Hands on the Bible
255 | “It Would Drive Me Nuts”
Trust the Process That Protected the Bible
Did the Bible just drop from heaven as a set of golden tablets? Nope! This Geektober, we're pulling back the curtain on the original Bible geeks: the Scribes! These unsung heroes were the "original programmers" of Scripture, meticulously counting every single word and letter to preserve the text. We debunk the "game of telephone" myth and explore how the painstaking work of groups like the Masoretes — confirmed by the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls — is one of the most powerful arguments for the Bible's reliability.
Takeaways
The Big Idea: The surprisingly meticulous and worshipful work of ancient scribes is one of the most powerful arguments for the Bible's preservation and reliability.
This Week's Challenge: This week, when you read your Bible, take an extra 30 seconds to simply be thankful for the physical book in your hands (or on your screen).
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Introduction and Episode Overview
Ryan: what about you?
Would you like it, you think?
Bryan: I would hate this job.
Ryan: [laughter]
Bryan: I mean just to be honest, I think it would drive me nuts But hello everyone and welcome to the Bible geeks podcast. This is episode 255 I'm Bryan Schiele
Ryan: I'm Ryan Joy.
The Human History of the Bible
Bryan: and thanks so much everyone for tuning in today We're gonna tackle this question that really doesn't get tackled very often How did the Bible get from its original authors to us? You know, some of us have a vague maybe almost magical idea of how the book came But the real story isn't about golden tablets from heaven.
It's a story about human hands.
Ryan: But today, for Geektober, we're pulling back the curtain on some unsung heroes. The biblical scribes will explore the incredible, painstaking process and show how the human history of the Bible is actually one of the most
Personal Reflections on the Bible's Origins
Ryan: powerful arguments for its reliability.
Bryan: It was something that when we were in our square one series and we were talking about some of those discussions about how we got the Bible and how important the Bible is and Understanding the different translations and how it was passed down to us when I talked about that with Ashlyn my daughter You know, we were really in this Overflowing experience with her like explaining to her how the Bible didn't come down as like this golden scroll out of heaven that God actually used people to bring about this book and I think that was helpful for her to see and I wonder how Much we really talk about that in our churches in our sermons and the human way that the Bible was brought into place Of course, we talked about the the inspiration of the Spirit a lot, but I don't know that we always consider how humans Brought about this book over over time and and I think it's fascinating.
Ryan: It is. I think it at first is challenging to people when they start working through that it wasn't, you know, a golden King James version coming down from heaven, but rather that there's this whole long and sometimes messy process that brought these things about. But in the end, it's faith building once you get to the other side of it.
But I always am sort of like I walk through carefully early with people whenever I teach a class on this about every three or four years and it's one of my favorite things to teach not not on scribes, but just on how we got the Bible and I love it. I think it's I always learn something new and I find that people really yeah have their eyes open on the other side of it like Ashlyn did.
So
The Role of Biblical Scribes
Bryan: that is helpful I I feel like it's something that maybe we need a refresher on and and in our Summer series that we did you had that sermon that we put out there about you know Meeting your Bible and sort of the ideas behind that I think are really helpful for people to to just kind of be reminded of occasionally and as we're gonna talk about on today's episode the scribes who Sort of carried the Bible a long time and brought it into the form that we have it today and all of their work the painstaking detail that they Meticulously went through to make sure everything was right and the ideas we'll talk about here I think are helpful for us to see that this process that brought us the Bible is Reliable and that we can trust in it and seeing how detailed they were is a real faith builder But when you think about detailed things I know Ryan you're just a guy who loves the details and you just this this is your thing You know, you love all the details and things Are you a detailed oriented guy or do you hate projects that really get into that much?
technicality
Ryan: Yes. This is the engineer asking the former creative director. Yeah, I as Bryan knows, I am not a detailed guy. The word pain is in the word painstaking in this icebreaker question. So that's that tells you that to me, why would why would that why would painstaking be helpful and fun? I would say the the example that comes to mind is all of the tracking that I end up doing for taxes like preachers and taxes.
