A Book Review: Misquoting Jesus by Bart Ehrman - The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why

I was an evangelical Christian for 7 years, then I left my religious faith to become an agnostic atheist. There are five defining doctrines for evangelical Christianity, AKA, the five “solas”. One of them, is called, Sola Scriptura. What is this? In English, it means “scripture alone”. A few definitions are being included in Sola Scriptura, but one of its definition clearly separates evangelical Christianity from its Catholic parents. What is it? It is the view, the Bible is sufficient to itself to be the final authority of the Christian doctrine. This can explain, why the evangelical Christians do not subscribe to apostolic tradition.

Where am I going with this? Feel free to read on, let me continue and explain why this is related to my book review.

After I left the evangelical church, I did not become an agnostic atheist straight away. No, I took some time and explored the more ancient churches, such as Catholicism and its Eastern brother. During that time I discovered, without apostolic tradition, the evangelical doctrine of Sola Scriptura is unsustainable and unfounded. I realized, subscribing to Sola Scriptura can lead to inconsistencies in Christianity, landing the Christian faith on a shaky ground. (Here I will refer to a book called, “Born Fundamentalist, Born Again Catholic”, authored by David Currie). 

However, my intention here is not to expounding the merit and the demerit in apostolic tradition and Sola Scriptura. No, I am here to review a book, written by Professor Bart Ehrman, and it is called “Misquoting Jesus – The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why”.

What is the connection between Professor Ehrman's book and the contents of the above paragraphs? Well, evangelical Christianity claims, the Bible is sufficient to itself to be the final authority of Christian doctrine. Meanwhile, all Christians claim the Bible is “without fault”. But what if the Bible we have today has deviated from its “originals”, because in the thousand years of its transmission, it was changed, modified, and have some verses/words added and removed from it, by the people who copied it? If this is true, then which copied manuscripts are self sufficient and without fault? All of them? But what if some copies of the manuscripts show remarkable differences to other copies, in terms of its theology and historical descriptions? If this is true, then what do descriptions such as,"without fault' and "self sufficient", even mean for the Bible?

Ok, one may argue, even if the scribes made some unintentional/intentional changes here and there in the manuscripts, it still wouldn't affect the general thrust of Christianity. If this is what you think, then you NEED to read Misquoting Jesus. You see, scholars have closely examined the surviving Bible manuscripts. The manuscripts are usually dated to centuries after the time of Jesus, and scholars found ten thousands of variations in them. While it is true that most of these changes are insignificant, but others do affect Christianity remarkably; sometimes the changes set Christian theology on a very different course, while other times the changes lead to contradictions in narrated events. This book talks about all these changes in details. Yet, the best thing about Misquoting Jesus is that Professor Ehrman digs deeply under the surface. He doesn't just show you the changes that were made to the Bible. No, Professor Ehrman employed textual criticism and reconstructed what the “originals” probably looked like, then he examined the changes in its historical context, and finally showing us “who” changed the Bible and "why" they changed it. 

I enjoyed reading Misquoting Jesus, it is like a piece of detective work. On a deeper level, I think this book also reminded us, just like the human scribes who physically changed the Bible, every generation of Christians are also changing the Bible every time they read it; they are re-interpreting the words in the Bible, to see how those words might make sense to their own situations in life, 

A personal note, I found this book valuable because I realized, without all these changes, the Bible probably wouldn't sound as good as the preachers made it out to be. 

Postscript 1:

Here I will provide an example to demonstrate the problem of Sola Scriptura: 

The doctrine of trinity, where does the Bible say God is EXACTLY three? 

Let me put it this way; suppose I tell you, there is a TV, a bookcase, and a bed in my home. Without adding or removing information, how can you conclude that I ONLY have those 3 items in my home and nothing more?  

If Sola Scriptura is to be employed with integrity, then the logical conclusion should produce the doctrine of AT LEAST TRINITY. So where did the doctrine of trinity come from? From the ancient church tradition! The scripture alone is "not sufficient" to justify this core Christian doctrine. I have no vested interest at debating which church tradition should be included, but I think there are other reasons to take an interest in the doctrine of trinity. What sort reasons? It will become more apparent, if you read Bart Ehrman's Misquoting Jesus and his other book, How Jesus Became God, where you will find the fascinating history behind the conception for trinity.

Postscript 2:

This is a tangent to Misquoting Jesus. While apostolic tradition stabilizes the Catholic and Eastern churches from the shakiness produced by Sola Scriptura, but these ancient churches face a different challenge - they need to demonstrate that apostolic tradition, passed down orally, has never changed in 2000 years. Personally, I think it is very difficult to justify this claim. 

Until the next time, happy reading!