Book Review:
The popular perception of the Bible as a divinely perfect book receives scant support from Ehrman, who sees in Holy Writ ample evidence of human fallibility and ecclesiastical politics. Though himself schooled in evangelical literalism, Ehrman has come to regard his earlier faith in the inerrant inspiration of the Bible as misguided, given that the original texts have disappeared and that the extant texts available do not agree with one another. Most of the textual discrepancies, Ehrman acknowledges, matter little, but some do profoundly affect religious doctrine. To assess how ignorant or theologically manipulative scribes may have changed the biblical text, modern scholars have developed procedures for comparing diverging texts. And in language accessible to nonspecialists, Ehrman explains these procedures and their results. He further explains why textual criticism has frequently sparked intense controversy, especially among scripture-alone Protestants. In discounting not only the authenticity of existing manuscripts but also the inspiration of the original writers, Ehrman will deeply divide his readers. Although he addresses a popular audience, he undercuts the very religious attitudes that have made the Bible a popular book. Still, this is a useful overview for biblical history collections.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0060738170/104-7374167-8028736?v=glance&n=283155
Dr Ehrman has provided the general reading public with a superb book that simply, clearly, and concisely reports and analyzes the many issues that confront anyone seeking to better understand the words and teachings of Jesus in particular and of the New Testament in general. With the seemingly never ending popularity of the fictional "Da Vinci Code" a corresponding interest in what really happened in the decades and centuries following the deaths of the apostles has also arisen. Since much of what Dan Brown includes in his novel is historically unreliable, a book like this from Dr Ehrman is especially helpful to the general reader. He demonstrates how the plethora of variant readings and manuscripts of the Greek New Testament have, from the beginning of church history, produced difficult challenges to sincere followers of Jesus, challenges that are not made less of a problem by either fundamentalist biblicism or evanagelical absolutism. He further demonstrates that prior to the rise of Nicene orthodoxy the Christian community was quite diverse and that the attempt to establish a uniformity among those who called themselves Christians did, in more than a few instances, influence how the text of the New Testament was copied and transmitted to succeeding generations. Evangelical Christians in particular ought to read this book and pay particular attention to Dr Ehrman's autobiographical essay at the beginning. Many thanks to Dr. Ehrman for writing a book that is at once challenging, stimulating, and, in its way, very spiritual.
Check out a John Steward interview with him: http://www.comedycentral.com/shows/the_daily_show/videos/most_recent/index.jhtml
This guy looked at over 5000 different manuscripts and has some very origional conclusions. Excellent for those who insist (falsely) that the bibles we have today are the same as the ones the origional christrians used.