(24 votes, average: 4.88 out of 5)
Loading...Misquoting Jesus is my most widely read book. And I continue to be a bit amazed and dismayed at how widely it is misunderstood. The book was meant to deal with one very specific issue connected with the New Testament, and people who have read it – let alone the people who have not – often assume it’s about some *other* issue, or rather, some other very broad issue, normally something that it is decidedly not about.
One of the problems is that people who are specialists in a field make very fine distinctions that seem absolutely OBVIOUS to them, when the distinctions are very fuzzy indeed to anyone who is an outsider. It’s true of every field of expertise. When a scholar of medieval English literature whom I know very well is at a cocktail party with non-academics, she will frequently talk to people who, to keep the conversation going, ask about anything from the life of Charlemagne to, say, Beowulf, on the assumption that those are what her research is about. Uh, no. When last week I made the mistake of asking a friend of mine who is a condensed matter physicist a question about the Big Bang, she was slightly offended (I suspected) and politely told me that it would be like someone asking *me* about a particular aspect of Shinto in Japan. OK, fair enough.
So, with respect to Misquoting Jesus, let me say this, just to make sure we are on the same page: it is *not* about how the New Testament is full of contradictions, or about the Gospel writers living so many years after Jesus and basing their accounts on oral traditions that were often unreliable hearsay, or about how there are other Gospels that didn’t make it into the New Testament, or about how doctrines Christians believe today cannot be found in the Bible.
These are all highly important issues. And other books I’ve written do deal with them. But each of these books (say, Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium; or Jesus Interrupted; or How Jesus Became God; or Forged) also deal with specific issues, not the same issue. Otherwise I’d just be writing the same book over and over again. Some people seem to think I do, but, well, no. These books are about different things.
OK, then. So what *is* Misquoting Jesus about? It is about…
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That may be the danger ( not really “ danger”) in writing books for public consumption that only a few have great knowledge of.
You couldn’t sell very many books or go very high on any best seller lists if you restricted book sales to academics who understand already exactly what your talking about.
I’m personally glad that you are writing these books and reaching out to we dumbbells who do other things but have always had these questions in the back of our minds..
Your latest book is my favorite and I’m careful never to quote you or cite your writings in my own opinions with whacko relatives ( my brother in law told me yesterday that giants once roamed the earth and their fossils have been found, my wonderful sister told me yesterday that she’s seen pictures of chariots at the bottom of the Red Sea)
They vote for politicians who believe that stuff to make public policy for them..
I need your books if for nothing else a dose of sanity.
Thanks!!! And keep up the great work.
Long distance runner
Dr. Ehrman, do think “Misquoting Truth” was generally fair or unfair to “Misquoting Jesus”?
I’m not sure I’ve ever thought about whether it was fair or not. I simply thought (rather forcefully) that it wasn’t well-informed, written by someone who is not knowledgeable about the field.
They can’t handle the truth is there problem.
People react out of fear, this could be at something they think someone has literally said or due to a void someone has created because of something they have said.
I’m halfway through your Heaven & Hell book. It’s the first one I’ve read by you. I’ll be sure to pick this up soon.
Thanks again for the free two months Bart! ✌️
A bit off topic but what is your opinion on Richard Valantasis’ book, “The New Q: A Fresh Translation With Commentary.” Should I buy it?
He’s a fine scholar; as to whether to buy it: it depends on what you’re interested in!
Dr. Ehrman,
The fundamentalists responses to Misquoting Jesus is how I even learned of you and your scholarship. I was a fundamentalist Christian fresh out of Bible school with a degree in biblical studies and I was ready to take on the liberal scholarly agenda. Because of the enormous response to your book I was introduced to the actual arguments and over the course of many months I began to realize that I agreed with your arguments much more than what the fundamentalist were offering. In the end, the fundamentalist agenda backfired on them concerning myself because I ended up leaving the whole fundamental/evangelical belief. I’ve been a huge fan of your scholarship ever since and I completely give you credit for helping to see the truth.
Are you still being attacked for Misquoting Jesus?
Thanks, Jay
Wow. OK, thanks for sharing. And, yes, oh yes…..
When I believed the Bible was inerrant, I refused to even consider the “evil human knowledge” that questioned my beliefs. But between:
– Having a questioning mind
– And seeing people who cared for people and did not believe in Biblical inerrancy
I slowly evolved into the secular humanist I am today.
