the bible is kinda like tthe telephone game?

Question

alright i just thought of this as i answered someone elses question..

for all of those who think bible is the word of god yadda yadda.. :)

the way i see its a pile of stories (maybe true maybe not)..
either way... over the thousands years.. and the people who have said it spread it all around.. how can you be sure its all 100% the way it was?

I mean you've played the telephone game right.. one person says a sentence and its passed around the circle and comes out as something totatlly different.. . i mean after all those years.. and all those people.. adding on their point of view or what they think.. blah blah blah..

doesn't it make you wonder.. :)

Answer 1

That's a great analogy.

Answer 2

You need to be more precise if you want to get this right.

First, stories being told and transmitted orally for hundreds of years applies to the Jewish Scriptures/Old Testament. In the case of the New Testament, it is not more than a century between the events and the writing of the Gospels, and the earliest one was probably only a few decades later.

Second, you have to include the copying of manuscripts in this scenario. That is itself a bit like the telephone game, but we can get a good sense of what has been added/omitted and when.

Third, contrary to what some people have claimed in other answers, we do not have the original manuscripts, we only have copies. The number of manuscripts is completely irrelevant. What is relevant is that we have a number of VERY EARLY manuscripts, and this helps confirm that we have a good idea of what the original probably looked like. This confirms nothing about the truthfulness or historicity of the stories, just that those who copied the texts did a reasonably good job.

Finally, the only translation issues are (1) Jesus spoke Aramaic, while our earliest sources are in Greek, and (2) something is always lost in translation, as in translating into English. But the Bible has not been translated in succession into lots of different languages, as though it loses something each time. Modern Bible translations are made from the Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek texts themselves (i.e. the original languages), and not from other translations.

Answer 3

While some translations have corrupted the word of God, we have thousands of document from the first century (2000 years ago) that we can go to to compare the translations to the original texts (handwritten copies of the original authors text).

Here are some examples.

1. There are over 5,000 Greek manuscripts of the New Testament available to us today.
2. Over 2,200 Lectionaries (Books used in worship that cite the Bible).
3. Ancient Versions – 9,000 manuscripts (largely due to the advance of the Roman religion that spread the Latin Vulgate throughout Europe).
4. Church "Fathers" – ca. 36,000 citations – scholars say that all but four verses of the entire New Testament text could be reconstructed from the citations of the early Church Fathers alone!
5. The New Testament is the best attested book of antiquity by far! - (Mt. 24:35)

Answer 4

Even given the same translation, people manage to come up with widely differing interpretations of the Bible, and proceed to condemn each other to hell on that basis. If God has spoken to man, He mumbles.

Answer 5

Jesus said something. Someone heard it and told a friend who wrote it down. That text was translated 1000s of years later. That translation was interpretated by a preacher.

Answer 6

I agree...the Bible should not be taken literal...but, more as a guide book, history book, etc...

Answer 7

this is where unbelivers get it twisted. the Bible is not a history book. it is a guide to help with life.

Answer 8

well think of it all like this:
i would rather live my life as if there is a god and die to find out there is rather than live life as if there wasn't a god and die to find out there is>
You chose

Answer 9

You're correct -- it doesnt' matter if the initial text was true or not, the one we have now definitely is not.

Answer 10

blah blah blah