Loading...My book Misquoting Jesus was the biggest surprise of my career. No one thought (as colleague scholars frequently told me, somewhat emphatically, in advance) that a book like this would go *anywhere*. A discussion of changes made by scribes while copying the manuscripts of the New Testament? What? Even New Testament experts were and are by and large simply uninterested in the field, considering it a technical, detailed, and incredibly dull enterprise. My friends in graduate school thought i was an odd-duck for wanting even to study the matter, let alone devote a lot of my scholarship to it. And to think about writing a book for non-scholars about it? Yikes.
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Why I Wrote Misquoting Jesus
August 8, 2024
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Hi bart
Does Paul mean a broader group of belivers who had all had visions of jesus in 1 Corinthians 15 when he says that he appeared to “All the apostles”
The “apostles” would be those who were specifically commissioned by Christ to spread his gospel, not to his followers in general.
Hi Bart
Does Paul sometimes change the meaning of the word apostles?
Does he some times use it only to refer to the twelve does he sometimes use it for a little bit broader group like him the twelve and importent figuere of the early church does he sometimes call all belivers apostles did you needed to have a vision of jesus to be a apostle in Pauls mind?
He sometimes uses it for the original apostles and sometimes for others as well (himself, Junia, Andronicus, etc.)
I came across the book shortly after it was published, devoured it, and have been a fan ever since. It was saying what I wanted to hear.
Amazingly good work. No wonder it is popular.
Thanks!
This comment section needs a way to upvote comments. That’s the book that hooked me.
Thanks Bart for sticking it out to write MJ.
Thanks, Bart, for starting this series of posts. I already own a copy of your book Misquoting Jesus. I presume it was your first New York Times bestseller.
Yup!
How can an author who did not leave a single quote be misquoted?
We have many “sayings of Jesus” passed on to us by the gospel writers. I’m assuming that by Jesus not leaving any quotes, you meant that he didn’t leave any writings. Is that correct?
I told my wife the cute thing our 2 1/2 year old had said to me. I was quoting Jill, and I can assure you she’s never written anything.
“We have many ALLEGED ‘sayings of Jesus’ passed on to us by the gospel writers.
Paul, writing a decade or two before the earliest gospel, could not quote any of these.
My point is that Jesus not only didn’t leave any writings, but he also didn’t leave any sayings worth remembering.
Paul quotes Jesus’s words from the last supper
Did Jesus really say that? Did he know he would be killed the next day?
If this is historical, it would be the only ‘saying’ of Jesus that Paul recalled.
Not half of a parable from Mark, not a word from the sermon on the mount, nothing from the long speeches of Jesus in John.
For Paul, Jesus’s ministry in our world is limited to his last night.
Oddly, though, Paul had a lot to say about his resurrection and second coming.
Matthew 24 is the word left by Jesus. Jesus was particularly worried that the true Messiah would come and interrupt his happy days of cheating money, so he repeatedly asked his believers to resist the Antichrist (the true Messiah).
Matthew 24 is the message left by Jesus that Christians must remember before seeing the Son of Man return in the clouds.
Bart, your experience of being “born again” reminds me of my (temporary) experience of going to a Christian movie as a teen and going to the front of the auditorium when the minister asked for those who wanted to make a commitment to faith to come forward. I was momentarily caught up in the emotion of the moment and wanted to pursue this new discovery. A few years later after I left the church I realized how critical the role of emotion is to sustaining faith in the light of reason. Emotion felt strongly enough can lead to believing what reason sees as ridiculous or impossible. The entire Jesus playbook is loaded with high emotion like infinite love and forgiveness from the highest power in the universe as well as ultimate sacrifice and the fear of eternal damnation. Have you considered writing a book exploring this mental phenomenon and its role in conversion and sustaining faith in the face of adversity?
If I had more training in psychology I would think about it!
You’ve collaborated with other experts to produce other works where you wanted/needed their expertise. And the result was positive.
Dr. Ehrman, I second blclaassen’s request.