You know I still get those suspicious looks from conservative Christian friends whenever I speak of the Bible. Even when I try my hardest to be fair and even there’s that look of doubt at times. I probably need better friends but until that time I’m staying on the academic straight and narrow. Bart, I’ve heard criticisms from two academics about you during the Misquoting Jesus era which I thought were somewhat entertaining, at least to me. Both were religiously conservative scholars who I believe have difficulty separating their faith from commonly accepted historical research. Without sounding too paranoid do you think you still get pegged in that apostate category which may be the factor leading to the misconceptions you spoke of?
Absolutely!
Having been raised as a fundamentalist conservative Christian, I had never know the historical facts about how the bible came to be. I am grateful beyond words for this book that enlightened me and helped me realize that the bible is NOT in any way inspired by any god. This book put the nail in the coffin of Christianity for me, and I couldn’t be happier! I do wonder, and maybe you can answer having gone to such conservative Christian colleges, is this information intentionally hidden from the masses in such circles? I was raised to believe the bible very literally (which I had stopped doing years ago), so all of the facts how the gospels were not written by eye-witnesses, rath oral traditions and decades after Jesus was on earth was quite a wakeup call for me. Actually, I was done with any belief after the first chapters about how illiterate the early Christians were, how many mistakes both accidental and intentional were made in copying manuscripts repeatedly. Thank you so much Mr. Ehrman for your work and for these books that are written so any non-scholar can understand them and have the truth!
My sense is that professors in conservative Christian colleges do not think that it is a “fact” that the Gospels were not written by eyewitnesses; on the contrary, they believe they were. (Well, Matthew and John were; in their view Mark got his accounts from Peter; Luke is the exception, bu tin their view he got his stories from eyewitnesses.) So no, I don’t think they are being intentionally deceitful.
Thanks very much for replying and answering that question! My dad is a retired fundamentalist Baptist preacher (82 years old now) and I honestly believe he doesn’t know the history of the writing of the gospels. Or if he does, he never preached nor spoke about it. He’s still to this day, holds a KJV-only literalist view of the bible. Thanks again for the reply!
You have stated that the words spoken by Jesus in the fourth gospel was put in his mouth by the writer, and was not his own. Could you kindly let me know where there is evidence for this. Geza Vermes also states the same in his writings but again I can find no evidence for this. Would be most greatful for your elucidation.
Reading your blogs is one of the highlights of the day in these unusual times.
Lots and lots of evidence. For starters, you may want to read any of my books about Jesus and/or the Gospels? I’ve also number of posts devoted to it — e.g., near the end of September and beginning of October of 2017. Check them out!
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Yes, well…”Misquoting Jesus” is one and “Forged” it’s another one. Some people may get it wrong because of some examples you give, but you deal with that problem fully in a different book Professor as you say it yourself in your books. (P.S. The more books i read about the Bible, the more i saw how many different ways you can debate a subject, story… you known, i don’t know how to say that, English is not my native language).
So, are we done with the Gospel According to John?
In a couple of days I’m heading to teh Epistles of John, and then Hugo Mendez will be posting on the question of the Johannine Community, over a series of posts.
This is obviously concerning you. I want to be as * concise * as my finite mind will allow me to be understood. First, I must stress that I am an agnostic, as to give me an identity with others in the blog, but also do not deny if a God
exists. I * don’t know * is a safe assertion for now and I can * comfortably * live with all kinds of folks, believer/unbelievers alike. Thirdly, I truly admire your research and have followed you, even to that point of meeting you during a debate, knowing the actual subject matter would be unresolved, sort of speak, in the process. Now I want to stress some points in my findings as I traverse this difficult resolve of understanding. 1) Controversy is more acceptable by most but also more refuted, 2) common sense means something different for everyone,3) belief is different than knowledge,4)conviction is difficult to change,5) there are more believers than non believers in this world, and chances are good that speaking about God will resonate with many versus the other way. There are others,but for word limits this will do. What you laid out……
….is coherent with how most people interpret readings. Sometimes reading may raise or lessen or fabricate the author’s intent. The Bible has been interpreted this way a long time with everyone claiming to have the * correct * meaning. Who Knows? What strikes me about you is this. Sometimes I am not sure if you have completely given up on God personally? Your blogs at times seem vague, especially your spiritual moments, asking myself if you really are an unbeliever ? Chris Hedges is a wonderful writer, like yourself, when I am reading some of his work, I swear he sounds like he is appealing to Atheists. As I continue to read his works, his meanings become more clear. Some may get it instantly, but like a movie, most of us see things through our personal understanding. I refer to your debate with Dinesh. He believes and yet does * not * go around to prove his point asserting his position. Your last paragraph suggests otherwise. Opponents are rebuking, not the book’s claim, rather you denouncing a belief system. Just like me, there are those dear to us who pray fervently for our return.
