By John Dixon
Actress Winona Ryder was recently reported as saying, “Religion is fiction. I’ve read the Bible. It’s a great book, but it’s a novel.” I’m sure Miss Ryder’s opinion is shared by many others.
In fact, one view of the Bible is just that—it’s a book you respect but don’t trust.
If you’d asked me at 15 what I thought of the Bible I would have answered, “It’s irrelevant. It’s historically unreliable. And on top of that, it’s been changed through the years so you don’t know what it originally said anyhow.” Amazing isn’t it? I had never actually read the Bible, didn’t know the tests for historical reliability and couldn’t tell you what languages it had been translated from, but I would still have given such a confident reply!
Many people warn us not to believe the ‘myths’ in the Bible. The funny thing is, the real myths are the ones about the Bible, not in it.
Myth 1: It’s been ‘lost’ in the translation
How many times have you heard this argument: The Bible was translated from one language to another, then into another and so on and on. By the time it got to our English, its original meaning was lost. The fact of the matter is that most Bibles available today are taken directly from the original languages— Hebrew, Aramaic and ancient Greek. Our knowledge of these languages is getting more and more precise which means that translations are actually getting more accurate, not less.
The argument about ‘losing it’ in the translation process really is a myth.
Myth 2: It’s been changed
Some people argue that the scribes (those who copied and passed on the ancient Bible documents) decided to change the stories to suit themselves. An example of this argument might speculate that the famous walking-on-water story in the Gospel of Mark, chapter 6, originally read something like: Not long before morning, Jesus came toward them. He was swimming in the water and was about to pass the boat. 
Then, (according to this argument), some ancient scribe thought to himself, “That’s a bit boring. I know, I’ll put some life into it.” So now Mark 6:48 reads: Not long before morning, Jesus came toward them. He was walking on the water and was about to pass the boat.
The problem with this view is the evidence—there isn’t any. You see, we have in our possession hundreds of ancient copies of the Gospel of Mark (for example), found in many different places all over the ancient world. Let’s suppose for a minute one naughty little scribe from Athens did decide to change Jesus’ swimming into walking on water. Surely, you would still expect to find the original swimming story in one of the many other copies we’ve uncovered. It’s not as if the Athenian scribe could fax his changes through to his mates in Jerusalem, Rome and Corinth and get them to make the changes too.
The fact is, in all the ancient copies of Mark, the same version of this story exists and it says Jesus walked on water.
Myth 3: It contains accidental mistakes
Others argue: OK! So maybe the scribes didn’t make deliberate changes, but what about mistakes? What if, over the years, errors were accidentally overlooked? Surely that would make the Bible unreliable. The fact is mistakes were made in some of the ancient copies of the Bible. Actually, I’m happy to share one with you. The Gospel of Mark, chapter 5, begins with: They (Jesus and his disciples) went across the lake to the region of the Gerasenes. So what? The problem is, the various ancient copies (remember we’ve found heaps) differ on the spelling (in Ancient Greek, of course) of this region. Some have it “Gadarenes”, others “Gergesenes”, and still others the spelling I first quoted. Obviously, some scribe, somewhere, messed up. As a result, scholars now have to search through the many ancient copies of Mark and find out which is the most popular spelling. When they do, that’s the one that appears in our English Bibles.
Of course, this isn’t the only ‘mistake’ in the ancient copies of the Bible but the others are only about as life-changing as this one.
Myth 4: Telling the truth
OK! Let’s suppose that nothing was lost in the translation process. Let’s suppose the scribes didn’t make deliberate changes. Let’s suppose the scribes made no significant accidental errors. That still leaves one huge question unanswered: How do we know the original authors were telling the truth in the first place? Maybe the Bible is simply a well-preserved lie. The Bible records things Jesus is meant to have said or done. If Jesus never actually did these things, Christianity is nothing but a sick joke. So then, the records of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection (called Gospels) are a great starting point to show why I think the Bible writers actually told the truth.
The first thing to remember is that these four books are based on eyewitness accounts. Two of them (Luke and Mark) were written by men who personally knew or interviewed eyewitnesses. This would be like you interviewing me to write an essay on my wife. The other two (Matthew and John) were written by eyewitnesses themselves: men who travelled and worked with Jesus for over three years. This would be like me writing an essay on my wife.
The second thing to keep in mind is that many of the eyewitnesses (including poor Matthew and John) were either imprisoned or executed for proclaiming what they’d seen. You’ve got to ask yourself: If it was a lie and they knew it, why did they die for it? It’s one thing to die for something you truly believe in (heaps of people have done that) but it’s another thing to die for something you know is false.
What caused these people to really believe they’d seen Jesus teach, heal, die and then rise again? Remember, two of these writers died claiming to have spent over three years with this man. Could it have been a three-year-long optical illusion? If they had simply made the whole thing up, why did they bother dying for a lie? Even those who were imprisoned or killed for their claims, still had to endure family ridicule, loss of jobs and many other forms of persecution.
It’s almost embarrassing to think that I once so ignorantly dismissed the Gospels as stories. Now I realise nobody bothers dying for a fairytale. Most of us have a hunch that the Bible is worth respecting but we may have bought into the myth that it is also unreliable. My recommendation is to go with the hunch, not the myth. Do something outrageous. Actually read it for yourself. The Gospel of Luke is a great place to begin. I think you’ll find that the best argument for the Bible is the Bible itself.
* This information was taken from John Dickson’s book A Sneaking Suspicion. © Matthias Media. Used with permission).
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