John Samson has a wonderful article walking through, in non-technical language, the history of how we got the New Testament text we have today. In so doing, he addresses the foolish and cartoonish claim that reading the Bible is like a cosmic “telephone game” through history.
Samson explains:
The telephone game is fun exactly because it was designed to distort the message. It is one slim chain, one whisper at a time, and you cannot check the whisper you heard against anything else, not even the whisper before the one you heard. By the end of the line, you have no way to test anything that occurred along the way. Distortion is basically guaranteed.
The New Testament is the exact opposite to this.
Samson goes on to admit that we don’t have the original manuscripts, and there are many variants, but none of that is reason for concern.
If you’d like to know the truth behind how the text of your Bible landed in your hands, and why we have such an embarrassment of riches as evidence for its legitimacy, Samson’s article will not let you down.
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