In the Oliver Discourse Jesus is asked, Matthew 24:3 “when will this be and what will be the sign of your coming and of the completion (συντελείας) of the age?”
The noun form of “completion” matching the question in Daniel 12(LXX) “When therefore the completion (συντέλεια) of the wonder you have told me and the purification of these?”
Mark and Luke’s alternate version of this question differ by one word from each other.
Mark 13:4 “when will these things happen and what will be the sign that they are all about to be completed (συντελεῖσθαι)?”
Luke 21:7 “when will these things happen and what will be the sign that they are all about to take place (γίνεσθαι)?”
Isn’t it more likely that Luke independently wrote his own version of the question and Mark edited it slightly to have a link to the Daniel/Matthew version rather than Luke editing out the one important word which Mark has in common to Daniel/Matthew?
Can we say Luke was perfectly happy with Mark’s version, except for the one word he has in common to Matthew/Daniel? Or, how does Mark end up with the verb form of the word? Because he’s inserting it into Luke’s template which contains a verb form.
Most people think the answer is decidedly no, that’s not the more likely scenareo.
Most people might think that taken as a whole the evidence points to markan priority. But on this specific point, taken independently of other considerations, shouldnt most people think it indicates mark editing luke?
As with most individual examples, it seems it could pretty easily go either way. That’s why one needs a cumulative argument.
Following Dr Bart for some time now – and decided to join his Blog (well taking advantage of two months free offer). I have not read this book yet – but I did read The Triumph of Christianity: How a Forbidden Religion Swept the World and just bought Heaven and Hell. Really interesting read. Especially when you think that if even hell exist – then maybe is empty. Will definitely buy Misquoting Jesus… Always loved the discussions about religions – studied theology in one of university in Poland – and even though now working in completely different field always curious about finding the TRUTH… Let the journey begins… again…
Apologies if this annoys or exasperates you but William Lane Craig is still at it after all these years. A five minute clip from a Q&A session about your comments on the conflicting details of the gospel resurrection accounts.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bN9oMvu9VEE
I find his comments about “secondary details” of the stories odd since a narrative consists of its details. HIs viewpoint is question begging because he assumes that there is a historical core behind the conflicting narratives and that of course is the question being raised.
Sigh…. On the other hand, he can’t give it up, since his entire life and ministry is rooted in his being right!
Hannibal is a good metaphor
I have real issues with the account of General Hannibal. I suggest this man didn’t exist but rather was invented as Roman fiction to consolidate Roman power over Carthage and the Mediterranean, and to imbue the warrior spirit in the Roman empire through cautionary tales of the “enemy at the gates.”
Furthermore we have no idea how much later translators have redacted this fantastic story of an African taking elephants over the Alps and invading Rome itself. Polybius wrote his account 50 years afterward the supposed event. Livy wrote during Augustus times and Appian wrote in the Second Century AD (!)
Seven authors wrote the NT. Some claimed eye-witness status. Three wrote about Hannibal, long after the “event” and their accounts do not agree. This is never discussed in “scholarship.” Why?
If the NT is pious fiction, why do we accept Hannibal, Cleopatra, Caesar etc as “historic”? Maybe, as Henry Ford said, “History is bunk.” And to prove the point, Ford didn’t actually say that.
“It is about how Christian scribes of the second to fourth Christian centuries copied the texts of New Testament, sometimes changing them (by accident or on purpose) so that they ended up saying something other than what they originally said. As a result, there are passages that we read today that are not worded exactly as the authors wrote them.”
Well that seems clear enough and so does the title “The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture”. Yet your other words, here and elsewhere, sometimes sound like you are saying something less. No surprise then that the more conservative Christian Bible scholars take offense. You are accusing Patristics/Scribes of dishonesty and incompetence to some extent (and by extension them).
