Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible {and Why We Don't Know About Them}

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Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible {and Why We Don't Know About Them}

3.98 of 5 stars 3.98 · rating details · 3,007 ratings · 361 reviews

Picking up where Bible expert Bart Ehrman's New York Times bestseller Misquoting Jesus left off, Jesus, Interrupted addresses the larger issue of what the New Testament actually teaches—and it's not what most people think. Here Ehrman reveals what scholars have unearthed:

The authors of the New Testament have diverging views about who Jesus was and how salvation works

The Ne...more

Hardcover, First Edition, 292 pages

Published February 23rd 2009 by HarperOne

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Jan 23, 2013 Jan Rice rated it 3 of 5 stars

I have read several of Bart Ehrman's books previously, or listened to his lecture series: The New Testament (Great Courses series), From Jesus to Constantine: A History of Early Christianity (Parts 1 and 2) (Great Courses), Lost Christianities, and now the present book. For some reason Goodreads isn't showing many of his books, and I'm not up for laboriously adding them tonight. This is surprising, for surely he has a wide readership. Bart Ehrman is one of those writers about whom it is said he...more I have read several of Bart Ehrman's books previously, or listened to his lecture series: The New Testament (Great Courses series), From Jesus to Constantine: A History of Early Christianity (Parts 1 and 2) (Great Courses), Lost Christianities, and now the present book. For some reason Goodreads isn't showing many of his books, and I'm not up for laboriously adding them tonight. This is surprising, for surely he has a wide readership. Bart Ehrman is one of those writers about whom it is said he is famous for writing the same book over and over. There is some truth in that. Certainly, in reading, I recognize paragraphs I've heard in the lectures. He may not reinvent the wheel when doing those lectures.

What Bart Ehrman does is deconstruct the New Testament. He shows the inconsistencies between the various Gospels and epistles. Then he shows that the reason for those inconsistencies is that the various writers each have their various theological points to make and lessons to teach. Along the way he also shows that mostly we don't know who was doing the writing nor do we know whether most of the authors are who they say they are. To boil down what he shows, it is that the intrinsic meaning does not reside in Jesus but in the theology and teaching. The various writers have considerable disagreement on what that intrinsic meaning is. What Ehrman does, he does well, at a not-too-technical level that is intended for a lay audience, not scholars.

Although Ehrman, as I say, deconstructs the treatments of the various books of the New Testament--showing how each author writes according to his own needs and expectations, and those of his community--what he does not much touch on is that community in which Jesus is set, that is, the Jews. He treats "the Jewish leaders" in the traditional way, as all working together, though it is commonly known that isn't historical. He treats Jewish belief as monolithic, although it was an age of Jewish sectarianism. He is traditionally anachronistic about such things as "Jewish law" and "keeping kosher," which were later developments. He has no notion of the new views of Paul. In those and many more ways he maintains traditional ideas. He does not address the extent to which the picture of Judaism he accepts as monolithic and historical is itself constructed according to the needs of the various writers and their communities. The writers had their theological points to make, just as they did regarding other aspects of the narrative. Ehrman, while at points deploring anti-Judaism in Christian tradition, for the most part leaves the basis of it untouched.

Bart Ehrman's general thesis about the NT will come as a shock to New Testament literalists. To others the idea that religions have something to teach even when the adherent is not a fundamentalist will be old news. Unfortunately, because of the aspects Ehrman leaves untouched, I think the typical reader won't find it hard to continue picturing Jesus and his followers as arraigned against "dead religion," as having morphed into a different or better Jew or into a Christian, or having come to reform his society and take Judaism in "the intended direction." Those are not uncommon views for people who have moved away from scriptural literalism but remain literal about the relationship of Jesus and "the Jews."

Once before I tried to email Bart Ehrman with a similar question. It is often possible to contact authors who are college professors by email. That's something wonderful that we have in our age of electronic communication. From Ehrman, though, I got no response. Maybe I'll try again!

Addendum: My husband got on my case for giving Jesus, Interrupted only three stars. His point is that what he does, he does very well, and it needed to be done. I don't get the feeling Ehrman errs deliberately. I could be wrong, but it seems to be a case of his seeing only as far as he does and no further. He simply didn't get his head far enough above water to see further -- I think. It's still a serious omission. (On the other hand, I think Marcus Borg, of whom I have read smatterings, may take his similar tack deliberately.)

I believe every people or group has a right to develop their own identity. Only not on the backs of, or at the expense of, someone else.(less)

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Jun 24, 2012 Brad added it Recommends it for: truth seekers

Once again Bart D. Ehrman has reminded me why I transferred out of Lancaster Bible College. "Jesus, Interrupted" is a summery of the Critical-Historical approach to the New Testament. This is opposed to the devotional studies approach espoused by nearly all evangelical churches. The Critical-Historical approach looks at the various books of the Bible as being historical documents existing separately, each written with a specific message for a specific audience. I.e. Paul's letter to the Church o...more Once again Bart D. Ehrman has reminded me why I transferred out of Lancaster Bible College. "Jesus, Interrupted" is a summery of the Critical-Historical approach to the New Testament. This is opposed to the devotional studies approach espoused by nearly all evangelical churches. The Critical-Historical approach looks at the various books of the Bible as being historical documents existing separately, each written with a specific message for a specific audience. I.e. Paul's letter to the Church of Corinth was written to the churchgoers of first century Corinth and not to the those of 16th century Singapore or 21st century Pennsylvania. Or that the author of the Gospel of Luke couldn't have intend for his gospel to be combined with any other, such as the then unwritten Gospel of John. Therefore when someone takes a verse from Luke and then combines it with a verse from John they are creating their own version of the Gospel which is completely different from either book. As you can probably imagine this concept is quite controversial, but having attended a Bible believing Christian college I can say that almost every point made in this book I was taught at LBC. The only difference being that my Professor at LBC intellectually bent over backwards with pious imagination to hold firm to the belief that the Bible was with contradiction and is the infallible word of God. Here is a very brief summery of what the book states...

# Only 8 of the 27 books of the New Testament were actually written by the authors to whom they're attributed. Others are likely forgeries.

