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Misquoting Truth: A Guide to the Fallacies of Bart Ehrman's "Misquoting Jesus" | 
 enlarge | Author: Timothy Paul Jones
Publisher: IVP Books
Category: Book
List Price: $15.00
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Avg. Customer Rating:  30 reviews
Sales Rank: 55068
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 175
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.5 x 0.6
ISBN: 0830834478
Dewey Decimal Number: 225.486
EAN: 9780830834471
ASIN: 0830834478
Publication Date: June 8, 2007
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Product Description
"What good does it do to say that the words [of the Bible] are inspired by God if most people have absolutely no access to these words, but only to more or less clumsy renderings of these words into a language? . . . How does it help us to say that the Bible is the inerrant word of God if in fact we don't have the words that God inerrantly inspired? . . . We have only error-ridden copies, and the vast majority of these are centuries removed from the originals." So contends Bart D. Ehrman in his bestselling Misquoting Jesus. If altogether true, we have little reason to put our confidence in Scripture. Add to this Ehrman's contention that what we read in the New Testament represents the winners' version of events, twisted to suit their own purposes and not at all a faithful recounting of what really happened, and the case for skepticism and unbelief gives every appearance of being on solid footing. But are things really so bad off? Were the New Testament documents widely distorted by copyists? Can we in fact have no idea what was in the originals? Do we have no hope of knowing what eyewitnesses said and thought? Are other documents left out of the New Testament better sources for understanding early Christianity? While readily conceding that Ehrman has many of his facts straight, pastor and researcher Timothy Paul Jones argues that Ehrman is far too quick to jump to false and unnecessary conclusions. In clear, straightforward prose, Jones explores and explains the ins and outs of copying the New Testament, why lost Christianities were lost, and why the Christian message still rings true today.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 25 more reviews...
 struck a nerve have we? September 5, 2008
1 out of 4 found this review helpful
If someone actually goes to the trouble of writing a book with your name in the title just to debunk your book, then you really must have struck a nerve or struck fear into the hearts of the flock. What are you afraid of? Believers flee from anything that could possibly put a thought in their head. Just so you know I have not read this book but I imagine that the author does not have the scholarship that Ehrman has or otherwise is a armchair scholar using the works of others and is not above using the bible to support his view of the bible.
 A Modern Scoffer Bids Jesus Come Down From The Cross August 16, 2008
4 out of 7 found this review helpful
The reliability of records and first-hand accounts was of paramount concern for first and second, and third century Christians:
'This cultural tendency existed partly because so few people knew how to write and read in the first century AD. It existed also because the character of the person spreading the story mattered so deeply to ancient people (in some cases first century folk may have been less likely to trust written records, because they couldn't speak personally with the individual that was telling the story!).' pg 85
Even BB Warfield denied Mark 16:9-20 as belonging to the original autographs, yet no one more clearly equivocated inerrancy than him. He reconciled textual criticism and inerrancy without doing violence to his faith, whilst Erhman clearly gnosticizes most of his so-called facts, to the delight of agnostics and atheists who are searching to dispel Christ as the Son of God.
Timothy Paul Jones sufficiently harmonizes cultural and historical clues and research, which causes a major disparity with the stigmatizing and assumption of Ehrman. Scribal traditions and additions were the human process of preserving the writings of the autographs, and the factor appreciated by Jones lies in the due admission in textual discrepancies in no way invalidating the Bible as the Word breathed by God. Whereas Jones thereby remains arbitrary towards their primitive means of re-recording the life of Christ and the apostles, Erhman assumes a stance of sentimentalism and clouded judgment. The clandestine work of the scribes serves as a basis for misinterpretation, overstatement and mock ridicule from a modern scoffer that bids Jesus come down from the cross.
'What's more, according to Ehrman, the precise contents of what we call Christian faith, didn't emerge primarily from reflection on the historical person of Jesus, or on the writings of eye-witnesses of his ministry. What determined the final shape of Christian faith was primarily the struggle between these various factions.' pg 80
What is clear is that the intensified battle of the earliest history of Christianity is oft resembled in the craft of 'spin' so prevalent today, with few able to distinguish truth from error. Christians can certainly learn much more of the Old Testament from Judaism, like the expressive power of the Hebrew language, and the wealth of historical material available on the New Testament times should see us better equipped to deal with the learned blows and tested assumptions of those who, despite their protestations, remain mere heretics.
Now mainstream Christianity can take heart from Timothy Paul Jones' defense - a modern cure to an antiquated challenge.
'A generation later, when someone in the Roman church considered which Christian writings should be authoritative, this emphasis on the apostolic eyewitnesses persisted.' pg 125 The early 'lost Christianities' left no room for speculation, as has Ehrman; and even amidst competing gospels, they created canon certainty through this general principle: 'Serapion's goal was the same as fellow believers scattered throughout the world: he wanted to preserve eyewitness testimony about Jesus.' pg 130
Even though an anonymous book, like Hebrews, only later was received into the canon, its was accepted on the basis of a priori authority, meaning its content was indisputable, which led to its eventual inclusion.