Genius of the AND: If you asked, you could get any number of psychologists to assist, AND they could potentially provide 90% of the critical content. Your 10% would be what you already know.
“Emotions and Their Impact on Religious Beliefs”
A book that humanity has needed for….. well……. how many years?
The problem is that I am limited in the numbrer of books I can write! And there are so many I want to. But the “market” can only sustain one every two years (or more); and, well, I’m nearly 69!
Bart: I don’t believe I’ve seen you include this among the reasons why scribes may have intentionally changed texts. The scribe wasn’t making a change; he was correcting a “previous change.”
Everyone knew how writings were published and spread: hand copies were made. And many probably knew the process wasn’t perfect. What you were reading aloud to the group had errors you needed to correct as you read. If you were tasked with copying the text for another church, you had a chance to correct those errors (and probably kept the better version.)
The old text was rife with small errors. And if you detected that someone had previously changed a phrase so that it could be understood in a heretical way, you could “correct” that too, even if you were wrong and no previous text had said what you firmly believed the correct phrase to be. Perhaps you added the “correction” as a marginal note in the old copy so the other church would have the truth too. And, of course, as you wrote, you made your own typos and misspellings.
How frequently do you think substantive changes were “corrected” into existence?
Oh yes, I do talk about that — it’s one of the key points I make when I give lectures on the topic; one way I often put it is that if a scribe changes the text and then the next scribe who is copying the changed text realizes that it has been changed he may try to “correct” the change, but there is no way to know if he has corrected the change correctly, and if not then we now have *three* forms of the text: the original, the change, and the incorrect change of the change…. And so it goes.
Thank you. My question though is about that first change. I see now that I wasn’t clear.
Suppose a church has recently acquired a copy of Mark in the year 270 CE. It has not had a change to one particular phrase in those 200 years of copying (except for spelling variations and so forth) and now the scribe copying it for another church notices that this phrase is a problem for correct belief. His group accuses others of changing texts for the purpose of winning arguments, and he assumes that has happened here, so he “fixes” the phrase back to the way it SHOULD be. In reality, he’s the first one to change it — so, despite his good intentions, he’s the one who corrupts this phrase.
I imagine that every scribe was sure that “our group’s understanding” was identical with “God’s truth.” Has the “family tree” of a textual change ever been traced well enough to detect when the change was introduced? Can we identify any manuscripts where it appears that someone with a pure heart made the first change, mistakenly believing he was thwarting an earlier evil change?
I would imagine it happened, but there is no way to make a precise identification of who made the change, when, or for what reason.
I recently heard from professor Anthony Giambrone that most scholars today would be open to the idea that Jesus was multi-lingual and would have spoken Greek as well as Aramaic. Is this true? I thought the majority opinion was that he would not have spoken Greek.
I’ve been reading and studying the NT for almost thirty years now and I (not a scholar) have just assumed this to be true. If one takes the events or at least some of them, to have happened to Jesus of Nazareth, the interactions could not have happened unless Jesus spoke Greek. For e.g. he had a conversation with a Roman centurion about faith within a healing, and he likewise could not have had any conversation with Pontious Pilate.
That’s assuming he actually had a conversation with a centurion and with Pilate. From what we know about Pilate from historical sources, there would probably not have been any conversation. He would have simply condemned him to be crucified. Assuming Pilate actually cared to converse with Jewish trouble makers brought before him, it’s likely that he would have just used a translator. However, probably there was no such thing. Pilate was a typical military brute.
guess we all saw, maybe read, the same stuff…since the dude lived right next door to Sepphoris he must’ve been exposed to it since work and hangin out and all that? interesting question…but be more interested if Hattin is worth going to? or more like Gettysburg?
I think there’s a better chance of finding $1M on the street than finding someone with that level of oratory skill who got it from being exposed on his hour off every week 🙂
I have been around Ivy grads and Galilee-type folk and group one can extemporaneously speak like group two, but not really the reverse that I’ve noticed.
Then we get to Revelation where some phrases seem straight ripped from the most privileged Old Akkadian cuneiform.
