READER’S QUESTION:

Dr. Ehrman, I do not know if others would find this interesting, but I would love to know how you developed the idea for _The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture_. How did you go about researching it? How long did it take? Is it a once in a lifetime work?

 

MY RESPONSE:

Ah, this is a great question and it will take a number of posts to lay it all out, as it is a very complicated affair.   But it could make for an interesting thread.  We’ll see!

To begin with, I need to say something about what the book was about.   I will have a lot more to say about that in subsequent posts.  At this point I’ll simply try to give the whole thing in a nutshell.

First let me clarify the key terms of the title, which in full was :  The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture:  The Effect of Early Christological Controversies on the Text of the New Testament.   By “Scripture” I was referring only to the specifically Christian Scriptures, that is, the New Testament.  I do not deal with the Old Testament in the book.   My interest was, and still is, the textual situation of the New Testament, even though the textual situation of the Old Testament is also hugely important (and inordinately complicated).  But I don’t get into that in this book.

By “Corruption” I meant something specific and, obviously, something (else) provocative.

Here’s the deal….

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