 Good Breakdown of Ehrman's Errors August 9, 2008
6 out of 13 found this review helpful
Bart Ehrman has taken the NPR/NY Times/etc world by storm and has gained a sizable audience for his popular works. His main contribution has been to bring the arcane (to most of the world) subject of textual criticism and then state how this throws the inspiration of Scripture into disarray.
The best thing about this book is how it shows the danger in faulty assumptions. If your assumptions don't allow for messy things like textual variants, you are going to come to the same faulty conclusions as Ehrman. If you are a believer in Jesus, you will struggle or lose your faith.
Now, as to the book, the greatest technical strength (given this book is more of an overview for a lay audience) is its work with textual variants. Jones goes over the process of textual criticism giving a high level view of some examples.
But, as mentioned in the book, for the very small amount of texts where we aren't sure of the original meaning, no important theological point is in jeopardy.
And, I'm sorry Ehrman fans, but I've heard and have obtained audio which confirms quotations in this book. Ehrman knows and has admitted we "pretty much" know the words of the original authors.
The question is, even if no important point is in doubt, how can we still claim to have God's Word? Jones makes an important point on this: "supposing that God did inspire the original New Testament writings and that he protected those writings from error- are the available copies of the New Testament sufficiently accurate for us to grasp the truth that God intended in the first century? I believe the answer to that question is yes."
I have to paraphrase Dr. James White here. To prevent any textual variation God would either have to zap an erring scribe dead. Or there would have had to have been one controlling authority supervising all the texts. And if that were the case, instead of criticizing the textual variants, people would be spinning even more Da Vinci Code conspiracy theories about how we can't trust the text with no variations because of the one controlling authority. So, in this way, all the textual traditions increase our confidence in the New Testament texts.
Now, as far as issues involving canonization, "other Christianities" there are better treatments out there, but this gives an OK overview of the history. Definitely weaker than the textual criticism sections (Part 1).
As to issues about the authorship of the gospels and oral history, the overview here is good. The best work out there on the topic is Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels As Eyewitness Testimony. That goes into great detail on this topic. There are two interesting comments from that work which have bearing on this topic.
1) If you were simply making up apostolic authors, why would you choose Mark, Luke, and Matthew? Matthew was not the most prominent apostle. Mark and Luke weren't apostles, but instead associated with apostles. Wouldn't you simply use the apostles?
2) As to the telephone game analogy of pass it down the line. One would have to assume that the original eyewitnesses were teleported off the planet. They were still around when this oral tradition and texts were being passed around.
Lastly, I don't mind the negative reviews, but it would be nice if the negative reviews explained why Jones' arguments don't work, backing them up with details. Something to interact with.
 Misquoting Who? July 29, 2008
3 out of 5 found this review helpful
Written from the perspective of religious dogma and conventional religious teaching. Does not take historical research into consideration as much as merely following the Bible and Scripture. Not exactly a 'peer review' of Ehrman's work. However, worth reading, if only to research a contrary opinion.
A Great Resource June 29, 2008
6 out of 9 found this review helpful
I appreciated this work as it's a great introduction to an honest assessment of Bart Ehrman's terribly misleading book, Misquoting Jesus. I would encourage the reader to further pursue methods of answering critics like Ehrman by studying many of the works listed in the back of Dr. Jones' work, especially by comparing what Ehrman says with what Ehrman's Ph.D program mentor believed about the reliability of the text of the New Testament (Dr. Bruce M. Metzger). Dr. Metzger, one of the foremost textual critics of the 20th century, went on record regarding his views regarding the reliability of the text of the New Testament in an interview with Lee Strobel; an interview that is recorded in Strobel's book The Case for Christ. Read carefully the following portion of that interview and see how it directly contradicts Ehrman's basic views about the New Testament:
At the end of the interview, Stroebel asked Metzger, "All these decades of scholarship, of study, or writing textbooks, of delving into the minutiae of the New Testament text - what has all this done to your personal faith?"
Metzger responded: "It has increased the basis of my personal faith to see the firmness with which these materials have come down to us, with a multiplicity of copies, some of which are very, very ancient."
Strobel: "So scholarship has not diluted your faith?"
Metzger: "On the contrary, it has built it. I've asked questions all my life, I've dug into the text, I've studied this thoroughly, and today I know with confidence that my trust in Jesus has been well placed . . . very well placed." [The Case for Christ, 1998, 71]
In summary, I'd recommend studying Dr. Jones's book as a great introduction to understanding how to defend the reliability of the text of the New Testament; especially given Ehrman's misleading overstatements about the transmission and reliability of said text given the opposing and well-studied position of his own doctoral program mentor, Bruce M. Metzger.
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