MISQUOTING JESUS

Ehrman, Bart. D

Call no: 225.486 EHR

When I borrowed this book, I thought it'd be another religious mumbo jumbo extolling the virtues of God no matter what others say.

I was delightfully pleased (and consequently educated) about this whole thing called the Bible and particularly The New Testament. Jesus has been misquoted through this sure bad habit of his of not putting things down. If only he had a blog then all this interpretation would not have been put into existence

Basically, so Bart says, Christians were an uneducated lot. The falungong of yesteryear. But Jesus came from the Judaic tradition where text is so very important. So his apostles were asked to spread the message. Most of the apostles were basically uneducated and dictated to scribes, who except for the Alexandrians (Alexander being a centre of learning at the time) could hardly write. (!!!). Bart cites instances of how some Egyptian scribes were practising to write their own names. So lotsa mistakes. And then there were the interpretations. So Mark and Luke borrowed mainly from the records of Matthew. Luke particularly liked his Jesus soft and changed scenarios and added things to make the guy a softee... then there were others who were against other schools of thought about Jesus as the son of God, either in spiritual form, or as a part of God manifested as a human. And so on.

Won't go into the details. Read it for yourself. It's enlightening and makes you wonder about the Bible, and people who swear by it. For what are they swearing? Surely, not the word of God, but by the words of people with their varied religious interpretations.

Bart himself used to be a conservative christian,but after writing this book, he himself begins to wonder. A great point for textual analysts. What a wonderful branch of study.

" the scribes... changed scripture the way we all change scripture, every time we read it. For they, like we, were trying to understand what the authors wrote while also trying to see how the words of the authors' texts might have significance for them, and how they might help them make sense of their own situations and their own lives".

Highly recommended. I can see why it's a New York Times Bestseller.