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Overview

The Judaism from which Christianity sprang was an unusual religion in the Roman world, although by no means unique. Like adherents of any of the other (hundreds of ) religions in the Mediterranean area, Jews acknowledged the existence of a divine realm populated by superhuman beings (angels, archangels, principalities, powers); they subscribed to the worship of a deity through sacrifices of animals and other food products; they maintained that there was a special holy place where this divine being dwelt here on earth (the Temple in Jerusalem), and it was there that these sacrifices were to be made. They prayed to this God for communal and personal needs. They told stories about how this God had interacted with human beings in the past, and they anticipated his help for human beings in the present. In all these ways, Judaism was "familiar" to the worshipers of other gods in the empire.

In some ways, though, Judaism was distinctive. All other religions in the empire were polytheistic -- acknowledging and worshiping many gods of all sorts and functions: great gods of the state, lesser gods of various locales, gods who oversaw different aspects of human birth, life, and death. Judaism, on the other hand, was monotheistic; Jews insisted on worshiping only the one God of their ancestors, the God who, they maintained, had created this world, controlled this world, and alone provided what was needed for his people. According to Jewish tradition, this one all-powerful God had called Israel to be his special people and had promised to protect and defend them in exchange for their absolute devotion to him and him alone. The Jewish people, it was believed, had a "covenant" with this God, an agreement that they would be uniquely his as he was uniquely theirs. Only this one God was to be worshiped and obeyed; so, too, there was only one Temple, unlike in the polytheistic religions of the day in which, for example, there could be any number of temples to a god like Zeus. To be sure, Jews could worship God anywhere they lived, but they could perform their religious obligations of sacrifice to God only at the Temple in Jerusalem. In other places, though, they could gather together in "synagogues" for prayer and to discuss the ancestral traditions at the heart of their religion.

These traditions involved both stories about God's interaction with the ancestors of the people of Israel -- the patriarchs and matriarchs of the faith, as it were: Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rachel, Jacob, Rebecca, Joseph, Moses, David, and so on -- and detailed instructions concerning how this people was to worship and live. One of the things that made Judaism unique among the religions of the Roman Empire was that these instructions, along with the other ancestral traditions, were written down in sacred books.

For modern people intimately familiar with any of the major contemporary Western religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam), it may be hard to imagine, but books played virtually no role in the polytheistic religions of the ancient Western world. These religions were almost exclusively concerned with honoring the gods through ritual acts of sacrifice. There were no doctrines to be learned, as explained in books, and almost no ethical principles to be followed, as laid out in books. This is not to say that adherents of the various polytheistic religions had no beliefs about their gods or that they had no ethics, but beliefs and ethics -- strange as this sounds to modern ears -- played almost no role in religion per se. These were instead matters of personal philosophy, and philosophies, of course, could be bookish. Since ancient religions themselves did not require any particular sets of "right doctrines" or, for the most part, "ethical codes," books played almost no role in them.

Judaism was unique in that it stressed its ancestral traditions, customs, and laws, and maintained that these had been recorded in sacred books, which had the status, therefore, of "scripture" for the Jewish people. During the period of our concern -- the first century of the common era,1 when the books of the New Testament were being written -- Jews scattered throughout the Roman Empire understood in particular that God had given direction to his people in the writings of Moses, referred to collectively as the Torah, which literally means something like "law" or "guidance." The Torah consists of five books, sometimes called the Pentateuch (the "five scrolls"), the beginning of the Jewish Bible (the Christian Old Testament): Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Here one finds accounts of the creation of the world, the calling of Israel to be God's people, the stories of Israel's patriarchs and matriarchs and God's involvement with them, and most important (and most extensive), the laws that God gave Moses indicating how his people were to worship him and behave toward one another in community together. These were sacred laws, to be learned, discussed, and followed -- and they were written in a set of books.

