Draft:The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture

The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture: The Effect of Early Christological Controversies on the Text of the New Testament

Author	Bart D. Ehrman
Language	English
Genre	Textual criticism
Publisher	Oxford University Press
Publication date	1993
ISBN
OCLC	26354078

The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture: The Effect of Early Christological Controversies on the Text of the New Testament is a book by Bart D. Ehrman, published by Oxford University Press.

Summary/Synopsis

The book is divided into 6 chapters. In the first chapter, Ehrman sketches out the relevant socio-historical context and details his methods. Chapters two through five each discuss changes made to the New Testament to discredit a christological "heresy". The second chapter discusses changes related to adoptionism, the view that "Christ was a man but not God"; the third docetism, the view that "he was God but not a man"; the fourth

Reception

J. K. Elliot states that the book shows that the view that few textual variants affect important doctrinal matters is mistaken. He describes Ehrman's arguments as "frequently compelling". William L. Petersen states that although none of the readings are new, Ehrman places them in their proper theological setting. Petersen states that the book is well written and will be useful for beginning graduate students and senior seminars. Elliot says that textual variants related to Christ's person and function should be considered with the book in mind. D. C. Parker calls the book "one of great significance" for textual criticism. Possible subdivisions:

Structure and wording

Dennis Brown describes the book as being written for both specialists and non-specialists. He states that chapter 1 and 6 and less technical while the other chapters are detailed and fully referenced. Raymond F. Collins similarly states that chapters 2–5 form the core of the book. Brown recommends the book for its readability, but criticizes the book for not having an introduction to the its methods, saying that it would have been useful for non-specialists. Elliot says that the words "construal", "misconstrual" and "momentarily" are overused, and that the presence of words like "ideational", "duplicitous", "happenstance", and "pestiferous" is also irksome.