Ketubot 3b seems to apply to Jesus’ birth, and then Jesus’ childhood narrative stops at 12 — that’s likely the age of apprenticeship to his father where he learns Greek?
Dr. Ehrman,
I used to be a Christian apologist. A friend of mine and I used to host a podcast, but when we changed, we discontinued it. However, we’re starting a new podcast. I deconverted and have been an agnostic atheist now for a couple of years. My co-host considers himself a Christian, albeit a very progressive and open-minded Christian. We’re looking for experts and scholars to interview/have on our podcast to share their expertise.
1. Would you be willing to come on our podcast?
2. Do you recommend any other professors or specialists in various studies pertaining to Christianity/the Bible/Science/Ancient History who might be interested in being on our podcast?
For me, you’ll need to write me an email. For others, there are a lot of podcasts out there, so I’d suggest looking at their lists of interviews.
Off topic: Would you or a guest blogger care to post someday on the influence of the Book of Jubilees on early Christianity and the New Testament? According to a recent podcast by Orthodox Christian clergy, much of St. Stephen’s pre-martyrdom sermon in Acts is extracted from the Book of Jubilees rather than directly from the Old Testament. Oddly, the podcast’s hosts claim this proves that it’s Stephen’s actual sermon (recollected by Paul in an interview with “Luke?”) and not something “Luke” simply made up. Maybe. Seems just as likely to me that “Luke” crafted the sermon to conveniently insert his own knowledge and interpretation of Jubilees, but hey, I’m just an untrained layman. Apparently, some of Paul’s epistles also quote from or at least reference the Book of Jubilees (don’t have the verses handy at the moment). Very interested in your take!
Very odd claim indeed! Yes, that would be a good post. But it’s hard to find much in Stephen’s sermon that can’t be derived from the OT.
Hi, Bart,
Do you think that Matthew 12:36-37 is at odds and in opposition to Galatians 2:16 ?
I know that one text referrs to words – which is something that you do (utter) similar to works.
[36] I tell you, on the day of judgment you will have to give an account for every careless word you utter; [37] for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”
Versus
Galatians 2:16
[16] yet we know that a person is justified not by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ. And we have come to believe in Christ Jesus, so that we might be justified by faith in Christ, and not by doing the works of the law, because no one will be justified by the works of the law.
I don’t think they are in direct conflict, no. Matthew is indicating that what you say matters before God; Paul is saying that no one can be made right with God by following the presecriptions of the Jewish Law.
Hi Bart. I remember the first time I read MJ (and your other books) as a struggling Christian. Struggling due to the cognitive dissonance associated with all the unanswered questions that I thought were important … while most around me did not think so. In a strange kind of way this book provided me a 2nd “born again” experience!! I was freed from the Moody-type assumption making that is so incredibly dangerous. Almost cult-like in my estimation. Do I dare say evil? Thank you for to taking the time and effort to get this information (view) out to the general public!!
Your line, “Given my reverence for, but ignorance of, the Bible, it all sounded completely convincing”, really stood out to me. That is exactly what happened to my mother. She was a young woman suffering a terrible personal crisis after her two-day-old baby boy had suddenly died. My mother was a devout Catholic, and since the baby had not been baptized, his soul would now be condemned to an eternal existence in limbo as per Catholic doctrine. Then, some Jehovah’s Witnesses knocked on her door and told her “what the Bible really says”. And she liked their message, and she maintained that “if it says so in the Bible, it must be true”. She converted to the JW religion, with far-reaching repercussions for my siblings and myself, who came along in the years after the death of her baby boy. It’s a very sad and very infuriating story.
your history is intriguing, i guess….sounds more like a young communist camp…with some commies advancing to the study of Greek Aramaic and all that
Concerning the mental phenomenon of being born again, in all my studies of Christianity, religion and psychology, I have never ran across a psychological explanation of the experience some of us have had.
Makes me wonder if Dr. Phil, a professed born again Christian, would speak/write on this topic. Maybe I will write and ask him.