# The gospels provide remarkably divergent portrayals of Jesus.

# The message of the Apostle Paul and the message of gospel writer Matthew are completely at odds over the question of whether a follower of Jesus also had to observe the Jewish law.

# The Nicene Creed and the Trinity were constructs of the later church and are not found in the pages of the Bible.

# Traditional doctrines such as the suffering Messiah, the divinity of Christ, and the notion of heaven and hell are not based on the teachings of the historical Jesus.

# The commonly told story of Jesus -- his birth, death, and resurrection is actually a composite of four vastly different gospel narratives.

Check out http://www.bartdehrman.com/mp3_NPR_je... for an audio interview with the author.(less)

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Jun 26, 2011 Ian rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction, religion-spirituality, fits-like-a-glove

I have written elsewhere in angry fashion about a crisis of faith I experienced a couple of years ago. I have emerged from the crisis and entered something of a renaissance in my own faith. I haven’t given up on everything I once believed but I also won’t pretend that the faith I now hold is merely a stronger version of what I was taught to believe growing up. To be sure, my faith now is much stronger than what I was taught to believe, but it’s also much more thoughtful, intelligent, egalitarian...more

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Apr 14, 2009 Eric rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: religion, recent-reads

First off, I think it’s important to dismiss any of the common misunderstandings about Bart Ehrman and this book. The book is not a diatribe. It does not set out to debunk Christianity. Ehrman, in my opinion, is not angry, condescending, or uncaring in this book – quite the opposite, actually. Ehrman is not asking that you abandon your faith. I personally feel, having read the book, that Ehrman has served us up a wonderful tool, and has provided us with a great opportunity for discussion that co...more

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Jul 28, 2011 David Chivers rated it 5 of 5 stars

An excellent book on the historical aspects of the Bible, its origins, its conflicts within itself, and the problems thatarise with Biblical research. For anyone who took historical/critical Bible studies in college, it will go over familiar ground, and he makes no bones about this. But as he points out, while most theological schools have critical Bible studies as a part of the regular curriculum, most of this basic research (The Q source, problems of literary consistency in the wiritng suggest...more

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Jul 16, 2012 David S. T. rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: religion, christian, read-in-2012, own, favorites

Imagine if you tried to remove all of the later history of the bible, the views of inerrancy of scripture, the later theology, later tradition and then started to study the bible for the first time, looking for clues in the text, study the culture it was written in, treat it like any other surviving ancient document not the divine word of God, you'd probably come away with something like what is presented in this book. This book was a very good easy to read introduction to the historical critica...more Imagine if you tried to remove all of the later history of the bible, the views of inerrancy of scripture, the later theology, later tradition and then started to study the bible for the first time, looking for clues in the text, study the culture it was written in, treat it like any other surviving ancient document not the divine word of God, you'd probably come away with something like what is presented in this book. This book was a very good easy to read introduction to the historical critical method and modern non-evangelical scholarship and out of the handful of Ehrman books I've read, this is easily the best (although Misquoting Jesus is also essential). One thing I should point out is this book focuses almost exclusively on the new testament, for a similar introduction to the old testament, I really enjoyed the slightly dated Reading the Old Testament: An Introduction by Boadt. The most obvious negative with this book (and one that affects all of Ehrman's books), is that he doesn't really present opposing views and if he does its only briefly, but I don't find this to be too much of a problem, there are plenty of books refuting his work and if you want to see the conservative opposition's views just read one of those books after this one.

I first encountered the views presented in this book a few years ago while reading the great catholic scholar Raymond Brown's excellent introduction to the new testament. Obviously there's nothing new in this book or things which haven't been said before, but this book does a nice job of presenting a bunch of topics in a relatively short space in an easy to understand manner, something which Ehrman seems to do well. He (Ehrman) points out that he wrote this because while these views are well known in seminary they're rarely known by the public. For the most part I think this is true, I remember the slight shock while reading Brown's introduction and realizing for the first time that perhaps there are contradictions in the bible, that many of the books of the bible likely weren't written by who they claimed to be, perhaps the virgin birth didn't happen and was added to give some background to Jesus and raise his Christology above that of a normal prophet, perhaps Jesus wasn't always viewed as part of the Godhead. There really is a lack of knowledge of bible history and even the bible itself in our current culture, while at the same time everyone thinks himself an expert on what god wants.

In a way its kind of nice to approach the bible this way and read the text for what it says. When one encounters something which seems like an obvious contradiction such as the different day which the synoptic says Jesus was crucified compared to John, its nice to admit that perhaps the bible does contain a contradiction rather than try to do some bizarre hermeneutics to work around it. When one reads Paul and his version of the good news seems so much different than the one Matthew presents of Jesus (or James), one can question if perhaps they seem different because they were different. No longer do you have to try to figure out a way to try to tie them together. Its really liberating when you read a seemingly highly offensive passage such as 1 Timothy 2:12 which says that a woman can never teach or have any authority over a man and she must remain quite, to admit that perhaps Paul didn't write this letter and perhaps isn't not a direct commandment from God, but the later view of someone (it sure seems different that Paul's normal message).

One thing Ehrman constantly emphasis (almost to a fault) is that looking at the bible this way or accepting this view doesn't mean that you have to lose your faith. Of course to approach the bible this way also means that it loses a bunch of its authority. To admit that its not inerrant and infallable creates a new set of problems for the modern Christian. If one can question the bible, then where do you get any authority? One only has to look at the conflicting ideas presented in the Charismatic movement to realize that when one moves beyond the authority of the bible there are some pretty bizarre ideas that arise. Of course there are many liberal theologians who are doing just this exact thing, and once you're on this path its not as scary as it seemed to be from the outside. (less)

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Aug 02, 2011 Curtis rated it 5 of 5 stars

A fascinating and objective history of the New Testament's creation and the formulation of the early Christian church, and about the transition from the religion OF Jesus to the religion ABOUT Jesus that dominates much of the world today. This book is a revelation (no pun intended) because of the startling facts it reveals and because of the availability of those facts to anyone who cares to know more about the book that guides so many lives. I think it is the duty of any devotional Christian to...more

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Dec 29, 2010 Tim rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: history, religious, theology

Oh man was this book good....

