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"'Engaging and fascinating... [Ehrman's] absorbing story, fresh and lively prose, and seasoned insights into the challenges of recreating the texts of the New Testament ensure that readers might never read the Gospels or Paul's letters the same way again.' --Publishers Weekly"
Product Description
Bart Ehrman a leading biblical scholar reveals the many challenging and even disturbing, early variations of our cherished biblical stories.With the advent of the printing press and the subsequent publishing culture that reproduces exact copies of texts en masse, most people who read the Bible today assume that they are reading the very words that Jesus spoke or St. Paul wrote. And yet, for almost 1,500 years manuscripts were copied by hand by scribes - many of them untrained, especially in the early centuries of Christendom - who were deeply influenced by the theological and political disputes of their day. Mistakes and intentional changes abound in the competing manuscript versions that continue to plague biblical scholars who determine which words, phrases, or stories are the most reliable and, therefore, merit publication in modern Bibles."Whose Word Is It?" is the fascinating history of the words themselves.Biblical scholar Bart Ehrman shows us where and why changes were made in our earliest surviving manuscripts, changes that continue to have a dramatic impact on widely-held beliefs concerning the divinity of Jesus, the Trinity, and the divine origins of the Bible itself. Many books have been written about why some books made it into the New Testament and why others didn't (canonization) or about how the meaning of words change when translated from Aramaic to Greek to English. But this is the first time that a leading biblical scholar reveals for the general reader the many challenging - even disturbing - early variations of our cherished biblical stories and why only certain versions of those stories qualify for publication in the Bibles we read today.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I went to many churches and meetings but was never given the sort of information on textual analyisis that Bart Ehrman gives insight into. I only heard about Ehrman from the great thinker Richard Dawkins. I'm glad I bought this book. The ministers in my part of Scotland infer or hope you assume that the N.T was written down by 4 of the 12 disciples shortly after his resurrection. It is quite a revelation to discover that the majority of bible scholars would be happy to push the date for the earliest scripture(Pauls letter to Galatians), back to 50 C.E.. That there is general agreement that no-one knows who wrote Mark, Matthew, Luke, John, that Mark was at earliest written after 70C.E( based in part on Q), that Matthew and Luke were largely based on Mark ,while John was written several decades later. In fact the earliest extant fragment of N.T scripture (from 1 Thess) called p52 is from the early 2nd Century. The next earliest fragments are from Galations, called p46 from about 200 C.E. The earliest extant full N.T is from 330 C.E. Scholars have had to look at letters written by other historical figures for and against the gospel accounts(from 2nd and 3rd century)to see evidence that parts of the 300 C.E. version were similar to earlier copies. Ehrman points out that it is likely that N.T writings were built up as rival factions of Christianity tried to refute each other. "Whose word is it?" will help to awaken your mind to seeing how these texts came to be put together and that, probably, they are far from being a fax from God.
On page 186 headed "Jews and the Texts of Scripture", Ehrman discusses the anti-Semitic language which increases with time from Mark through to Johns gospel(probably written after 100C.E.
How is it that a faith supposedly all about love talks in such a harsh, brutal way about the Jews , language which is also unacceptable in a modern civilization? The Jews, even according to the story, only played into Gods plan and in any case how can you blame a whole peoples for the decision of Pilate and a few priests?
Perhaps the greatest idea from this book is that you should let each of the books of the bible have its own voice rather than averaging & blurring everything together. E.g when you compare Lukes nativity with Matthews it is obvious the contradiction between them is impossible to reconcile, Luke has Mary and Joseph native to Nazareth while Matthew has M&J native to Bethlehem.
Does this review accurately reflect the words of Ehrman or have I exaggerated and massaged his views to suit my own doctrine? You'll have to read the originals!
On page 186 headed "Jews and the Texts of Scripture", Ehrman discusses the anti-Semitic language which increases with time from Mark through to Johns gospel(probably written after 100C.E.
