Is it possible that the Bible is similar to a game of Telephone?

Question

You know . . . the game where the first person was given a card with a saying on it, and that person whispered in the ear of the person next to them, and so on and so on. And by the end of the circle, the last person told everyone what was whispered to them, and it wasn't even close to the original saying on the card?

If the Bible is the word of God, and several different men transcribed the word of God, and the message passed through different means before it was even transcribed, isn't it possible that the composers of the Bible got some of God's word wrong?

Note: I'm not saying the Bible is "wrong." I'm asking is it possible that the Bible lacks accuracy?

ha! It should be in the religion section. lol, I must have clicked the wrong radio button. I was eating lunch!

Eh, I'll post it there, too.

Answer 1

I have often wondered about the same thing... man is man and does make errors, even when trying not to.. the bible itself was not written by God... and then there is the whole issue of King James and what slant he may have chosen to put on the "original" text...

Additionally, I have often shaken my head at people who "worship the book" and yet know little of the words contained within.. I have often thought of idol worship and thought they worship the symbol of the word and not the word itself...

I am a believer and have a strong relationship with God; however, I do believe that there is one thing that must be admitted - there is more to the story than we can possibly imagine.

Answer 2

That's is why there are 4 gospels (supposedly more that didn't make the cut) Different interpretations and 4 different people had different ways of telling the story focusing on different aspects of it.

However you have to look at it this way,too: Yes some of the transcriptions could be wrong, but finding the documents was not llike finding the rossetta stone. Ever since it's inception it has been transcribed and interpreted into languages that have existed. it wasn't like finding something 200 years later written in an ancient languae. as languages evolved, so did the transcripton of the bible. I would have to say from what I've learned that it is pretty acurate. But there are a lot of inconsistencies if you were to look close.

Of course differnt sects have written their own interpretations to fit their idology. So it is hard to tell what is the true version. That's why I feel religion is based completely on faith and not truth. If you belive in your faith, and feel that your religion is true, more power to you. But you can't ignore other ideologies and their feelings too. No one religion is correct, or better than the otehr. It's a matter of personal faith.

Answer 3

I think it's very possible, especially considering that the King James version we know today has gone through several translations, and translating is never a simple one-to-one equivalency. I'm Catholic, and while I have faith and take in the larger lessons of the Bible (specifically the ones about tolerance, working for the poor, and general social justice), I have a hard time taking every single word as the literal truth because of the above reason. The word of God was not written down in English 2000 years ago, it's gone through several languages and processes of editing in then ensuing centuries. I don't think that raising that idea makes you a heretic.

It's a complex thing to think about, and the telephone analogy isn't too far fetched to use.

Answer 4

Well...no.
IF the telephone game was played by writing things down and then passing ALL the copies to the next person for them to compare all of them before writing out their copy, then yes.
That's what it would be like.

Manuscripts of Old Testament/Hebrew Scripture books in the Dead Sea scrolls show that the transmission of the text over many, many years did not lead to corruption of the originals. Comparing the DS copies (2nd century BC to 1st century AD) with the Masoretic text (7th to 10th century) shows that there was very little changes in the text over hundreds of years. In other words, the transmission was accurate - NOT like the Telephone game.

BTW - there is a difference between manuscripts and translations. There are lots of manuscripts (thousands) so we can figure out what the original text was probably like (they differ VERY slightly). Translations are just taking the original language in the manuscripts (Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek) into a language that a reader can understand (like English, French, Arabic..whatever).

Answer 5

Don't forget that the definitions of words change and crossing that with translations from one language to the next in the span of hundreds of years.

I think the main thing is people forget the fundalmentals.
#1 God gave them a mind
#2 God gave them free will

Now doesn't it make sense that God would want people to use their own mind to determine what is good & what is bad instead of being spoon fed by a religious good that in all truth is only after money to continue its own existance. Its kind of sad that Religion have become the largest capitalist.

Answer 6

I think that is a very good point.

Shouldn't this be in the Religion section?

Answer 7

In regards to the bible you need to have faith.