It's a weird thing. You got to do all kinds of expenses tracking and that kind of thing. And it is like it is a huge part of my life and not my favorite part of my life. You know, you and spreadsheets are a marriage made in heaven. Me and spreadsheets not a good fit. But I end up living in those. What about you?
What is a painstaking detail oriented task that you're into? And is it possible that maybe you enjoy those details?
Bryan: you know I do it's I I'm the person in our family who manages our budget and I mean again like a Monetary type thing that you're that you were talking about, but I do I do our budget and so I authorize and Categorize every transaction as it comes in and check it against how much money we have and what buckets we have that money in and All sorts of things like that and you know, I watch it I take a I take a painstaking view of it and for whatever reason I love it But you know for me most of the time I think it's it's the tools right?
It's the process It's the whole thing that just kind of I don't know It's I've said it before it scratches a very particular itch for me that that few things do spreadsheets do so
Ryan: So you really this this episode was from you and the genesis of it. Maybe that's because you love the details so much. Maybe you're relating to the scribes kind of like early programming. You know, you're looking at lines of code almost, you know,
Bryan: I like that That's a good way to frame this the scribes where the early programmers bring it on
A Closer Look: The Scribe's School
Bryan: All right, so let's uh, let's get into our first segment here, which is a closer look
so we're gonna go into the scribes school We're gonna find ourselves as scribes sitting down learning how to do the work that scribes did and I you know This is a helpful thing. I think for us to tackle What are some of the misconceptions we have about these scribes and what they did?
Debunking the Telephone Game Myth
Bryan: And we'll get into some details about the work that they did and how precise and painstaking It was and how nerdy I would have felt just being in that school at any given time But I feel like there is a myth before we get like too deep into it and maybe you've heard this too But the myth of that the game of telephone is how the Bible came into existence.
Have you heard that? Is that something that's like common or do you understand where I'm going with that?
Ryan: definitely. I mean, people talk about and I've seen it on, you know, clips from videos, people talking about you can't count on you can't rely on the text of the Bible. And that idea, the game of telephone being, you know, you whisper in elementary school a word and then we still do it as a family. You get to the other end, like for us of the dinner table and just with six of us, you you there's no telling what a seven year
Bryan: yours through your kids though. So that's like the worst part, right? It's like I mean you're asking for something to turn into a cartoon at some point It's probably because it filtered through Eevee or something
Ryan: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Who knows what they're hearing? It always ends up being something about unicorns or dinosaurs or something. But the idea that each transmission you are eroding some of the integrity of the message. Right. That's the main that's that's the analogy. And in reality, it's a very different situation with the manuscripts of the Bible.
It's not this fragile chain that is going from one to another. It is thousands of manuscripts in different regions all over the world. There's different translations that are very early of these manuscripts that we're working with. But even just the manuscripts themselves all over and and we're reconstructing.
It's like reconstructing the text of a novel from thousands of library copies worldwide, you know, or something like that. It's not, you know, summer camp whispers going from one person to another.
Bryan: Well, I think that a detail that should be said right off the bat that may help debunk this myth of the game of telephone is first and foremost the game of telephone would be terrible if it was if it involved you writing something on a piece Of paper and handing it to somebody right because that's what happens with the scribes They sat down and they wrote these things down.
They're in print. They wrote them They didn't pass them verbally. And so of course like there are you know oral traditions that many Societies have been a part of and you can see with those kinds of oral traditions There might be a reason to question like, you know old grandpa So-and-so was a little bit off his rocker that day and passed along a story that wasn't entirely true Like that's not the case with this work.
It's being written down. And so you were talking about not only is it a single Writing it's not only a single manuscript, but it's tons of manuscripts It's like just ridiculous numbers of manuscripts that are in different geographical locations And of course then like you're saying you've got this historical activity with all of these people looking into the manuscripts and the manuscript history and and all of this and then weaving it all Back together saying okay.
Yes These all are in agreement with each other or here's how they're slightly different and understanding those nuances I think is super helpful in being able to trust that this is not just a fallible word-of-mouth kind of activity
Ryan: Even with you know, 30 different writings, if you were copying over and over again and all you had was the one 30th sheet that was copied, you might wonder, well, you know, how much is is different. But what we also do is we don't go to the last one that we have or the last thousand that we have.
