In his book, “Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why ,” Bart Ehrman, Professor of Religious Studies at UNC, Chappel Hill, argued that the Bible was mistranslated by scribes during translation. The fact that Bible was not the word of God, but a human creation had huge ramifications for his faith; he left it. Besides this books, Ehrman, a former evangelical, is also known for his various debates on topics like Did the Bible misquote Jesus? or Is the Resurrection of Christ Provable?
Now he has a new book Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible in which he talks about what happened before the scribes got the texts which they mistranslated.
It seems Ehrman’s main aim is to introduce biblical scholarship to a popular audience so as to reveal that fundamentalist biblicism doesn’t make sense. This argument will appear to theological liberals (and some moderates) and to the broad secular audience that is fascinated by religion. Few can explain biblical scholarship to a broad audience as effectively as Bart Ehrman does. But marketing makes all the difference. As scholars, Allison and Ehrman are reaching mostly the same conclusions with nearly identical methodologies. Yet consider Ehrman’s dust cover: “Jesus, Paul, Matthew, and John all expressed fundamentally different religions.” [Jesus, Research, and Faith: Bart Ehrman and Dale Allison]
Here is another review
I highly recommend Ehrman’s book as a readable overview presenting information about the Bible and early Christianity that ought by now to be common knowledge. The reason it is not probably is due largely to the belief that such critical study of the Bible it antithetical to the Christian faith, and that the appropriate Christian stance is to affirm the Bible’s inerrancy rather than allow one’s view of the Bible and other matters to be shaped by the Bible’s actual contents. [Review of Bart Ehrman, Jesus, Interrupted]
This book is currently ranked 11th in the New York Times best seller list.
See Also: Transcripts of Erhman’s recent debates .
