Misquotes in MISQUOTING JESUS: Why You Can Still Believe Review

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(More customer reviews)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.


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