by Bart D. Ehrman
Elucidative and engaging like all his books. His main theme--or at least one he kept coming back to--was that all of the contradictions and changes in the various books of the bible were well known to any student at a seminary...but
when they became a preacher, they "conveniently" forgot it all and reverted to teaching the literal word of The Bible.
Okay, he didn't put it so sarcastically. He is nothing if not fair in his judgements, and he presents the anomaly as a question, not an accusation.
Another interesting thing I got was that the typical way to read the four gospels was sequentially, from first to last and beginning to end. But a parallel reading turned up contradiction after contradiction. Some of which were simple omissions, but others appeared to be the result of the differing beliefs of the authors. Writing in hindsight as it were, about events they did not witness and only had a word-of-mouth transmission over the course of several years (30 or more), even the most careful of authors would choose the facts in a way that reflected their beliefs. It's human...a normal translation through the human psyche of a system of beliefs and an origin story for them.
Some very interesting observations are how various facts "crept into" the tales to make the stories fit in with the Jewish prophecies. Which were mostly not about the Messiah at all. But so it goes.
It would be interesting to track down a modern, annotated translation from the older of the Greek manuscripts we have. Maybe I will. Someday.
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