Remember the game "Telephone"? Isn't the Bible much the same?

Question

Telephone was that game where everyone whispered something to someone else and by the time it reached the final person the original text had changed almost completely in the retelling.

If the Bible in its original scripts is rewritten over and over throughout the centuries (as it has been), who's to say what is the real truth anymore? Those who "disagree" with homosexuality refuse to acknowledge that the original scripts read that fornication was actually the abomination. They also take lines from the OT but when confronted with facts from the OT about eating shellfish, killing babies, and wearing two blends of fabric they claim "We read the NT, not the OT."

God's Kitty - I'm not insulting the Bible, love. I'm making a statement about the number of rewrites it has been through in the past couple of centuries, and how those new drafts may have affected the originals. That's not an insult to the Bible, it's a fact. Insulting a book would be useless.

Philo - I understand and agree with much of what you said in regards textual criticism but I must still ask: Why is it that when one book was written and then re-written throughout decades (with everyone reading a different version entirely after a while) without consultation with the original authors; when new words were substituted for ones that had different meanings from the original text entirely; when it became 'humanized', as it were, and filled with the prejudices, hatred and fault of man, it stopped being textual criticism and entered the world of "Telephone" almost immediately. I will admit that there are differences between the game and the interpretations but that difference is rather narrow to me.

Answer 1

As the Fonz used to say, "exactamundo!"

Answer 2

You know, that's a pretty good analogy. I have always said that we cannot be sure that everything in the Bible is real. The answer I always get is, "The Bible is real because it is God's word, and God's word is infalable." However, the only way we can know God's word is through the Bible. If the Bible stands a possibilty of being faulty, then would that make God's word faulty or would it be just a simple case of misinterpretation? Problem is, that misinterpretation has caused the misleading of millions of people over centuries.
Don't even try to get a straight answer from a die-hard, close minded Christian. The open minded Christians will disagree but still respect and listen to your opinions and statements. The others will avoid the subject or just keep reverting back to the Bible. It's pointless.

Answer 3

No. There are a couple of differences:
1. In the game you can't ask the whisperer to repeat the message.
2. In the game nobody can check if you repeat as you heard.
3. In the game nobody cares too much to transmit the message correctly.
4. In the game it is funny to see who makes the funniest mistake.

5. The version of the Bible that we have now can be checked against old manuscripts.
6. In the second century there were a lot of manuscripts in possession of people, so nobody can change something and nobody to notice.
For example, in the Death Sea Scrolls, the books in OT that we have are 99.99% the same in more then 1000 years of manual transcription.

Answer 4

You should look into the subject of textual criticism, because the textual criticism is not at all like the telephone game. In the telephone game, one person tells another person, that person tells the next person, that person tells the next person, etc.

But in the copying of the Bible, several copies are made from one copy, more copies are made from those copies. The different copies are compared with each other.

To make the telephone game analogous, you'd have one person speaking in front of a group, the individuals in that group checking with each other to see if they all heard the same thing, and then them telling more people who check with other people to make sure they have it right.

The more copies you have, the better, because you can compare them.

Answer 5

I am guilty of saying I conform to the NT, not so much the OT. I believe things changed with Jesus. I love His message of peace and love for everyone.
I do not condemn people or hate homosexuals.

As for the telephone "game" I do remember it and although I suppose it's possible, I believe they took great care in translating it, much like other sacred texts of old.

Answer 6

Honey: The Bible is, was, and will always be the accurate and relevant Word of God. It is not so much that it has been written by so many, it is its life changing message that counts. God is all knowing and knows what the Bible contains since he saw it from eternity past, so he always knew what it would contain today. God's will for us has not changed. We are simply living under "grace" which means unmerited mercy, but this will end soon. I would highly advice that you become a doer or the word and not simply a reader as the book of James says or you will find yourself in hot water soon enough. Yes, your number will soon be up.
Mr. M on "telephone."

Answer 7

there is no longer something this is "shown" contained in the bible. And, to respond to your question, the bible has maximum of its writings in accordance with stealing from no longer in ordinary terms peoples like the Egyptians and the Mayans, yet from the Greek and Roman gods, and the Norse gods. there is no longer something unique contained in the bible. Jesus exchange into right here in the previous, god exchange into right here in the previous, and the billions of persons who blindly persist with this insanity have been right here in the previous besides...

Answer 8

Obviously eternal God has neither beginning of days nor end of life. So "In the beginning God" is a line with a hook, that hooks many unaware this God is pluralized (not that God).

Every good mystery writer hooks readers,
as quickly and as deeply as is possible.
If you're here, then you got hooked also.

The Bible defines itself as all "allegory" in both "covenants". It also defines itself as "mystery" to solve over 20 times in the NT. Of plural & contrary "scriptures" (law vs grace)written "aforetime" for our "learning", to go and "learn" what meaneth "I will have mercy, and not sacrifice"; Only the singular "script-u-are" is what is notably "inspired of God".

So it's not to be taken literal, nor ignored as meaningless;
but rather to be navigated through as if the ultimate matrix.

Eternal salvation is "through" Jesus->Christ->God-ward;
as if returning to greatest of 3: great->greater->greatest.

The Holy Bible contains both Old and New Testaments (with the new being called the "better testament" having a "better hope") because when probating any will, such as the will of God, we look at both the old and the new, both law and grace, as if a before/after compare-i-son, comparing spiritual things(laws) with spiritual(grace).

