Misquoting Jesus by Bart D. Ehrman

First published: New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 2005

Genre(s): Nonfiction

Subgenre(s): Church history; critical analysis

Core issue(s): The Bible; Gospels; scriptures; the Word

Overview

Misquoting Jesus is both Bart D. Ehrman’s spiritual autobiography and an introduction to textual criticism of the New Testament. The same quest for certainty that drew the teenaged Ehrman to “born-again Christianity” and faith in “verbal, plenary inspiration” of the Bible ultimately led him to believe that the New Testament is essentially a “human” book—written, copied, translated, and interpreted by human beings.

Ehrman initially describes the process and problems associated with formation of the early Christian canon, pointing out the role of liturgy and the need to refute early heretics and pagan critics. Demonstrating that Christianity, like Judaism, is a “textually oriented religion,” Ehrman illustrates problems of textual reliability confronting the church of the first three centuries, when few members were fully literate and most copyists were not professional scribes. Some difficulties arose from the scripto continua Greek manuscript style (which used no punctuation, no distinction between uppercase and lowercase letters, and no spacing between words); in other instances, entire passages appear to have been added in an attempt to incorporate additional stories that were part of a parallel Christian tradition.

While praising accurate copying by some early scribes (those in Alexandria), Eherman observes that truly professional copying became the norm only after the conversion of Roman emperor Constantine. Near the end of the fourth century, the Greek manuscripts were translated into an official Latin version known as the Vulgate (Common) Bible. Until the fifteenth century, texts continued to be copied in two versions: Greek (Byzantine) in the East and Latin (Vulgate) in the West. While there soon were fifty printed editions of the Vulgate, a printed Greek version was not attempted until the early sixteenth century. In the most influential Greek text (1516), Erasmus attempted to reconcile available Greek manuscripts but sometimes resorted to translating the Vulgate back into Greek. His five editions continued to be the standard Greek text for three hundred years.

Modern textual criticism began when Oxford scholar John Mill collated approximately one hundred early manuscripts into a Greek text with variant readings in a “critical apparatus.” Mill’s text exacerbated existing controversies concerning the scriptures’ reliability as a doctrinal guide. Modern textual critics have cataloged more than fifty-seven hundred Greek manuscripts (four basic types) and ten thousand Vulgate manuscripts. From this evidence, scholars attempt to reconstruct the earliest versions and explain changes. Ehrman devotes a chapter to contributions of important eighteenth and nineteenth century pioneers and another to describing modern methods of textual criticism. Examining specific examples of variations, he outlines the use of external and internal evidence to determine not only the earliest version but also likely reasons for changes.

Analyzing what he considers scribes’ deliberate changes, Ehrman focuses on their relationship to a second and third century theological issue: the divine and human natures of Christ. He asserts that most changes served to advance what he calls the “proto-orthodox” view of Jesus as fully human and fully divine, and he cites examples of several passages modified to refute major heresies.

Probably the book’s most controversial chapter, “The Social Worlds of the Text,” details the theological implications of the changes Ehrman has described, specifically as they reflect early Christian attitudes toward Jews, pagans, and women. Ehrman believes that early Christians had to portray as “recalcitrant and blind” those Jews who rejected Christianity; this antipathy continued for several centuries. Discussing Christians’ interaction with pagan communities (neither Jewish nor Christian), Ehrman explains the causes and extent of religious persecution; many long-held church traditions he debunks as myths. Concerning the ongoing disagreement about women’s status in the Church, he observes at least two Gospels indicating that Jesus’ female disciples “alone remained faithful to him at the end, when the male disciples had fled,” and he sees special significance in the fact that according to all four Gospel accounts, Mary Magdalene, alone or with other women, was the first to be told of the Resurrection. Ehrman carefully examines the role of women in the early church, concluding that several textual changes have minimized contributions of women such as Phoebe, Prisca, and Julia—in fact apparently changing the name of one “apostle” from the common female name Junia to a masculine form for which “there is no evidence in the ancient world.”