Jews had other books that were important for their religious lives together as well, for example, books of prophets (such as Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Amos), and poems (Psalms), and history (such as Joshua and Samuel). Eventually, some time after Christianity began, a group of these Hebrew books -- twenty-two of them altogether -- came to be regarded as a sacred canon of scripture, the Jewish Bible of today, accepted by Christians as the first part of the Christian canon, the "Old Testament."

Editorial Reviews

From Barnes & Noble

Dr. Bart Ehrman, the author of Lost Christianities and Lost Scriptures, has devoted his scholarly life to the recovery and interpretation of ancient biblical texts. He is unapologetic about his intense commitment: In the absence of original manuscripts of the books of the New Testament, he notes, questions of transmission and text become paramount. Misquoting Jesus offers a revelatory view of the Gospels and Paul's Epistles, arguing that scribes and editors altered almost all extant manuscripts. Part memoir, part biblical history, part textual criticism, Misquoting Jesus challenges us to look anew at texts that have shaped our culture.

Charleston Post & Courier

“Offers a fascinating look into the field of textual criticism and evidence that Scriptures have been altered.”

More Reviews (4) Fewer Reviews

Dallas Morning News

“Whichever side you sit on regarding Biblical inerrancy, this is a rewarding read.”

Philadelphia Inquirer

“Misquoting Jesus is a godsend.”

Washington Post

“One of the unlikeliest bestsellers of the year.”

Library Journal

"The Bible"-its use in the singular can gloss over the fact that we do not have access to the original text, but only to manuscripts of a relatively late provenance produced at different times and places and containing among them thousands of variant wordings. An accomplished scholar of early Christianity, Ehrman (religious studies, Univ. of North Carolina, Chapel Hill) ventures out of the ivory tower in this accessible lay introduction to New Testament textual criticism. He sketches the development of New Testament literature, the gradual accumulation of errors therein through the accidental or intentional revisions of copyists, and attempts (beginning with Erasmus in the 16th century) to reconstruct the original text. Since mainstream study editions of the Bible have long drawn attention to the existence of alternate readings, the reasonably well-informed reader will not find much revolutionary analysis here. But Ehrman convincingly argues that even some generally received passages are late additions, which is particularly interesting in the case of those verses with import for doctrinal issues such as women's ordination or the Atonement. Recommended for all public libraries.-Charles Seymour, Mabee Learning Resources Ctr., Wayland Baptist Univ., Plainview, TX Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780060859510
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date: 2/6/2007
Edition description: Reprint
Pages: 272
Sales rank: 106,349
Series: Plus Series
Product dimensions: 5.31 (w) x 8.00 (h) x 0.61 (d)

Meet the Author

Bart D. Ehrman is the author of more than twenty books, including the New York Times bestselling Misquoting Jesus, God's Problem, and Jesus, Interrupted. Ehrman is the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and is a leading authority on the Bible and the life of Jesus. He has been featured in Time magazine and has appeared on NBC's Dateline, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, CNN, History, and major NPR programs.

Read an Excerpt

Misquoting Jesus

The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why

By Bart Ehrman

HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.

Copyright © 2005 Bart Ehrman
All right reserved.
ISBN: 0060738170

Chapter One

The Beginnings of Christian Scripture

To discuss the copies of the New Testament that we have, we need to start at the very beginning with one of the unusual features of Christianity in the Greco-Roman world: its bookish character. In fact, to make sense of this feature of Christianity, we need to start before the beginnings of Christianity with the religion from which Christianity sprang, Judaism. For the bookishness of Christianity was in some sense anticipated and foreshadowed by Judaism, which was the first "religion of the book" in Western civilization.

Judaism as a Religion of the Book

For modern people intimately familiar with any of the major contemporary Western religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam), it may be hard to imagine, but books played virtually no role in the polytheistic religions of the ancient Western world. These religions were almost exclusively concerned with honoring the gods through ritual acts of sacrifice. There were no doctrines to be learned, as explained in books, and almost no ethical principles to be followed, as laid out in books. This is not to say that adherents of the various polytheistic religions had no beliefs about their gods or that they had no ethics, but beliefs and ethics -- strange as this sounds to modern ears -- played almost no role in religion per se. These were instead matters of personal philosophy, and philosophies, of course, could be bookish. Since ancient religions themselves did not require any particular sets of "right doctrines" or, for the most part, "ethical codes," books played almost no role in them.

