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I’m reading “Misquoting Jesus – The Story of Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why’.” by Bart D. Ehrman. I’m almost done and it’s been very good. Ehrman has taken what could have been a dry and exhaustive subject and distilled it down to a very readable book. So many interesting things. He explains the origins of the New Testament and the various Latin and Greek versions, and the history of those who changed text and why during the course of translation/transcription. Very interesting stuff regarding the Trinity. Some of it impacts how we think about things as LDS.
One of the misconceptions we have as LDS people is that we think the bible has gone through numerous translations, when in fact, there have just been a couple of translations, but hundreds of transcriptions. This book is under 250 pages and well worth the effort.
I have this book and also endorse reading it. Like you mentioned, Dr. Ehrman takes an extremely arcane subject and makes it understandable to a wide audience. That to me is the mark of a master in their subject. This book is an excellent primer on the origins and history of the New Testament. I have another of Dr. Ehrman’s books on my to-read list: “Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (And Why We Don’t Know About Them)”
I see Dr. Ehrman’s books as the NT corollary to books like “Who Wrote the Bible?” by Richard Elliot Friedman, which deals about the history and development of the Old Testament.
Quote:One of the misconceptions we have as LDS people is that we think the bible has gone through numerous translations, when in fact, there have just been a couple of translations, but hundreds of transcriptions. This book is under 250 pages and well worth the effort.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve felt that most of the NT, gospels anyway, wasn’t originally written in Greek. Jesus may have known Greek, but I doubt it was what he preached in. I suspect we have lost a lot because the “original” version probably isn’t that at all.
SamBee wrote:Quote:One of the misconceptions we have as LDS people is that we think the bible has gone through numerous translations, when in fact, there have just been a couple of translations, but hundreds of transcriptions. This book is under 250 pages and well worth the effort.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve felt that most of the NT, gospels anyway, wasn’t originally written in Greek. Jesus may have known Greek, but I doubt it was what he preached in. I suspect we have lost a lot because the “original” version probably isn’t that at all.
Yes, that is why I think that many Christian faiths, including our own, are flawed in their concept of the ‘Word of God’ and in wresting doctrinal points from the scriptures. I do think it’s miraculous that we have this wonderful resources, but not the ‘God just handed the NT to us’ idea that so many people have.
I always felt it ironic that most of Europe (the west anyway) had a Latin Bible foisted on them, and at the same time Jews were being persecuted as Christ-killers. In actual fact, as we all know, it was Latin speakers who put him on the cross. (Not necessarily Roman though, since a lot of their soldiers were from elsewhere.) There’s a PBS film called “The First Christians”. I believe John Dominic Crossan or another scholar stated that Jesus was fluent in Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic. Greek in Jesus day was equivalent to English today. The city of Sepphoris was near Jesus, and they said it would have been very difficult for a carpenter not to have known Greek at that time. So, it is likely that Jesus spoke Greek, as well as Hebrew and Aramaic. I’m pretty sure that the Gospel of Luke and Book of Acts were originally written in Greek, because it is addressed to a Greek audience, and had a writing style similar to Greek novels of the day. (The books were written by the same author.) Matthew was probably written Hebrew or Aramiac because it was written to Jews. I believe Mark was also probably written in Hebrew or Aramaic.
I would suspect a lot of John was originally in Greek, from the style. You’re probably right about Matthew. Still, a lot of the names had to be transliterated.
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