Customer Reviews

Misquotes in MISQUOTING JESUS: Why You Can Still Believe

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First, you should understand that this is not what most people would call a book. There is clearly little, if ANY, editing, and more importantly vetting, of the arguments.

What Mr. Burroughs has done is to take reviews and blogs concerning Bart D. Ehrman's book "Misquoting Jesus" off the internet and interspersed his own comments among them. There are about five internet sources for his criticisms, and most come from three sources.

Daniel B. Wallace's book review,
Craig L. Blomberg's book review
Ben Witherington's blog
J. P. Holding's book review

The ebook has 78 pages in it, but only 45 pages have actual content regarding Ehrman's arguments in his book. Even that is somewhat generous. Burroughs own contributions couldn't be more than 10 pages---if that.

Burroughs expresses a great deal of admiration for Ehrman in his acknowledgements and notes, which is a contrast to much of the rest of his book.

Chapter 1. Burroughs opening chapter feigns praise by expressing admiration for Ehrman's popular success through lists of public appearances at Universities, on Radio, on TV, and in Newsapapers---all of them conservatives would recognize as LIBERAL organizations. The hint is that this book is a POPULAR (un-scholarly) sellout, and not a work to be taken seriously. The message to conservatives is quite clear: Ehrman is a liberal, and not to be taken seriously.

Chapter 2. This might come as a surprise to some readers as it is titled "What Misquoting Jesus Gets Right." It turns out, that Ehrman's work, despite the book's claim to the contrary in its title, gets most of it right---according to these most ardent critics!

This chapter is rather stunning, since much of what I was expecting to be "refuted" is left alone. Burroughs (or more accurately his sources), admits:

1. Some of the writings attributed to Paul are NOT by him.

2. That scribes in local churches changed portions of the text to appeal to their local congregations.

3. In somewhat of a bombshell, Burroughs and his critics admit that the story of the adulterous in the Gospel of John is a story added by scribes and was never a part of any original Gospel.

4. The last 12 versus of Mark also were not originally there.

In a rather stunning admission, Burroughs' source, Wallace, says the following regarding admissions 3 and 4 (although it is not in chapter 2, but rather in chapter 6):

In retrospect, keeping these two pericopae [stories] in
our Bibles rather than relegating them to the footnotes
seems to have been a bomb just waiting to explode. All
Ehrman did was to light the fuse. One lesson we must learn
from Misquoting Jesus is that those in ministry need to
close the gap between the church and the academy. We have to
educate believers. Instead of trying to isolate laypeople
from critical scholarship, we need to insulate them. They
need to be ready for the barrage, because it is coming' The
intentional dumbing down of the church for the sake of
filling more pews will ultimately lead to defection from
Christ. Ehrman is to be thanked for giving us a
wake-up call.

After reading chapter 2 of Burroughs book, one wonders if he has any substantial criticism left. Up to this point, Burroughs, and his sources, can only complain that Erhman is not being fair to those who don't find these problems serious (...and not much changes throughout the rest of the book).

Wallace's counsel to churches to inform the non-academic church members (including the pastors/ministers), of these textual problems highlights Ehrman's point. Lay Christians DO NOT know this information. And more to the point, if they did, how could they trust the church, OR the Bible again? For centuries, members have been told that the Bible is the divinely inspired, inerrant word of God. This has been translated to mean that God actually guided the hands of the books' authors. Within Christian churches this has been debated, but there is no question that a large number of Christians lean to the "guided" hand idea---which is why many churches do NOT preach on biblical history or theology regarding biblical canonization or textual criticism (not, as portrayed here, because it is boring).

Later in chapter 6, Burroughs and his sources attempt to redefine "divinely inspired inerrancy," in order to save defections.

Chapter 3 is simply a complaint about Ehrman being biased about what to conclude from the information in his Chapters 1-4. Burroughs and his sources argue that what Ehrman believes is not the only belief out there. There are scholars (read conservative scholars), who think it IS possible to get the original text back.

Chapter 4 concerns more bias, and notes Ehrman's move to post-modernism. In a move reminiscent of Burroughs' own, I'll state that this is what Burroughs and his sources get right. Post-modernism is an affliction thoughout the humanities and even in some of the social sciences.

