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This is Part 2 of a series reviewing Bart Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus.

In the first two chapters, Ehrman lays out his first main argument, that is, that the early scribes were incapable of accurately copying and transmitting the texts of scripture. Most Christians, he claims, were illiterate, and the non-professional scribes who copied scripture were error-prone and incompetent.

In chapters three to five, Ehrman’s goal is to show how the manuscripts which exist today are utterly unreliable and filled with scribal errors. He asserts the errors number in the hundreds of thousands, making it impossible to trust the accuracy of the manuscripts. Additionally, he asserts that…

in my judgment the translations available to most English readers are based on the wrong text, and having the wrong text makes a real difference for the interpretation of these books.

Starting in chapter six, Ehrman presents his third main point, that is, that…

… the texts of the New Testament were modified for theological reasons.

Scribes intentionally made changes in the text to make certain theological points. At times, they did this simply to clarify a passage, or at least to make it clear what they think it means. At other times, they did this to counter heretical ideas with which the church was dealing at that time.

The conclusion, once again, becomes somewhat autobiographical. He reiterates how his view of scripture has changed. He came to realize that…

… even if God had inspired the original words, we don’t have the original words. So the doctrine of inspiration was in a sense irrelevant… Given the circumstance that he didn’t preserve the words, the conclusion seemed inescapable to me that he hadn’t gone to the trouble of inspiring them.

Next, I begin to evaluate the arguments.