Misquoting Jesus by Bart D. Ehrman

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Brian Johnston
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Re: Misquoting Jesus by Bart D. Ehrman

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flowerdrops wrote:A new monk arrived at the monastery. He was assigned to help the other monks in copying the old texts by hand. He noticed, however, that they were copying copies, not the original books. The new monk went to the head monk to ask him about this. He pointed out that if there were an error in the first copy, that error would be continued in all of the other copies.
Dr. Ehrman talks about a funny manuscript (can't remember if the story is in this book or another of his). Something similar to this actually happened. A young monk took it upon himself to alter a NT passage in the copy he was making, changing a couple words so they made better sense (perhaps he did research). The transcription supervisor at the monastery scribbled a scathing condemnation in the margin of the page, writing "Thou fool! Hellfire awaits you for your arrogance and stupidity, trying to change God's holy word..." or something like that.

It turns out that in reality, that monastery had been copying an error in the text, under the direction of that supervisor, for years. It made the meaning of the passage different. The junior monk's correction was right, being more authentic to the chain of earlier manuscripts.
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SamBee
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Re: Misquoting Jesus by Bart D. Ehrman

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If I remember right this move is all about a group of tribal Africans trying to understand modern civilization. (a glass bottle, which they thought was a gift from God, was tossed from an airplane flying overhead, and their discovery of it caused eventual contention among the tribe until they decided to return it) Great movie!
A South African film, from around about the apartheid era. A bushman (pygmy) picks up a Coke bottle and is observed by bemused whites. Funny at the time, but somewhat dated.
DASH1730 "An Area Authority...[was] asked...who...would go to the Telestial kingdom. His answer: "murderers, adulterers and a lot of surprised Mormons!"'
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DevilsAdvocate
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Re: Misquoting Jesus by Bart D. Ehrman

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jamison wrote:I don't think Misquoting Jesus is a must read for everybody...I agree with a lot of what Ehrman says because it is logical and makes sense, however, I do not believe everything he says because (1) everything is arguable (he's an academic)...Too many academics and philosophers out in the world will commit the straw-man argument where if they find a flaw here, and a flaw there, they will say the whole thing is hogwash. Never, never do that-you discredit yourself by doing so, and will lose more than you will gain.
I agree with jamison, I don't think this book is necessarily for everyone because I think it is somewhat misleading as far exaggerating the relative importance of some of these scriptural changes plus I don't know how interesting it would be to anyone that isn't already fairly familiar with the New Testament. The real story here is that these differences in the manuscripts were a big deal to Bart Ehrman mostly because he became a "born-again" evangelical Christian as a teenager so he already started out with the questionable expectation that the Bible was supposed to be the inerrant and completely inspired "word of God." One problem with this notion is that the Bible was written long before the printing press and copyright laws so even if the original authors were "inspired" there was no guarantee that the scribes that copied these books would preserve the same message over time.

Certainly Ehrman did his homework to investigate this "inerrancy" claim by learning Greek, Latin, Hebrew, etc. and comparing many different early manuscripts using a specialized discipline of educated guesswork known as "textual criticism" to try to determine which versions of the text were probably original and which were probably changes or mistakes. Once he started to see the differences not only between the copies but in the overall story told by Luke, John, Mark, Paul, etc. he started to think of the Bible as a "very human book" and later completely gave up on having any faith in God due to what he saw as an even bigger challenge to the idea of God: the notorious "problem of evil."

Personally, I think Ehrman's personal de-conversion as well as the provocative title have more to do with this book's relative popularity as a best-seller than the actual contents of the book. Most of this isn't really newly discovered information but my guess is that a secular world loves the idea of an agnostic expert Bible scholar telling people that the Bible is full of errors and can't be trusted. However, Ehrman's mentor Bruce Metzger who he dedicated this book to also knew about these same kinds of differences in the manuscripts and was still Christian and thought these differences didn't really discredit any central Christian beliefs such as the resurrection.

