Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why

The book deals with some very important issues in relation to the Bible. For many people today the Bible is considered to be without error, the 'Word of God' that is to be obeyed. What they don't realize though, is that what constitutes today's Bible is not what the original texts said.

First, you have to go back to the time the parts were written. This was a time when the vast majority (95% or so) of the people could neither read nor write. The very first writings that were to become the Bible sections have never been found.

All we have is copies made of the originals. The first problem lies in the fact that the people doing the copying were not trained in doing copying. There were maybe two or three hundred years before professions hit the scene.

To complicate things even more the originals were not written in English (which did not really exist a that time anyhow.) There were in Aramaic which was then translated into Greek and Latin which were later translated into English.

Along the way mistakes were made, some accidental and some on purpose by men who didn't necessarily agree with what they were copying.

All of this is very well explained by the author. He also gives very specific examples of how numerous changes were made (perhaps tens of thousands) from the very first writings.

There were spelling mistakes, words not actually understood, abbreviations which were not clear and words that sounded alike but had different meanings. These all contributed to changes being made from the very first writings.

Many of the changes were minor and didn't really make a difference but some were very major.

I like the way the author cites numerous specific examples of these mistakes and changes. The book, though, is somewhat dry at times and can get rather technical. Still, it's definitely worth reading.