The Bible as a Living Document

In this episode of The Bible for Normal People Podcast, Pete and Jared talk with Jennifer Knust as they explore the following questions:

• What is textual transmission?
• How have Bibles changed over time?
• Why do we have so many English translations of the Bible?
• How has our view of the Bible changed overtime?
• When did people start caring about the “original” version of the Bible?
• Is our obsession with the “original” version of the Bible harmful?
• How have we strayed from the historical tradition of the Bible?
• Where do the chapters and verses in the Bible come from?
• Why were chapters and verses added to the Bible?
• Do chapter and verse placements matter?
• How old are the oldest Greek New Testament manuscripts? 
• How do Greek manuscripts present multiple interpretations?
• What are the difficulties in translating Greek manuscripts?
• How have different people loved the Bible throughout history?
• How did the Dead Sea Scrolls actually set us back in our understanding of the Bible?

Tweetables

Pithy, shareable, less-than-280-character statements from Jennifer Knust you can share. 

• “Every [Bible] translation is always an interpretation.” Jennifer Knust
• “Protestants have a tradition… that we should assume the importance of the original over and against tradition.” Jennifer Knust
• “We can’t assume every copyist [of biblical manuscripts] had the same attitude towards texts that we do.” Jennifer Knust
• “The Bible is incredibly complicated even if you’re just reading it in English.” Jennifer Knust
• “How wonderful that there were all of these people over centuries who loved these books and tried to copy them correctly as they understood what correctly meant.” Jennifer Knust
• “The Holy Spirit seems to move through people and nature and interaction and prayer. So wouldn’t it work in that way with scripture as well?” Jennifer Knust

Mentioned in This Episode