MindOnFire Bookclub #2: Misquoting Jesus

We each picked chapters to comment on and I randomly chose chapter five. It was an excellent chapter. Here are my humble thoughts:

Chapter 5 of Bart Ehrman’s “Misquoting Jesus” continues the theme of textual changes to the Bible and shows three specific parts of the Bible where the meaning changes significantly if the text was translated incorrectly (if you’ve already read the book, you can probably skip the three points below):

*Whether Jesus is compassionate or angry toward the leper who asks to be healed (Ehrman argues that the common Christian interpretation portrays Jesus as compassionate. Ehrman thinks Jesus was actually angry because the leper, in the way he asked to be healed if Jesus was willing, was doubting Jesus’s willingness to heal.)

*Whether Jesus is agonizing over his fate in Gesthemene or incomplete control and calm shortly before facing death (Ehrman suggests that Jesus is more un-sure, out-of-control, and deeply anguished than Luke seems to portray)

*Whether Christ suffered death so that he might taste death for everyone by the grace of God or apart from God (Ehrman’s argument compels readers toward Jesus dying/atoning apart from God, contrary to the popular Christian belief that Christ was God and died/atoned by the grace of God.)

Putting the summary behind us, let me tell you what struck me about the chapter. All three of the topics addressed deal specifically with Christ’s character, personality, and temperament. The possible discrepancies Ehrman focuses on deal with Christ’s basic nature.

Why did this strike me as interesting? Because I usually fall into the religious trap of focusing on what Christ said – what he commanded – and fail to pay any attention at all to his personality and approach to dealing with problems.

It is easy to ask “what would Jesus do” and to answer “he would tell me not to kill, and I don’t kill, so I’m ok.” It is much harder to model one’s personality and nature after Christ’s. The latter would be the true spirit of the law, as opposed to the letter of the law, to quote a phrase I’ve heard repeatedly in church.

I have to stop and re-evaluate my views when I ask “how did Jesus approach death” and if I answer “he approached it alone, apart from God, with dread and deep anguish and fear.” The second answer humanizes Jesus and causes me to relate to him on a more mortal level.

If Jesus was God, this causes me to feel a little more in God’s ballpark than I did before. If Jesus is leading us to God, it makes me feel like maybe we’re a little closer to that destination than some people like to think. If Jesus meant to atone for sin, it makes me think it was hard but he did it. If Jesus was a normal human, just like us, it makes me appreciate him simply for his human-ness and his wisdom.

And it makes me wonder even more about one of Ehrman’s provocative uncertainties: Did the writers and translators of the New Testament intentionally try to portray Jesus and God as hugely different than mankind and completely unreachable? If so, is it possible that Jesus and God are a little more like us and a little more attainable than mainstream Christianity tends to teach?

I think a Christian believer can feel closer in nature to God if Ehrman’s interpretations of these scriptures are correct. I think a Christian non-believer can appreciate Jesus’s wisdom from a humanist point of view more if Ehrman’s interpretations of these scriptures are correct. For both types, it becomes increasingly apparent that pure truth is hard to put your finger on and probably can’t be derived from the words of the Bible alone.