Unshakable Truth: Truth 2 Review

We had our second session on Wednesday night and discussed God’s word. Last week’s class was cancelled because no one showed, which worked out for the best considering I was speaking this week at FUSE and needed the extra time to prepare.

One of the things from these chapters was just how meticulous the scribes of the old testament were in keeping accurate records. It was amazing to see the processes they had to follow and learn just how much the dedicated themselves to keeping records.

Here is the list of guideline the Masoretic Scribes had to follow when copying the text:

1. the scroll must be written on the skin of a clean animal

2. each skin must contain a specified number of columns, equal throughout the entire book

3. the length of each column must extend no less than 48 lines or more than 60 lines

4. the column breadth must consist of exactly 30 letters

5. the space of a thread must appear between every consonant

6. the breadth of nine consonants had to be inserted between each section

7. a space of three lines had to appear between each book

8. the fifth book of Moses (Deuteronomy) had to conclude exactly with a full line

9. nothing – not even the shortest word – could be copied from memory; it had to be copied letter by letter

10. the scribe must count the number of times each letter of the alphabet occurred in each book and compare it to the original

11. if a manuscript was found to contain even one mistake, it was discarded

It’s pretty clear that these guys took their jobs very seriously.

And then, just as amazing, to learn just how much information there was supporting the new testament scriptures as well. We talked about how historians use both the number of remaining manuscripts and the expanse of time in between the actual events and the oldest manuscripts to judge the validity of a historical text. Here are some examples:

1. Homer’s Illiad

   1. time gap: 400 years

   2. # of copies: 643

2. Plato

   1. time gap: 1300 years

   2. # of copies: 7

3. New Testament

   1. time gap: 50-400 years

   2. # of copies: 24,600+

So when people say, “well they just found a new gospel and it says Jesus was married… blah blah blah” you can ask about how many copies of that manuscript there are and when it was written in relation to the actual, factual, events of the new testament. The text that we have is the text that has been tested and is known to be true. And now, we have more and more archaeological evidence to back-up what we read in the text.Though it was a small group, just 3 of us, we had a very positive, in depth conversation regarding the validity of God’s word and the truth, and joy, that it brings to our lives. We talked about the provision and protection we are promised when we follow the word of God. And, we agreed that it was one of the greatest ways to improve our personal relationship with our creator.

Next week (this week) we will be discussing Original Sin!