Judaism was unique in that it stressed its ancestral traditions, customs, and laws, and maintained that these had been recorded in sacred books, which had the status, therefore, of "scripture" for the Jewish people. During the period of our concern -- the first century of the common era,¹ when the books of the New Testament were being written -- Jews scattered throughout the Roman Empire understood in particular that God had given direction to his people in the writings of Moses, referred to collectively as the Torah, which literally means something like "law" or "guidance." The Torah consists of five books, sometimes called the Pentateuch (the "five scrolls"), the beginning of the Jewish Bible (the Christian Old Testament): Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Here one finds accounts of the creation of the world, the calling of Israel to be God's people, the stories of Israel's patriarchs and matriarchs and God's involvement with them, and most important (and most extensive), the laws that God gave Moses indicating how his people were to worship him and behave toward one another in community together. These were sacred laws, to be learned, discussed, and followed -- and they were written in a set of books.

Excerpted from Misquoting Jesus by Bart Ehrman Copyright © 2005 by Bart Ehrman.
Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

1	The beginnings of Christian scripture	17
2	The copyists of the early Christian writings	45
3	Texts of the New Testament : editions, manuscripts, and differences	71
4	The quest for origins : methods and discoveries	101
5	Originals that matter	127
6	Theologically motivated alterations of the text	151
7	The social worlds of the text	177
	Conclusion : changing scripture : scribes, authors, and readers	207

Interviews & Essays

An Agnostic Reflects on Christmas Growing up as a churchgoing Episcopalian in Kansas, my favorite time of year was always Christmas. Nothing could match the romance of the season: the cold weather, the falling of snow, the expectations leading up to the Big Day. I always loved the presents -- giving as well as receiving -- the music, the food, the tree. Especially the tree. It had to be real: freshly cut if possible; loaded with lights, the more the better; draped with ornaments, each of them full of meaning. There was nothing better than darkening the room and sitting in rapt contemplation before the tree as it glowed with its bright, multi-colored lights. It was a kind of hallowed moment, reverent, silent.My faith in God began to slip away as I moved into my 30s. I had shifted from being a reasonably devout Episcopalian to becoming a born-again Christian to being an ultra-conservative evangelical. But graduate studies in the New Testament began to take their toll on my faith, as I began to see that the revered words of the Bible were not infallible but were, in fact, very human words. They were copied by human scribes, who often altered the words when they copied them; and they had been originally written by human authors, who naturally allowed their own views, beliefs, perspectives, situations, loves, hates, and passions to affect what they wrote. And I began having trouble believing that a good God could be in charge of a world filled with such pain and suffering: famine, drought, war, earthquakes, mudslides, hurricanes, tsunamis. I moved from being a conservative evangelical to being a liberal evangelical to being a liberal non-evangelical to becoming an agnostic. And that's where I am now. For now. It may seem sad to have lost one's faith, but on the other hand, I'm happy, very happy, with my life, my career, my amazing wife, my loving family. I'm one of the luckiest people on the face of the earth, despite what I've lost.One of the things I haven't lost, oddly enough, is my love of Christmas. I no longer believe the Christmas story told every year. I now know that the story of Jesus' birth in the Gospel of Matthew is very different from the story in the Gospel of Luke, that their accounts are not simply differently nuanced but factually at odds. And I know that we don't have their original accounts, but only the accounts as handed down by scribes who often changed the accounts, making it sometimes impossible to know what the originals said. In one sense, I've lost something of the wonder of Jesus coming into the world, for I now realize that the biblical narratives are not history but are, in fact, stories.But they are beautiful stories. Angelic visitors, heavenly inspired dreams, miraculous works: a virgin conceives and bears a son! There are shepherds and wise men and wicked kings and murdering soldiers and near escapes, tragedy and salvation.The stories live on, with or without my faith in them as history. And the meaning of the stories continues to touch me. This is a season of giving: God giving his Son, the Wise Men giving their gifts, the Son giving his life, and his followers giving themselves. It is a season of brightness, of music, of lights, a season of winter and snow and Christmas trees -- especially the trees. Bart Ehrman

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Davidicus

Posted December 19, 2009

Misquoting Jesus Was Educational But.....

