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

While I don't agree with all his conclusions, this is a good introduction into what the New Testament is, where it came from, and why it's imperfect. ( )

Textual criticism. That's what this book about. Factually speaking, the Bible we have is not perfect--there are a range of errors and deliberate changes. The book takes a layman's approach to explaining how scholars compare differences in ancient manuscripts of the books of the Bible, and try to decide which parts were original and which parts were added later, deleted or otherwise changed. The types of changes may include scribal errors, or at times premeditated attempts to harmonize then current Biblical books with beliefs of the time period, or otherwise alter them in a way to diminish the scriptural basis of "heretical" beliefs. What's fascinating to me is the number of problems that arise form trying to explain the creed of the Trinity. The book's title is a little bit of bait. Yes there are important passages concerning Christ which probably were not in the original Bible books, but the majority of the book is about textual criticism in general. ( )

Ehrman submits a good case for showing that the words we attribute to Jesus today are likely not his words. And the actions we think he performed likely weren't his actions. And that in fact we know very, very little about what Jesus said and did. And what little we know is questionable. ( )

Bart D. Ehrman walks you through the complexities of textual criticism and the various ways that the New Testament Bible has been revised over thousands of years. This is a great to begin with when learning about textual criticism. Extensive knowledge of the Bible isn't necessary to appreciate this book, this is geared toward the layperson. ( )

This is the best book I've found on this subject. Since it's a huge field of theological study, everything I've ever come across is incredibly dense and accademic. This book was accessible and succinct in presenting its ideas, but became a slog as the author got deeper into the methods used to resolve inconsistencies in the bible., ( )