Incarnations of copying

As a deadline news reporter in the ’80s, both in a sports-writing gig at the Cleveland Plain Dealer and then as a bureau chief for the Elmira Star-Gazette in upstate New York, I can remember the torture of having to write breaking news stories on deadline in longhand and then quickly orally repeat them to an editor over the telephone.

In Old Testament days, the scribe’s painstaking job of copying by hand the exact words (including every jot and tittle) of the prophets had to have been absolutely unreal by comparison. I figure their backs must have ached terrible and I can’t begin to imagine the carpal tunnel problems!

In Ezekiel 9:2, one scribe is described as being “clothed with linen, with a writer's inkhorn by his side.”

According to a Reader’s Digest encyclopedia on the Bible, the inkhorn, or writing case, consisted of a “reed pen that was either frayed at the end to create a brush or trimmed to form a nib; a metal stylus, perhaps, for scratching writing onto hard surfaces; a knife for cutting papyrus sheets and excising mistakes; and an inkwell in which he would mix his dry ink with water.”

The scribe first had to make black ink from mixing powdered carbon with vegetable gum and red ink from iron oxide and gum!

 

Some scribes had to scratch onto stone and inscribe text onto wooden slabs coated with wax or stucco. They also wrote on clay pots and used pottery shards as scrap paper.

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In an article appearing in the Sunday New York Times Book Review section (Nov.3) about how “Twitter and Facebook are just the latest incarnations of a tradition that dates back 2,000 years,” is this interesting passage:

“Today we equate media with conglomerates and moguls: Time Warner, Viacom, Rupert. But far more representative in media history may have been Cicero, who like other upper-class Romans got his news on papyrus rolls that were copied, annotated and passed from person to person.

“Speeches, books, even personal letters were read aloud by slaves and sent on to friends and acquaintances. This distribution system made early media social; by sharing in this fashion, people were able to do what people do in such situations: signal their interests, define their personas and strengthen their ties with others.

“Literacy fell with the Roman Empire. For all but the ecclesiastical elite, media took a 1,000-year holiday. Not until the advent of the printing press did people have much reason to read again.

“Once they did, Standage (author of the new book “Writing on the Wall”) says, their behavior reverted to that of the early Romans. Social sharing could produce electrifying effect: The 95 Theses Martin Luther posted on his church door in Wittenberg, printed and passed from hand to hand, spread rapidly across Germany and within a month were known across Europe.

“Two and a half centuries later, Thomas Paine’s inflammatory anti-British pamphlet “Common Sense” coursed through the American colonies in much the same way. People read it aloud in taverns and coffeehouses; they debated anonymously in newspapers. When it was published in January 1776, independence was all but unthinkable; on July 4 it was declared.”

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From the Old Testament, we know it was the responsibility of the Levite priests to preserve the Word of God—get it copied and distributed and see that it was perfectly maintained.

Jordan says, “There’s an interesting thing all through the Old Testament about the Word of God. It’s called ‘the book.’ It begins to be written by Moses and then it is added to from time to time, and it’s added to and it’s added to, and those priests—those Levites—are in charge of it; they collect together this scripture and the writings.

“The nation of Israel had vast archives of writings. You look in I and II Chronicles and I and II Kings and you see constant references that it’s written in ‘the book of this’ and it’s written in ‘the book of that.’ They had tremendous written histories available to them and those priests selected out of the writings the things that were the Word of God and put them in the ark and identified them.”

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When Jesus came on the scene, He told the people repeatedly to look at their copies of the Book for remembrance of that which was spoken by Isaiah, Daniel, Jeremiah, etc.

“They don’t have the original autographs of Daniel but He says, ‘When you read that copy you’re reading what Daniel said back there,’ ” explains Jordan. “He quotes a copy of book of Isaiah and says, ‘This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.’

“What’s the criterion for something being scripture? II Timothy 3:16 says, ‘All scripture is given by inspiration of God.’

“We’re talking about preserving it not just in any kind of copies, but copies that preserve the inspiration that was in the original. How does it do that? It happens over in the WORDS, because that’s the issue in inspiration!

“In that synagogue at Nazareth in Luke they had copies of the Word of God that Jesus Christ could go in there and pick up and read and say, ‘This is scripture.’ Not, ‘This contains scripture.’ Not, ‘This is scripture with a few mistakes and errors in it.’ Not, ‘This is a fairly reliable copy.’

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In Acts 8 we’re told about “a man of Ethiopia, an eunuch of great authority under Candace queen of the Ethiopians,” who was reading out of the Book of Isaiah when the Holy Spirit told Philip to go to the man and ask him if he understood what he was reading.