"Holy Bible" (Authorized KJV) is the seventh Bible;
notably as if a good one (previous 6) made better,
in the manner God saw good x6, then very good 7th.
1. Tyndale's Bible
2. Matthew's Bible (by Tyndale and John Rogers)
3. Coverdale's Bible
4. Cramer's (Great Bible) printed by Whitchurch - (Midst)
5. Geneva Bible
6. Bishop's Bible
7. Holy Bible - Seventh of Seven (1st of 2 1611 versions)

Note: A Wycliffe Bible (already translated to english) and a Douay-Rheims Bible weren't included in six good to translate from, for translation guidelines of King James (defender of the faith) didn't condone dangerous helps therein such Bibles.

Many are the versions since, but most contain Rev 22:21.
(worst of Bible per-versions leaves out the grace us end)

The GRACE of our Lord Jesus Christ with you all. Amen.

Answer 9

No it's isn't like "Telephone". First of all, the Torah, the original Torah in Hebrew is still almost exactly the same way it was for thousands of years. We know this because of the Dead Sea Scrolls that were found in which several of them (like the Book of Isaiah) have less than a dozen letters different than what the Jews have in their Torah today.

This is because the Jews are METICULOUS about writing a Torah scroll, and have always been. Each letter is counted, each letter must be made EXACTLY perfectly or the entire scroll is thrown out. Then it is checked and rechecked, and rechecked to make sure that there is not even ONE error in it. It's been done that way for thousands of years by specially and highly trained scribes.

The translations of it are another story. The Christian Church translated many words, sentences and entire paragraphs much much differently than the original, many times in order to force a "prophecy" relating to Jesus that didn't exist there prior to the translation. In the King James version of the "Old Testament" for instance, there are over 30,000 differences from what the original Torah says. It's basically a piece of propaganda created by the Church for Christians and nothing more, it's been so warped.

As far as the homosexuality thing, the original scripts do not read that fornication was the actual abomination. The original scripts say that a man laying with another man as he would a woman is an abomination. That's what it says in Hebrew, in the orginal.

However, when the Church took (stole) the Jewish Torah to stick onto their New Testament in order to give their New Testament legitimacy, they neglected to take the entire Torah. They left the Oral Torah, which had been written down due to fear of being lost at the time of the Babylonian Exile of the Jews. Before that it was purely Oral, passed down from the Elders to the rest - and again, even this was not anything like the game of Telephone. What was passed down was STRICTLY observed to be correctly given and understood by the receiver - the receiver was made to repeat it back to the giver literally hundreds of times. And this is how errors like "Telephone" were avoided.

So as far as the Church not stealing the Oral Torah along with the Written, what happened was that Christians only ended up with a very small part of the entire thing with the Written Torah. The Written Torah (the so-called "Old Testament") is like the lecture notes a professor makes on paper to jog his memory of the WHOLE lecture which he has memorized and keeps in his head. The Oral Torah is that lecture, the entire thing, and it was given to Moses on Mt. Sinai along with the Written. The Oral Torah is the explanations, the reasonings, the entire story, and this is why Moses was up there for "40 days", to receive all of this. Sorry Christians don't know this, but tough. That's Jewish history.

So, as far as homosexuality goes, the Oral Torah tells us that what happened was that homosexuality was NOT a sin, was not against any law whatsoever UNTIL in the nearby Temples (AND in the Jewish temple) there came male prostitutes who began offering their services and teaching that having relations with them would absolve people of their sins just like the animal sacrifices done by the Jewish priests would.

Unfortunately many took advantage of this opportunity, and of course to do such a thing, to replace forgiveness of sin with ANYTHING other than the means God instructed, was considered a HUGE Idolatry. And THAT was the actual sin - IDOLATRY. Not being homosexual, nor even acts of homosexuality until they were used in an idolatrous manner by the prostitutes in the Temples.

It is written in the Oral Torah that when this decree came down "The men of Israel sobbed all that night". There was no question back then that people were created all along a line of gay to straight, and that was just accepted as the Creator's way of creating people. There was no hatred about it, no looking down on homosexual people about it.

The only stipulation was that if a man was homosexual he MUST also at some time marry a woman and bring forth children into the world because the Jewish race was very small and constantly being attacked by others who wished to eliminate it altogether. So it became the practice back then to marry one or more wives for breeding children, and yet still have male relationships which were even on a par with loving relationships between men and women.

Today, because Christians never got the rest of the Torah when they stole the Written part, they have absolutely no clue what anything in the Old Testament means. And they scream bloody monkeys when they hear things like this.

Unfortunately, so do a lot of Jews these days who have become so "christianized" in their ways of thinking that they have horrible hatred for homosexuals just like Christians do. And they have never learned how that law came about - many Rabbis are aware of it, but then again, many are not because when a person becomes a Rabbi they choose to specialise in certain subjects of the Torah (both written and oral) and may never even read the areas having to do with that subject.

Anyway, so that's what the original sin was about homosexuality, it was IDOLATRY, not being homosexual, which wasn't outlawed until the male prostitutes came along and promised forgiveness of sins through having relations with them.

And, there are going to be a lot of people who read this and freak out and scream and yell - tough. Just because you don't know about this doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It DOES exist, and it IS the reason that the law against JEWISH men laying with men came about.

Another thing that Christians need to realise is that except for the 7 Noahide Laws, NONE of the laws in the Torah (Old Testament) apply to them, or to anyone who isn't a Jew. It was tacked onto the New Testament by the Church as a way to give the New Testament legitimacy for their god-man messiah while the Christians tried to wipe out Judaism and replace it with their new religion. (There is no such thing as a god-man messiah in Judaism, nor one who is born of a virgin, all of that comes from ancient paganism)

Answer 10

Originally it was completely the opposite of what it became.

Answer 11

I think you need to go by the new Testament. Read:

Roman 1:27
l cor. 6:9
ll Peter 2:10
Jude 1:8

Through Grace you cannot justify Homosexuality