Misquoting Jesus

From Textus Receptus

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Revision as of 10:58, 27 March 2026

Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why (published as Whose Word Is It? in the United Kingdom) is a mass-market Christian textual criticism book by Bart D. Ehrman, a New Testament scholar at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Published in 2005 by HarperCollins, the book introduces lay readers to the field of textual criticism of the Bible. Ehrman discusses a number of textual variants that resulted from intentional or accidental manuscript changes during the scriptorium era. The book made it to the New York Times best-seller list and is Ehrman's best-selling book.

Contents

No.	Title	Focus
	Introduction	Framing of aims and scope, definition of textual criticism for non-specialists, overview of how scribal transmission and editorial activity generated divergent witnesses to the New Testament text.
1	The Beginnings of Christian Scripture	Emergence of Christian textuality in the first two centuries, production settings, reading practices in assemblies, early circulation patterns and the absence of fixed canons.
2	The Copyists of the Early Christian Writings	Conditions of hand copying before professional scriptoria, typical unintentional errors, intentional changes introduced for clarity, style, and doctrine.
3	Texts of the New Testament: Editions, Manuscripts, and Differences	Witness classes and text types, Alexandrian Western Byzantine, quantitative scale of extant manuscripts, description of variation units and apparatus conventions.
4	The Quest for Origins: Methods and Discoveries	Development of text critical method, Lachmann Westcott Hort Tischendorf, discovery history of major codices, external and internal evidence criteria.
5	Originals That Matter	Conceptual problems with the term original, authorial drafts, dictation, multiple editions, community redaction, implications for the goal of reconstruction.
6	Theologically Motivated Alterations of the Text	Case studies where readings likely reflect doctrinal interest, adoptionist and anti adoptionist revisions, christological and ecclesial controversies that shaped transmission outcomes.
7	The Social Worlds of the Text	Social location of scribes and readers, institutional enforcement of orthodoxy, how use contexts in liturgy catechesis and controversy affected copying behavior.
	Conclusion: Changing Scripture, Scribes, Authors, and Readers	Synthesis of historical claims, consequences for translation and interpretation, program for responsible reception of a text transmitted by fallible agents.