Once he was a seminarian and graduate of the Moody Bible Institute, a pillar
of conservative Christianity. Its doctrine states that the Bible "is a
divine revelation, the original autographs of which were verbally inspired
by the Holy Spirit." But after three decades of research into that divine
revelation, Ehrman became an agnostic. What he found in the ancient papyri
of the scriptorium was not the greatest story ever told, but the crumbling
dust of his own faith.
"Sometimes Christian apologists say there are only three options to who
Jesus was: a liar, a lunatic or the Lord," he tells a packed auditorium here
at the University of North Carolina, where he chairs the department of
religious studies. "But there could be a fourth option -- legend."
Ehrman's latest book, "Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the
Bible and Why," has become one of the unlikeliest bestsellers of the year. A
slender book of textual criticism, currently at No. 16 on the New York Times
bestseller list, it casts doubt on any number of New Testament episodes that
most Christians take as, well, gospel.
Example: A crowd readies itself to stone an adulterous woman to death. Jesus
leans down, doodles in the dust. Says, let the one without sin cast the
first stone. The crowd melts away. It's one of the most famous stories in
the Bible. And it's most likely fiction, says Ehrman, seconding other
scholars who say scribes added the episode to the biblical canon centuries
after the life of Christ.
There are dozens of other examples in "Misquoting Jesus," things that go to
the heart of the faith, things that have puzzled scholars for centuries.
What actually happened to Jesus of Nazareth, there on the sands of Judea?
Was he a small-time Jewish revolutionary or the Son of God? Both? Neither?
In Matthew, Mark and Luke, you find no trace of Jesus being divine," he
says, his voice urgent. "In John, you do." He points out that in the other
three books, it takes the disciples nearly half of Christ's ministry to
learn who he is. John says no, no, everyone knew it from the beginning. "You
shouldn't think something just because you believe it. You need reasons.
That applies to religion. That applies to politics . . . just because your
parents believe something isn't good enough."
What he found there began to frighten him.
The Bible simply wasn't error-free. The mistakes grew exponentially as he
traced translations through the centuries. There are some 5,700 ancient
Greek manuscripts that are the basis of the modern versions of the New
Testament, and scholars have uncovered more than 200,000 differences in
those texts.
"Put it this way: There are more variances among our manuscripts than there
are words in the New Testament," Ehrman summarizes.
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