The King James Version is a good translation that's stood the test of time. But how should we understand the many modern translations that have been released in recent years? Are they more reliable or have they corrupted the Word of God?
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Bible transmission
Have you read “The Legend of Jesus”? In it, Jesus doesn’t get tired, and He doesn’t rest by the well in Samaria or fall asleep in the boat. The crowds don’t turn away from Him, and the disciples just seem to get it. They don’t keep dozing off in the garden when Jesus asks them to pray. And Peter certainly doesn’t cut off the ear of the high priest’s servant or deny that he’s one of Jesus’ followers. In “The Legend of Jesus,” Jesus doesn’t pray for the Father to let Him off the hook. And He doesn’t need a stranger to help Him carry the cross. “The Legend of Jesus” is amazing.
[Please note: Due to technical difficulties, a video could not be recorded this week.]
If you grew up Catholic and visited a Protestant church, you might be surprised to see that they use a different Bible. But it’s not for the reason you might think. Understanding why they differ, tells you something important about these two churches.
Have you ever wondered how much confidence you should put in the four gospel accounts that open the New Testament? Are they just legends? Should we read them as reliable accounts of what Jesus actually did? Could they have preserved Jesus’ teachings after such a long time? These are questions I asked when I first began to investigate Christianity, but a course that I’m taking in the gospels with Wayne Baxter this term has given me greater clarity in understanding them. Let me share what I’ve learned.
Very few people want to discard the Bible altogether. It’s a holy book after all, and there are passages in the Bible that even the most cynical atheist would admit are beautiful and inspiring. But, sooner or later, everyone finds parts of the Bible that make them feel uncomfortable. There are teachings that disagree with what we believe. There are commands to do things we don’t want to do. And there are warnings against doing things that we want to keep on doing. When we come to one of those uncomfortable places, we’re tempted to conclude, ‘That part must be wrong.’ If the Bible contains errors, then we get to pick and choose the parts we like. So, how true is the Bible? Does it contain mistakes? How can we know? These are important questions to settle in your mind.
I didn’t use to think that I needed to take the Bible too seriously. I assumed that its message had gotten passed down through the centuries a little bit like the telephone game. That’s where everyone lines up and whispers a message from one person to the next down the line and when the last person says what they’ve heard, we all laugh at how garbled the message got along the way. Once I had done some investigation, I realized how wrong my assumptions had been. Over the years, I’ve talked to so many people with the same assumptions that I wanted to address how the transmission of the Bible differs from the telephone game.