Transcription Errors in Our Bibles? Part 1 (TMF:767)

Tuesday, October 31, 2017
Peace to Live By: Transcription Errors in Our Bibles? Part 1 (TMF:767) - Daniel Litton
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       Contention Two: The books of the Bible likely have changed over thousands of years as they were transcribed and recopied over and over. This argument is also made from time to time, though, really, if one analyzes it, it is not a very strong argument. The argument goes that the original writings of the Bible must have been different than what we have today. People say that as the Scriptures were copied over and over, that they must have obtained errors or even have been changed. This is a common argument against the Old Testament (specifically, The Torah) from Muslims, for instance. You have to understand, though, at the times in the early centuries of which the Bible would have been copied and recopied, that the copiers had great precision as it was a tedious process to copy a text word from word (see Strobel, 2007, pg. 81). Even if a person were to write out a copy of a text today, and try his or her best, odds are the person would transcribe the text very accurately. There might be a very minor mistake every so often, but likely it would be insignificant and would not affect the overall message of what was being transcribed.

Reference:
Strobel, Lee. (2007). The Case for the Real Jesus. Zondervan: Grand Rapids, MI.