I picked up a copy of this book in the bookstore of UC Berkeley. I was very interested in finding out exactly where this would go. I knew it dealt with the rewritings of the Bible over the years, and I wanted to know the truth as best Mr. Ehrman could provide.
At first, I found the autobiography of his youth very interesting. As the book progressed however, it became a bit clinical and textbookish, although the information was very interesting. Finally, when I reached the end and Mr. Ehrman made his announcement of how his faith had been severely compromised through the knowledge he now had in regards to the rewritings of the Bible over the years in less than divine ways, I stepped back. I have always known that the Bible has been rewritten many times. Just look at all the different editions, sometimes they don't even say the same thing. Not to mention all the translations from Latin and Greek don't always even carry the same stories. I have known that for most of my life. No, the Bible is not perfect and has been tampered with many times. But, my faith in God and the words of Jesus were not rocked one bit after this book. My faith has never been based on the Bible. The Bible is a book. Faith transcends much deeper. So, bottom line. I appreciate the very helpful information Mr. Ehrman shared, but I think the book was confused a bit as to whether it was a textbook of information or a testament of Mr. Ehrman's life as he found his faith and then lost it based on his knowledge of the rewriting of the Bible. I believe this book could have been more effective if he had focused his energies on one or the other. Still, this book demonstrates outstanding research, and some very interesting history. Mr. Ehrman's conclusion was more of a mystery to me than anything else, as the book was never really presented as a test of his faith, but more like a college textbook.

12 out of 12 people found this review helpful.
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Anonymous

Posted July 26, 2007

Don't Let the Angry or Holier Than Thou Reviews Fool You

Despite some people's anger based perception in some reviews, Bart D. Ehrman is the leading biblical scholar of our time. Mr. Ehrman's thoroughness and thoughtfulness are bright rays of intellectual and scriptural light piercing the darkness surrounding biblical matters. Here's the bottom line - If your concept about what the bible is isn't enlightened by Ehrman's excellent scholarship, no matter what Pastor you have, you do not fully understand what you are reading in the bible. People would and should be horrified to know that their worship of the bible is based on unsupportable theological positions, because of how the bible was written and passed down. In very readable, clear terms Ehrman demystifies the process the bible went through to become what it is today. Ehrman has done the world a great service with this book and all his others as well. The paperback version also has a wonderful addendum with an interview with the author.

9 out of 12 people found this review helpful.
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Anonymous

Posted June 28, 2008

Excellent scholar...with an agenda

Bart Ehrman is an excellent scholar and offers his own unique perspectives on New Testament authorship and accuracy, as well as, theological and historical implications. As a theological student, I enjoy reading his books, even though I do not subscribe to his interpretation of historical and textual data. As with all scholars, regardless of repute, he brings his own biases which influence his argument and the emphases he chooses to make. To his credit, he does not attempt to disguise his agenda, but openly discloses it in his introduction. I have read countless other books on this subject, and find that this particular book lacks balance. In other words, the biases he mentions in his introduction are evident enough in his treatment of the facts 'through the over-emphasis of some points and the under-emphasis of others' that his biases negatively impact the scholastic value of the book. If you are looking for a better balanced discussion and more scholarly work, I recommend 'The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration' by the same author and also co-author, Bruce Metzger. For a more orthodox perspective, I recommend 'The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable?' by F.F. Bruce. For a counter-argument to Ehrman's interpretation, I recommend Ben Witherington's 'What Have They Done with Jesus: Beyond Strange Theories and Bad History-Why We Can Trust the Bible' (another great scholar with an agenda). If you are really interested in obtaining a balanced perspective, I recommend you consider reading each of these works before deciding how best to interpret the data.

