Misquoting Jesus

Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why

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.

Biblical Scholar Bart Ehrman's book explores how scribes -- through both omission and intention -- changed the Bible.

Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why is the result of years of reading the texts in their original languages.

Ehrman says the modern Bible was shaped by mistakes and intentional alterations that were made by early scribes who copied the texts.

In the introduction to Misquoting Jesus, Ehrman writes that when he came to understand this process 30 years ago, it shifted his way of thinking about the Bible. He had been raised as an Evangelical Christian.

Dr. Ehrman is chairman of the religious studies department at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill.

Dr. Bart D Ehrman' lecture at Stanford University April 25, 2007

"Misquoting Jesus: Scribes Who Altered Scripture and Readers Who May Never Know," a textual criticism of Biblical manuscript tampering by Bart Ehrman, Professor or Religious Studies of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=397006836098752165&hl=en&fmt=18

Included is this torrent are PDF and mp3's of Book as well as an NPR interview mp3, from Dec 14, 2005, where Dr. Ehrman discusses this book.