The Red-Letter Edition

THE RED LETTER EDITION

Brett A. Todd

THE RED LETTER EDITION: DID JESUS REALLY SAY THAT?  Years ago, Tony Campolo came out with a book, “The Red Letter Christians” in which he promoted the clever idea that Christians should focus on and live out the words of Jesus as found in the four Gospels, even over and above the letters of the Apostle Paul. It kind of makes sense, doesn’t it?  If Jesus really said what the four Gospels say he said, well, why not?  He is the son of God, right?

If you have a red-letter edition of the Bible, those red letters don’t guarantee that Jesus actually said those exact words. Rather, the words of Jesus in the Bible are what people remembered what others said Jesus once said.  They are the collected memories of the life and teachings of Jesus. Bear in mind, Jesus did not have a scribe following him around taking notes on his sermons or discussions with his disciples or with other individuals.  It is, for this reason, the author of the Gospel of Luke tells his readers that he and others before him, who shared the stories of Jesus’ ministry, received their information from others, who also received it from others.  They handed down memory stories of Jesus that came from eyewitnesses and servants of the word  (Luke 1:1-4).  It’s not that the author of Luke talked with or heard Jesus or one of his disciples himself.  Not at all, the stories in the Gospel of Luke were oral and sometimes written stories, stories passed down from one person to another within a span of at least 50 years or more.

It is important to understand what was passed down from one person to another were on most occasions oral stories.  More than likely the disciples and early followers of Jesus were illiterate and depended on memory and oral stories to keep Jesus’ life and teachings alive.  Keep in mind, the earliest Christian writings we have are from the Apostle Paul, but he said little of what Jesus said or did.  So, most of what we find in the four Gospels are stories passed down by word of mouth from one person to another.

Already you probably know where I’m going with this.  Stories passed down by word of mouth change and sometimes change a lot.  

Let me give you an example often discussed by Bible scholars.  In the Gospel of Mark, there is a story told about a leper who came to Jesus seeking healing who at the end of this story is healed (See Mark 1:40-41).  But here is the interesting part of the story.  In one Greek manuscript of Mark, we are told Jesus was “moved with compassion, but in another manuscript, we are told Jesus became “angry”.  Which one was it?  Was Jesus angry or compassionate?  It all depends on which Greek New Testament manuscript you read (See "Misquoting Jesus").  

What happened?  Why are there two different opposing words used in this story of the leper?  Most likely, as this memory story was passed down from one person to another by word of mouth, the story changed from Jesus being compassionate to Jesus being angry or vice versa.  As I said, stories passed down by word of mouth change and sometimes change a lot.

So, did Jesus really say that?  It all depends on which version of the story you read. This is not to say that the Gospel stories of Jesus are false, but it is to say the stories we read in the Bible are not exact.

In our next study, we will talk about how these stories sometimes get expanded, they get bigger and bigger and longer and longer.

Are There Imperfections In The Bible

ARE THERE IMPERFECTIONS IN THE BIBLE?

Brett A. Todd

ARE THERE IMPERFECTIONS IN THE BIBLE?  As always, our answer to this question may come from what you’ve heard in Sunday school.  If you belong to a conservative evangelical church, your answer might be that certainly there are no mistakes found in the Bible.  “How could there be mistakes if God wrote the Bible or if God inspired people to write the Bible?”  God certainly doesn’t make mistakes, right?  If you are from a mainline church, you might just say the opposite.  “Of course, there are mistakes in the Bible--and a lot of them.”

Are there imperfections and mistakes in the Bible?  Yes, and there are a lot of them and there are more mistakes than what most people might think, even what your pastor might think.  I don’t just say this because I’m a part of a more liberal church, rather, I say this because of my years of research.  There are a lot of imperfections and mistakes in the Bible.

Let me give you an example from the Greek New Testament manuscripts where we get our English Bible translations, the very Bible you hold in your hand.

The New Testament of the Bible was originally written in the Greek language.  We now have over 5800 Greek manuscripts from ancient times that are copies of copies of copies of the first Greek manuscripts from which we get our New Testament English Bible, and none of these Greek manuscripts are the same.  It is estimated there are more than 500,000 differences.  Scholars call these differences textual variants.  Think of this for a moment, there are more than 500,000 differences.  That is a lot.  In fact, it is more than double the English words found in your New Testament Bible.  Granted, most of these differences are misspellings, omissions, and additions by the scribes, but remember, they are mistakes.

There are also some pretty significant differences as well.  Let me give you one example used by scholars of someone adding words to a New Testament Greek manuscript.  

If you turn to 1 John 5:7 in your King James Bible, you will discover it has these words that are not found in most of our modern English translations of the Bible, “For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.”  You will not find these words in our earliest and most reliable Greek manuscripts.  For this reason, most modern translations of the Bible omit these words.  Why were these words added to some of the Greek manuscripts?  Whoever added these words more than likely wanted to bolster their position on the teaching of the Trinity (See, "A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament"). 

Interestingly, there are other glaring mistakes and changes in the Bible in which ancient scribes complained in the very margins of these Greek manuscripts.  One such complaint read, “Fool and knave, can’t you leave the old reading alone, and not alter it!”  

So yes, there are imperfections and mistakes in the Bible.

In our next study, we will look at the sayings of Jesus by asking, “Did Jesus really say that?”

WHO WROTE THE BIBLE?

Who Wrote The Bible

 Brett A.Todd

WHO WROTE THE BIBLE? That’s a pretty big question, isn’t it? Some will say God wrote the Bible or God inspired people to write the Bible. Easy enough, but who really wrote each book found in the Bible from Genesis to the Book of Revelation. 

The answer is not as easy as some would think and cliché such as, “God wrote the Bible” really doesn’t help. There are 66 books in the Bible, for which most of them we have no idea who wrote them. For example, we don’t know who wrote the first five books of the Old Testament. The classic response would be that Moses wrote them, but we really don’t know. 

Most Bible scholars would say more than likely there were several authors, but we have no idea who they were. 

This is true of the New Testament as well. We have no idea who wrote the four Gospels. But doesn’t it say Matthew wrote Matthew and Mark wrote Mark? No, it doesn’t. Nowhere, for example, in the text of Matthew does it say, “I Matthew, wrote these words.” Someone wrote them, but we don’t know who. The title on the top of these Gospels, “The Gospel According to…” was added later.

There are several reasons why we know they were added, but I will simply point out, whenever Matthew or John talked about the disciples Matthew or John, they never say, “I” or “me”, and curiously, Matthew, and Luke never speak as though they were eyewitnesses to the events of Jesus...never. 

The question, “Who wrote the Bible” gets a little more complicated when we look at such books as the Pastoral Letters, that is, First and Second Timothy, who the author claims to be the Apostle Paul. However, most scholars across the board, except for some conservatives, agree that whoever wrote First and Second Timothy, it certainly wasn’t Paul. More than likely, such letters as First Timothy, Second Timothy, Titus, and “possibly” Colossians, Second Thessalonians, and Ephesians, were written by someone else other than Paul. In other words, they are forgeries. It is possible someone, in order to get their point across or to correct something Paul wrote, thought the book they wrote would hold more weight with Paul’s name on it, than their own. 

Who wrote the Book of Revelation? We don’t know. We know that someone by the name of John wrote it, but we don’t know which John. There were a lot of people named John living at this time, so your guess would be just as good as mine. 

Does this mean we should get rid of those books in the Bible where we are uncertain who the authors are, especially the forged books? No, not at all. They are all still a part of what we call the Bible, and yes, what is contained in the Bible is sufficient for faith, even with its imperfections. We will talk about some of these imperfections later.