We go back to the earliest ones we have. Imagine if you could go back to the third copy, you know, or the second copy, you know, that that was being made and then compare that with another second copy over here that somebody else made and compare that with, you know, a fourth copy that was very early and used.
You know, and so we're going back whenever we do the the science of textual criticism is the word for going back and looking at the text and trying to figure out what the original writings of Paul or Luke or somebody said. When we do that, we're not just looking at 5300 manuscripts or whatever we have of the New Testament and saying, well, what's the average of all of them?
We're saying, OK, what do the earliest, the ones that have shown through different standards to be the most reliable, what do they say? And comparing a bunch of those and piecing it together. And so there's there's detective work involved. But we have a lot of data to work with that is very good, better data than any other ancient text by a long shot, especially when we come to the New
Bryan: Yeah, and so the the myth about the game of telephone moving on from that You think about the work that these? scribes did and maybe it's helpful for us to kind of dig in a little bit about what their job was why they were doing These things and maybe it's helpful from our modern standpoint Like these guys were not just copy machines and I think that's maybe a helpful reminder For me that like when I think of scribe, that's that's what I generally start to think about like they're just Copying one letter to another piece of papyrus or whatever.
They're writing on like they're they're not just copying They actually know it very well and they're called to know like this is their job to know it very well and to protect the tradition of this passage and to understand the meaning of the passage and like that was generally why they were They were held in such high regard because number one they could read I mean, that's an important aspect in this ancient kind of context But also that they were they were so intimately familiar with the word because they were just steeped in it all day long
Ryan: and we think of the scribes and we might usually think of you were talking about throwing them under the bus. We might first think of the ones that were critical of Jesus. And that's not really the group we're talking about. Just to clarify right off the bat, we're you know, it's not they were more like lawyers.
They were more experts in those documents, not the ones who were professional. They still might be called scribes, but professional scribes that were writing manuscripts by hand. And so, yeah, these these guys took it so seriously. you know, they would memorize bits.
They would count the numbers of lines and the middle where what was the thing with the middle word in the middle letter? Do you remember
Bryan: Yeah, so they're they're Marking the the notation of which one was the middle which one was the beginning and end so that they could easily scan through it And understand like yeah, we got we got that one copied correctly and so they would they would number them as they go through and then mark in the margins like those numbers and it was a Whole code that they had like to be able to to just quickly verify that like yes, that's correct For or nerdy computer people you might understand the word checksum or you might understand what know what that word means to have a checksum It's basically taking a huge bucket of data and being able to distill it down into like the smallest possible number that's unique to that data and it's like a Timestamp or like a code that attaches to that kind of data and like that's what the scribes came up with They were like, hey, let's figure out and make sure we can notate all of this Like, you know first last and middle word on this on this scroll so that we can quickly say Yep, we got all the all the words
Ryan: it's one thing to imagine, you know, I want to be good at my job. I want to hey, if I don't write this code precisely, then the application is not going to work or something. It's a different thing to know I am handling the very words of God and to take it that way
Bryan: The application also won't work correctly in that case to just so we're on the same page
Ryan: Oh, man, I just have a whole new metaphor for the Bible as source code for life to run the application.
Yeah, I mean, they
Bryan: system.
Ryan: yeah, going back to the robots. We are you know, we are seeing these the fruit of people who understood their part in the process of transmitting and stewarding the words of God. They had ritual handwashing before writing God's name. I mean, imagine, Bryan, you're on page 50 of 60 and you realize your one letter, wrong in the name of God somewhere way back, you know, in the in the early pages.
You know, would you be devastated?
Bryan: be real upset with myself I think I'd be hard on myself about it. I'd be very angry that I had to throw that whole thing away for sure
Ryan:
Bryan: Yeah, so
The Masoretes: Guardians of the Text
Bryan: thinking about some examples of these different scribes We've got like in Ezra 7 verse 6. It says Ezra went up from Babylonia He was a scribe skilled in the law of Moses that the Lord the God of Israel had given and the king granted him all that he asked for The hand of the Lord God was on him and I think that's a helpful thing to remember that God was with these Scribes in some really serious ways in some really inspirational ways I mean the the pun is there but like I think it's important for us to see that Ezra as a scribe Was somebody who not only did his job well But knew the law and God was with him and that's a that's a faith builder for me to know that God was Empowering these people with the skills to do this work.
