MetaCatholic

Michael Bird, without comment, notes and quotes the blurb for a new book by Nicholas Perrin. It seems to me the blurb is crying out for comment.

Here is Mike’s brief post in full – mainly consisting of the said blurb

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.”

Now excuse me, but saying Ehrman uses text criticism to claim that “many of [the NT's] episodes are nothing but legend, fabricated by those who copied or collated its pages in the intervening centuries” seems to me a fairly gross distortion. I largely disagree with much of Ehrman’s view, but this is ludicrous.

And in what way does textual criticism, and only textual criticism, offer us any significant take on whether any individual saying actually gives us “the words of Jesus.”? Especially since the text critic works with what, even on the most conservative reading, are largely translations of whatever Jesus said.

Well, one can’t necessarily hold scholars responsible for what publishers say about their work, but I just hope this particular blurb in no way accurately reflects the book’s contents.