This book starts with the seed of exploring how research into memory supports or debunks (mostly debunks) common ideas about the reliability of eyewitness experience and recalling oral history - and how that relates to the Bible, how likely it is that stories in the Bible remained accurate to reality (not very), assuming they were there to accurately describe events as they happened (Ehrman suggests many are not). The half of the book that's giving a review of the science of memory and how it relates to the plausibility of the accuracy of the Bible is very worthwhile. However, along the way it gets into mnemohistory as a way to try to analyse the people who wrote the gospels and it's a shaky proposition that seems to try to elevate what's really just old fashioned literary analysis. ( )

This is a really interesting book that helped me look at the Gospels, Jesus, and the way I think of the whole topic in a new way. I also have a history degree and if things had gone a bit differently for me I think I would have wound up following almost exactly in Ehrman's footsteps regarding his pursuit of religious education and employment. Religion was always important to me and I committed pretty heavily to it but I started getting hung up on inconsistencies in the narrative. Understanding how and why the narratives were constructed in the way they were isn't suddenly going to make me a 100% believer again, but it does make me better informed and gives me something to think about while I read through the Bible again. 100% accuracy and consistency maybe isn't as important as the morals of the stories that people were trying to get across. And we can learn a lot about what problems people were dealing with based on how they told those stories.

I also really appreciated that Ehrman dove into non-canonical gospels. I feel like they get a bad rep and should be more widely read.

I had some issues with Ehrman's writing style. It felt like there was a lot of summary and not as much analysis as I would have liked. I also think the summary he gave in the last chapter should have come at the beginning of the book and then he could have focused on each perspective in turn to give readers something to hold onto while picking up new ideas. Having finished the book, I feel like I need to read through it again to retain the information. Granted, I learn better by talking about a book with other people or through watching discussions online.

I also don't like how Ehrman regularly says in his books that he already discussed something in a previous book so he's not going to discuss it again here. Hey, guess what? Maybe I haven't read your earlier books, won't stop reading this book to go find them and read them first, and maybe it's relevant to the topic so you should in fact go into it a bit so I fully understand your point. ( )

2018
https://www.librarything.com/topic/288371#6634490 ( )

Yet another outstanding work by the preeminent secular New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman.

In this book, Dr. Ehrman uses his typically clear and readable style to exexplain how memories of the historical Jesus changed both over time, and among the various Orthodox and non canonical gospels.

As always, a fascinating and highly informative book that should appeal to both Christians and non-Christians alike. ( )

Ehrman is one of my favorite historians and theologians because he is honest and documents his few opinions copiously. In this book, he takes the position, based on the science of psychology and memory research, that what we have, written down in today's version of the Christian bible, has been modified by decades of filtering through verbal tales and the modifications of human memory over time and re-telling. He does not discount the value of the stories in the bible, but he demonstrates the question of historical accuracy. Unlike some of Ehrman's other books that look at the impact of forgery and intentional modification by the early emerging church, this book shouldn't raise many hackles except among those who consider the bible to be "inerrant" and totally accurate. ( )