It reminds me of those skilled craftsmen of the tabernacle that God empowered with his spirit to be able to do these amazing works of artistry and God is with these people as they go off and Copy down his word because it is an important job.
You do want to make sure you do this job very well So Ezra is a great example of that We see also these quote-unquote men of Hezekiah in the book of Proverbs that I think are helpful to understand like there's these whole schools of scribes Like this is not just like one rando scribe here and there like these are whole Educational traditions of people who are coming up to learn how to do this kind of work And I think that's where we get to some really inspirational people that we'll talk about in just a second called the Masorette's.
Ryan: I mean, we could go into other people like like Baruch,
Bryan: Oh,
Ryan: partnering with Jeremiah. but what we really want to get into, I think, is not just who was was acting maybe like a secretary that they were dictating these things to.
But now that you have an autograph, which is a word for an original writing of the New Testament, the Old Testament, one of these books, one of these letters, and they're being understood as scripture, they're being held in esteem and people need copies of them. And we didn't have a machine, a copy machine to go and make copies.
We didn't have printing presses yet. So it's a manuscript, a handwritten document that's being made. And so who were these people who made those? And going back to the Masorette's, these superheroes of the Old Testament, scribes of the Jewish tradition. What do we know about these guys
Bryan: I guess this is probably where we get to like the mind-blowing details of these kinds of people the Masorette's These are the Jewish scribes who are working I think between the 7th and 10th centuries After the Lord's death, I think there's you know, they were just obsessive they were the original like OCD kinds of people like they were just compulsive about their their need to preserve The text and so they built like we've sort of alluded to this vowel system How they invented basically these like dots and dashes that we see throughout the Hebrew Bible today And this is like this was a huge undertaking like this massive job that they had to preserve the exact pronunciation of the text for future generations like they went through and just like Marked up the Bible in the Hebrew Bible in a way that was helpful to preserve the pronunciation Which is like just wild and wacky to think about but these guys they made these notes And so I was talking about the checksum earlier But that that's what they did like in the margins and at the ends of all of the books They included like these huge notes and with all this detail and they counted the number of verses They counted the number of words They counted the number of letters in every book of the Bible and then like like we were talking about they Identified the middle word and the middle letter of the entire book So they knew what the middle letter of like the Pentateuch in Leviticus was in Leviticus 11 verse 42 They knew what that middle letter was.
It's like wacky just to think about that Come on now and so if they if they copied a scroll for the first time they made sure and they checked all the All the counts were dead on and if they were off by even one letter Then they would throw the whole thing away
The Dead Sea Scrolls Discovery
Ryan: They would burn it or bury it And you mentioned them burning or burying, getting rid of these these texts that were marred in some way, you know, the Masoretic texts that we have is, you know, from a thousand A.D.
or something like that. You know, it's about a thousand years after Christ. And one of the reasons for that is that they didn't want the Word of God to rot away, these skins. And so they would destroy them before they would rot away and make a new copy. And so
God provided a way, for us to confirm the reliability of those texts.
And now we're into the Dead Sea Scrolls. You want to tell the story of the Dead Sea Scrolls?
Bryan: I am NOT at all qualified to talk about the Dead Sea Scrolls I just think it's so cool that in like 1947 we suddenly have this aha moment where it's like, oh, yeah We actually can prove that all of these things are connected in this deeper way
But yeah, so they find these scrolls and they they discover that this is like bridging this thousand-year gap that they've had in this Manuscript evidence andone of the things I just love about the the story of the Dead Sea Scrolls Is how not only do they have copies of other scrolls that we would expect them to have like Isaiah and other things But we also see other writings around them that you know They were they were helpful writings that the Christians of the day might have have really leaned on very specifically.