It's along the same vein as Misquoting Jesus, his previous book on the scribal mistakes of the NT. This book focuses more on the textual, political, and theological history of early Christianity and how these factors came to influence the orthodox views that we're familiar with today. Ehrman exposes a few very important issues and the impact they may have for us today.

A few of the issues that he brings up strike me particularly hard, and now that he's brought them u...more Oh man was this book good....

It's along the same vein as Misquoting Jesus, his previous book on the scribal mistakes of the NT. This book focuses more on the textual, political, and theological history of early Christianity and how these factors came to influence the orthodox views that we're familiar with today. Ehrman exposes a few very important issues and the impact they may have for us today.

A few of the issues that he brings up strike me particularly hard, and now that he's brought them up I can't see how I could have missed them in previous readings of the Bible.

Namely that every author, speaking to a particular audience with a particular culture, had emphasized DIFFERENT aspects of the same familiar stories about Jesus to portray a DIFFERENT view of Jesus, and a DIFFERENT interpretation of what Christianity means to the individual. When writing these books the authors did not know, or intend, that their writings would one day form a formal orthodox canon of scripture. In fact they would have considered that heretical because "scripture" was a term that referred only to the ancient writings of the Jewish prophets. For instance...in Mark Jesus rebukes any attempt to display his miracles as proof of his divinity, instead opting to say that God should not be tested in this manner. In John it seems as if Jesus is just going around performing miracles every day to prove his divinity. Clearly one or both of these versions of the story is untrue. How do we decide? How do we decode Jesus life from the documents we have left? What did Jesus ACTUALLY teach and believe? Does modern Christianity have anything in common with the religion of Jesus? If not, does it matter? All these questions and more are addressed in stunning clarity and easily digested sentences. Truly a powerful glimpse into the world of biblical scholarship for the layman.

One thing this book asserted for me was that the Christianity I grew up with was certainly NOT the religion Jesus preached about. Many of the beliefs that Christians hold as truth were not uttered from Jesus' mouth, but added to scripture decades, and sometimes centuries later by scribes, priests and theologians who were probably well-meaning, but changed the landscape of Christianity nonetheless.

It strikes me as a delicious irony then that to reclaim the Christianity of Jesus we cannot look to orthodoxy...indeed we must seek the sources deemed heretical. We must throw off the shackles of antiquity and re-examine the scriptures in the light of reason, history, and faith. We need to give up the notion that for Christianity to be valid it must be based on an infallible document, that it cannot be a human religion. We are all seeking the truth of God. Even a Christian would not disagree with the fact that God is too infinite to comprehend and that religion is our attempt to place the infinite in a finite box so that we might understand, love and relate to God. So what's wrong with religion being human? What's wrong with the Bible being a document written by human hands, mistakes and all, as a record of devotion and theology throughout the ages?

The biggest question of all... If the evidence shows us that modern Christianity is actually misaligned with what the original authors knew of God and Jesus, then aren't we called to abandon it? In other words, If the church has the wrong view of Jesus and His message, then by beleiving it we are actually growing apart from what God intends for us...how then do we proceed in seeking truth? and once we embark on this mission how do we avoid trading the shackles of modern Christianity for shackles of our own making through our own misinterpretations and inadequacies? I don't know, but I'm going to continue reading, seeking, praying and when I find something good and true I will hold onto it. (less)

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May 08, 2009 Clif Hostetler rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: religion

I recommend the review of this book by Trevor at the following link:
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

The following is my review written five months ago:
There is nothing new or revolutionary in this book for anyone who has studied bible in a mainline seminary or divinity school (or in my case, listened to Ehrman's lectures from the Teaching Company). The problem is that most ministers use the Bible only as a source of devotional material, and refrain from telling their parishioners about w...more

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Apr 08, 2012 James rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Ye of faith beware! In this case, the enemy - facts and history - might undermine your faith.

Not being a believer, I don't know how a devout Christian would react to this book. But I imagine it would be extremely difficult to keep one's beliefs intact in the face of this onslaught of historical evidence - evidence that shows the bible to be deeply flawed. It must be nigh on impossible to continue to believe the bible is the inerrant word of god.

Ehrman focuses on the new testament as his area of...more Ye of faith beware! In this case, the enemy - facts and history - might undermine your faith.

Not being a believer, I don't know how a devout Christian would react to this book. But I imagine it would be extremely difficult to keep one's beliefs intact in the face of this onslaught of historical evidence - evidence that shows the bible to be deeply flawed. It must be nigh on impossible to continue to believe the bible is the inerrant word of god.

Ehrman focuses on the new testament as his area of expertise, but of course, as it is linked by reference to the old testament, the entire bible is discussed. According to Ehrman, the new testament was most likely written by men decades after Jesus died, in a language he didn't speak and in a country where he had not lived. None of those original writings survive. And without a doubt, they have been changed over the centuries. As more ancient copies of these texts have been uncovered, there are stark differences with our current bible.

Interestingly, there is no historical record of Jesus contemporaneous with his time on earth. The first historian to mention Jesus was the Roman historian Tacitus in the second century. However, some scholars believe the passage referring to Jesus was inserted at a later date as it incorrectly describes Pontius Pilot's position, which scholars believe Tacitus would have known.

The number of errors and contradictions in the new testament are staggering in their breadth. One of the most interesting of these is the passage in the new testament which revolves around a double entendre. It is when Jesus is confronted by a rich man, who asks "What is the path to heaven?". Jesus' reply in Greek has two meanings, which confuses the man. The trouble is Jesus would not have spoken Greek. He spoke Aramaic. And the word in Greek that is a double entendre is not a double entendre in Aramaic. I found that little gem fascinating.

I could go on for hours on this topic. Having been indoctrinated in Christianity before I was old enough to comprehend what was happening to me, I found it engrossing to be presented with the reality of the bible rather than its myth.

I believe in kindness, compassion and acceptance (better than tolerance), and I believe humanity and the world might be better served by the demise of religion.