How is it that a faith supposedly all about love talks in such a harsh, brutal way about the Jews , language which is also unacceptable in a modern civilization? The Jews, even according to the story, only played into Gods plan and in any case how can you blame a whole peoples for the decision of Pilate and a few priests?
Perhaps the greatest idea from this book is that you should let each of the books of the bible have its own voice rather than averaging & blurring everything together. E.g when you compare Lukes nativity with Matthews it is obvious the contradiction between them is impossible to reconcile, Luke has Mary and Joseph native to Nazareth while Matthew has M&J native to Bethlehem.
Does this review accurately reflect the words of Ehrman or have I exaggerated and massaged his views to suit my own doctrine? You'll have to read the originals!
38 of 42 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Having grown up with a strongly religious parent and regularly surrounded by eager Christians, I became familiar in hearing quotations from the Bible and the vicarious way these people would often use them to judge others. Opinions were vociferous and usually black and white (difficult to empathise for someone who thinks in shades of grey) and always backed up by some saying or other in the New Testament. I began to suspect that you could pretty much pick out any one-liner to justify any argument you felt like voicing. Yet despite my developing misgivings, I couldn't bring myself to devote the time to really study a book which I instinctively felt was flawed anyway.
Roll on twenty-odd years and the answer, well, to my prayers arrived and a catharsis in Bart D Ehrman's excellent Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why (AKA Whose Word is It? The Story Behind Who Changed the New Testament and Why)
We learn that in the early first century CE, stories were circulating about a man called Jesus who had recently died. These tales and accounts were told and re-told between folk for thirty-plus years until a man put paid to the accumulating effects of 'Chinese whispers' and wrote the first Gospel. He was Mark. Matthew and Luke came a generation or so after that, borrowing from various sources including an intriguing document called Q. The Gospels and many other writings were then copied by hand countless times (no printing presses then), translated, and copied again - a process that went on for several hundred years. Believe it or not the earliest surviving biblical text of any significant volume is no earlier than two centuries after Christ died. By the way, the Gospels were 'named' by the Church in the 3rd century too as they were in fact all written anonymously! Who like me thought some of them were actual Disciples? And who realised that the Bible wasn't fully formed until three hundred or so years after Christ died, a process which involved the rejection and destruction of unknown numbers of other Christian writings?
Then there was the imperfect science of manuscript copying, especially of the original Greek with its tricky characteristic of having no spaces between its words. And then we must consider the reliability of the Bible writers, copyists and translators who were in fact human, and being human had that tendency for error, bias and spin, which Ehrman ably evidences.
So most of us who have read the Bible and indeed those who quote it at will, are ultimately relying on a book which is an English translation of a Latin translation of a Greek copy of a myriad of other 'copies' of written interpretations of decades old local stories of a dead man named Jesus. Depending how blind your faith is will determine how accurate you think that two thousand year process has been.
One of the appeals with this book is the way Ehrman studiously informs and enlightens in such a non-judgemental way. He is respectful of the reader's potential religious beliefs and he doesn't ask you to 'choose a side'. Indeed, and notwithstanding a brief rundown of his Evangelical youth in the introduction, at no point does he let you know his own religious beliefs.
For a subject matter I anticipated to be arduous and heavy, all credit to Ehrman this book was a breeze to read.
Roll on twenty-odd years and the answer, well, to my prayers arrived and a catharsis in Bart D Ehrman's excellent Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why (AKA Whose Word is It? The Story Behind Who Changed the New Testament and Why)
We learn that in the early first century CE, stories were circulating about a man called Jesus who had recently died. These tales and accounts were told and re-told between folk for thirty-plus years until a man put paid to the accumulating effects of 'Chinese whispers' and wrote the first Gospel. He was Mark. Matthew and Luke came a generation or so after that, borrowing from various sources including an intriguing document called Q. The Gospels and many other writings were then copied by hand countless times (no printing presses then), translated, and copied again - a process that went on for several hundred years. Believe it or not the earliest surviving biblical text of any significant volume is no earlier than two centuries after Christ died. By the way, the Gospels were 'named' by the Church in the 3rd century too as they were in fact all written anonymously! Who like me thought some of them were actual Disciples? And who realised that the Bible wasn't fully formed until three hundred or so years after Christ died, a process which involved the rejection and destruction of unknown numbers of other Christian writings?