Ehrman's lean to post-modernism though is not at all related to the problems pointed out in his book.

Chapter 5 simply argues that the bombshells admitted to in chapter 2 are all that there are. That Ehrman insinuates many like them throughout the Bible text, is unfair---and not true. The defense here is pathetic, and whiney!

Chapter 6 is an attempt to border up the flood gates of problems. Conservative Christian scholars have a real struggle on their hands when it comes to informing their congregations however---noted by Wallace earlier.

Chapters 7 - 9 argue minor points about the role of women in the church, theological differences, and complain of Ehrman's over use of KJV as a comparison source. All of it debatable, and pretty irrelevant.

Chapter 10. Here Burroughs tells his readers to deal with Ehrman's book by dialoguing with it--which means you will have to buy it and read it first. I agree too. Read Ehrman's book and then Burroughs internet sources and see where you come out.

A note: Burroughs and his sources attribute agnosticism to Ehrman. Ehrman does not claim this in his book, but it certainly would fit your perception after reading it. Is Ehrman agnostic? Who kows, but wouldn't an agnostic be more objective than a theist OR an atheist regarding these issues?

Final note: Burroughs, in an embarrassing display of unprofessionalism, includes in an appendix an e-mail exchange between himself and Ehrman. There is no way to authenticate the messages, nor is there any sign that Ehrman gave permission to use, what most would consider, a private exchange between an unrecognized amateur on the subject and a scholar.

This reads like a zealot's response
to facts he can't bear to be true.
It doesn't matter that you can verify Erhman's facts for yourself.
This 'pamphlet' is the kind of fluff that is actually embarrasing to all who can think rationally.In grand apologist tradition, if you can't refute the facts resort to evasion and gibberish. I honestly feel sorry
for these folks.

This is not a serious book, it is just a pamphlet. Mr. Burroughts is totally biased and just uses misleading arguments. Reading this book was a total waste of time.

This is such utter drivel that Amazon should not lower itself to offer such unmitigated tripe. If there were ANY scholarly work to back this purely religious tract, it might have redeeming value. As it is, this 'book' is nothing more that some right-wing religious crackpot's effort at 15 minutes of fame. Would that I could cut that to 15 seconds ... and get my friend's money back for buying this platitudinous twaddle.

Another reaction to scholarly works which posit anything contrary to "the truth" contained within the Bible.

Let me quote Carl Sagan (yes, yes, I know that he was a professed atheist, but bear with me here):

"In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion. [Carl Sagan, 1987 CSICOP keynote address]

What really burns me down about pieces like this is that in the case of belief, there seems to be this imbalance of fact. Not so much that there is an blatant absence of factual, testable evidence that there really was/is a Jesus or God for that matter to begin with, but that when confronted with any actual evidence contrary to these, the problems begin. And the problems are these: even though all of what Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hopi Indians, or whoever is primarily based upon faith and belief, anything contrary or challenging to these must be automatically backed up by extraordinary or incontrovertible evidence.

WHAT? Wait, let me get this straight: You have faith in something that you have little to absolutely no proof of, and yet when scholarly work presents evidence to the contrary of what you believe based upon faith and little to no proof, that scholarly work needs to back up what it has found with mounds of factual, provable evidence? Does anyone else see a problem here?

Look, the FACT of this matter is that until people just get their heads out of their collective rears about their "beliefs" and learn that anything, and I mean ANYthing is vulnerable to being DISproven, and when they decide to OPEN THEIR MINDS to other possibilities, this world will be pretty much the most messed up place ever. This piece attempts to block that open-mindedness and fails miserably.

Reactionism to anything that threatens a dogma or a belief without incontrovertible or compelling factual evidence is bunk. Those who write reactionary pieces expect and criticize this from contrary writings. Why shouldn't they be held to the same standard? Simply because it is the so-called "Word of God?" I believe that this God would hold things to a higher standard.

