Mr. Telephone Man...or... Fun with Numbers

"The Bible is full of errors. It has been changed over time. It has been revised to promote power for certain groups and degrade others."

These are common allegations. You may even believe these statements yourself. They are easy statements to make. Seemingly logical, but they are mere assertions that require proof. Remember, those that make the assertion bear the burden of proof. But for a minute, I'll waive that right. I'll bear the proof for the counter point...

Remember the "Telephone Game?" You would start with a line of people. The first person would whisper a few sentences into the ear of the second person. Who would then turn and whisper to the third and so on. By the time that the message reached the end of the line it was often so garbled and messed up from the original that it was a great laugh.

Well suppose that we wanted to know what was said 2,000 years ago? If we were relying on oral tradition, as shown in the telephone game, we may be in trouble.

This analogy is often used to describe the authoring and transmission of the Bible, and hence introduces the possibility for a garbled message that was not the original author's intent. But it is a false analogy. First, the method of communication is not the same. When dealing with ancient texts, we are dealing with written communication, not oral tradition. For the analogy to work, the telephone game would be played with pen and paper, each copying down the message from the previous person. But then one might say, "there can still be copying errors, editors mistakes." Granted there may be copying errors. So how can we be sure that what we have in our hand is what was originally written down? How can we be sure that we have an accurate copy? Obviously, we would check against the source from which we're copying.

OK, but suppose that we missed one punctuation mark, one letter, or even one word. Then the next person in line would promulgate that mistake and perhaps add others if we're not careful.

Would it make a difference if a person at the end of the line could refer back to not only the copy immediately preceding it, but also the one before that, and the one before that, and on back to the original? Of course it would. And this is how ancient texts are transmitted, not in the "telephone" game-like style that is so easy for critics to dismiss.

So with this as the backdrop, let's look just a bit closer. Textual critics look at several factors dealing with the authenticity of ancient texts, but we'll look at two:
1. The number of manuscripts in existence (or that have been discovered)
2. The date of the manuscripts (the earlier or closer to the original the better)
- An important component of this category is the time gap between the writing of the original text and the first discovered manuscript (ie, the closer to the original, the greater the chance that it is an accurate copy).

Let's see how the Bible compares to some other ancient texts. And note that these are not just randomly selected poor performers. These are the all-stars of ancient literature, by the criteria above.


*(Comparitive Chart courtesy of Dr. Norman Geisler)

When you start looking at the numbers, the criticism just doesn't add up :)