The second book IVP sent me was another quick read like the Dawkins Delusion. Like Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus it is written for a lay audience, from a conservative Christian perspective. It delivers a good punch to Ehrman’s work.

Misquoting Truth: A Guide to the Fallacies of Bart Ehrman’s “Misquoting Jesus”
IVP, 2007
Timothy Paul Jones
175 pages
Purchase from Amazon.com or Amazon.ca

Here is the TOC:
Introduction: A New Breed of Biblical Scholar?

Part One: Why the Texts Can Be Trusted
1 Truth About “The Originals That Matter”
2 Truth About the Copyists
3 Truth About “Significant Changes” in the New Testament
4 Truth About “Misquoting Jesus”

Part Two: Why the Lost Christianities Were Lost
5 Truth About Oral History
6 Truth About the Authors of the Gospels
7 Truth About Eyewitness Testimony
8 Truth About How the Books Were Chosen

Concluding Reflections: “It Fits the Lock”
Appendix: How Valuable Is the Testimony of Papias?

Here is a couple of the endorsements from the back:
“In Misquoting Truth, Timothy Paul Jones gives Bart Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus and Lost Christianities the debunking they deserve. Jones exposes the bias and faulty logic that surface time and again in these highly publicized books. Misquoting Truth provides a much needed antidote and will serve students and Christian leaders very well. I recommend this book enthusiastically.” —Craig A. Evans, Payzant Distinguished Professor, Acadia Divinity College

“Timothy Paul Jones turns the tables on Bart Ehrman’s overstated Misquoting Jesus. He applies to Ehrman the same probing logic that Ehrman claims to apply to the New Testament evidence. The evidence turns out to be more believable than Ehrman’s strained interpretations of it. It is not the New Testament writers or copyists who depart from history, Jones shows, but a few scholars who invest too much faith in their skepticism. Jones not only checks that skepticism: along the way he equips readers to make their own informed choices about authorship, scribal transmission, and church selection (or rejection) of key New Testament passages and documents–and many writings from outside the New Testament as well. This is a valuable primer for orientation in a discussion that cannot be ignored.” —Robert Yarbrough, Associate Professor of New Testament and New Testament Department Chair, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School

I enjoyed reading this book. It is aimed at the popular level, so there is nothing ground-breaking or earth-shattering here (much like Ehrman’s work). But Jones certainly knows his stuff and gives Ehrman the critique he deserves. Much like the Dawkins Delusion, it is written in a conversational and very readable style, but without dumbing down the facts. And it isn’t preachy either, which I liked. If you have some people who needs some balance in perspective after reading Ehrman, this is the book to put in their hands. Happy reading!

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 18th, 2007 at 2:14 pm by Danny Zacharias and is filed under Bart Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus, IVP, Book Blurbs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.