As the passage reports, “And Philip ran thither to him, and heard him read the prophet Esaias, and said, Understandest thou what thou readest?
[31] And he said, How can I, except some man should guide me? And he desired Philip that he would come up and sit with him.
[32] The place of the scripture which he read was this, He was led as a sheep to the slaughter; and like a lamb dumb before his shearer, so opened he not his mouth:

[33] In his humiliation his judgment was taken away: and who shall declare his generation? for his life is taken from the earth.
[34] And the eunuch answered Philip, and said, I pray thee, of whom speaketh the prophet this? of himself, or of some other man?
[35] Then Philip opened his mouth, and began at the same scripture, and preached unto him Jesus.
[36] And as they went on their way, they came unto a certain water: and the eunuch said, See, here is water; what doth hinder me to be baptized?
[37] And Philip said, If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.”

Jordan explains, “This dude’s got his own personal copy of the Word of God down in Ethiopia. You see he’s got a copy? Folks, the copies are being made available. Now God the Holy Spirit is going to use that copy to do something in that man’s life.

“Verse 32 says, ‘The place of the scripture which he read was this.’ God the Holy Spirit, writing in Acts 8, called the copy of Isaiah the eunuch in Ethiopia had a copy of the Word of God. God called it Scripture! That’s an amazing statement about how God preserves His Word in copies!

"In verses 35-37 you see the Holy Spirit take those copies to produce change in this man’s life. He gets the man saved by having Philip preach the Word of God to him and verse 37 is a verse that every new bible on the market says you ought to axe and throw out. You know why? There’s a verse that gives testimony to the fact that God the Holy Spirit generated faith in the heart of that man by using a COPY of the Scripture!

“Faith comes by hearing God’s word and God used a copy and the man said, ‘I’ll believe.’ That shows you the power and authority of the Book you got in your lap!”

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When the Apostle Paul commands the Thessalonians in I Thess. 5:27, “I charge you by the Lord that this epistle be read unto all the holy brethren,” he is by no means simply telling the Believers there to distribute his letter in Thessalonica.

As Jordan explains, “Paul writes that thing down and he says, ‘Listen, you’ve got the original autograph but I want you to make copies of it and give it to the brethren here, and then take copies over there to Ephesus and give it to them, and while you’re there you get a copy of the (letter) they’ve got and you bring it over here and you guys collect these epistles together.’ ”

“This is exactly what they’re doing in II Peter 3:15 when it says ‘even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you.’ The order is, ‘Collect them together and distribute them and study 'em!’ They knew what they were handling and they’re getting them out! By the way, all that takes place in Asia; modern-day Turkey. Not down in North Africa. They’re left in Asia Minor, up in Syria—up in what became the Byzantine Empire.

“I believe in Romans 16 where Paul refers to ‘the scriptures of the prophets,’ that’s exactly what he’s talking about. I’m convinced the prophets identified that Canon and put those collated books of scriptures in the hands of the Church the Body of Christ—in the hands of Bible-believing, Bible-teaching people, and the Word was committed to local assemblies for its teaching, distribution and maintenance.

“You see, ‘the church is the pillar and ground of the truth’; not the university, not the scholars. And my dear friend, if you study church history, you’ll find that in the very 1^st Century and in the 2^nd Century they were doing with the Word of God exactly what you and I are doing today!

“Did you know in 170 AD there was already a Syrian translation of a Greek text that matches the text your Bible came off of and it was in use all over Syria?! There was a Latin translation that was all over North Africa and up into Italy and that Latin translation matches your Bible right in front of you!

“There were local corruptions—Origen, Clement, those fellows around in Caesarea and Alexandria—of scripture but those (authentic) texts were there! And those men in the local assemblies of the Body of Christ in the 1^st, 2^nd, 3^rd Century were doing exactly what you’re doing!

“Realize the Wycliffe translators aren’t doing anything new. These missionaries (translating the Word into obscure languages) all over the world aren’t doing anything new. They’re only doing what the church has done from Day One.

“Think about the little-bitty short Gothic fellow by the name of the Little Fox who went up into the Gothic territory—they didn’t even have a written language! And he wrote down the language and translated it into their language. And he translated that same Bible you got into their language.

“It’s interesting to me that God takes His Word and places it into the hands of the true church—Bible-believing, Bible-teaching people who’ve made that Book the authority in their lives. They’re the ones who’ve maintained that Book unbroken down through the centuries. It’s interesting to me that God’s always had a people.”