Misquoting Jesus
posted 01 Sep 2021
Professor Bart D. Ehrman - https://youtu.be/pfheSAcCsrE
A talk I enjoyed about the history of Biblical manuscripts. There are a couple items from this talk that resonated with me.
The Core Argument
The mechanics of how Biblical manuscripts made it to us today is not something I ever focused on super closely. It’s a topic that had been touched on and glossed over at my Christian school, essentially saying “oh people were really careful when copying” and “aural tradition was much stronger then; they got it exactly right”. What is interesting to me is that Professor Ehrman does not take the discrepancies and dunk all over Christianity as a whole, as many Christians fear would happen if any doubt was cast on the integrity of scripture. Professor Ehrman has a much more measured response — “This happened. There is no scholarly way to deny this happened. This has some ramifications for the meanings of certain passages, and there is no way to know which way (if either) was original. We should be aware of that.”
Discussion is Hard
You hear people jump on him and try to preemptively defend against some arguments that Professor Ehrman was not making, and he has to reiterate the scope of his talk. I see this as is a demonstration of the fact that it’s so hard to have a focused, nuanced discussion (about anything, but especially ‘identity’ things (religion/politics)).
Who Do We Believe?
At one point, an audience member straight up asks why he should be believed over another author who was saying something that sounded better to him. I was very impressed with his measured answer. It is a very good question - How do we know what is true and who to believe? Having tools to evaluate information (or misinformation, and sort them accordingly) is not something people are good at by default. I wish that was something that was taught in schools in a meaningful way, but that might bring you dangerously close to “why do we (the children) have to listen to what you (the teacher) are saying? What authority do you really have here?”, a question that could break the wrong way if not handled correctly.