About Jesus' quotes and others in the bible...?

Question

If a news reporter interviews someone, usually they will have a camera or voice recorder so that they can accurately print what the person actually said in the newspaper.
Even with our technology there are still MANY retractions made in newspapers because people are accidentally misquoted.

How do we know that Jesus' quotes in the bible are his actual quotes?

Did they have a form of shorthand then to get every word on papyrus?

They didn't have bic pens then so did they carry a bottle of ink and a quill or something...everywhere they went?

Wouldn't their primitive form of recording make it much more likely to misquote people?

I don't understand, If we misquote people today with our modern technology.....how often were people misquoted then?

Answer 1

Misquotations had to be a problem, but then add on the complexity of translating those misquotations. I don't believe everything I read, and the bible is no exeption (yes, I've read it cover to cover more than once). You are going to get blasted for this question though, because people say we are not supposed to question God. They tend to think that God had anything at all to do with that book, thus questioning the book is questioning the diety. Sad really.

Question everything.

Answer 2

The culture was much different then, especially for Jews. Oral tradition was the most common tool for telling stories. In fact, every Jew during Jesus' time would have had the Torah memorized. The religious leaders of the day would have memorized the prophets along with the Torah along with the oral tradition (now called the Talmud), and rabbi's were even more schooled. Most biblical scholars agree that for Mark, Matthew and Luke there was a third party source called "Q". This is a document that would have recorded most of Jesus' teachings and explains why the three authors sound strikingly similar, yet distinctively different. The answer to your question lies in oral tradition. Jews were very serious about preserving stories and history in this way. The gospel writers applied these stories to their audiences to make the argument that Jesus' is God. But the stories and history would have probably been known by a lot of first century Jews through oral tradition before the gospel writers sat down with papyrus. Note: Oral tradition was held much more accountable than our mainstream press, because truth was valued above everything else in Jewish culture.

Answer 3

Many people witnessed the things recorded in the Bible, except for the times Jesus was only with His disciples like the transfiguration, many different observers recorded what they saw or shared it orally.

All of these things were compiled together and made into the Bible we have today. It is the reason certain scriptures are used from certain texts because they do not link up in other ancient texts such as the Septuagint. The Dead Sea scrolls helped clarify some of these things, though not regarded as inspired by God the testimonies were accredited nonetheless.

Answer 4

I understand your concern. When Johannes Gutenberg introduced movable type to Europe in the 1450's, he not only created a method that could mass produce writings realtively easily, but he also rendered obsolete the copying books by hand- a method that was almost guaranteed to introduce errors to texts. That means that for 1400 years or so the New Testament was highly vulnerable for corruption- both intentional and unintentional. If the NT is a document written by eyewitneses of the life and teachings of Jesus, the accurate transmission of these documents over time is a real problem. How can we possibly know that what we now call the New Testamentis in fact what was originally written? After all, we do not have the original writings.

Because the textual criticism relies entirely on extant manuscripts, the more manuscripts we have the more accurately the original text can be recovered. In the case of the NT, if we limit ourselves to only original language manuscripts, we have over 5 300 copies, including fragments.

The most of these manuscripts were found in monastery libraries around the Mediterranean, and more continue to be discovered. The oldest complete NT, which also contains about half the Old Testament, was found in a monastery on Mount Sinai. Codex Sinaiticus, as it is known, dates from AD 350. Note that this is before the canon was officially formed. Codex Vaticanus is dated AD 325 to 350 and contains almost entire NT. The Chester Beatty Papyrus dates to AD 180. The Bodemer Papyrus is a copy of most of John's Gospel from AD 150 to 200.

The oldest universally accepted fragment of th NT was found in Egybt in 1920. It is from John's Gospel and is dated AD 125 to 130. If John wrote his Gospel before AD 70, then the span between writing and the copy is 60 years or so. ( Compare : Homer's Illead-which has the 2nd greatest manuscript authority- total number of manuscripts is 643 ).

Jesus told to His disciples just before He left them "These thigs I have spoken to you while abiding with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name ( and this does not mean Muhammed! ), He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you " John 14:25-26 ). Jesus added "When He, the Spirit of the Truth comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak of His own initiative, but whateer He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come" ( John 16:13 ). These statements promise that the teachings of Jesus will be remembered and understood, and that additional thruths would be given to apostles so that the church could be established.

So NT is no ordinary work of men, but the infallible, ever-reliable Word of God spoken through instruments of His choosing.

Answer 5

The Bible in itself is a miracle. The four gospels (Mathew, Mark, Luke, and John) are detailed descriptions of Christ life and quotations. They were written by different authors, yet, they all coincide. As far as transcriptions--the Jewish tradition of transcription is very strict and detailed. They have guidelines for copying the sacred text. The old Bible texts are many times word for word to the text we use even today. The Bible says this about the Word of God:
2 Timothy 3:16-17
16All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

Answer 6

Ever wonder how people remembered things before literacy became standard?

There are standard "memory tricks" which one can use to remember things even if you only heard them once (used some of them in college prior to exam time -- very useful).

Back in Medieval times, they were professional criers who supposedly could remember a list of over a thousand items after hearing it just once.

Ever notice how all of the stories in the Gospel of Mark are told in a certain stereotypical style that makes them easy to remember? It was written that way for a reason according to my Professor of New Testament studies.

Even if the disciples didn't get the exact wording down, then probably heard the same sermon from Jesus over and over so many times that they would have to be really stupid to forget the point that Jesus was trying to make.

Answer 7

All the Quotes of Jesus was translated from Scrolls that were found at a later stage...e.g. The Dead Sea Scrolls...
But there were also the following people who noted all that was said...

scribe // n. & v.
n.
1 a person who writes out documents, esp. hist. an ancient or medieval copyist of manuscripts.
2 Jewish Hist. an ancient Jewish record-keeper or, later, a professional theologian and jurist.
3 (in full scribe-awl) a pointed instrument for making marks on wood, bricks, etc., to guide a saw, or in signwriting.

Answer 8

All scripture is inspired by God...It's obvious (if you believe) that the things quoted in scripture make wonderful sense and don't contradict each other. God inspired the authors of the books to write what Jesus had said..(besides what they already remembered)

How did they know what was important enough to include?

Most of the books of the old testament were written by authors who hadn't even been alive at the time set in their books. They had old writings that had been passed down but it was also divine inspiration that brought them the words they were to write.

Basically you have to believe that God is real and the Bible is his word to answer your questions correctly!

Answer 9

Well, since culture back then didn't have pens and paper all the time to rely on they had a better ability to remember things whole. For example many learned Jewish men would have the whole Old Testament remembered word for word.

Answer 10

You made a very good point.I never thought of it that way.You just have to trust God with those questions,and believe that God wants his word to be known,and spread throughout the world to every nation and every tribe till the end of ages.God was with those people who recorded what Jesus said,because he wants his word to be known.Nothing is impossible for God.