Yes Bart, We Know! (And Have Always Known!)
Bart Ehrman, a NT scholar from North Carolina University, Chapel Hill, has recently published a new book entitled, Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why. The book--for the most part--is a conglomeration of all the well-known textual critical issues in the NT. The question the book leaves me with at this point in my reading (about half-way through) is: Why did Ehrman write this book?
It seems Ehrman is making another attempt to rattle the evangelical world--to remind evangelicals that the Bible that they read is riddled with "problems." It would be difficult in this brief review to interact with the many textual and transmissional issues that Ehrman touches on. What I can do, however, is (briefly) interact with two thoughts from the back cover.
In Misquoting Jesus Ehrman reveals that:
- The King James Bible was based on corrupted and inferior manuscripts that in many cases do not accurately represent the meaning of the original text.
- The favorite Bible story of Jesus's forgiving the woman caught in adultery (John 8:3-11) doesn't belong in the Bible.
Guess what Bart...we know! We know the KJV and the Textus Receptus are "inferior." We know that John 8:3-11 may be a later gloss and that it's not included in the earliest of manuscripts! My questions is: So what?! Is the way of salvation offered in the gospel obscured by any of this? Not in the least!
My parting comment to Ehrman is for him to read Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament by Peter Enns.
