Misquoting is a quick read
 

I believe I will finish it the first time tonight. It is a fascinating outline of textual criticism, something well-known to SEIQ, AA and CHC, but only partially known in fragments to me.

The first chapter basically outlines the landscape, with the introduction providing a interesting sketch of his personal journey.

Showoff.

Jeez, can you at least give a guy a chance to buy the book?

I told you I am not a patient man. It is only about 171 pages or so. I want to run through it, then study its contents on the second round.

If you're going to consume this stuff that quickly, then you should definitely read his book, "Orthodox Corruption of Scripture". You'll love it. It is intended for a scholarly audience, while the books discussed recently here are his popularized versions of his scholarship. You'll get much of what you get in misquoting Jesus, but it is more focused and much more detailed.

Chapel, I have a question for you.

I was joking with the gentlemen here about reading a rebuttal to Misquoting, which I believe is entitled Misquotes in Misquoting Jesus.

I can only assume that this work is somewhat, um, less than scholarly and is instead fluff intended to reassure paranoid evangelicals.

Do you know anything about it?

I wasn't familiar with his pamphlet until you posted this. Luckily the first reviewer gives a very good review. Based on that review he sounds just like the pastor in Chapel Hill that held a support group (no kidding) for students who took his Intro to NT class (about 360 students per term). He would tell the students that what Dr. Ehrman teaches is correct and widely acknowledged (which it is), but that it doesn't need to destroy your faith. It is really an intermingling of scholarship and theology, which was helpful to some students. This pamphlet appears to be in a similar vein, namely, 'here's why this book doesn't need to shake you up, and there are some smart Christians who know how to respond to this in a way that doesn't have to diminish your faith'.

One impact that this work has upon me is it shows how impossible it is to be a Renaissance Man, unlike it was during the turn of the century of the dawn of our industrial age.

I remember reading about a Russian who at the early 1900s was believed to know all math there was to know. However with the explosion of knowledge nobody can know one tenth of one hundredth that there is to know.

Reading this work makes me want to become proficient in Classical Greek, which knowing myself I will initiate and then become bogged down and not quite get there. Additionally, doing so would require devotion of mental resources probably better used to help out my kids or my wife. Anyway, by the time I became useful, all I would be able to do would be able to follow the discussion more intelligently. To be able to actually add something, I would need some genius plus access to original copies of documents. So in other words, in most activities you and I are left as interested spectators of but a chosen few.

That's frustrating.

The feeling was well-described in Amadeus where the protagonist could see Mozart's genius, could appreciate it, but never could match it, and it left him feeling frustrated of being incapable of produce that level of beauty.

Ah, pseudo-histoprical movies that distort the truth but are a still fun. Finally something I know about. The protagnoist was Salieri. The

I did read that the treatment of Salieri was unfair and that he had some productions of merit, and I suppose much of the treatment of Amadeus was inaccurate, but it gave the first attempt to try to understand why people appreciate opera, and why Mozart is considered a genius.

I don't understand how works are supposed to be constructed, but I understand there were traditional expectations that Mozart broke out of, brilliantly.

My point is, after reviewing anything in depth, I always feel like a total idiot.