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

by Bart D. Ehrman

At Moody, I learned the basics of the field known as textual criticism—a technical term for the science of restoring the “original” words of a text from manuscripts that have altered them.

I had to learn Greek, the original language of the New Testament, and possibly other ancient languages such as Hebrew (the language of the Christian Old Testament)

in Mark 2,

(1 Sam. 21:1–6), it turns out that David did this not when Abiathar was the high priest, but, in fact, when Abiathar’s father Ahimelech was.

Mark says that Jesus was crucified the day after the Passover meal was eaten (Mark 14:12; 15:25)

John says he died the day before it was eaten (John 19:14)

Luke indicates in his account of Jesus’s birth that Joseph and Mary returned to Nazareth just over a month a...

Matthew indicates they instead fled to Egypt ...

Paul says that after he converted on the way to Damascus he did...

Acts says that that was the first thing he did after...

there are more differences among our manuscripts than there are words in the New Testament.

This was a human book from beginning to end. It was written by different human authors at different times and in different places to address different needs.

Ignatius of Antioch, Clement of Rome, and Barnabas of Alexandria,

Josephus, and Lucian of Samosata, and Plutarch.

we need to start before the beginnings of Christianity with the religion from which Christianity sprang, Judaism.

Judaism, on the other hand, was monotheistic;

One of the things that made Judaism unique among the religions of the Roman Empire was that these instructions, along with the other ancestral traditions, were written down in sacred books.

the first century of the common era,1 when the books of the New Testament were being written—

The Torah consists of five books, sometimes called the Pentateuch (the “five scrolls”),

Some thirteen letters written in Paul’s name are included in the New Testament.

Scholars have long recognized that Mark was the first Gospel to be written, and that both Matthew and Luke used Mark’s account as a source for their own stories about Jesus.

Jesus plainly states that anyone who knows why it is legitimate to violate Sabbath is blessed for doing so; only those who don’t understand why it is legitimate are doing what is wrong.