In the concluding chapter, Ehrman returns to discussion of his personal quest and its resolution. After years spent analyzing, collating, and interpreting early manuscripts, Ehrman still believes in the validity of searching for the “original” New Testament text, but he has also come to believe that this is “a very human book,” influenced by attitudes and limitations of the original writers as well as those of later scribes. He concludes with a position akin to reader-response literary criticism, seeing accurate interpretation as a personal interaction between reader and work.

Christian Themes

Ehrman’s view of textual critics as detectives piecing together manuscript clues is obvious throughout Misquoting Jesus. His careful examination and collation of multiple manuscript fragments reflect his undergraduate training as an English major; adapting tools of literary analysis to study of early manuscripts, he examines these for linguistic clues and reflections of cultural attitudes. Like literary scholars, he attempts to make obscure texts accessible to interested readers.

From the outset, the central issue for Ehrman is the inerrancy of the scriptures. This book records his quest for a text that his reason will allow him to accept as divinely inspired. Beginning with a belief that the Bible is literally the product of word-by-word inspiration (verbal, plenary inspiration), Ehrman confronted the problem of textual differences, an especially thorny issue since no extant manuscript can be identified as the “original” or even a direct copy of the original.

A major function of textual critics is to examine existing manuscripts and attempt to distinguish the most authentic. The first task is to address the claims of various “gospels” and other narratives, then to determine why some were included in the canon while others were excluded. This process of evaluation and explanation requires that each be reviewed in terms of numerous heresies confronting the early church.

Even after the “orthodox” canon was generally accepted, however, manuscript versions of that canon continued to differ. Ehrman classifies these variations as copying errors or intentional changes. Although he does not enumerate many copying errors, his explanation of how they occurred seems plausible. Nevertheless, for Erdman the existence of even minor copying errors seems to cast doubt on the doctrine of verbal, plenary inspiration.

Accurately assessing Ehrman’s discussion of scribes’ intentional changes requires more knowledge of biblical Greek than the average reader is likely to possess. Because his intent is illustrative rather than persuasive, Ehrman cites relatively few examples of changes made to address heresies and other theological controversies. His discussions are detailed, but although these explanations seem reasonable, even cursory research suggests that some biblical scholars disagree.

A major concern for Ehrman is the implications of these variations for modern readers of the canon. Though unwilling to dismiss the idea of searching for the “original” text, he has come to regard the Scriptures as “a very human book,” in which individual writers made conscious editorial decisions in much the same way scribes and modern readers have made decisions about interpretation. In effect, then, Ehrman concludes that probably the most positive effect of textual criticism is that it leads to tolerance of multiple scriptural interpretations and acceptance of Christian diversity.

Sources for Further Study

Ehrman, Bart D. Lost Christianities: Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Extended discussion of issues raised in Misquoting Jesus, providing detailed analysis of specific forgeries, discoveries, heresies, and orthodoxies.

Komoszewski, J., et al. Reinventing Jesus: What “The Da Vinci Code” and Other Novel Speculations Don’t Tell You. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Kregel, 2006. More orthodox religious scholars provide an opposing interpretation, answering most of Ehrman’s major textual objections.

Metzer, Bruce M. The Canon of the New Testament: Its Origin, Develoment, and Significance. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1997. Described by Ehrman as the standard authoritative scholarly account of canonical development and extensively cited by other scholars.

Meyer, Marvin. The Gnostic Discoveries: The Impact of the Nag Hammadi Library. New York: HarperCollins, 2005. Overview and analysis of papyrus manuscripts discovered in Egypt in 1945, emphasizing significance for modern readers.

Pagels, Elaine. The Gnostic Gospels. New York: Random House, 1979. Analytical study of diversity in early Christianity, emphasizing Gnostic interaction with orthodoxy and implications for studying Christianity’s origins.

Robinson, James M., ed. The Nag Hammadi Library in English. 3d rev. ed. New York: HarperCollins, 1988. One-volume translation of papyrus manuscripts discovered in Egypt, edited by the Institute for Antiquity and Christianity.