I guess I just don't understand why it should all have to be the literally inspired and inerrant word of God to begin with? Why can't it just be an inspiring historical story that these people tried to write and preserve to the best of their own understanding and ability? For example, Ehrman claims that the story of the woman caught in the act of adultery (John 8:3-11) supposedly doesn't belong in the Bible because it wasn't in some of the "earliest and best" manuscripts. However, it was also inserted in different locations in some Bible manuscripts so some scholars think it was simply part of the oral tradition about Jesus so then scribes wanted to include it somewhere. If that's the case then I think it definitely belongs in the Bible just as much if not more than the books of Moses and many other stories already in the Bible.
Last edited by DevilsAdvocate on 25 Oct 2010, 09:19, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Misquoting Jesus by Bart D. Ehrman

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I guess I just don't understand why it should all have to be the literally inspired and inerrant word of God to begin with? Why can't it just be an inspiring historical story that these people tried to write and preserve to the best of their own understanding and ability?


Well said.
I see through my glass, darkly - as I play my saxophone in harmony with the other instruments in God's orchestra. (h/t Elder Joseph Wirthlin)

Even if people view many things differently, the core Gospel principles (LOVE; belief in the unseen but hoped; self-reflective change; symbolic cleansing; striving to recognize the will of the divine; never giving up) are universal.

"For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong." H. L. Mencken
Roy
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Re: Misquoting Jesus by Bart D. Ehrman

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I just finished this book and would like to leave some thoughts to this great review.

My first thoughts were how this applied to Mormonism through the BOM and JST.
Euhemerus wrote:
SamBee wrote:
I would love to see Ehrman's analysis of the JST Bible. I suspect he would dismiss it as not that great a translation.
The JST isn't a translation of the existing manuscripts, it's either supposedly an explanation of what's really meant, or a revelation of what the original said, IMHO.
That's correct. I thought I made that clear. That's why I think Ehrman would find it unimpressive. Joseph was not being a textual critic but a revelator.
Essentially JS carried over the scribal errors or additions over to the parallel BOM verses and failed to ferret them out in the JST. Let's look at an example:

The ending of the Lord's Prayer as found in 3 Nephi 13:13 reads "For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen." This phrase, called the doxology, is missing from early manuscripts of Matthew 6:13 but is included in the King James Version of the Bible. Most scholars believe it was added between 70AD and 400AD. Why did JS add it to the BOM story if it wasn't found in the earliest text of Matthew? FAIR reasons that perhaps the doxology was spoken by Jesus and was inadvertently left out by Matthew or perhaps Jesus did not use the doxology in Israel but did when he repeated his words in the Americas. I find it to be a mind bending coincidence that the addition of the doxology by well meaning scribes many decades (possibly centuries) after the death of Jesus could actually be a restoration of Jesus' original words (in either continent.)

I have my own semi-plausible justification of this phenomenon.

1) Perhaps JS recorded from visionary experiences that he saw in his mind’s eye and had to use his own wording (heavily influenced by his available environment [that included the KJV of the Bible]) to describe it. Lucy Mack Smith reported that JS told the Smith families amazing stories of the ancient inhabitants (as though he had lived among them) before he was allowed to take possession of the plates. That knowledge could have come from yearly tutorial sessions that JS had with Moroni, Nephi, and other angels or he could have traveled in vision/dream to the time and place of the Nephites and witnessed events unfold with his own eyes. Later when he had the task of writing it down, he would describe it in words that he was familiar with - the wording and phrasing of the KJV of the Bible complete with centuries of transcription errors and alterations.

2) It is also possible that JS recognized that a particular passage was quoting from the bible and then looked it up to quote word for word – thus including the mistakes and errors of the KJV in the quotation. This might have been a shortcut from receiving the entire passage from revelation. This also could stem from a desire to harmonize the Biblical and LDS accounts. If the BoM versions of the scriptures differed from the biblical account this might have been a stumbling block to new converts and given fodder to JS's critics.

I should note that neither of these theories account for JS claiming to see actual words and phrases from the peepstone in the hat. If the wording is not of Joseph but instead comes from the peepstone then we are again stuck wondering why the ancient American record contains errors that are known to have come from the manuscript history in the eastern continent at a later date (i.e. 70AD - 400AD)

However given that I have at least plausible explanations for how this could have happened, I am content to lay this issue of anachronistic phrasing on the shelf. It does not bother me too terribly much at this point.

My much bigger issue is JS seems to retroactively inserting 19th century Christianity into ancient texts. The BOM is not a very good handbook for modern Mormon beliefs (our beliefs and teaching have evolved mightily since the time it was written). The BOM is not a very good handbook for pre-christian beliefs precisely because it injects 19th century Christian beliefs into time periods where they do not belong. The BoM is entirely too Christian for its supposed ancient origen! Ehrman spends a fair amount of time discussing changes that were made to the biblical text in order to make Jesus seem more in control, more fully divine, more believable as a Savior of the world (the original gospel of Mark paints Jesus in the most human light as a tragic figure). JS continues in this tradition by adding a parallel work where Jesus is unquestionably divine.

