The Telephone Game

     Has the Bible "changed" over time? This is a question that comes up frequently when people discuss if we can trust the Bible. Even if the original writings of the Bible were God's inspired Word, the argument goes, how do we know that men didn't change it to suit their interests over the centuries, or that mistakes were made as the Bible was passed along and translated. In the "telephone game," a message gets transferred repeatedly over the phone, or whispered from ear to ear, and often is unrecognizable after it is passed on a number of times. Did this happen with the Bible?

     This is a great question, and actually is another evidence that we can trust the Bible. This is because, out of all ancient religious writings and historical writings, the Bible has far more evidence to support our knowledge of the original readings. This makes sense if God worked through history to preserve his Word, but would be quite remarkable if it is just a "coincidence."

     Consider that we have 5,700 hundred handwritten Greek copies from the New Testament, about 1,000 times as many as most ancient works, and thousands more than any other ancient writing!

     About 150 of these copies were made within the first 300 years of the original writings. Typically, there is a gap of 500 to 1,000 years between an original writing and the first copy that is possessed today. Those differences are staggering!

     And the differences over time between early manuscripts and later ones are remarkably small and usually completely insignificant.

     This is true in spite of the fact that early Christians were persecuted or killed for possessing or producing copies of the Bible.

     God's Word comes to us through: 1. The original writings. 2. An abundance of copies of those writings that help us determine the original writings with great accuracy. 3. An accurate translation into English from the original Greek text.

     There are numerous English Bible translations today because: 1. The English language changes over time and new Bible translations are more in line with changes that keep occurring with English. 2. Translations have different strategies. Some try to stay very close to the words and word order of the Greek text, while others try to capture the meaning of a Greek phrase or sentence in more natural sounding English. There are positives and negatives of each approach.

     The bottom line is that most English translations accurately communicate God's Word to us. (I recommend any of the KJV, NKJV, NASB, ESV, NIV, Holman, and more!) We can walk into just about any store in the country and pick up a copy of God's Word in our language in an easy to carry, relatively small bound book. Considering that the Bible was written largely by outcasts from society nearly 2,000 years ago or more, in vastly different languages, and on fragile pieces of papyrus, who faced strong persecution and even death- is yet another sign of God's love for us and the fact that we can trust the Bible- make sure you are reading your copy!

Trust the Bible is a weekday radio program that begins at about 8:10 each morning on WDOG 93.5 in Allendale, SC. You can listen to previous programs online here: http://www.fairfaxfbc.org/trust-the-bible.html