About this title: An expert on the Bible reveals how ancient scribes changed the New Testament, forever impacting fundamental Christian beliefs. He claims many widely held beliefs including the divinity of Jesus, and the origin of the Bible are the results of intentional and accidental alterations by scribes.
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Description: Good. Former Library book. Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Description: Very Good. Great condition for a used book! Minimal wear. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: HarperOne
Date Published: 2007
ISBN-13:9780060859510ISBN:0060859512
Description: Acceptable. Well used. Still readable but not for the collector. Back/ Front cover is folded. taped at binging, ripping and tearing to front/back cover All orders processed within 2 business days. Ships from Foxboro MA. read more
Edition: Edition Not Stated
Binding: Trade Paperback
Publisher: HarperSanFrancisco, San Francisco
Date Published: 2005
ISBN-13:9780739469842ISBN:0739469843
Description: Very Good. 8vo-over 7¾"-9¾" tall. Light bumps and shelf wear. read more
Edition: Book Club (BCE/BOMC)
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Harper San Francisco, New York, New York, U.S.A.
Date Published: 2005
ISBN-13:9780060738174ISBN:0060738170
Description: Very Good in Very Good jacket. 8vo-over 7¾"-9¾" tall. Clean dj, slight edgewear, small scratch on back; black covers, light edgewear; inside is clean & unmarked; 242 pp includes Index. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Harperone
Date Published: 2005
ISBN-13:9780060738174ISBN:0060738170
Description: Very good in very good dust jacket. Glued binding. Paper over boards. With dust jacket. 242 p. Contains: Illustrations. Audience: General/trade. read more
Description: Very Good. Previously read with moderate shelf wear. No underlining or margin notes present. We are the Twin Cities' largest independent book store. read more
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Harperone
Date Published: 2007
ISBN-13:9780060859510ISBN:0060859512
Description: Fine. No dust jacket as issued. Clean and unmarked inside and out. No creasing to spine. Tight binding. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 266 p. Contains: Illustrations. Audience: General/trade. read more
Description: Now in paperback, this "New York Times" bestseller explores the mistakes and changes that ancient copyists made to the New Testament that greatly impacted the Bible used today. read more
"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 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."
"Good book. It asks the question, "How can we know what the words of the Bible mean if we don't have the original words?" Very readable and engaging; explains textual analysis of ancient manuscripts in a way understandable to a lay person, but never talks down to the reader.
I found this book helpful since many other books that deal with awkward biblical passages often say things like, "Most scholars now agree that this passage was added by a later redactor..." without explaining how those anonymous scholars came to that conclusion. While this book did not make me an expert on textual analysis, it gave some insight into the problems faced by scholars, the decisions must make and the tools they use to make those decisions (for better or for worse!).
Ehrman is a little repetative, but when he repeats himself it is to keep the reader on track and prevent the threads of the argument from getting tangled. I was a little disappointed that in the end Ehrman didn't say, "And the original words of the bible are...", but maybe that will be his next book."
"Less scholarly than The Closing of the Western Mind, but covers similar historical territory: the first few centuries of the Christian church.
Ehrman reviews the physical evidence we have of the New Testament canon -- several tens of thousands of parchments of Greek, Latin, Aramaic, Hebrew, etc., and describes how they differ from each other. The short answer is that there are 300k - 400k differences in the texts, and that scholars have spent the last century or so puzzling out why those differences exist, how they came to be, and how best we can determine the original intent of the authors.
Along the way he talks about a number of genuinely surprising misquotes, and the reasons they may have been made. Scribes make simple mistakes, of course, but sometimes they were motivated to change the text because they thought they were correcting a mistake. Less noble changes were made to argue against theological enemies, against women, or to steer the religion in a way that they found more to their liking.
I'm thrilled to notice that this was a NYT best-seller for quite a few weeks. It heartens me that more religious and non-religious people are now aware of the actual history of the Bible, and the history of attempts at interpreting it."
"Whew! Tough read, despite what other's said. Don't even try to listen to this one on audibles. I had to buy the book and start over. If U want to ck his research, this book will take some time. If U trust his footnotes/references - 2-3 day read.
This book is not just an argument against divine verbal inspiration of the scriptures, it's a complete review of available research on the compilation of scripture - addressing the problems of scribes and copyists and just human error that went into producing these works. Some of the academia is dedicated to discussing the reviewers themselves and how they affected these works, both inadvertantly and intentionally.
The argument is not new. Most people already know that there are thousands of manuscripts with versions of the new testament, but Ehrman supplies us with facts and evidence intertwined in the stories of those individuals who had a direct affect on these works. Interesting, their perspectives, backgrounds and biases. The most interesting fact, to me, was how illiterate the Roman Empire was. Even the upperclasses could not read the scriptures. We've all heard of the illiteracy of the time, but I didn't know it was this pervasive. Many of the scribes themselves were illiterate, (by our standards) but could sign their own name, which at that time, made them literate for the time. The majority of scribes could copy texts, but could not read them. They were "letter/character copiers", not readers or writers. Those that could read, were few, and they often did not hesitate to forge or invent an addition. I also did not know that Christianity itself was more prominant among the lower uneducated classes, which is ironic since it is the first religion of "books" (whereby it's sustenance for belief came from the recorded and read aloud and mostly listened to word)."
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