Was Jesus divine? Is He a demi-god? Is He God? The writing in the gospels is somewhat ambiguous on this point and gives plenty of room for contradictory interpretations. One theory that eventually became orthodox was the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. Some bible translators were so motivated in their search for evidence of the Trinity in the bible that they literally added it into 1 John 5:7-8. All that fuss over two tiny verses. JS went two giant leaps further and added the doctrine of the Trinity and the Godhood of Jesus into the narrative over and over again:

2 Nephi 11:7 “For if there be no Christ there be no God; and if there be no God we are not, for there could have been no creation. But there is a God, and he is Christ, and he cometh in the fulness of his own time.”
2 Nephi 31:21 ".And now, behold, this is the doctrine of Christ, and the only and true doctrine of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, which is one God, without end. Amen.”
Alma 11:44
3 Ne. 11:27
3 Ne. 11:36
3 Ne. 20:35
3 Ne. 28:10-11
Morm. 7:7
Morm 3:21 "Jesus, whom they slew, was the very Christ and the very God."
D & C 20:28 "Which Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are one God, infinite and eternal, without end. Amen."
JST Luke 10:22 “And no man knoweth that the Son is the Father, and the Father is the Son, but him to whom the Son will reveal it”
JST 1 Tim. 2:4 “which is in Christ Jesus, who is the only begotten Son of God, and ordained to be a Mediator between God and man; who is one God and hath power over all men”

The original 1830 copy of the BoM was even more explicit in emphasizing Godhood.
 And he said unto me, Behold, the virgin whom thou seest is the mother of God, after the manner of the flesh.(1830)
 And he said unto me, Behold, the virgin whom thou seest is the mother of the Son of God. (1 Nephi 11:18) (1837 and current version)
 And the angel said unto me, behold the Lamb of God, even the Eternal Father! (1830)
 And the angel said unto me, behold the Lamb of God, even the Son of the Eternal Father! (1 Nephi 11:21) (1837 and current version)
 These last records…shall make known to all kindreds, tongues, and people, that the Lamb of God is the Eternal Father and the Savior of the world. (1830)
 These last records…shall make known to all kindreds, tongues, and people, that the Lamb of God is the Son of the Eternal Father and the Savior of the world. (1 Nephi 13:40) (1837 and current version)
In summary, the divine nature of Jesus was not exactly clear in the original bible manuscripts. This prompted some bible translators and transcribers to make alterations to clarify, emphasize, or just insert the divinity of Jesus into the narrative. JS created a parallel story that clarified, emphasized, and inserted the divinity of Jesus into the narrative times 10.

In "Misquoting Jesus" Ehrman gives an overview of the historical environment in which many of the manuscript changes were being made. It was their way of adapting the scriptures to their current environment. Many of the alterations were expedient to fight against divergent "heretical" interpretations. JS appears to have done this in his parallel work of the BoM as well. In the day of JS there were many strong differences of opinion on issues that the bible did not seem to clarify. The BoM staked a theological position on almost all of these 19th century "controversies."

Antebellum Clergyman Alexander Campbell wrote of this trend in his critical review of the Book of Mormon in 1831:
This prophet Smith, through his stone spectacles, wrote on the plates of Nephi, in his book of Mormon, every error and almost every truth discussed in New York for the last ten years. He decides all the great controversies;—infant baptism, ordination, the trinity, regeneration, repentance, justification, the fall of man, the atonement, transubstantiation, fasting, penance, church government, religious experience, the call to the ministry, the general resurrection, eternal punishment, who may baptize, and even the question of free masonary [sic], republican government, and the rights of man (Millennial Harbinger, February 1831, p. 93).
This to me is much more difficult to surmount. Sure, Joseph might have applied a 19th century term such as "compass" or "steel" to describe an ancient tool or material of similar purpose. Sure, Joseph might have pulled KJV bible passages (complete with errors) into the BoM "translation". But now we are talking about themes and content. Is it reasonable to suppose that ancient Nephites just happened to have all the answers to the questions that vexed the antebellum religious communities in the 1800's? This leads me to conclude that the BoM was written in and for the people of the 1800's. I personally believe that JS (aided by inspiration and other sources) developed the BoM.
"It is not so much the pain and suffering of life which crushes the individual as it is its meaninglessness and hopelessness." C. A. Elwood