7 out of 9 people found this review helpful.
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Anonymous

Posted September 19, 2007

A must read

Ehrman does a wonderful job in pointing out the numerous flaws in the New Testament. He doesn't go into a long rant about why conservative Christians refute these glaring errors. He just explains them to allow for the reader to make their own conscious decisions. The book is very easy to follow, which means its not a monotonous history lesson like some of his other books. His autobiography at the beginning may or may not be important to read in regards to the book's subject at hand, but this book will enable you to look at the New Testament in a whole different light. The title is somewhat of a misnomer, because the majority of 'errors' he speaks of from the New Testament don't really focus on the sayings of Jesus. This is a great book for anyone who doesn't carry the dubious presupposition that the bible is inerrant. Carrying that belief when reading this book will surely cause you to miss the whole point, which is to exploit errors, as innocent as they may be, in the New Testament. I highly recommend this book for anyone who might question the accuracy of a series of ancient biblical texts with questionable authorship and meaning.

6 out of 7 people found this review helpful.
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JosephNicholas

Posted August 8, 2009

more from this reviewer

I Also Recommend:

Misquoting Jesus

Misquoting Jesus is a fascinating look at the little known details of how the various stories of Jesus became part of the modern Christian scripture. It's a book on what biblical scholars refer to as "textual criticism", but written for the layman. It's one thing to know the scriptures, it's another thing to know how they came into existence. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who's looking to deepen their knowledge of the Christian scriptures.

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
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Anonymous

Posted April 4, 2007

One of many MUST READs!!

Great book, well researched, right to the point! Right on the nose! Right on the money! I can see where the Bible Alone, non-NRSV, types that turn the Bible into an idol have trouble with this book. I recommend they meditate on Hebrews 13:17, John 5:39, 1 Tim 3:15-16.

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
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Anonymous

Posted January 23, 2010

Superb

A great book! Tells it like it is! This book would be of interest to all people with an interest in Christianity. Some will "take issue" with the presentation, but I think even they will be enlightened by reading the book.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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KrisPA

Posted January 18, 2010

Fascinating and interesting read of book that is somehow controversial, but shouldn't be

I went into this book unfamiliar with Biblical textual criticism and with a vague idea of how the New Testament was created. I haven't read the Bible at any length since I stopped attending church after graduating from high school. What I find most fascinating is that Ehrman isn't telling anyone anything they shouldn't already know, that is, that the New Testament is compromised of manuscripts that are copies of copies of copies, and of course have been changed (either accidentally or intentionally) by scribes making the copies. However, a lot of people are outraged by the book and what Ehrman writes in the book. I don't find any of it to be controversial. He isn't saying that Christianity is a sham, or that Jesus is a fictional person. Ehrman writes that although there are thousands of mistakes and mistranslations, most of them are inconsequential to the reading to the text. Even the changes that are important to how the text is read depend on how you want to interpret the text. If you find your faith to be more of a spiritual, rather than literal Bible-based faith, then you shouldn't be upset by Ehrman's book. I found this book intriguing and it basically confirmed by belief in atheism. The Bible is merely a collection of stories and memories of people who didn't even know Jesus, but wrote stories of what they heard about him. I don't think that is a strong basis for a religion. If I were to worship a god on the basis of a book, I would rather pick Gandalf from Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. At least I have an accurate copy of the original manuscript.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Anonymous

Posted February 16, 2012

Test your faith and read this book!

