolution is an enormous accomplishment. This is a work building on hundreds of years of research, for example, Stephanus's 1550 translation with marginal notes identifying variations between 14 different ancient Greek manuscripts. Or John Mill's 1707 comparison of over 100 Greek manuscripts to show 30,000 points of difference. And Ehrman's data base includes over 5,700 manuscripts in Greek alone, which yield a total of between 200,000 to 400,000 varients among them.

While comparing manuscripts, Ehrman gives us a parallel history of arguments and riposts among scholarly egos, making this a fascinating human story. We have, for example, the French Catholic scholar Richard Simon who in 1689 produced "A Critical History of the Text of the New Testament," giving a partisan blast at Protestant rejection of Church tradition in favor of reliance on scripture alone:

"The great changes that have taken place in the manuscripts of the Bible ... since the first originals were lost, completely destroy the principle of the Protestants ..., who consult only these same manuscripts of the Bible in the form they are today. If the truth of religion had not lived on in the Church, it would not be safe to look for it now in books that have been subjected to so many changes and that in so many matters were dependent on the will of the copyists."

Do all these differences among ancient hand-copied versions of the Bible make any difference? Ehrman shows they do at many important points -- concerning Jesus, women, Jews, leadership, and more. That's the really good part. I think this book is a big step forward in separating wheat from chaff in the scriptures.

[Ojo · Rating 5 out of 5]

A real eye opener.

I'm familiar with the point the author was trying to make in this book. For a couple of years now, I've known the Bible isn't as infallible as most Christians make it look. I've know that the book is littered with errors by its writers throughout history. But I haven't had time to do a proper research on the forms these errors took. Reading this book has saved me a lot of time.

It's a bit unfortunate most Christians aren't aware of Biblical textual criticism. It's almost like they've assumed God Himself personally penned the words of the Bible. And it's even more unfortunate that most Christians don't bother with getting information on how the Bible came about. Most are happy to swallow the dogmas of their religious sects hook, line and sinker, without bothering to filter and see if the Words still exist in their original sense.

While this book will definitely be branded as heretic by Christian fanatics, it's a must read for every truth seeking Christian.

[Becky · Rating 4 out of 5]

I originally started my review with a big long rant about why even though I still believe in God I no longer go to church or even believe in organized religion. I’m truncating it down to this: the unexamined faith, just like the unexamined life, is not worth living. I feel that if more people understood that modern day Christianity is a product of its times but also the product of what was once a very diverse systems of beliefs and understandings of Jesus’ role, or that it is recognized fact that the Bible was changed (over and over again) and that these changes if reverted would change many Christians fundamental belief structures, that we would have a much more tolerant church and perhaps a more unified church. What is the point over arguing about and schisming over a few lines of the Bible when a) you aren’t reading it in the original language any ways and b) that verse didn’t even show up in the bible until the 1600s. I am an advocate for a more informed faith and to many that has made me seem like a dangerous heretic (though I mostly keep to myself so maybe not that dangerous, just a heretic, but that sounds less interesting).

So if you want to have an informed faith and make your own decisions about the reliability of your scripture or at least the translation you are using I highly recommend Dr. Ehrman’s works- both Misquoting Jesus and Lost Christianiaties. Both are books that are amazingly researched and make complex topics accessible. I wish that I had this book in text version so that I could have easily stopped reading and looked directly at the verses that were being cited or so I could easily refer back to specific notes the book made.

I will warn that it is a bit repetitive but the arguments and presentation are sound.

[David · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ehrman did a good job of explaining textual criticism for the average person. The reason I only give two stars is because I learned pretty much everything he says in this book at a conservative evangelical seminary. In other words, he writes as if these things are a shocking secret to Christians when most Christians, even the most evangelical ones, learned this ages ago and are fine with it. This book should encourage Christian teachers and pastors to teach these things to the people in their churches so that books such as this do not seem so shocking.

[Emiliya Bozhilova · Rating 4 out of 5]

Винаги съм се чудила на онези ентусиасти, непоклатимо убедени че знаят какво точно искат Бог и Христос от многострадалното човечество. И знаят на всичкото отгоре точните библейски цитати за всяка ситуация.

Барт Ърман пък е специалист по цитатите - в буквалния смисъл. Т.е. текстови критик, който е и бивш разпален вярващ. И по адрес на Новия Завет и на християнството в частност се почва една мътна и кървава...

Фиксирането на Новия Завет в (приблизително) сегашната му форма е отнело около 4 века, сред рой обвинения и контраобвинения в еретизъм между различните раннохристиянски течения. Естествено, победило най-силното. В началото и самото християнство е разчитало предимно на устната традиция, но и на записките на някои не дотам квалифицирани писари да записват посланията (по-квалифицираните писари се занимавали с далеч по-печеливши теми). Поради което броят на грешките в текстовете е бил значителен, да не говорим, че част от тези текстове се изписвали без препинателни знаци и без разстояние между отделните думи, но за сметка на това с някои съкращения!