(less)

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May 26, 2013 Bruce rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: religion, world-history, us-history, women-s-studies

Ehrman has written an interesting, easily read, book on the 'New Testament'. As the subtitle suggests,it is a revelation of some of the hidden inconsistencies and contradictions 'hidden' in the bible. Actually, they are not always hidden but because most people, if they read the bible, read the bible vertically, i.e. book by book, rather than horizontally, that is comparing the 'same' stories found in some of the books. Pastors, though taught the historical/critical study of the bible do not rel...more

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Mar 28, 2013 Lage von Dissen rated it 4 of 5 stars

This book addresses several subjects including: an analysis of the New Testament from a historical-critical perspective, the historicity of Jesus, and the development and evolution of Christianity from the time it first emerged at the beginning of the first millennium A.D. On a more personal note, Ehrman briefly mentions how his ultra-conservative evangelical Christian views changed over time as a result of his extensive biblical scholarship. He points out how the Bible (specifically the New Tes...more This book addresses several subjects including: an analysis of the New Testament from a historical-critical perspective, the historicity of Jesus, and the development and evolution of Christianity from the time it first emerged at the beginning of the first millennium A.D. On a more personal note, Ehrman briefly mentions how his ultra-conservative evangelical Christian views changed over time as a result of his extensive biblical scholarship. He points out how the Bible (specifically the New Testament) – what most Christians believe to be the inerrant divinely inspired Word of God – appears to be a canon of scripture with a much more human touch to say the least.

Our New Testament initially evolved from many handwritten Greek manuscripts (some with fundamentally different passages than we see in our modified and truncated versions of the Bible today). The early writers were literate Christians, as opposed to professional scribes. This meant that they made errors a lot more frequently than the scribes that succeeded them in the 2nd and 3rd centuries A.D. On top of this, there were many different writings, much more than the 27 books that eventually made it into the canon we see today. We didn't have this “27 book canon” until around the 4th century when Athansius (bishop of Alexandria) first proclaimed it to be so. Within this canon, even the choice of having four Gospels was made somewhat arbitrarily by a man named Iranaeus who thought that there should be four Gospels, one for each of the four principal winds, corners of the earth, and pillars for the church! While this may seem like a compelling reason for one to limit the scripture to four Gospels, I'm sure many Christians would beg to differ and would prefer the opportunity to read the other Gospels written. Along with these different writings came many different Christian theologies and sects, where concepts like the trinity, the divinity of Jesus Christ, the personal nature of Jesus, the virgin birth, just to name a few, were not agreed upon within all sects and groups of Christians (as they tend to be almost universally today). That changed in the 4th century A.D. when the Roman emperor Constantine accepted Christianity himself, making it quite a popular religion given his influence over the empire. It wasn't long after that the church decided that they needed a creed (to illustrate which views were "correct" once and for all) and some form of unification. As a result of the money and power of the Roman empire, the proto-orthodox Christian sect was formed (which is where modern Christianity originated) and won the battle over all other Christian sects. Among other things, these proto-orthodox Christians combined certain beliefs from various Christian sects like the Ebionites (who's interpretation of early scripture led them to believe that Jesus was fully human rather than divine and essentially adopted by God at his baptism as implied in the Gospel of Luke – notably in the older manuscripts) with beliefs from other sects like the Marcionites (who believed that Jesus was not human at all, but fully divine, with the mere appearance of being human – as implied in early writings of the Gospel of John). There were lots of central Christian doctrines that were ultimately invented by theologians living many decades later, influenced by various cultural circumstances, even more so than the scripture itself – which becomes evident once the older manuscripts are examined for these variations. We see that religious leaders had a political and social agenda relevant to their time, and the scripture was modified to reflect that. Even the Gospels were "harmonized" so as to blend away some (but not all) of the obvious differences between them. We had scribes making errors accidentally. We had some books included in the canon and many others never to be read by the masses again, due to the decisions that various religious leaders made. As I mentioned earlier, we had many variations in all of these Greek manuscripts, over 200,000 in fact (as Ehrman points out, this is more variations than there are words in the New Testament). If we are to take the Bible seriously at all, whether as divine scripture, or just an important facet to the cultural evolution of Western civilization, we must acknowledge these differences and contradictions and re-evaluate what critical scholars have known for two centuries – issues that most people (Christian or not) have never even heard of. As Ehrman said, even if the Bible (specifically the New Testament) was originally the inerrant and inspired Word of God, that is something we no longer have, for these texts have been changed so much over the years (and in many cases in very profound ways). Sure, most of the variations in the manuscripts are insignificant, but there are a large number still of variations that completely change the way the text is interpreted. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in learning more about the New Testament, Christianity, and their origins as evidenced by the comparison between the oldest manuscripts and the standardized/truncated/altered versions we read today. (less)

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Dec 13, 2012 Jaakko J. rated it 5 of 5 stars

If you really want to know how, why and when the holy book of the Christians that is commonly known as the New Testament was written you should definitely read the magnificent book by Bart. D. Ehrman called Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (And Why We Don't Know About Them).
Bart D. Ehrman does tell in this book what the modern biblical scholarship knows with certainty of the process that did in the end produce a rag-tag collection of wildly differentiating and...more

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Nov 29, 2012 Socraticgadfly rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: religious-study-theology

Sorry, but it's just not that good

First, let me "qualify" myself in several ways.

Like Ehrman, I come from a conservative evangelical background, only to get a graduate divinity degree, and at a seminary arguably even more academically rigorous than Princeton. (I did not go on for a Ph.D.; I stopped at the master's level.)

But, like John Loftus, I went past Ehrman's eventual agnosticism.

