Note: This is an abbreviated review. The full review is also posted on bible.org.
Bart Ehrman is one of North America鈥檚 leading textual critics today. As a teacher and writer, he is logical, witty, provocative, and sometimes given to overstatement as well as arguments that are not sufficiently nuanced.
His most recent book, Misquoting Jesus, for the
Note: This is an abbreviated review. The full review is also posted on bible.org.
Bart Ehrman is one of North America鈥檚 leading textual critics today. As a teacher and writer, he is logical, witty, provocative, and sometimes given to overstatement as well as arguments that are not sufficiently nuanced.
His most recent book, Misquoting Jesus, for the most part is simply New Testament textual criticism 101. There are seven chapters with an introduction and conclusion. Most of the book (chs. 1鈥4) is simply a lay introduction to the field. According to Ehrman, this is the first book written on NT textual criticism (a discipline that has been around for nearly 300 years) for a lay audience.1
The book鈥檚 very title is a bit too provocative and misleading though: Almost none of the variants that Ehrman discusses involve sayings by Jesus! The book simply doesn鈥檛 deliver what the title promises.
But it sells well: since its publication on November 1, 2005, it has been near the top of Amazon鈥檚 list of titles. And since Ehrman appeared on two of NPR鈥檚 programs (the Diane Rehm Show and 鈥淔resh Air鈥 with Terry Gross)鈥攂oth within the space of one week鈥攊t has been in the top fifty sellers at Amazon.
For this brief review, just a few comments are in order.
There is nothing earth-shaking in the first four chapters of the book. Rather, it is in the introduction that we see Ehrman鈥檚 motive, and the last three chapters reveal his agenda. In these places he is especially provocative and given to overstatement and non sequitur.
In the introduction, Ehrman speaks of his evangelical background (Moody Bible Institute, Wheaton College), followed by his M.Div. and Ph.D. at Princeton Seminary. It was here that Ehrman began to reject some of his evangelical upbringing, especially as he wrestled with the details of the text of the New Testament.
The heart of the book is chapters 5, 6, and 7. Here Ehrman especially discusses the results of the findings in his major work, Orthodox Corruption of Scripture (Oxford, 1993). His concluding chapter closes in on the point that he is driving at in these chapters: 鈥淚t would be wrong鈥 to say鈥攁s people sometimes do鈥攖hat the changes in our text have no real bearing on what the texts mean or on the theological conclusions that one draws from them. We have seen, in fact, that just the opposite is the case.鈥2
Some of the chief examples of theological differences among the variants that Ehrman discusses are (1) a passage in which Jesus is said to be angry (Mark 1:41), (2) a text in which 鈥渆ven the Son of God himself does not know when the end will come鈥 (Matt 24:36), and (3) an explicit statement about the Trinity (1 John 5:7-8).3
Concerning the first text, a few ancient manuscripts speak of Jesus as being angry in Mark 1:41 while most others speak of him as having compassion. But in Mark 3:5 Jesus is said to be angry鈥攚ording that is indisputably in the original text of Mark. So it is hardly a revolutionary conclusion to see Jesus as angry elsewhere in this Gospel.
Regarding Matt 24:36, although many witnesses record Jesus as speaking of his own prophetic ignorance (鈥淏ut as for that day and hour no one knows it鈥攏either the angels in heaven, nor the Son鈥攅xcept the Father alone鈥), many others lack the words 鈥渘or the Son.鈥 Whether 鈥渘or the Son鈥 is authentic or not is disputed, but what is not disputed is the wording in the parallel in Mark 13:32鈥斺淏ut as for that day or hour no one knows it鈥攏either the angels in heaven, nor the Son鈥攅xcept the Father.鈥 Thus, there can be no doubt that Jesus spoke of his own prophetic ignorance in the Olivet Discourse. Consequently, what doctrinal issues are really at stake here?4 One simply cannot maintain that the wording in Matt 24:36 changes one鈥檚 basic theological convictions about Jesus since the same sentiment is found in Mark.
In other words, the idea that the variants in the NT manuscripts alter the theology of the NT is overstated at best.5 Unfortunately, as careful a scholar as Ehrman is, his treatment of major theological changes in the text of the NT tends to fall under one of two criticisms: Either his textual decisions are wrong, or his interpretation is wrong. These criticisms were made of his earlier work, Orthodox Corruption of Scripture, which Misquoting Jesus has drawn from extensively. Yet, the conclusions that he put forth there are still stated here without recognition of some of the severe criticisms of his work the first go-around. For a book geared toward a lay audience, one would think that he would want to have his discussion nuanced a bit more, especially with all the theological weight that he says is on the line. One almost gets the impression that he is encouraging the Chicken Littles in the Christian community to panic at data that they are simply not prepared to wrestle with. Time and time again in the book, highly charged statements are put forth that the untrained person simply cannot sift through. And that approach resembles more an alarmist mentality than what a mature, master teacher is able to offer. Regarding the evidence, suffice it to say that significant textual variants that alter core doctrines of the NT have not yet been produced.
Finally, regarding 1 John 5:7-8, virtually no modern translation of the Bible includes the 鈥淭rinitarian formula,鈥 since scholars for centuries have recognized it as added later. Only a few very late manuscripts have the verses. One wonders why this passage is even discussed in Ehrman鈥檚 book. The only reason seems to be to fuel doubts. The passage made its way into our Bibles through political pressure, appearing for the first time in 1522, even though scholars then and now knew that it is not authentic. The early church did not know of this text, yet the Council of Chalcedon in AD 451 affirmed explicitly the Trinity! How could they do this without the benefit of a text that didn鈥檛 get into the Greek NT for another millennium? Chalcedon鈥檚 statement was not written in a vacuum: the early church put into a theological formulation what they saw in the NT.
A distinction needs to be made here: just because a particular verse does not affirm a cherished doctrine does not mean that that doctrine cannot be found in the NT. In this case, anyone with an understanding of the healthy patristic debates over the Godhead knows that the early church arrived at their understanding from an examination of the data in the NT. The Trinitarian formula only summarized what they found; it did not inform their declarations.
In sum, Ehrman鈥檚 latest book does not disappoint on the provocative scale. But it comes up short on genuine substance about his primary contention. Scholars bear a sacred duty not to alarm lay readers on issues that they have little understanding of. Unfortunately, the average layperson will leave this book with far greater doubts about the wording and teachings of the NT than any textual critic would ever entertain. A good teacher doesn鈥檛 hold back on telling his students what鈥檚 what, but he also knows how to package the material so they don鈥檛 let emotion get in the way of reason. A good teacher does not create Chicken Littles.6