Ryan: So the Qumran community that existed there where these Dead Sea Scrolls are and that these were documents from, this was a group of people, a group of Jews, that had withdrawn from society, basically, and said, OK, we're going to be our own little community. And so, like you say, we have documents that tell us about their community and the rules and the way that they practiced ritual purity and things like that.
And then we have these copies of some extra biblical things that you can see that they didn't treat a book like the Book of Enoch or something as canon. But they had copies of a lot of other things. And then we have like the Book of Isaiah. And you look at the Book of Isaiah and you compare the Qumran documents, the Dead Sea Scrolls version of Isaiah with the Masoretic text, and you don't see any significant difference.
So in one discovery, as we compare it, we take a thousand year, back to our time travel episode, a thousand year journey, right, back in time and say, oh, so this is just as faithful. It's confirming that care, that OCD, meticulous care that we were talking about, that the Masoretes had as they're preserving and copying the text.
Bryan: That is such a it's such a cool thing to bridge the gap between Archaeology and Bible study. I know so many people who are big Bible history nerds in terms of like archaeology and getting into that kind of stuff I've there's podcasts out there that I've listened to that people just dive deep into understanding the Archaeological digs and understanding like how they prove or disprove certain things
it's definitely Scratches a very particular itch for people who like the puzzle solving thing.
Ryan: yeah, maybe we need to have a Bible Geek-tober episode on archaeology and the Bible next year. But the discoveries that we continue to make in archaeology really have an impact on this discussion. And you think, well, the Bible is this ancient document.
And that's all true, and we're not changing, you know, no fundamental doctrine is being changed or anything. But we continue to find new manuscripts. We continue to find new ancient documents, extra-biblical documents that help us with translation.
Ancient Libraries and Manuscript Stability
Ryan: One thing that helps us with this particular discussion about the manuscripts, the scribes, and the authenticity of these documents, even going back to that telephone discussion we had, is a few years ago, I think in 2009, a major study was published of 53 ancient libraries that have been discovered.
And these are particularly in dry areas. One really noteworthy one is in Oxyrhynchus in Egypt. And, I mean, these are not business document archives. These are libraries of literature that people would come and read these documents, these books that were in use. And there's letters, "Hey, we want this book that you borrowed back," and different things like that.
And there's this particular library in Oxyrhynchus had, I think, like half a million documents in it. And they've been preserved. Part of that is the dry climate there in Egypt. But, I mean, think about that. These ancient, ancient documents still around. And we can see from reading about how they're using it and looking at the documents that the original documents, the original manuscripts, would last sometimes up to 500 years, but like on average 200 or 300 years.
And so you think about, okay, Paul writes a document or whoever writes a letter. How long did the autograph last? And if an autograph could last 250 years, that's going to be controlling the way that it's copied. And, in fact, Tertullian, who's writing, I don't know, like second century or maybe third century, and also later somebody named Bishop Peter, I believe, talk about, " Hey, you can go and check out the autograph yourself.
Check out the original document yourself if you don't believe me. People are messing with it. You can go and look at the original." So you think about that. And then another thing we've learned from Oxyrhynchus, it's really cool, and from these libraries is that they wouldn't just make one copy. When you're writing an ancient letter or something like this or a document, just like, you know, if you and I are writing an article even, you know, or if you're writing something, you're going to have a drafting process and you're going to work through it.
And then you want to keep a document, a copy for yourself, and then you're going to send one out. And so they would have multiple copies as they're making a copy of a, you know, writing out a letter, and they would write it out and work with it. So there's good evidence that there may have been two copies of each book, three copies, four copies, and then immediately they're making copies and sending them out. Paul says, "Hey, share this Colossian letter with other people," and that kind of thing.
So very early we're seeing these copies made and they're being controlled, you would think, reasonably by the autographs or the original documents themselves. So I find that really fascinating to know that, you know, going back to the original, there is a stability to these texts.
Bryan: think that's that may be one of the most helpful things to come out of this discussion with is just the word Stability that we we may look at a time like this as like sort of ancient and oh These people didn't know what they were doing and boy like this was their skill. This was their job This is what they did and they were good at it And you know, they knew what they were doing and I feel like that's something that we should credit them with Is is their ability to do some of this stuff that I for me?