I assume you have heard of:
http://evangelicaltextualcriticism.blogspot.com/
Their criticisms of you are likewise bestsellers (among their readership). One of the more active is Tommy Wasserman who certainly thinks he has taken you Head on with:
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#search/Wasserman/FMfcgxwHMZRzfnJkqNlDVrBKcgtbPmpl [Misquoting Manuscripts? The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture Revisited]
Wasserman has his problems, English is not his first language (sounds like Deja Jew all over again), and fer instance, he thinks “son of God” is original to 1:1 because the early Greek Patristics that omitted it were abbreviating. So Bar apolotite.
“But I’ve always thought that even though it’s not THE most important issue in the study of the New Testament”
So, what is?
Lots are more important, I would say, such as the historical accuracy of the narratives and the interpretation of its texts.
Yes, I probably didn’t fully appreciate the point of ‘Misquoting Jesus’ when I first started to read it a few years ago, and then, when I did get the point, I found it quite shocking (in a good way). It remains one of my all time favourite books. I had previously read non scholarly books that for some reason or other claimed that the New Testament had been secretly edited. A classic example was the Da Vinci code genre of books that asserted that Mary Magdalene was a far more prominent character in the Gospels but the misogynistic church had later removed as many references to her as it could. But yours was the first book that I had read that provided scholarly and sensible evidence that some tinkering with the text (not on a vast scale of course) may actually have happened.
Prof.
Maybe Mark made a mistake, that was turning points for you. And I completely agree the flood gates open with me too
To be honest whenever I’m with my fellow Christian discussing about Bible theological issue if they bring passages that I know for sure have been changed/altered intentional or whatever, but they’re using them to defend their point of view or preaching. I tell myself like ooh this what happens when we don’t know what textual critics says. I imagined myself on their position talking things that I don’t know even before start talking about. But I’m glad that most of them are open minded whenever I site one or two examples. Sometimes having knowledge apart from that we got from devotional learning is useful and it open our 3 eyes on how we looks and see things.
I’ve finished reading Misquoting Jesus, Jesus interrupted and how Jesus became God. And there are more to come. I don’t why but i know now that the Bible is more interested when read from academic perspective rather than devotional. I’ve like 9 translation.Thanks
Do you find that blog members misunderstand the purpose of the book too? I didn’t but I had been interested in the whole subject of Christianity and its origins for well over 40 years before I joined.
Yes, many do!
Interesting, I plan to start reading Misquoting Jesus next week, I’ll see own perception.
I think, the perception (that you didn’t expect) can be explained:
– Non scholars understood that the true account of Jesus was not handled with care by scribes. No one can (you always say that even scholars can’t) to define the exact account of Jesus, So they reject it all
– Fundamentalists and conservative evangelical Christians have to fight the effect of the book, so they should give commentary to answer people back.
Regards
It’s like when someone posts an article on Facebook and you can tell from the comments that people are just reacting to the headline without reading the article. That seems to be the MO of many people in our society today – knee-jerk reaction rather than taking the time to read, ponder, think and then respond. But that takes too long! Gotta get to the next cat video! Or in your case, gotta hurry to criticize someone who doesn’t see the Bible as I do!
At root, of course, with those who oppose the very inquiry you describe, is the role of God in writing the bible. Fundamentalists believe that it is the God’s very words, written by himself – or rather, dictated to an inerrant scribe – and that’s the end of it. If you are vested in this peculiar belief, then discovering discrepancies, factual errors, inconsistencies, or any other element that weakens the ‘dictation by God’ thesis you are going to have a quarrel. As you have noted, once you get into a critical textual analysis of the bible the difficulties immediately accumulate and, for any fair minded person, it becomes unsustainable to accept the ‘dictation by God’ thesis given the evidence. That does not make many of the values inherent in the bible irrelevant or wrong – indeed, its guidance for right living is more than fine (love thy neighbour, etc).
Personally, I take great comfort that some of the ideas and passages in the bible are written by humans rather than God as they’re repellent, hopelessly obscure, or relate to societies long dead and of little to no relevance to the modern world.
It’s not “about how doctrines Christians believe today cannot be found in the Bible.” I think it is about this to some extent. As you’ve pointed on, major errors or additions are relatively rare. But you’ve also taught us that sometimes the scribes made important changes. The Johannine Comma is one example. The fact that it is a later addition does cast doubt on the biblical basis of a central Christian doctrine, namely the Trinity. Your statement above is technically true, but I think it’s quite understandable that defenders of the faith would feel you are trying to undermine the authority of the Bible. This is not to say you are to blame… just that it comes with the territory. Hey, they stoned the prophets too right? [actually not right, except in one or two cases, but if Jesus said it, it must be true 😉
Hi Bart- we live in a post-fact, post-truth world, complicated by access to boundless information, which in itself shrinks attention spans. I believe “Misquoting Jesus” was first available in 2005, roughly corresponding to the radical explosion of Google into all corners of life. Access to “everything” severely reduced our effective absorption of “anything”. In short, if “Misquoting Jesus” had been published in 1985 instead of 2005, more people reading it might actually have taken the time to, well, READ it. Heck, I doubt if most critics have actually read (and internalized) the entire TITLE of the book, which advises that the book is “The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why”.