“It is not the function of religion to answer all the questions about God’s moral government of the universe, but to give one courage, through faith, to go on in the face of questions he never finds the answer to in his present status.” TPC: Harold B. Lee 223

"I struggle now with establishing my faith that God may always be there, but may not always need to intervene" Heber13
Roy
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Re: Misquoting Jesus by Bart D. Ehrman

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Roy wrote:This leads me to conclude that the BoM was written in and for the people of the 1800's. I personally believe that JS (aided by inspiration and other sources) developed the BoM.
This conclusion does not force me to necessarily abandon Mormonism. In his final chapter Ehrman makes the case that the first Christians themselves were adapting the scriptures and Jesus story to their environment from the beginning. Christians adopted the Jewish scriptures (with their own Christian slant) "to gain credibility in a world that cherished what was ancient but suspected anything "recent" as a dubious novelty, Christians continued to point to the scriptures - those ancient texts of the Jews - as the foundation for their own beliefs." P. 189 Perhaps JS was in the same boat as those early Christians in tying his new faith to ancient records. I have heard the scriptures that JS produced compared to Midrash.
Midrash is a method of interpreting biblical stories that goes beyond simple distillation of religious, legal, or moral teachings. It fills in gaps left in the biblical narrative regarding events and personalities that are only hinted at.
The purpose of midrash was to resolve problems in the interpretation of difficult passages of the text of the Hebrew Bible, using Rabbinic principles of hermeneutics and philology to align them with the religious and ethical values of religious teachers.
"Misquoting Jesus" helps me to see how blurry the line between Midrash and full fledged scripture can be.
The more that I reflected on these matters, the more I began to see that the authors of the New Testament were very much like the scribes who would later transmit those authors' writings. The authors too were human beings with needs, beliefs, worldviews, opinions, loves, hates, longings, desires, situations, problems - and surely all these things affected what they wrote. Moreover, in an even more tangible way these authors were like the later scribes. They too were Christians who had inherited traditions about Jesus and his teachings, who had learned about the Christian message of salvation, who had come to believe the truth of the gospel - and they too passed along the traditions in their writings. What is striking once one sees them for the human beings they were, with their own beliefs, worldviews, situations, and so on, is that all these authors passed along the tradition they inherited in different words. Matthew, in fact is not exactly like Mark. P. 211-212
Given that Matthew and Luke used Mark as source material for their own gospel accounts...
It is possible to compare what Mark says with what Matthew and/or Luke say, in any story shared between them; and by doing so, one can see how Mark was changed by these later authors. P. 212
Each of these authors was human, each of them had a different message, each of them was putting the tradition he inherited into his own words. Each of them, in a sense, was changing the "texts" he inherited. P. 215
Joseph could have been doing the same as all religion makers through the ages. In this sense, perhaps he was acting in a sort of "prophet" capacity after all.
"It is not so much the pain and suffering of life which crushes the individual as it is its meaninglessness and hopelessness." C. A. Elwood

“It is not the function of religion to answer all the questions about God’s moral government of the universe, but to give one courage, through faith, to go on in the face of questions he never finds the answer to in his present status.” TPC: Harold B. Lee 223

"I struggle now with establishing my faith that God may always be there, but may not always need to intervene" Heber13
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Re: Misquoting Jesus by Bart D. Ehrman

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I have said for a long time that I see Joseph as a "visionary man" (with all that implies, both positive and negative) and that I see the Book of Mormon as modern midrash (with all that implies, both positive and negative).

That view allows me to see him as fully human, and, importantly, it allows me understand the idea of him having his name associated with both good and evil differently than most members - as truly a prophetic statement about HIM and not just about others and how they would react to him. It allows me to love him for all the amazing things he taught and accomplished without having to deify him - and gives me the foundation to not accept and even reject some of what he did and taught.
I see through my glass, darkly - as I play my saxophone in harmony with the other instruments in God's orchestra. (h/t Elder Joseph Wirthlin)

Even if people view many things differently, the core Gospel principles (LOVE; belief in the unseen but hoped; self-reflective change; symbolic cleansing; striving to recognize the will of the divine; never giving up) are universal.

"For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong." H. L. Mencken
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