I don't think I would be able to do a lot of this But you know, I am I'm very technical and I if I view this in terms of like writing code That's a lot more helpful for me to make a connection with them but yeah stable and Understanding that this was this was something that a lot of hands were involved in and a lot of skilled hands were involved in Would you mind if if for just a second would you mind checking your text message?
I'm sending you something right now.
Ryan: This isn't pictures—AI-generated pictures of Ezekiel, is
Bryan: It is not it is in our super secret private text channel I am sending you a passage and I'm gonna give you 30 seconds on the clock and I would like for you to find the middle word of this passage and Also if for bonus credit and also count the number of words, so I'm gonna give you 30 seconds and I will be quiet We'll be back in just 30 seconds.
Ready?
Ryan: Ready.
Bryan: All right. Here we
times up. All right All right. So this is one sentence of actually it's Leviticus 11 verse 42 Which is coincidentally the middle verse of the Pentateuch So what do you see here as the middle word and the number of words in this passage?
Ryan: Okay, now I'm doubting myself because I just counted backwards and forwards, but I think "swarming" is the middle word, and I counted 31 words when I first went through it.
Bryan: Okay.
Ryan: What's the correct answer here?
Bryan: Yeah, so in the translation I sent you
Ryan: Uh-huh.
Bryan: You would be correct. We've got the you have the middle word, correct? And you have the number correct as well. The interesting thing is in the other translations You might find a different middle word In fact, there are some translations that use 32 words for this passage And so there is not a exact middle word So depending on your translation feet and any may actually be your middle words, but that's good I mean you can imagine though like if that was your job to do that all the time Would you love that job Ryan?
Ryan: I would not. I would rather be one of the rabbis discussing the words rather than the scribes copying it. But, you know, what an honor. If I was, I think I would take it very seriously. I would treat each mark of my pen as worship. I would think of this as a stewarding of something sacred, at how close you would feel constantly to the words of God, you know, if you're taking these—if you're just making copies over and over again of the book of Ruth or, you know, something like that, and you're—it's like running like a loop.
I mean, I've heard that some of these scribes would basically have it memorized, almost like an audiobook playing in their minds, because they spent so much time writing the words over and over. What a powerful thing. So, you know, yeah, it's not my dream job to write by hand. My handwriting is awful anyways, but what about you?
Would you like it, you think?
Bryan: I would hate this job.
Ryan: [laughter]
Bryan: I mean just to be honest, I think it would drive me nuts But at the same time, I think you're right I would definitely appreciate the ability to do such an important work And it was like if you want to talk about a behind-the-scenes work, this is it really? I mean, this is it like they're not they're not getting the fanfare I mean you they can't even write themselves into the story, you know what I mean?
Like if they did that just that defeats the whole purpose and so I feel like this is this would be an interesting job I would not want to have it myself unless I could use a computer and type it out With a keyboard that might be a little easier, but you so often when we're reading our Bibles Maybe you have these like footnotes in your translation where it's like some manuscripts read dot dot dot if you're trying to explain to somebody what that means?
how do you explain that and why is that something that's important for people to understand? When something at the bottom of their footnote says some manuscripts
Ryan: Well, first of all, just knowing that—talking about stability of the text, that we know with confidence what almost every word of the New Testament said in the original documents, and we can have tremendous confidence in the Old Testament as well, and any time that there is a doubt, then there's going to be a footnote in any of the new translation, any good translation, you know, New American Standard, English Standard, I think the New King James has those, but yeah, I mean, you look down at the bottom, and it's going to give you an alternate rendering, and it's going to tell you a little bit about the options.
And now you have all the information you need to make not only interpretation decision, but a textual decision about what do I think the original might say, and there are certainly—there's good commentaries you can get into that focus only on the text, and there's documents you can look at for that.
But I would say honor those. They should give you confidence, not concern. And whenever you see a variant, then, you know, take it into consideration. The translators have put what they think is the most likely rendering, based on the science of textual criticism, looking at the best texts, which are excellent.
They've put that in the body of your English Standard Bible or whatever you're using. But if there is enough of a doubt that they aren't sure about it, they are taking it so seriously that you get all the information to rightly handle the Word of God. They've put that as an option down in the footnote.
