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

If you read the reviews written in the Barnes and Noble website, you'll probably see three types of review:

1. The smart ass academic or pseudoacademic who says the book isn't that good anyway
2. The fundamentalist Christian appalled at the idea of someone doubting the infallibility of the Bible
3. Your average Joe that finds the book quite interesting

In my case, I could be a #1 considering that I'm both a smart ass and an academic (or so I like to think). In the case ofMisquoting Jesus Cover biblical stuff, I'm more like a #3. I wouldn't say it is the best book I have ever read, but it is a good book in three aspects.

The first aspect is readability. In this case, it is a short and entertaining book. Ehrman doesn't go into unnecessary details on how textual criticism is conducted, but gives you an idea of how gruesome the process can be. Additionally, the side story of how he converted from a fundie believer in biblical literalism to an agnostic (or if you prefer an "atheist without balls" as Stephen Colbert called him) is both interesting and a little sad.

The second aspect is in the delivery of the goods. Some of the B&N reviewers complained that "Misquoting Jesus" is a misnomer, but I disagree. In several instances he mentions how the things that Jesus [supposedly] said were changed by scribes or even by the gospel authors (yes Luke, you know what you did). In this case the subtitle "The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why" is more revealing. This is because he tells us some of the more common reasons to make mistakes transcribing ancient texts (reason #1: no Microsoft Word, heck! not even Gutenberg Print). People got distracted, people got tired, others weren't very good at neither reading nor writing yet were considered literate in a time when a very small percentage of people knew how to read or write. And sometimes they changed stuff to meet their beliefs (just like some people overlook the fact that Rick Ankiel probably used HGH because they like him). In this sense the book is revealing because he is not talking about conspiracy theories (sorry DaVinci Code fans) but about how incredibly human is this supposedly divine book.

Finally it provides a little perspective into what was going on during those early days of Christianity. Just like there are many interpretations these days, there were many interpretations in those days (and some way too odd). In a way the bible instead of being inspired, evolved for many many years until some loosely unified theology arose in which most could agree (Jesus is God, God is Jesus, both are the Holy Ghost…and nobody thinks it is a little schizophrenic?). I also used the word evolved combined with bible to piss off the intelligent designers out there.

Why I recommend this book? Because of the reasons stated above and because if it wasn't for this book, we would need to read all the scholarship out there and maybe even learn Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Coptic, Aramaic, and whatever. Also, because it is pissing off fundies everywhere.