Далеч не всички манипулации по новозаветните текстове обаче са невинни изопачавания и са обясними с по-ниска грамотност на първите книжовници. В битката за хармонизиране на канона, действително разхвърлян между разнопосочни текстове и автори (някои неустановени, нищо, че са претендирали да са апостол Павел), както и с цел оборването на идейните опоненти, са се появили някои от най-интересните и популярни и днес добавки в текста на Новия Завет:
- епизодът с възкресението на Христос липсва в ранните ръкописи;
- известният епизод, където Христос спасява прелюбодейка от пребиване с камъни, призовавайки който няма грях, да хвърли първия камък, е въздействаща поетична късна добавка;
- молитвата “Отче наш” е доста по-кратка в старите версии, и лично на мен много повече ми хареса;
- Божествената природа на Христос и триединството на Отец, Син и Свети Дух съвсем не са така експлицитни и безпрекословни, както в по-новите “пипнати” версии. Йосиф на бърза ръка е коригиран от “баща” на доста по-неутрално определение. Също така част от текстовете, където се споменава, че Христос става Божи син чак в момента на кръщението си, са силно редактирани впоследствие.

Силно влияние в редакциите оказват и стремежът за разграничаване от юдаизма (тъкмо защото Христос е бил юдей и е проповядвал сред юдеи), както и принизяване на ролята на жените в
християнската общност (да мълчат и да се подчиняват). Друг е въпросът, че при такова изобилие от противоречия, все някакъв вариант е трябвало да се избере като базов, и в ранното средновековие точно това са направили. Оттам нататък различията в преписите преди навлизането на печатарската преса значително спадат, но натрупаните добавки и разлики вече са се мултиплицирали и са добавили нов смисъл.

Да не споменаваме пък разликите между самите евангелия. Христос в евангелието на Марко (най-старото от четирите) е порядъчно избухлив към миряните, и кори Бог, че го е изоставил в деня на разпването. Но в евангелието си Лука (а той пък е ползвал Марко като източник) представя съвсем друга личност - спокойна, овладяна, безстрастна и смирена.

В крайна сметка, установените разлики из различните ръкописи (тук не говорим за преводите на новите езици) надхвърля броя на думите в целия Нов Завет!

Този проблем съвсем не е установен в наши дни, напротив. Още през 17-18 век са кипели ожесточени дискусии по въпроса, съпроводени с редица публикации. Някои критици са защитавали хармонизирането на единна, макар и доста “редактирана” версия на първата латинска библия (Вулгата). Основният им довод е бил, че Църквата - като институция - е по-надеждна от променящите се текстове в евангелията, тъй като предава техния дух и квинтесенция. Други - по-авантюристично настроени изследователи - тръгват на лов за най-стария автентичен новозаветен р��копис. В р��зултат на което Тишендорф, след много перипетии в стил Индиана Джоунс, успява да получи достъп до Синайския манастир “Света Екатерина” през 19-ти век. А там пък измъква от кошовете за подпалки най-стария открит запазен пълен препис на Новия Завет - Синайският кодекс (датиран около 350 г.). Ръкописът е дарен на руския цар, но по-късно болшевиките, закъсали за пари след 1917 г., го продават на Британския музей за скромната днес сума от 100,000 паунда. Трети учени пък тихо изработват днешните методи на текстовия сравнителен анализ.

Ръкопис-майка или ръкопис-първоизточник (“автограф”) така и не е открит, не и достатъчно стар. Съществуват само преписи на преписи на преписи. По-нови и по-стари.

Какъв е изводът? Новият Завет е книга. Писана от хора. За хора. И в опита си да (пре)създаде идеала, като всяко човешко начинание, има своите бляскави върхове и гръмки провали. И като към всяко човешко дело, към него трябва да се подхожда с порядъчна доза здрав разум.

***
П.С. Българското издание е на “Изток-Запад” от 2007 г. Не знам защо там Марко се е превърнал в Марк...

***
П.П.С. Българският превод на Библията е меко казано нечитаем за съвременния човек. Плаче за обновяване - в сегашния си вид мястото и е в музея!

[Erik Graff · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ehrman claims that this, his overview of the formulations of what have come down to us as the texts of the Christian Scriptures, is a work that hadn't been done before. That is a bit of an overstatement. Any work of textual criticism applied to this corpus must needs cover such ground. Such originality as there is to Jesus Misquoted is in its engagingly accessible style.