Does that make sense? So to me, it's a reason for confidence. How do you view those?
Bryan: I I just think it's honest, right? I I feel like it is just calling a spade a spade and saying we've got these two copies and we believe that both of These copies are you know, very important documents And so when I'm translating this I'm gonna tell you that yeah this translation over here not translation at the time But like this manuscript over here is going to be including this verse and I just want you to know about it So you're aware and you don't have to put that in there I mean you could you could treat it as if like these words are the only words and you know I think in a lot of we don't do a great job sometimes at like reading the the beginnings of like a translation if you look at like the beginning of the ESV or the you know, New American Standard or the Christian Standard Bible or even the the King James version itself the 1600 You know has has a preface there where the translators are explaining and describing What their intentions are and their goals are and think it's honest for them to say hey this verse doesn't Isn't in this other manuscript, but you should know about it.
Anyway, so here it is I think that's helpful. And like you said, I don't think it necessarily erodes any confidence But it does, you know If you're wanting to come to claim it was perfect in every way and the work you've done on it needs no further Discussion then I don't think you would include stuff like that.
Ryan: what a gift, right, that we live in a time and a world where, I mean, if you want to get deep into looking at the actual pictures of, you know, these manuscripts, in a lot of cases you can do that. But certainly you can look back and look at the Greek text or the Hebrew text or whatever. You can get deep into the original language work.
There's so much that we have access to in content. Just to have a copy of the Bible, I mean, people died to give us, you know, that has its own history, right, bringing about each person having access to a Bible. But we have so much more than just a good translation of the Bible. And so I think we need to be stewards of it and we should be deeply grateful.
And what a faith builder that God has delivered this 2,000 years later. I mean, in some cases 3,000 or more years later, we are holding words that Moses wrote, What a thing. What a thing God has done through people, through people just making these copies
Jesus and the Scribes' Work
Ryan: and trying their best to be faithful in it each step of the way.
Bryan: you know as we as we sort of roll back to Jesus here in this conversation We've been talking about scribes and Ezra and the Masorette's and all kinds of weird checksum discussions and Ryan counted some things.
That was cool You think about Jesus though? He loved the book. He loved the work that these scribes put in he was he was all about it You know, he's he was constantly in the synagogues. He was constantly with the scrolls. He was he was Digesting this word into himself because well, he was the word He is the word and you know, it's so cool to think about Jesus picking up a scroll that some scribe wrote You know of Isaiah or whatever Isn't that amazing that like somebody got to write the scroll copy the scroll that Jesus picked up and taught from what?
Oh,
Ryan: yeah, yeah. You think of him announcing his ministry in the synagogue, reading Isaiah 61, and he's holding, somebody made that copy. He isn't worried. Well, I don't know. You know how transmission errors are. He's opening it up, and he's just reading it and saying, "Today, this scripture was fulfilled in your hearing."
"The scriptures cannot be broken," he says. you bring up him reading those, but somebody read the scriptures that taught Jesus in the synagogue, you know, as he is memorizing Deuteronomy as a young boy, and later on he's going to quote it in Matthew 4. Yes, he's divine, and he was involved in the writing of these books, but as well, as best we understand the incarnation, he is going through a process of learning, and he's spending time with the scriptures, and he's asking questions as a 12-year-old, probably with the scrolls open, and So yeah, he's working with these documents, and he's thinking about them, and he's opening them to others, and, you know, Peter and Paul and all of these guys that quote the scriptures spent time with the work of some scribe sitting by himself by candlelight late into the night, making dots and tittles, thinking about what the middle line was, so that even Jesus could read it and know that it was faithful to the original word of God.
Bryan: if there ever was a time for somebody to take on some kind of crusade in you know Attacking the work that they'd done as like, you know incomplete or whatever you would imagine Jesus had plenty of Opportunities throughout his ministry - I mean he had scribes right there with him to tell them all about the bad work They did but we never see him say that once like he's he's never like you guys did a terrible job and you messed up Big time and this isn't this isn't what I said at all like, never says that
Ryan: the—no, he doesn't, and the people who are even arguing against the case for Christ in the first century, you know, when Paul goes into synagogues and explains from Isaiah 53 and Psalm 22 and these different texts, you know, they're not saying, "Yeah, but can you really count on that scroll?" You know, we had a scroll back in Caesarea that, I don't know, I feel like it was totally different or something like that.
