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This is Part 3 of a critical review of Bart Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus.

So, what is to be made of Ehrman’s thesis and the reasoning which led him to embrace it? Well, let me begin with a quick word about the large amount of autobiographical data in the book. Some have taken issue with its inclusion in a scholarly work, although I was not bothered by it. Misquoting Jesus was written for laymen, according to the author. In fact, I think the presence of this material provides added insight into the goal of the author in the publishing of this book. His goal is not just to inform, but to convince his readers that they should follow his lead, by denying the evangelical viewpoint and become “happy agnostics.” Robert H. Gundry, in his review of the book, states:

He (Ehrman) makes it quite clear his further and ultimate purpose to dysangelize them – in other words, to proclaim New Testament textual criticism as bad news to all who believe the Bible to be God’s word.

New Testament scholar, Ben Witherington, in his review, claims…

… he is trying now to deconstruct orthodox Christianity, which he once embraced, rather than do ‘value neutral’ text criticism.

Ehrman is certainly not a dispassionate observer of the facts, but is presenting a viewpoint to which he is “fully committed.”

Now, I proceed to Ehrman’s main arguments. Ehrman’s first contention is that the early scribes were incompetent and unable to accurately copy and transmit the text of scripture. He makes several claims, however, which fail to stand up under scrutiny. Regarding copying of texts in general during the first few centuries, Ehrman claims…

… that this process could be maddeningly slow and inaccurate, that the copies produced this way could end up being quite different from the originals.

The process was worse for Christians, asserts Ehrman:

Because the early Christian texts were not being copied by professional scribes, at least the first two or three centuries of the church, but simply by educated members of the Christian congregations…, we can expect that in the earliest copies, especially, mistakes were commonly made in transcription.

Next, what to make of Ehrman’s claim?