This was the first Ehrman book I ever read. Many faithful Christians read this book then went crying home to their mamas screaming "THE BIBLE IS FAKE!!!!" Calm down, breathe and step away from the ledge man. Ehrman merely writes in laymens terms what New Testament text critics both believers and nonbelievers already knew: there were variances between different NT manuscripts. The essential meanings and doctrines remained the same but scribes changed spelling errors or forrected an earlier scribes mistake in the margins. It's quite a fascinating tale. The problem arises when Ehrman triesbto lead a discussion that essentially states that if scribes fixed errors, then the Bible is made up since God doesn't make spelling errors in the first place. This argument can easily be refuted but the bottom line is that he writes strongest when he doesn't try to pass assumption and opinion as fact. He lost his faith and thinksbyou should losebyours over spelling errors. Once you realize and do a little search into actually HOW errors were corrected and that the so called thousands of errors are actually spelling error (e.g. writing "pin" when you meant "pen") you laugh at Ehrman and realize there's perhaps a story that he hasn't told. Ther's gotta be a better reason than this for him to renounce his faith? This is a great read; don't be afraid of it.
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Anonymous

Posted December 27, 2011

Recommended

All of Bart Ehrman's books are good reads IMHO. I hope he continues to write for a long time!
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Adge

Posted October 29, 2011

Be Careful when reading this book

Upon reading the introduction, I realized that this book would seem to be solely based on this own man's opinion and ability to think, and knew I would need to proceed with caution. He says time and again that the Holy Bible is solely based on human inspiration, nothing given from God, which would undermine the facts of Jesus being the Son of God(John 5:19) and God giving men words and prophecies. Also, when the angels of God spoke to Paul (Acts 27:23) and to Philip (Acts 8:26). He adds time and again how he found errors, but what if his research was full of errors?
I've pretty much quit reading because I have found even more errors in his logic by page 32, such as when he says he finds differences in Jesus' and Moses' sayings of the law but fails to add Mark 10:5. I believe Bart D. Ehrman could have handled this book better, because I question who he believes God is and what God's character is, for if the Bible has no answers, what does... human logic... in it's sin and issues and inability to grasp...? It is obvious to a reader of the Holy Bible when man comes in and God's words come... but I don't believe Bart Ehrman believes there to be any words of God in the Bible. After scanning some more, he also alludes to Westcott and Hort being the greatest... and these two figures have much controversy surrounding them. I would just be careful when reading this book. I've decided to put it down.
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AhrTJay

Posted February 20, 2010

Something to think about

Well written and organized for the average and above average literate person. I can hear Jerry Falwell and the rest of the irrationals getting their knickers in a knot.
R T J

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Anonymous

Posted July 8, 2009

Maybe

So the New Testament has morphed accidentally, preferentially, etc. How new and different. Or, does that scenario mirror current extant. BibleGateway lists 22 versions of the Bible in English alone. Concurrently spawned in those constructs are myriad sects, some not so in love with others.
And should all original New Testament texts be found would the authors decline editorial revision, an ongoing process with current publishing? To wit: edition 1, edition 2 . . . .
Should the Gospel message linguistically be an universal imperative, what of Zoroaster, Confucius, Tao, Hindu, Islam, Judaism, Agnosticism and so forth? If eternal consequence ensues, and mortal existence be the only source of illumination, many are in real deep. If redemption was a process forged in performance, then it surely has eternal consequence beyond mortal manifestation, and creates efficacy so "dilute" as to be accessible to all who live within the mortal parameters of its creation. And if you believe neither word nor deed matter, how different is the world? You are left as your only construct.
Read this book if you are wading for answers and intend to continue to do so.

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Charleston Post & Courier

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Washington Post

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Meet the Author

Read an Excerpt

Misquoting Jesus

HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.

Chapter One

The Beginnings of Christian Scripture

Table of Contents

Interviews & Essays

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Misquoting Jesus Was Educational But.....

Don't Let the Angry or Holier Than Thou Reviews Fool You

Excellent scholar...with an agenda

A must read

Misquoting Jesus

One of many MUST READs!!

Superb

Fascinating and interesting read of book that is somehow controversial, but shouldn't be

Test your faith and read this book!

Recommended

Be Careful when reading this book

Something to think about

Maybe