What fascinated me about religious nuts is how convinced
they are in the holiness of the objects involved in their religion. For example,
Christians insisting that the Bible is straight from God to us. Which is
ridiculous, the amount of time that it’s been around and the fact that it was
written by HUMANS means that it is definitely not totally divine.
This book is about exactly that, the origins of the Bible
and how and why it has changed since then. In the days before the printing
press, scribes would copy the Bible by hand, word for word. And that means that
mistakes entered, both accidentally and on purpose.
The great thing about Ehrman’s work though is that he puts
it all in a personal context. The book opens with him talking about how he came
into the church and became fascinated by Bible studies. And how he eventually
learned to reject his religious training that the Bible was the direct work of
God through those. This book is basically what he’s learned through his
research over the years.
He starts with a historical overview of how the Bible has
been used throughout the years. It starts at the beginning with how
Christianity was one of the first religions to use a text as a central focus of
its practices. Then he covers the various sources of texts, and how we didn’t
even solidify the texts that make up the New Testament until several hundreds
of years after Jesus’ death. He also goes through translations of the text and
how experts have tried throughout history to determine what is the “original”
text of the Bible.
Having done that, he goes through reasons why scribes would
have changed the text of the Bible. Primarily, the different controversies that
existed at the time within Christianity such as the role of women or the
treatment of Jews. He also discusses a couple of passages that are in most
Bibles of the modern era and why they might be incorrect.
I also particularly liked the ending of the book. He brings
it back to a personal level and actually shows some understanding of the
scribes transcribing and altering the earlier texts. Because really, it’s hard
to interpret the Bible, so it makes sense that they would try to make it clearer.
And if we all could read a text and get the same message from it, then we
wouldn’t still have these controversies thousands of years after the Bible was
written. And that would be pretty boring to be honest, we would have nothing to
gain from discussing it with others.
This is a great take on the history of Christianity and how
the past still resonates in the religion today. I thought it was written with a
lot of attention to nuance and detail, as well as great research. Ehrman covers
all sides of the controversies, and I thought his personal touches were a great
addition.
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