Just because it is written and has been ratified (and edited) by a council which was politically motivated and charged by an emperor to meet his needs and not those of the truth and the people does not make it truth. And the belief (notice I wrote "belief" and not "fact") that there is no way whatsoever that it can be proven as divinely inspired and that the men (note, no women there) who were charged with ratifying and editing the "Gospels" were lead by the Holy Spirit to do anything. More likely they were paid very well and got exactly what their leaders desired: more power and control over the masses, more land and more influence, and finally more wealth so that they could continue to contain the beliefs of the uneducated. Today we call this "Fascism." Then it was called "divinely inspired."

And speaking of Fascism, this work is tantamount at an attempt to silence critics of the Bible. This act, unabated by the Constitution of the United States, would also move well into the realm of Fascist propaganda. Thank God (?) for men who saw that the tyranny of not only that states but the churches as well should not govern the people. Now THAT is what I would call "divinely inspired!"

Simply stated: when reactionary rhetoric can complete a factual, evidential treatise which can counter Biblical criticism, then the masses will listen with a discerning ear and see what is fact and what is fiction (faith?). Until then nice try....

[...].

It is extremely sad that in the face of obvious historical indications that the bible has been cobbled together based on the popular opinions of various and sundry human agencies that any dissenting opinion dare not be allowed to stand. The bible was a changeable and varying collection of documents that most certainly deserves the closest scrutiny and an open mind that allows one to discount the myths and the hyperbole in order to find the gems of wisdom. This book comes nowhere near the levels of rationalism and idealism that is inherently required when debating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. The author is just plain scared and has no real faith, else his faith would have stood on its own.

The motto outside the conservative Baptist church down the street from me says, "If your faith can't be tested, it can't be trusted." And yet, too many Christians seem to turn a blind eye to any criticism of scripture which might test their faith and cause any sort of cognitive dissonance. This books panders to such "Christians", who refuse to accept Jesus' message of love and acceptance, and instead cling to a hate-filled old-testament version of holy commandments.

As Jesus himself said, "This is my commandment, that you love one another, as I have loved you." (John 15:12)

I downloaded the Amazon-provided sample for this book. It was nothing more than the table of contents (a list of alleged or hinted-at counter-arguments) and a preface explaining his motivation for writing the book. Give me some meat! Show me at least ONE compelling argument for buying this book. I don't give a hoot about your "motivation." I do care whether I'm spending money on a credible, well supported argument or the self-righteous rantings of a vacuous windbag.

This is a fundamentally fundamental partially-misunderstood 'gut reaction' to a theistically superbly sound and utterly convincingt series of biblical textual arguments.
At this incredible price, it's really difficult to imagine the author has a purely faith-based reason to regurgitate other people's "pre-digested" and utterly unbelievable religious pap.
Maybe I'm wrong, but this 'author' makes me seriously doubt the authenticity of his reasons.
Still, if pap is your preferred mode of reasoning, you'll love this to bits.

Erhdman is simply another "scholar" who lost his faith and made millions cashing in on it. While Erhdman is hyper-critical of every Christian manuscript (and he apparently he pretends as though he's personally managed to look at all 26,000 of them!), he gives Gnostic manuscripts a free pass. Erdhman seems in some parts of his writings to actually believe Gnosticism was the original form of Christianity when nothing could be further from the truth. To compensate for a lack of evidence to support their claims, Ehrdman and his friends have started backdating Gnostic manuscripts for no real reason. For instance, the spurious "Gospel of Judas" has been dated at 200 A.D., even though the only known manuscript is from the 5th century A.D. Poof! It's magic! Meanwhile, Erdhman and his lot would never admit the New Testament manuscripts date to the first century A.D., even with the findings of the Magdelene Fragment of the Gospel of Matthew, dated as early as 40 A.D. When Erdman mentions the "thousands of differences" between Biblical manuscripts, any first year seminarian has a good laugh at that statement. The vast majority of these "thousands of differences" are merely trivial things such as variations in spelling (such as COLLOSAE vs. COLLOSEA, etc.) and word order (such as JESUS CHRIST vs. CHRIST JESUS). None of these things really matter,obviously, but Erdhman doesn't want you to know that. This book is a great little refutation to many of Erdhman's many money making vehicles out there. You can see by the amount of vitriol the militant atheists have thrown on it in these reviews that they are terrified of it. Be sure to also check out Fabricating Jesus: How Modern Scholars Distort the Gospels