Jesus: Man, Messenger, Messiah · Introduction

The question the book actually asks

In short

1.Ehrman's question: if God inspired the words, why do we not have the words?
2.We possess no autographs — not one original manuscript of any New Testament book.
3.We have copies of copies of copies, the earliest substantial ones centuries after composition.
4.So every English Bible rests on a scholarly *reconstruction*, not on an inherited original.

The claim being examined

The debate is usually framed as "is the Bible reliable?", which is too broad to be answerable and invites a defensive response.

The Islamic position

The Islamic claim is narrower and testable: revelation given to earlier prophets was not preserved as given, whereas the Qur'an was preserved in a controlled transmission.

Analysis

The framing sentence of the book is that it makes little sense to say God inspired the very words of scripture if we no longer have those words. Ehrman is not claiming that the message is unrecoverable — he holds that in most places the earliest text can be reconstructed with confidence — but that the doctrine of verbal inspiration cannot survive the absence of the verbal originals. This is the frame in which every other card in this chapter should be used: it is an argument about the *doctrine of the text*, not a claim that the New Testament is fiction.

From the Qur'an

Q 15:9

إِنَّا نَحْنُ نَزَّلْنَا ٱلذِّكْرَ وَإِنَّا لَهُۥ لَحَٰفِظُونَ

Indeed, it is We who sent down the Reminder, and indeed, We will be its guardian.

Sources

Bart D. Ehrman · Bart D. Ehrman, *Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why* (HarperSanFrancisco, 2005), Introduction, pp. 4-11

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