Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Lost in Transmission, by Nick Perrin


Nick Perrin's new book is called Lost in Transmission? What we can know about the words of Jesus? The blurb reads: "Bart Ehrman, in his New York Times bestseller, Misquoting Jesus, claims that the New Testament cannot wholly be trusted. Cutting and probing with the tools of text criticism, Ehrman suggests that many of its episodes are nothing but legend, fabricated by those who copied or collated its pages in the intervening centuries. The result is confusion and doubt. Can we truly trust what the New Testament says? Now, Wheaton College scholar Nicholas Perrin takes on Ehrman and others who claim that the text of the New Testament has been corrupted beyond recognition. Perrin, in an approachable, compelling style, gives us a layman's guide to textual criticism so that readers can understand the subtleties of Ehrman's critiques, and provides firm evidence to suggest that the New Testament can, indeed, be trusted."

3 comments:

ole amund said...

Btw, I think "Lost in Transmission" (without the question mark) was the title Ehrman originally intended for Jesus Misquoted, but the publishers was afraid it would be misunderstood as some new book about mechanics and engines. Let's hope Perrin's new book won't be lost in the wrong department of the library.

geoffhudson.blogspot.com said...

Textual criticism tinkers with mostly minor differences in the texts that we have. Logical criticism tells you that the extant NT texts are the expanded and garbled versions of primitive texts written entirely in and for a Jewish milieu, i.e. with no mission to Gentiles either in the Gospels or in Acts, or in the Pauline epistles.

Anonymous said...

Another excuse - on both sides of scholarship - both evangelical and liberal - as to why they cannot read the Holy Scripture. Its only by revelation that one can both recognize and understand, to "see" and "hear" Scripture. Scripture is only ever revealed; and the Bible is sold in the public market.