Ehrman does an excellent job of making the topic and scope of textual criticism accessible to non-scholars. While the entire book is excellent, the last chapter…specifically the last section of the last chapter…was the most important part of the book for me. Ehrman masterfully pieces together a case for the Bible as a human book, and then brings it full circle to discuss our own humanity and how it affects our reading and communication of and about any text we read. After I finished, I thought, “Every person who has read or will ever read the New Testament should read this.” It’s so essential to understanding how the NT was put together. But it also brings a new understanding to how we read ANY text. Highly recommended.

Interesting. I’ve wondered before about how literalists could get so worked up when there are many versions of the Bible out there. This book was an interesting glimpse into the how and the why the texts were changed, as well as some things I hadn’t considered, like why the books in the New Testament are the books in the New Testament and not others. I also enjoyed the discussion of some of the techniques used to determine which copies were the “changed” ones, and which the “originals”.
Nothing really earth-shattering, but enjoyable.