And, I'm at least a much a "minimalist," if not more, on NT historicity as is Loftus, and more so than Ehrman; t...more

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Sep 17, 2012 Steven rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: novels, non-fiction

Had I read or been taught the bible from the perspective Bart D. Ehrman gives in Jesus Interrupted, I might still be a practicing Christian. But I was brought up a fundamentalist, a Northern Baptist. In that religion every word of the bible is inspired, the word of God himself, inerrant. So what does a smart kid do when he perceives contradictions and no religious leader can give him a good answer; chuck the religion. What sort of religion perpetrates such absolutism, but then contains such broa...more

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Sep 08, 2012 Tanja Seppä rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: kindle, non-fiction

This is a fascinating book about the discrepancies in the New Testaments, how the books included came to be included, and how Christianity changed from Jesus to what became the orthodox religion. I note with astonishment that my hate for Paul is quite unfounded - he did not write the letters where his opposition for women is voiced. Paul himself did not think that women should be silen, submissive and pregnant. A later imposter thought that and wrote in his name.

My take on the Bible has been li...more

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May 29, 2012 Erika RS rated it 4 of 5 stars

The first thing to know about Bart Ehrman is that you should ignore the titles of his books. I don't know if he comes up with him or if it is his publishers, but I do know that the titles are meant to grab eyeballs. The books are much less sensationalistic than the titles or the publisher's blurbs -- Ehrman mostly covers academically mainstream, vanilla views of the Biblical as a historical and literary text. These books, like pretty much anything that looks at the Bible as a historical and lite...more

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May 27, 2012 Michael rated it 4 of 5 stars

In this book, Ehrman sets out to explain historical criticism of the New Testament to a lay audience.

As a general overview of New Testament scholarship, this book is great. I was a little disappointed that it focused exclusively on the New Testament, but it does a great job of surveying the topic. If you're interested in finding out who wrote the New Testament, what their historical situations and perspectives were, how books of the New Testament were selected, etc., you will love this book. If...more

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Jan 08, 2012 Laura Lee rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: religion-christianity-and-biblical

I would probably do 3 1/2 if there were such a thing. Better than average, but because the concept of a historical critical reading of the Bible is not news to me, I found that this book spent an inordinate amount of time explaining the concept. Once it gets started, the reminder that each book of the bible was written separately with its own point of view and the device of using contradictions between different books to show their different perspectives and emphases is instructive. It is a good...more

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Dec 11, 2011 Caitlin Marineau rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: history, religion, favorites

I found this book to be a very good introduction to the scholarly study of the Bible. Professor Ehrman sensitively and effectively explains the state of biblical scholarship and historians' views on its writing and creation, including discrepancies between the different gospels, views on miscredited books, and a discussion of how the current "orthodox" view of Christianity won out over competing views. I read some criticisms of the book that essentially argue that the book does not offer anythin...more

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Nov 04, 2011 Dave rated it 2 of 5 stars

Bart Ehrman, saddened by the misery in the world and deluged by factual discrepancies in the canon, succumbs to the "Historical Jesus" movement and sets out on a crusade to convert the unwashed masses to his newfound agnosticism. Previous reviewers of this book squabble about whether it's a diatribe or not; I'm not sure, but Ehrman doesn't score any points with his tone, style, or editing. I find his approach transparently pedantic: (1) point out differences between accounts in the Gospels, (2)...more Bart Ehrman, saddened by the misery in the world and deluged by factual discrepancies in the canon, succumbs to the "Historical Jesus" movement and sets out on a crusade to convert the unwashed masses to his newfound agnosticism. Previous reviewers of this book squabble about whether it's a diatribe or not; I'm not sure, but Ehrman doesn't score any points with his tone, style, or editing. I find his approach transparently pedantic: (1) point out differences between accounts in the Gospels, (2) conclude that the faith-inspiring elements of the story must have been fabrications, if the writers can't even agree on simple details, and (3) appeal to authority, ensuring us that most scholars and even our pastors secretly see things this way. Rinse and repeat. After nearly every cycle he reiterates the assertion that to harmonize the accounts by merging details (no matter how minute) from different gospels into one story is akin to writing a new gospel, and who would dare do that? (gospel of Q, anyone?)

Ehrman frequently takes a stance that I find intellectually dishonest. He claims that affiliation with the "Historical Jesus" movement is not only benign, it is mainstream: that one can be Christian and doubt the divinity of Jesus seems absurd to me, but Ehrman takes this to a new level by exploiting the naivety of his readers -- assuring them that his views are backed by decades of consensus among the majority of both historians and clergy.

Many of the errors he cites are well known -- the chronology of the birth, trial, and death of Jesus for example -- but to Erhman, the fact that different gospels present different elements of a story, and sometimes even contradict each other, means that the purportedly divine events in the stories should be doubted as well. If conviction of divine events comes from historical inquiry, why did Ehrman wait so long to leave the faith? These discrepancies were a non-issue to Ehrman until he decided that the suffering in the world was too great for there to be a caring God. And that is the main point: religious conviction is the product of real or perceived personal experiences with the Divine. It was a lack of those experiences, not an encounter with factual discrepancies, that led Ehrman to lose his faith. Why then should he expect to sway anyone from their beliefs if this rhetoric never worked on him?(less)

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Oct 15, 2011 Justin rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites, paper-worthy

I have always loved my Bible. My religious upbringing gave me a deep and abiding love of the book which was, truly, a love. It wasn't a fear that if I didn't read it something bad would happen. It was a love for the work. A passion for understanding it.

Ehrman seems to have the same thing.

I completely agree with Ehrman that the Bible is the most important book in western civilization. A solid understanding of what is is and what it says (and doesn't say) can only help us if we wish to use the lan...more

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Jul 13, 2011 David rated it 3 of 5 stars

Bart Ehrman promises at the beginning of "Jesus, Interrupted" that for those who are seminary educated this book will not have anything new. He delivers on that promise, and, as such, I found the book to be a bit disappointing. That being said, I have watched two of Ehrman's courses on DVD by the Teaching Company, and have found them to be quite a good review. For me, seminary was twenty years ago, and re-visiting material I learned in my twenties is a big help.

For those new to the historical-cr...more Bart Ehrman promises at the beginning of "Jesus, Interrupted" that for those who are seminary educated this book will not have anything new. He delivers on that promise, and, as such, I found the book to be a bit disappointing. That being said, I have watched two of Ehrman's courses on DVD by the Teaching Company, and have found them to be quite a good review. For me, seminary was twenty years ago, and re-visiting material I learned in my twenties is a big help.