Your critic Timothy Paul Jones (“Misquoting Truth”) is a good example, as he consistently ignores your thesis of “let’s simply start by being honest about the record before deciding to base our faith/life on the record.” Jones’ thesis, that “textual uncertainty” does not undermine faith, is predicated on philosophical underpinnings from CS Lewis, not scholarship; further, he declares that “the inspired truth of Scripture does not depend on word-for-word agreement among all biblical manuscripts…” True enough, but that is a statement of faith, not fact. Jones posits: “Do the biblical texts available provide sufficient testimony to understand God’s inspired truth? I believe the answer to this question is yes.” In short, he doesn’t even address your book title, much less the scholarly issues.
For what it’s worth, your writings are effective if for no other reason than they make some folks uncomfortable. In a way, isn’t that the point?
Prof Ehrman,
When we consider a text from any era, there are so many subtle ways, in which what we read is part of a larger background conversation being had at the time its written – Even if all the words in the NT had been faithfully transcribed sans mistakes or redaction, we may assume we understand what the words plainly say, but without access to the background conversations of the time, we may not be getting the subtle but crucial points they are trying to make, or for instance in Paul’s letters and later writings affected by Paul, are we sure we’ve understood the “faith vs. works vs. law” debate (or even the early Church fathers did!) – it might be more subtle than face value suggests.
What I wonder is how much scholars have been able to reconstruct the unwritten background contexts, for instance using the DDS and contemporary sources,to shed new light on the Gospel & Epistle’s Semitic sources, before they were adapted by the Hellenistic NT early Christian writers? Are there major examples, where evidence -based – arguments shows the latter or cannonical Church interpretations were off?
Oh yes, many many. That’s what modern scholarship on the Bible is all about: putting the texts in their original contexts to understand what they would have mean at the *time* as opposed to how they were understood later. Especially since the end of the 19th century, scholars have rigorously and meticulously dug through every piece of surviving evidence, both literary and material (i.e. from archaeology)
Oh, I would love to investigate the relevant literature in greater depth, if you have anything piquant (including your own) to recommend. What would you say is one of the most startling or surprising, but not necessarily incontrovertible, examples of a traditional/canonical notion that has been overturned in light of new (within the last 100 years maybe) evidence, specifically in regards to what Jesus or his immediate followers would’ve believed?
For starters, you might try my New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings.
Bart, I recently read an article in the publication Stand for Reason by Greg Kouki, written in Oct. 2010. In it he uses the quote form your book below. I have read other books of yours but not Misquoting Jesus.
“”What good is it to say that the autographs (i.e., the originals) were inspired? We don’t have the originals! We have only error-ridden copies, and the vast majority of these are centuries removed from the originals and different from them, evidently, in thousands of ways.There are more variations among our manuscripts than there are words in the New Testament.” [emphasis in the original]”. They think you are saying/implying that there are significant differences in what scholars think the original or autograph texts are saying. They attack you on that basis. Can you explain why this quote shouldn’t be interpreted as they do?. From your post it sounds like you may not disagree with their point that scholars don’t disagree significantly on what the originals most likely said.
I’m not saying there are thousands and thousands of signficant differences that completely change the meaning of the text. I’m saying that if God wanted to preserve his very words intact, it seems to me we would have his very words intact. But it is indisputable that we do not. I definitely do NOT say that (a) these thousands of places are changes in the text that all show up in our translations or (b) we have no clue what the originals say. Anyone who reads it that way is simply reading something into my words that I (quite conscientiously) don’t say. If I wanted to say that, I certainly would have! I wonder why people like Kouki can’t simply read what someone says instead of assuming he’s saying something else.
