‘I will give a lolly,’ said Graeme, our lecturer, ‘to the person who copies out the most verses in three minutes.’

For the next 180 seconds, I frantically wrote out most of 1 Peter 1 by hand. Some of my classmates copied out more, so I did not get the lollipop.

Then we took the two longest copies and copied them out. (I didn’t win the lolly in that round either.)

Finally, we checked the printed Bible and marked all the mistakes.

‘If your handwritten copies were our only copies of 1 Peter 1,’ said Graeme, ‘How could we decide which variations were correct?’

It was pretty clear. We would prioritise older copies. We would think of what mistakes were likely to happen while the copies were being made (like writing a wrong word that looks similar to the right one, or repeating a word accidentally). It would help that we had several copies to check against each other. We also noticed that, in any place where there were two equally convincing alternatives for what the original said, it hardly mattered. The differences were extremely trivial, and made no difference to doctrine.

This was the process of working out what the original said – an area of study called textual criticism (criticism in the sense of evaluation, not just objections).

Textual criticism is not only for the Bible, but for many other books, including Shakespeare’s plays. Textual criticism can achieve more with some books than with others. It depends on what copies can be found.

The original text of the Old Testament is remarkably well represented by the translations we have today. Perhaps the most spectacular event to confirm this was the discovery of the Dead Sea scrolls. Among these scrolls were copies of most of the Old Testament close to 1,000 years older than the copies that had been available so far. These older manuscripts and the later ones agreed with stunning accuracy, bearing witness to the famous carefulness of the scribes who made copies.

The New Testament is even better off when it comes to textual criticism. For most books from the New Testament times, if they have survived at all, the earliest manuscripts available a good several centuries (sometimes over a millennium) after the time of writing, and we are lucky if they number over a dozen. Yet copying by hand is not such a transmission nightmare as some people imagine; textual critics and historians generally accept that what these authors said has successfully reached us.

But the New Testament is represented by literally thousands of manuscripts. The most important ones come from the fourth to sixth centuries A. D., very close to the time of original writing in the first century. Such a wealth of manuscripts really helps the process of checking variations to deduce the original words. The reasonable confidence of past Christians that the New Testament is being passed on intact through copies has been bolstered by a mountain of evidence – all we need and many times over!

And what we found with our copying activity in our class is also true for the Bible: when copies give us two equally convincing alternatives for what the original said, the differences are trivial, and make no difference to doctrine. God has truly provided us with exceptional clarity in the Bible.

Besides Graeme Fleming’s lecture at Lake Learning (a Christian training camp), I have drawn on F. F. Bruce’s classic The Books and the Parchments for this post.

Japan at first just used Chinese characters for all their own writing, which worked – barely. But both monks and nobles wanted something that worked well. Monks devised the katakana alphabet, so that Buddhist Scriptures could be read aloud easily in chants. Even more important was the alphabet of noblewomen, hiragana, which they used to write novels (arguably the world’s earliest) starting in the 10^th century. Both alphabets have become standard elements of Japanese writing.

The New Testament also drove changes in the world of reading and writing. Simply put, the New Testament expanded this world as never before. Building on the tradition of synagogues, early churches encouraged broad study of the Scriptures. Oral teaching was huge, but it did not satisfy the demand; vast numbers of Christians were now motivated to read. It drove the shift from scrolls to codices, the earliest form of books.

Like the Old Testament, the New Testament engaged a huge audience on many topics. The genres indicate this. There are letters to churches. From early on, these were not even limited to one church: ‘Have [this letter] also read in the church of the Laodiceans,’ Paul tells the Colossians. As for the gospels, they might be called biography or ancient biography, but this does not mean writing about Jesus’ life as a private hobby. ‘These [things] are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ,’ says John, and Luke writes in order ‘that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught.’ says Luke. (Though Luke addresses an individual, Theophilus, he also says he is following in the footsteps of others – probably including Mark – who have written for many.) The exception is that some of the letters are written to individuals. Anyway, these letters also ended up shared around the early church, as quotes in other books show.

In fact, there are many signs of interaction with audiences. Luke, as I mentioned above, gives one example: he says he is joining in an established practice by writing a gospel. Paul’s wish that the Colossians share his letter is another example. The seven churches addressed in the Revelation to John are all meant to read it. Peter, in his second letter, says that a bunch Paul’s writings are shared around, and calls them Scripture. Speaking of second letters, they are very valuable. Reading two letters to the same church gives us a rich picture of its relationship with Paul. Paul can correct misunderstandings and refine his points in detail.