For those new to the historical-critical method, this will likely be a very interesting book. Ehrman's strength is that he writes in a very clear and straightforward style that is easy to understand and difficult to combat, if you are a critic. Like a good lawyer, he makes his case for each point he makes in a convincing fashion, backing up what he says with citations from scripture that the reader can investigate.

My main criticism of this book is that it seems to be lacking a theme, and is more like a re-hash of things that Ehrman has written and said in the past. It begins as a book that examines discrepancies in the New Testament gospels, and to a lesser extent, epistles. Fair enough. Then, it seems to shift to questions of authorship; territory I suspect Ehrman is currently *re-* re-hashing in 2011's "Forged!", which I haven't read. From there, he worries about textual criticism and from there he moves on to the early church and anti-Semitism. All interesting topics. I guess that Ehrman would argue that the purpose of the book is to show how Jesus himself was reinterpreted by the church as time went on. However, the book reads more like an anthology of interesting topics than a book with a coherent argument. *Moreover* (Ehrman's favorite word) he ends with a discussion of his own faith journey and implications for faith today. Again, this chapter is well-written and interesting, but here he repeats many of the things he has already said earlier in the book. I don't mind him repeating material from previous books (well, actually, maybe I do) but previous chapters -- come on man!

So, if you are new to the historical-critical method, you will likely find this interesting. Having done a lot of work in this area already, I found the book to be a bit of a hodge-podge of various topics, not really connected to an identifiable theme. While I found Ehrman's discussion of his own faith journey (or loss-of-faith journey) to be interesting, I am not sure of its purpose, other than to plug yet another Ehrman book, "God's Problem". I highly recommend Bart Ehrman's Teaching Company courses, which are scholarly but at the same time, highly accessible. As for, "Jesus, Interrupted", I might re-title it, "Reader, Disappointed". Maybe my Adult Education class will set me straight!(less)

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Jun 15, 2011 Russell Ince rated it 4 of 5 stars

I'm a big fan of Bart Ehrman because, as an erstwhile Christian and venerable New Testament scholar, he is adequately equipped to discuss these subjects but unlike many Christian academics his agnosticism lends him an air of intellectual honesty which I, as an agnostic atheist interested in Christianity, sometimes find lacking in other New Testament scholars. Ehrman has a respect for his Christian material that axe-grinding atheists may lack but is not clouded by personal subjectivities and reli...more
I'm a big fan of Bart Ehrman because, as an erstwhile Christian and venerable New Testament scholar, he is adequately equipped to discuss these subjects but unlike many Christian academics his agnosticism lends him an air of intellectual honesty which I, as an agnostic atheist interested in Christianity, sometimes find lacking in other New Testament scholars. Ehrman has a respect for his Christian material that axe-grinding atheists may lack but is not clouded by personal subjectivities and religious dogmas. Put simply, Ehrman is not afraid to call a spade a spade.

'Jesus Interrupted' is a work that covers a lot of ground in a short space and I would recommend it to anyone beginning a study of the New Testament. It is, however, rather a hodge-podge of different subject areas, many of which Ehrman had previously or has since covered in more detail elsewhere.

'Jesus Interrupted' makes largely the same point as Ehrman's earlier work 'Misquoting Jesus', namely, that the New Testament should be read for what each individual author or editor had to say rather than as a single text with a single unifying dogma. But whereas 'Misquoting Jesus' demonstrated this point through textual criticism and the study of changes to the text in the course of its transmission, 'Jesus Interrupted' makes the point by looking directly at the text itself.

Chapter 2 of this work looks at some of the discrepancies in the gospel narratives of Jesus. Whilst scholars have long recognised and celebrated the different flavours of the evangelists, Ehrman, as an agnostic, is not afraid to see contradictions where Christian scholars prefer to see nuances of emphasis.

In chapter 3 Ehrman attributes these contradictions to different dogmas. Ehrman states (p.62): "Many of the differences among the biblical authors have to do with the very heart of their message. Sometimes one author’s understanding of a major issue is at odds with another author’s, on such vital matters as who Christ is, how salvation is attained, and how the followers of Jesus are to live."

Chapter 4 then discusses the question of authorship of the books of the New Testament. This ground is covered in more detail in Ehrman's later work 'Forged'.

Chapter 5 deals with the quest for the historical Jesus. Again, this is an area Ehrman has covered before and at greater length in 'Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium'. Ehrman uses the the usual methodology of various criteria (contextual credibility, independent attestation and dissimilarity) to establish which traditions about Jesus are the most reliable. This methodology, whilst useful, does not offer nor does it claim to offer, any cast iron guarantees. To take a few example, Jesus is believed to have been baptised by John the Baptist because this would have been an embarrassment to Christians and so is not likely to be untrue. Indeed Christianity, as it emerged and now exists, would find Jesus' early inferiority to John the Baptist embarrassing but it may have been the case that the earliest Christians did not possess such an exalted view of Christ as later emerged, especially in the gospel of John. In actual fact, John the Baptist was a well known and admired preacher discussed at good length by Josephus and so an association with him may have offered prestige rather than ignominy.

That Jesus, as Messiah, was believed to have come from Nazareth may also be a legend explained by the fact that the evangelists claimed this was prophesied (although we don't know by whom) or from a confusion with the place Nazareth (which according to Rene Salm was not inhabited in the early 1st century) with the word Nazarene. Paul is described in Acts as the ring-leader of the Nazarenes and there are a few etymological theories on its original meaning.

Chapter 6 looks at the transmission of the bible and the formation of the canon which Ehrman explores in greater detail in 'Misquoting Jesus'.