Then there was the imperfect science of manuscript copying, especially of the original Greek with its tricky characteristic of having no spaces between its words. And then we must consider the reliability of the Bible writers, copyists and translators who were in fact human, and being human had that tendency for error, bias and spin, which Ehrman ably evidences.
So most of us who have read the Bible and indeed those who quote it at will, are ultimately relying on a book which is an English translation of a Latin translation of a Greek copy of a myriad of other 'copies' of written interpretations of decades old local stories of a dead man named Jesus. Depending how blind your faith is will determine how accurate you think that two thousand year process has been.
One of the appeals with this book is the way Ehrman studiously informs and enlightens in such a non-judgemental way. He is respectful of the reader's potential religious beliefs and he doesn't ask you to 'choose a side'. Indeed, and notwithstanding a brief rundown of his Evangelical youth in the introduction, at no point does he let you know his own religious beliefs.
For a subject matter I anticipated to be arduous and heavy, all credit to Ehrman this book was a breeze to read.
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Accomplished Bibilical scholar that he is, Ehrman has written a useful and informative introduction to the current state of research on the origins of the books of the New Testament. While papyri continue to be discovered, and techniques of physical and literary analysis continue to improve, there is more to be learnt. His ending - even in reading the text we draw our own conclusions, so it's to be expected that those who transcribe it do the same - is surprisingly post-modern.
One could have wished for a clearer overview of where current research leaves the core beliefs, such as Jesus' claim to divinity, and the nature of the Trinity, and how it sheds light on issues such as the role of women in the Church. We can hope that his many years of study will bear fruit in a new version of the New Testament which takes account of his and his colleagues' findings. Meanwhile, read this before you're tempted to take a doctrinaire position.
One could have wished for a clearer overview of where current research leaves the core beliefs, such as Jesus' claim to divinity, and the nature of the Trinity, and how it sheds light on issues such as the role of women in the Church. We can hope that his many years of study will bear fruit in a new version of the New Testament which takes account of his and his colleagues' findings. Meanwhile, read this before you're tempted to take a doctrinaire position.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Whose Word is it? The Story behind Who Changed the New Testaaament and...
A most interesting book giving a well presented account of how The New Teatment was built over the centuries and explaining the circunstantial, political and theological changes... Read more
Published 9 months ago by Jm Sabugueiro
Proof that the bible is not innerant
This book is a must read for anyone who wants to learn about errors in the New Testament and how they came about. Read more
Published 15 months ago by Andrew Carruth
Is this your journey?
Most of what Ehrman offers is commendable and reliable. Precious little cannot be found in other places, most of it was being taught in colleges and universities in this country... Read more
Published 20 months ago by A. Gilmore
Will the real historical 'word' please stand up
What a brilliant little book.. Here is a seriously talented biblical scholar, of international repute, explaining how to read the biblical text using your brain. Read more
Published 22 months ago by C. J. Boorman
Author throws out the baby with the bathwater
Now, don't get me wrong, the Gospels do contain discrepancies and at time contradictory 'facts'. However, they were not written as historical documents and should not be treated as... Read more
Published 24 months ago by C. Bale
Who else?
WHO ELSE?
I am interested in religion, particularly from the comparative point of view. Its present day influence on human behaviour is evident. Read more
I am interested in religion, particularly from the comparative point of view. Its present day influence on human behaviour is evident. Read more
Published on 29 Jun 2009 by invictus
Chance, ideology and 'the word of God'
This is essentially an account of one Bible scholar's growing disenchantment with the concept of `inspiration' as applied to the New Testament (NT). Read more
Published on 3 Nov 2008 by Jeremy Bevan
Whose word? We don't exactly know ...
Accomplished Bibilical scholar that he is, Ehrman has written a useful and informative introduction to the current state of research on the origins of the books of the New... Read more
Published on 31 May 2007 by A. R. Drenth
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