Usually I find self-reference off-putting when used in scholarship. In this case, however, Ehrman's introductory account of how he evolved from being a serious scriptural inerrancist to becoming an academic bible critic was welcome. It is, in fact, impossible to be a biblical literacist if one actually knows how its texts have been transmitted. As I am fond of saying, "the Bible" you read actually dates to the time of its copyright. The best remedy for narrow-minded Christian--or Jewish or Islamic--fundamentalism is honest study of the textual bases of the faith.

Except for the author's treatment of some particular pericopes in light of what kinds of changes tend to happen to a text transmitted from one scribe to another, I found little new in this book--and these, of course, were more or less well-argued opinions. Still, as a short book intended for the general reading public, Jesus Misquoted's popularity is deserved and heartening.

[Emma Ann · Rating 5 out of 5]

Engaging and illuminating. A deconstruction and/or ex-evangelical must-read.

Reading this book made me feel like I was sitting in class with one of my best professors. The author does a commendable job of explaining a potentially touchy subject without giving you the sense that he has any particular axe to grind.

[Emma Deplores Goodreads Censorship · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

A worthwhile book that isn’t quite what I was expecting. From the title, I expected this to be a “myths about the Bible” book, perhaps premised on translation issues. But the author, besides being a renowned scholar, is a college professor, and this book reads very much like an undergraduate class, of the sort that’s much more interested in hammering home the “themes” and big picture of the subject area than focusing on the details. And if this book were a course, it would not be titled “History of the New Testament” but something more like “Introduction to Textual Criticism.”

That said, it is interesting in unexpected ways. The author was once a Biblical literalist, until realizing that, well, which version of the New Testament is the correct one? This turns out to be a fraught question, because we don’t have originals of anything. Nothing written on paper survives 2000 years (unless perhaps stored in the Egyptian desert), so what we have are copies (often copies of copies of copies of copies….), made by scribes, i.e., humans. Today it’s hard to get our heads around how much time and effort went into producing a single copy of a book before the printing press: every copy had to be written out by hand, one word at a time. (Does some cultural memory of this remain, in our tendency to treat books as precious even when they’re cheap?) In the ancient world, this was done by a small class of professional scribes (some of whom could actually barely write!), literate slaves in rich households, or occasionally educated people who really wanted to disseminate something. Anything not copied, meanwhile, would be lost, as well as the originals the copies were made from.

And discrepancies inevitably crept in. Some were inadvertent errors: my favorite is the guy who copied out a genealogy beginning with God, which he apparently didn’t realize was in two columns, because he stuck God somewhere in the middle as the son of some other guy! (Talk about asleep at the wheel—but then, how long could you stay focused while copying begats? Maybe he realized halfway through and just hoped no one would notice?) Others were “corrections” to the text—things the scribes thought must have been wrong, perhaps because they struggled to make sense of them or the text felt incomplete otherwise. For instance, in a story from Mark, Jesus went from being described as angry to compassionate; the last twelve verses of Mark (everything after the women fled the empty tomb) were apparently a later addition; a woman described in one of the epistles as an important apostle was retconned as a man.

Still others were quite deliberate changes, to “clarify” the text or emphasize a theological or social point that a later writer wanted to make: the prohibition on women speaking in church was probably a later addition not attributable to Paul (since Paul had previously said they needed to cover their heads while doing so); likewise there were alterations to be more anti-Semitic, or to stress aspects of Jesus that other factions disagreed about (for instance, to clarify that he really was human, to remove the line “Today I have begotten you” from Luke’s version of his baptism to foreclose the interpretation that he only became Son of God at that moment, etc.). In fairness to these scribes, the “canon” didn’t exist yet (this dates to about 367 C.E., so hundreds of years after these books were first written), so scribes likely had a very different understanding of the nature of their texts than Biblical literalists today. And the biggest changes happened in those early centuries, before Christianity became institutionalized.

But the author overall seems interested in exploring why changes were made and what they say about both the original texts and the later scribes, rather than using the discrepancies to point fingers. I and probably everyone else was disappointed to learn that the “let he who is without sin cast the first stone” story is not original, but the author theorizes that it was an oral tradition about Jesus that just didn’t happen to be written down till later.

At any rate, the book makes no attempt to be comprehensive in covering even the most important alterations to the originals (it wouldn’t be possible to cover all of them because there are more variations among texts than words in the New Testament). Instead it focuses primarily on the historical context and how textual scholars analyze manuscripts. Specifics come into play as examples illustrating the principles.

If slightly on the dry side, the book is readable for a general audience, obviously the work of a careful scholar, and it’s interesting stuff that will change how you think about ancient documents, including of course the New Testament. That said, despite the title you won’t find much here about the ways Jesus is actually misquoted: namely the fact that he spoke Aramaic while the New Testament was written in Greek (so we actually have none of his original words), plus the decades that passed before the Gospels were written down.