Thank you for your reply. I understand and agree with you that we ultimately can’t be sure what the original text said because we don’t have the original. The point of some of your critics, though, is that most scholars agree what the original texts say and the any differences are not significant theologically. Even in your top 10 Biblical issues that you raise at the end of the book, the big problem is interpretation of the passages and contradiction between passages and not because of perceived textual variations from the originals. Even the title does not tend to support the idea that the book is about textual variations that are mostly insignificant. Misquoting Jesus sounds like you think that your going to show potentially that we can’t be sure of what Jesus said because the copying process corrupted what was written, when the real issue is that we don’t know what Jesus said regardless of whether or not we can reconstruct the original text. I’m not sure how significant this point is, but I can see the critic’s point even if it is somewhat disingenuous and self serving.
Top scholars do NOT agree up and down the line, at all. Anyone who says that hasn’t read much scholarship!!
And some of the differences really are significant. Did Jesus get angry when a leper begged him to heal him? Does Luke understand that Jesus’ death brought atonement for sins? Does John call Jesus “the unique God.” And and and….
Are you saying then that the uncertainties you cited above, are based on disagreements over the actual wording of the original text, or because of the interpretation of the meaning of what most scholars agree is the original text. Thanks again for your responses.
In this instance I’m referring to the fact that there are lots and lots of places where scholars cannot agree on what the words actually *were*. A completely different, but arguably even more important, point, is that even when they agree on what the words were they very, very frequently don’t agree on what htey mean!
Hi Bart,
You say… The ultimate importance of my book is that it shows that deciding what to believe based on what the very words of what the Bible says – as fundamentalists do, and as politicians and drivers of social policy do when it happens to be convenient to them – is that we may not in some places actually have the actual words.
But, let’s face it, there are fundamentalists (conservatives, liberals), politicians and drivers of social policy that will quote most anything (including out of context or out of “intent”) to support their position, not just the Bible. So, buyer beware of anything you read or anything you hear from anyone. People should do their own “due diligence” on any matter that is important to them – as you say: facts do matter.
Your point (I think), shared with others, is that many do not do their own due diligence on topics they think they know well enough (e.g. the Bible) – even though they didn’t actually check it out. One could argue you are simply doing a public service by raising doubt in the minds of people who think they know the Bible…
…so, hopefully, they will do some due diligence before accepting/believing the implication of a Bible quote from a fundamentalist, a politician or a driver of social policy.
In my opinion, I think you answered your own question in this post. People are not reading your book to figure out which fundamentalist, politician or driver of social policy is mis-using Bible references to advance an agenda. They are reading your book to see what they don’t know about the Bible and to find out whether what they don’t know is significant to whether they believe or not. You raise the issues from a historic and scholarly perspective, but then you say they have to figure out for themselves whether it is important to them and their beliefs. So other people are arguably doing a public service by writing books to help those who want to do due diligence on the issues you raise.
I think you said: controversy sells!
Your Quote – “it is *not* about how the New Testament is full of contradictions, or about the Gospel writers living so many years after Jesus and basing their accounts on oral traditions that were often unreliable hearsay, or about how there are other Gospels that didn’t make it into the New Testament, or about how doctrines Christians believe today cannot be found in the Bible. These are all highly important issues. And other books I’ve written do deal with them.”
They are only “highly important” to people seeking, by some psychological imperative, to explain away the bible. There are contradictions in most historic accounts. If there were no contradictions you would have seized up this as proof of later redactors at work. I suggest John was written AS IT HAPPENED. Luke was with Paul on his last journey and quoted Matt and Mark. And Matt and Mark were names historically associated with those Gospels.
Other works didn’t make it into the cannon because they were patently fake – and considered so by people who had a living memory of the earliest church.
Prof Ehrman,
I listened to a Jewish Rabbi once and he asserted that the reference Josephus’s makes about Jesus is a forgery. Please what are your thoughts on the probability that these references could be a forgery? Plus could you provide some insight on what the references were as I seem to be picking up varying narratives from different sources.
It is Antiquities 18.3.3. Yes there are scholars who think it is a scribal insertion, but that is not the majority opinion or, from what I can tell, even close to one. Most thing that the paragraph is original to Josephus but has had a couple of key insertions by a scribe emphasizing that Jesus was the messiah who died for sins and was raised from the dead. But the core of the passage probably goes back to Jospehus.
Sorry, a little bit off topic, what is a good book for “how doctrines Christians believe today cannot be found in the Bible”? Thanks.
That would be a great book! I don’t know. I have a chapter on it in my book Jesus Interrupted. (Called “Who Invented Christianity?”)