Like, the case would be, they don't want to—a lot of these guys are fighting against the idea that Jesus is the suffering servant and the text is so clear you would think you would attack the text, rather than—but nobody does. Everybody recognizes the authority and integrity of these passages, and we should, too.
Bryan: and boy we could certainly get into a lot more nerdy details We we could talk about the Canon process and how all of these manuscripts were put together and collected I mean, that's a whole dis. Oh, I mean just a whole discussion, right? Like there's all kinds of details there and then we talked about archaeology We could get into that some more but this just maybe scratches the surface on the work that these scribes did and maybe
Conclusion and Weekly Challenge
Bryan: that leads Us to a little bit of a challenge for this week. So this week's challenge is a super easy one I think and as you're reading the Bible as you're studying in the morning or whatever just take like 30 seconds
Ryan: The length it takes to, you know, count 31 words in a verse of the Bible.
Bryan: did a good job with that by the way So yes Take about the time it took Ryan to count the words and just say thank you just be thankful and grateful For this book that you're holding like of course be grateful and thankful for the Word of God But I mean the physical book that you're holding or the book that you're looking at on your screen Like look at those words and just thank the Lord for his work in enabling so many Humans throughout history who just copied these things and did all this work that maybe you've never thought about
Ryan: Yeah, you know, we've been talking—a little sub-theme has been time travel through this episode, right? Through this season, I mean. And so, yeah, thinking about the way that these words have traveled through time from the pen of Moses, from the pen of Saul of Tarsus, who is converted to Christ in an, you know, experience that nobody is able to explain to this day, but that evidently he saw Jesus and then started writing things that would make no sense without that experience, right?
These things that we have, thinking about the way that God has gotten these books to us, and yeah, praise is a natural and right instinct in those times of reflection.
Bryan: So there's been a whole episode on the scribes and all kinds of weird stuff that they did to keep this Bible So rock solid that we have in our hands And I've really appreciated this conversation because I've seen how you know There is a lot of detailed work that God wants done and if nobody does it Then we don't have this book in our hands and it for me is kind of a meta point about my own work and service Like there are things that I might do that just don't really feel like they're making a huge difference or like There's not a lot of fanfare about it or there's not a lot you know, whatever it is like my work can be done in the quiet in you know, the behind the scenes kinds of ways and That kind of stuff can stack up in real meaningful ways to bless people's lives like the scribes work did I mean our little works Of service no matter what they might be, you know, and their work was far from little they were very they were very devoted to it But if you're devoted to the work of the Lord, then that can stack up to be some really powerful Catalyst for change in his kingdom.
Ryan: I love that. I was thinking, too, about gifts, you know? Like, what a gift it is to be detail-oriented, you know? To be able to take seriously enough and stay in that focus zone for long periods of time. Talk about deep work, right? This is deep work, staying in that space. And God used everybody's gifts in different ways.
And so nameless people, people that, you know, we will never know who, you know, all of the hundreds of people who were involved in us getting these books, but God used them. And I like that, that God is using us. God is using our moments when nobody sees us working away. And whether we're recognized for it or not, God knows.
God knows all those people, and he used them.
Bryan: so cool.
Next Episode Preview and Farewell
Bryan: Alright, so this has been a conversation about the scribes on the next conversation. We will talk about yes You guessed it Giants in an episode We're calling they might be Giants which is just nerdy on every possible level and I'm excited for it We've talked about snakes and dragons now. We're talking about big people Welcome to Bible Geektober.
Alright, so thanks everyone for tuning in You can find show notes for this episode in your podcast player or at Bible geeks FM You can find all kinds of resources on our website as well If you're interested in some guided studies, we've put out before if you want to get in touch with us on our website We've got stuff there.
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And until next episode everyone. May the Lord bless you and keep you