Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why
(Hardcover) by Bart D. Ehrman (Author)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/product-description/0060738170/ref=3Ddp_=

Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why
(Hardcover)
by Bart D. Ehrman (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist
The popular perception of the Bible as a divinely perfect book
receives scant support from Ehrman, who sees in Holy Writ ample
evidence of human fallibility and ecclesiastical politics. Though
himself schooled in evangelical literalism, Ehrman has come to regard
his earlier faith in the inerrant inspiration of the Bible as
misguided, given that the original texts have disappeared and that the
extant texts available do not agree with one another. Most of the
textual discrepancies, Ehrman acknowledges, matter little, but some do
profoundly affect religious doctrine. To assess how ignorant or
theologically manipulative scribes may have changed the biblical text,
modern scholars have developed procedures for comparing diverging
texts. And in language accessible to nonspecialists, Ehrman explains
these procedures and their results. He further explains why textual
criticism has frequently sparked intense controversy, especially among
scripture-alone Protestants. In discounting not only the authenticity
of existing manuscripts but also the inspiration of the original
writers, Ehrman will deeply divide his readers. Although he addresses
a popular audience, he undercuts the very religious attitudes that
have made the Bible a popular book. Still, this is a useful overview
for biblical history collections. Bryce Christensen
Copyright =A9 American Library Association. All rights reserved

Charleston Post & Courier
"Offers a fascinating look into the field of textual criticism and
evidence that Scriptures have been altered."

Dallas Morning News
"Whichever side you sit on regarding Biblical inerrancy, this is a
rewarding read."

Washington Post
"One of the unlikeliest bestsellers of the year."

Book Description

When world-class biblical scholar Bart Ehrman first began to study the
texts of the Bible in their original languages he was startled to
discover the multitude of mistakes and intentional alterations that
had been made by earlier translators. In Misquoting Jesus, Ehrman
tells the story behind the mistakes and changes that ancient scribes
made to the New Testament and shows the great impact they had upon the
Bible we use today. He frames his account with personal reflections on
how his study of the Greek manuscripts made him abandon his once
ultraconservative views of the Bible.

Since the advent of the printing press and the accurate reproduction
of texts, most people have assumed that when they read the New
Testament they are reading an exact copy of Jesus's words or Saint
Paul's writings. And yet, for almost fifteen hundred years these
manuscripts were hand copied by scribes who were deeply influenced by
the cultural, theological, and political disputes of their day. Both
mistakes and intentional changes abound in the surviving manuscripts,
making the original words difficult to reconstruct. For the first
time, Ehrman reveals where and why these changes were made and how
scholars go about reconstructing the original words of the New
Testament as closely as possible.

Ehrman makes the provocative case that many of our cherished biblical
stories and widely held beliefs concerning the divinity of Jesus, the
Trinity, and the divine origins of the Bible itself stem from both
intentional and accidental alterations by scribes -- alterations that
dramatically affected all subsequent versions of the Bible.


About the Author

Bart D. Ehrman chairs the Department of Religious Studies at the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is an authority on the
history of the New Testament, the early church, and the life of Jesus.
He has taped several highly popular lecture series for the Teaching
Company and is the author of Lost Christianities: The Battles for
Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew and Lost Scriptures: Books that
Did Not Make It into the New Testament. He lives in Durham, North
Carolina.