Chapter 7 deals with the theological development of Christianity and the notion that the faith is not so much the religion of Jesus but the religion about Jesus. Again, Ehrman explores this subject in more detail in works such as 'Lost Christianities'.(less)

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May 30, 2011 Chungsoo Lee rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: all Christians

Recommended to Chungsoo by: NPR

Every Christians should read this book. “Have courage to read this book,” as Sartre said about Fanon's The Wretched Of The Earth. As Ehrman says, the book contains information which is nothing new. He only organized very lucidly the updated scholarly findings regarding the New Testament which are widely taught in the top 10 seminaries in the U.S.A. for the last 20 to 50 years. But American layman is completely in the dark due to pastors not teaching them in the Sunday schools about the historica...more Every Christians should read this book. “Have courage to read this book,” as Sartre said about Fanon's The Wretched Of The Earth. As Ehrman says, the book contains information which is nothing new. He only organized very lucidly the updated scholarly findings regarding the New Testament which are widely taught in the top 10 seminaries in the U.S.A. for the last 20 to 50 years. But American layman is completely in the dark due to pastors not teaching them in the Sunday schools about the historical and critical reading of the Bible. The penultimate Chapter contains convincing arguments and evidence--again nothing new--about Paul's relationship to Jesus, how the theological distinction the early Christians made to identify themselves apart from Judaism (from the Johannine community to the third century) lead to the origin of antisemitism, and about how Christology and the doctrine of Trinity evolved. The findings (again nothing new) are indisputable: that Jesus did not intend to create a new religion, that Jesus was a Jewish apocalypsist who (along with Paul and almost all of the contemporaries) believed that the End of the World would come in their life time, that there were many versions of Christianity which were reduced into a single and unified theology centering around Paul's interpretation and application of the Good News that Jesus has risen (the apocalyptic belief on resurrection was common among the Jews, including the Pharisees), that only 8 books out of 27 in the New Testament were written by the authors we know, etc.

The development of Christology is worthy of note in particular. Jesus never claimed to be the Son of God. He may have been called the Son of Man, the common but distinguished title for apocalyptic figure after the Book of Daniel, which is written some 200 years prior. Paul makes him Christ, worthy of worship as God, at the moment of and because of his Resurrection. In Matthew, Jesus is presented as the Son of God beginning from his baptism. In John, he is pronounced as being equal to and with God in the beginning of the world. At the Council of Nicaea in A.D. 325 Christ is defined as having the same substance (homo-ousia) with God, not a similar substance (homoi-ousia). Based on the difference of the "i" how many hours were spent and how many lives lost for years to come!

What comes loud and clear in the book is that the Bible is a human book, made up of many manuscripts handed down, edited, and selected by later leaders in the religious establishment to present a unified version; that Jesus was human who preached the imminent coming of the Kingdom of God with particular vigor, piety, and originality and whose death was particularly shocking. Ehrman's own thesis about Paul is convincing: that Paul adopted and developed (not created and dominated) the common view of the earliest followers of Jesus who believed that Jesus was risen from the dead by God as the sign of the end time, that his death and resurrection was to vindicate injustice in the world and to usher in the Kingdom of God, that his death and resurrection was to atone the sins of the world and to bring about the salvation of the world--the belief which became dominant at the time of codifying the written Gospels and canonizing the New Testament and which accounts for many redactions and emendations of the Gospels.

Christianity is not an invention of one man, Paul, but a creation of Jewish apocalyptic belief held by the followers of Jesus who were attempting to come to grips with the catastrophe of the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 and many other historical disasters and sufferings surrounding them at the time and the prior time. Who would not believe in the resurrection of the righteous who has been unfairly and innocently crucified? 'God must descend to earth to establish his kingdom' was and still is a palpable longing the religious people had then as well as now.

The concluding chapter, "Is Faith Possible?," is a disappointment. Ehrman only refers to his personal journey into agnosticism--not due to his knowledge about the Bible but, he says, due to the problem of evil—and how other like-minded scholars and colleagues still fervently believe in Christianity. Ehrman does not push his (scholars') findings about the New Testament into logical conclusion: that the findings would change Christianity as we know it. He does not have to because he is no longer a practicing Christian. But he does emphasize that the finds should not turn Christians into non-believers either. So, the question must be asked: What becomes of Christianity if Jesus is no longer believed to be divine? What happens to Paul's teaching if Jesus had never been raised from the dead? Is Christianity possible without the centrality of death and resurrection of Jesus? If we reject Paul, what do we have left to follow in the New Testament? To be fair to the author, Erhman does not propose rejection of Jesus' resurrection or of Paul's teaching. He sees no problem in accepting them as myths, which help to address life's conundrums for the believers. (He ended up rejecting the myths all together due to the unresolvable problem of evil. The myths no longer make sense, he says, in light of suffering in the world.)

But whether to have faith or not is not the question in light of the facts presented in the book that would destroy the foundations of Evangelical Christianity. For the evangelical Christianity is not the ultimate. The question is: whether we should only read the Bible as the ultimate. Why not read the Nag Hammadi Scriptures, the Qur'an, Bhagavad Gita, Tripitaka, Tao Te Ching, and many other religious texts as being on equal footing?

The informed view of Christ (Jesus retrieved after the historico-critical method) would not exclude but embrace other faiths. Christ is the model of the faithful, humility, and of compassion, and the acme of suffering. Resurrection (or reincarnation as Hindus would say) represents hope beyond all hope, a new beginning despite and in spite of all that is fallible in humanity. (less)

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May 19, 2011 Mike rated it 4 of 5 stars

This book felt like a follow up of Misquoting Jesus. It dealt with many of the same issues but instead of focusing on text criticism the book genrally deals with how and why early christian belief lead to changes to be added into the texts. The topics are related and Ehrman covers a lot of the same ground but without feeling repetitive. The texts that Ehrman uses differ from Misquoting Jesus which and when he does reuse them he offers insight that is interesting and novel (at least to me).

It is...more

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Apr 17, 2011 Victoria rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction, religion

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Oct 26, 2010 Bob rated it 4 of 5 stars

I liked this book a lot more than I expected to. My typical reaction to Bart Ehrman is that I find his facts compelling, but I don't feel compelled to accept all his conclusions, and this book was no different.

He does a good job of presenting scholarship (i.e. facts you can look up for yourself in the Bible) about discrepancies in the New Testament accounts. He also presents good historical information about the origin of the New Testament canon, as well as conclusions scholars have drawn about...more I liked this book a lot more than I expected to. My typical reaction to Bart Ehrman is that I find his facts compelling, but I don't feel compelled to accept all his conclusions, and this book was no different.