I am so glad you wrote “Misquoting Jesus.” It was a HUGE step in my study of the Bible.
It’s important question that make us know very clear what you aimed to in “misquoting Jesus” ,what do you think about the effects of scribes’ corruptions on our today Greek NT ? Does it textual or theological ,in another words , you argue for we can’t know what the gospels says or you argue for that we can’t interpret the text clearly and this sort of transmission isn’t from god ?
Thanks for your educational efforts .
THe fact we can’t *KNOW FOR SURE* is only important, really, for fundamentalists. That’s the point of the argument. For most of us, we can procede on the assumption we are pretty close most of the time. If we’re not, we’ll never know. That’s true of all writings from the ancient world, but peole continue to study Plato, and Euripides, and Seneca, etc. etc. But no one claims that every single word of those texts come from God. That’s the difference.
I think it’s a rational argument,you argue against fundamentalists and the verbal revelation but conservative scholars have another view about revelation -Regardless of what is the right one if God exists – so what is your argument against them? , Daniel wallace-and others- said that we have the original text -in certainty sense- either in the text itself or apparatus ,you agree on that ? Can we be certain that the original text is available in our manuscripts ?
Sorry of a lot of questions
I don’t understand your first question, and no, I conmpletely disagree with (i.e. I say no to) the other two
(1)fundamentalists say that every word in the bible has been inspired(verbal revelation theory) , conservative scholars believe that it’s not necessary that every word has been inspired (another theories about revelation ) , so what is your argument against them?(conservative scholars)
(2)what is your disagreement with them ? The gap between autographs and reconstructed text what it’s size ? I mean what can we say about our earliest text and his relation to the original ?
Depends on what precisely they are arguing. Various conservative Christians have various views, not just a single one, and so my response depends on their particular one.
(1)For example Dynamic inspiration theory
(2)I am very interesting to know your opinion in the second question
You’ll need to explain what you’re referring to or people reading your comment won’t understand either your point or my response! Sorry, it’s a bit more work on your part, but it’s the only way other readers will see what we are talking about!
Dr. Ehrman, If most of scholars have agreed that the adulterous woman story and the ending of the book of Mark were not part of the original, why do we still keep them in the Bible today? Did anyone try to construct such kind of “updated” Bible that only contains what truly “belongs”? Scientists often revise their old stand as they discover new things. It seems reasonable for Bible scholars to make revisions as they discover more facts. It might make Bible seem more credible.
It’s a decision of the translators. MOst of them know the passages are not original, but they keep them because (a) people are accustomed to them and would be upset if they were not there and (b) that are seen as part of the “biblical tradition” and so worth keeping. Neither argument sits very well with lots of other scholars. At best I would say they should be in footnotes, not in the text.
Professor,
Its been ages that I have read Misqouting Jesus, so I do apologize if I ask you a question/s that you have already answered in the book. How do we know that the gospels were not first written by eyewitnesses? Are they second hand sources or third hand sources? How would you place them?
Sincerely,
Shaikh
Misquoting Jesus does not deal with that question. It looks at how later scribes changed the manuscripts they were copying (whether the originals were written by eyewitnesses or not). It is difficult to answer your question in a comment here, since it is a very complicated affair. But if you do a word search on the blog for “eyewitness” you’ll find a number of posts wehre I talk about the matter.
The position of the new testament being textually preserved with PERFECTION is the view of a lot of right-wing Christian evangelicals such as James White. How common is this position held among new testament scholars? Regarding the textual reliability of the new testament, what view do scholars generally hold?
It is very, very rare, found only among hard-core fundamentalists.
Hello Dr.
Some have used Misquoting Jesus to say that we have no idea what the Bible says. That it was edited and re-edited to the point we can never know what it originally said.
So my question is, do you believe with some degree of probability that can know what the Bible originally said? We can’t know for certain obviously. But would you be willing to say something like, “the Bible we have today is probably very similar to the original manuscripts”?
Yes, as I’ve always said: I think in *most* places we can be *relatively* sure that we hve what the authors wrote, or *pretty much* what they did.. We can’t ever KNOW that, of course; but it seems likely for most places. And impossible to say for some others. And impossible to say for yet others that we don’t know are impossible to say. But basially it’s like Plato: we can’t know what he wrote for certain but we deal with what we’ve got. The differences is that there is no one who insists we have every word exactly as Plato wrote it and that eternal life depends on it because every one of those words is inspired.