Again, there are a huge range of topics. Christ’s teaching and miracles revisit many Old Testament themes from kingship to holiness – and prophecy: he looks forward to the future as well. So do the letters and, of course, the Revelation to John. Christ’s use of stories, metaphors and debate combine with the more essay-like letters to spell out the same big, detailed picture of a reconciliation with God. The history in the Book of Acts and the instructions in the letters tell us about the effect of truths and teachings on the lives of all sorts of people, individually and together.

As with the Old Testament, this huge array of audiences and topics makes the New Testament amazingly clear. Having an audience, especially a big audience, pressures an author to be clear. A range of topics and genres means each point is made in several ways. Our misunderstandings from one passage are cleared up in others.

Yet (as I also said about the Old Testament) it is good to balance variety with common ground. Common ground makes it easier to see the authors’ relevance to each other. They can actually make useful comments about each other. For the New Testament authors, the common ground was being in the first-century church and being an apostle or having apostolic sources.

The next post will introduce the initial audiences of the New Testament from books outside the Bible and translations of the Bible.

We can understand the Bible with the help of a community: the authors, initial audiences, and later audiences. In my last post, I emphasised the authors. In fact, the authors and initial audiences overlap. By looking at the authors Paul and Luke last week, we have already started to look at initial audiences. These missionary teammates were in each other’s audiences. Other examples are proverb-writer Solomon reading his father David’s Psalms and several prophet-authors working at the same time, like Daniel and Ezekiel.

In this post, while still following clues from the Bible itself (just the Old Testament for now), we will widen our lens and find that the initial audiences were big.

Now, because we are following clues from the Bible, some skeptics will cry foul. Just as a skeptical shopper questions the claim on the Weet-Bix box that ‘Kiwi kids are Weet-Bix kids’, a skeptical reader questions the claims a book makes about its own audiences. However, a reasonable reader finds clues in a book about its audience. This is how scholars of literature treat books in general. Just as the box of Weet-Bix in my pantry is a clue to my diet, my digestive system, and my demographic, a book’s style and type is a clue to the sort of people it was written for, the relationship they had with the author, and the place his message had in their lives.

What clues in the Old Testament indicate large audiences? Much of Moses’ books are covenant or agreement documents, formally outlining the relationship between Yahweh and Israel, complete with instructions for land use, holidays, an order of priesthood, concepts of purity and perfection and much more. In other words, they were written to a whole nation on purpose to define that whole nation.

The Old Testament books after Moses are also designed for immediate and wide sharing, from temple songbooks (many Psalms) to criticisms of the nation (much of the prophets) to practical proverbs about everyday life. Even the lyrical Song of Songs is dedicated to (or perhaps by) a king.

So we have large audiences right in front of the authors using books together for a range of purposes.

Contrast this with the opposite: a lone, isolated reader who doesn’t need to do anything about the book. When I was about thirteen I read Lord of the Rings. Afterwards I felt a little guilty, because my mother would report my achievement in glowing terms, yet I knew I had bitten off more than I could chew at the time. I found it very confusing and scarcely followed the plot. Why was Aragorn the rightful king? Why did the Rohirrim ride horses into battle and not those giant tree-men? I could not have answered either of these to save my life. Fortunately, I did not need to answer these questions to save my life, or for any other urgent purpose. Again, I was a lone, isolated reader.

Yet the readers of the books of the Old Testament did use those books to support (or oppose) kings, organise battles, and do all sorts of other things. They could not afford to pose with the books and look smart one by one, like thirteen-year-old me with Lord of the Rings. They received the books as a group. The books called for an active response. And there are signs that the call got through. The books are full of clarifications in sophisticated detail. There are careful closures of loopholes in the Law of Moses, choir instructions in the Psalms, and shock tactics from angry prophets. The authors would only bother clarifying particular points like this if a lot of their message was already understood as they intended.

Each of those examples of clarification is a technique, and a set of techniques makes up a genre. A genre serves a big purpose. So, in the Old Testament, there are both clarifying techniques (like legal loophole closure, choir tips, and shock tactics) and purposeful genres (like covenant, worshipful singing, or king support) – both fine details and big ideas, all forced out onto the page by the drive to communicate. When we open those pages and read today, we have a chance to be a new audience, hearing the message again.

We should be grateful for the drive to communicate, and for the initial audiences who helped to stir it in the human authors’ hearts.

Next week, we’ll look at how balanced a portrait we get in the Old Testament about its audiences, why honesty is a much better explanation than skillful fiction, and how this, too, helps us to understand the text.