He does a good job of presenting scholarship (i.e. facts you can look up for yourself in the Bible) about discrepancies in the New Testament accounts. He also presents good historical information about the origin of the New Testament canon, as well as conclusions scholars have drawn about authorship of the books.

One comment my wife consistently makes, though, is that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. For example, because the book of Matthew doesn't say Matthew is the author doesn't mean Matthew is not the author. Because the book is written in extremely well-formed Greek not expected of a Jewish tax collector doesn't mean he didn't dictate it to a scribe. My view is that you can't necessarily prove some of this one way or the other, yet Ehrman often advances conclusions and assumptions like this, that because you can't conclusively prove something to be true it must be false.

He does a good job of surfacing his biases and being explicit that you can believe everything he says and still be a faithful and committed Christian. What you cannot do is maintain a simplistic view of the Bible as being a consistent set of works of known authorship. Factual details presented in the accounts disagree, so does that mean one or the other or both is somehow not inspired?

Honestly this book produced a huge wrestling match with my previously held view of the Bible, but I remain on the side of faith. Not so much faith in the inerrancy of the Bible, but faith in a God who works in ways I don't always understand. My faith emerges better and stronger and more solidly grounded than it was before.

I believe every Christian should read this book with an open mind, prepared to sift out truth and facts from opinion. If you can't read this book and come out stronger, your faith is founded on shifting sands.(less)

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Jul 18, 2010 Notary Tim rated it 5 of 5 stars

If you are happy in your belief that the Bible was dictated by God or otherwise inspired in such a way that it is "inerrant," you will not want to read this book -- as it is a direct challenge to that belief.

Ehrman points out the many, many contradictions within the New Testament (his speciality as a Bible scholar) and gives a good overview of the historical-critical approach to Bible studies, as contrasted with the devotional and other approaches. Most church-based Bible studies are devotional...more

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Jun 08, 2010 Hayden rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Despite having an incredibly stupid title, this book is fascinating. Ehrman dishes all the dirt on not just the contradictions between how, say, Mark and Luke tell Jesus' story, but also who the authors of the New Testament really were (and more importantly, who they were not), what the early sects of the Christian church were like, and how they battled it out to decide what would be left in and out of the canon.

A couple of my favorite tidbits:

1. Matthew says that Jesus was born "of a virgin" be...more

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About Bart D. Ehrman

Bart D. Ehrman is the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor at the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill. He came to UNC in 1988, after four years of teaching at Rutgers University. At UNC he has served as both the Director of Graduate Studies and the Chair of the Department of Religious Studies.

A graduate of Wheaton College (Illinois), Professor Ehrman received both his Masters of Div...more Bart D. Ehrman is the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor at the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill. He came to UNC in 1988, after four years of teaching at Rutgers University. At UNC he has served as both the Director of Graduate Studies and the Chair of the Department of Religious Studies.

A graduate of Wheaton College (Illinois), Professor Ehrman received both his Masters of Divinity and PhD from Princeton Theological Seminary, where his 1985 doctoral dissertation was awarded magna cum laude. Since then he has published extensively in the fields of New Testament and Early Christianity, having written or edited 21 books, numerous scholarly articles, and dozens of book reviews. Among his most recent books are a Greek-English edition of The Apostolic Fathers for the Loeb Classical Library (Harvard University Press), an assessment of the newly discovered Gospel of Judas (Oxford University Press), and two New York Times bestsellers: God’s Problem (an assessment of the biblical views of suffering) and Misquoting Jesus (an overview of the changes found in the surviving copies of the New Testament and of the scribes who produced them).

Among his fields of scholarly expertise are the historical Jesus, the early Christian apocrypha, the apostolic fathers, and the manuscript tradition of the New Testament.

Professor Ehrman has served as President of the Southeast Region of the Society of Biblical literature, chair of the New Testament textual criticism section of the Society, book review editor of the Journal of Biblical Literature, and editor of the monograph series The New Testament in the Greek Fathers (Scholars Press). He currently serves as coeditor of the series New Testament Tools, Studies, and Documents (E.J. Brill), coeditor in chief for the journal Vigiliae Christianae, and on several other editorial boards for journals and monographs in the field.

Winner of numerous university awards and grants, Professor Ehrman is the recipient of the 1993 UNC Undergraduate Student Teaching Award, the 1994 Phillip and Ruth Hettleman Prize for Artistic and Scholarly Achievement, and the Bowman and Gordon Gray Award for excellence in teaching.

Professor Ehrman has two children, a daughter, Kelly, and a son, Derek. He is married to Sarah Beckwith (PhD, King's College London), Marcello Lotti Professor of English at Duke University. He lives in Durham, North Carolina.

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Books by Bart D. Ehrman

Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why

Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew

God's Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question-Why We Suffer

Lost Scriptures: Books That Did Not Make It Into the New Testament

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“One of the most amazing and perplexing features of mainstream Christianity is that seminarians who learn the historical-critical method in their Bible classes appear to forget all about it when it comes time for them to be pastors. They are taught critical approaches to Scripture, they learn about the discrepancies and contradictions, they discover all sorts of historical errors and mistakes, they come to realize that it is difficult to know whether Moses existed or what Jesus actually said and did, they find that there are other books that were at one time considered canonical but that ultimately did not become part of Scripture (for example, other Gospels and Apocalypses), they come to recognize that a good number of the books of the Bible are pseudonymous (for example, written in the name of an apostle by someone else), that in fact we don't have the original copies of any of the biblical books but only copies made centuries later, all of which have been altered. They learn all of this, and yet when they enter church ministry they appear to put it back on the shelf. For reasons I will explore in the conclusion, pastors are, as a rule, reluctant to teach what they learned about the Bible in seminary.” — 25 people liked it

“In terms of the historical record, I should also point out that there is no account in any ancient source whatsoever about King Herod slaughtering children in or around Bethlehem, or anyplace else. No other author, biblical or otherwise, mentions this event. Is it, like John's account of Jesus' death, a detail made up by Matthew in order to make some kind of theological point?” — 10 people liked it

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