I do have some interest in reading other work by this author, but ideally one with more meat and less heavy on the themes.

[Emily Ann Meyer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wish there were a 1/2 star method, because I didn't quite like this up to 4 stars, but I liked it more than 3.

The book was not quite what I expected, inasmuch as it focused a lot more on the individual motivations of scribes and/or transcription errors rather than the major political and theological debates that also contributed to changes in the text.

There is much of this that I already knew - changes are made and mistakes happen. What was new to me, and what really made me sit up and take notice, was the major impact in interpretation some of these changes had.

That, for example, the entire story that concludes with the adage "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone," was a later addition. Or that no where in the New Testament (barring later changes) is Jesus' divinity explicitly called out. Or, and the one that gave me goosebumps considering how much it was emphasized in my own confirmation classes - that the entire idea of the trinity hangs on the placement of a comma. Or that the exhortation that women should be silent and submissive was likely the opinion of a scribe copying given how much it contradicts earlier documents (which, in fact, have female disciples - take that everyone opposed to female priesthood!)

Changes between gospels were also interesting - I was aware of some - but others were new to me.

What would've been an interesting expansion of this is to get into, as I mentioned above, some of the external forces impacting these changes - Ehrmann talks about various competing facets, but only in a brief chapter. Another interesting way to add depth might get into the council of Nicea and other early church gatherings where the selection of the books of the bible was made - how did the choice of what was to become "canon" impact the potential interpretation of these books that may have then led to potential scriptural changes?

[11811 (Eleven) · Rating 3 out of 5]

The repetition in this book was ridiculous. I don't know how many times the author mentioned that the gospels are copies of copies of copies but it was more than a few. Probably more than a dozen. Eventually, he gets to examples which made it interesting but I'm hoping the book he released todayJesus Before the Gospels: How the Earliest Christians Remembered, Changed, and Invented Their Stories of the Savior, has fewer redundancies. I'm about to find out.

This was a decent introduction to the topic and the most memorable comment for me was that "There are more errors than there are words in the New Testament." For those who believe that scripture is the inerrant word of God, this begs the question - which copy?

[Public Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the kind of book that can totally reshape a person's outlook on religion and even life itself. Seeing the meddling hands of man in what some consider a "perfect" document is revelatory.

I hesitate to say that this book "disproves" anything in the bible, because I realize that's a real trigger for some. I will say that anyone who clings to ideas about biblical inerrancy will struggle to withstand the challenge that this work provides.

Ehrman says that there are at least 400,000 inconsistencies in the various iterations of the New Testament passed down through the ages. That's more inconsistencies than there are words in the New Testament. Some changes are clearly accidental, made by lazy or sloppy scribes copying for hours on end. Other changes betray more sinister intent to color the words of the gospels or epistles to agree with one's own personal feelings or interpretations.

I remember one of my college professors sniffing at the "terrible Greek" found in the Gospels. Early scribes, copying Greek or Latin, sometimes got their job by the most forgiving possible definition of literacy. ("Can the scribe read and write his own name? Good, he is literate.") It wasn't until the fifth century, after Constantine's deathbed conversion, that professional scribes got into the New Testament business. That means there were hundreds of years of amateurs and conflicting sects peddling their version of the Good News.

It was fascinating to learn about the value of different ancient manuscripts that have been dug up over time. It was still more fascinating to learn about the competing theological disputes amongst the earliest Christians and how their disagreements made it into the New Testament we know today.

Someone very close to me has spent decades going to bible study fellowship. But I feel like bible study rarely means actually studying the text and finding new understanding in the same way that the textual critics, like the one who wrote this book, do. I think this book would be seen as a huge threat to certain, rigid Christian worldviews. To me it was phenomenal.

[Stephanie · Rating 2 out of 5]

As a believer in "verbal plenary inspiration", which this author once cherished but came to see as ridiculous, I am curious to hear his experience and case. I want to admit up front that I already find myself distrusting his conclusions because of an assumption/leap-in-logic that he made back on page 11 about God's motives and choices. But, that said, he still holds my interest on a number of points.

Update: I am kind of disappointed in this author, because I feel like he promised these earth-shattering finds against the integrity of the Bible's message, yet most of what he brought up were single-word or single-verse translation differences so widely known that they are noted in the footnotes of several popular English translations already. (i.e. That information is already publicly available.) Yes, the Bibles we all read are translations, and are copies of copies of copies etc. of originals that are long gone. So questioning the priority of a word or sentence as I read seems logical, but the main message of the Bible (God offering free forgiveness through Jesus because he loves us and we need him) is so repeated and dominant that even several scribes/copyists changing a word or line in several manuscripts is still not going to affect all of the manuscripts/records or cause people to miss the point.