One more factor. If your translation is wrong, we shoot you. Hopefully you know they did not execute scribes for literary mistakes. But, in our age we do not see shame as the ancients did or as our less developed peoples of today do (the basis of honor killings). In that age the shame of such a failure would essentially have been the end of life. So, threat of execution today is a reasonable criteria to bring us into the mental state for making translations the ancients were in.

If you are one that believes in God, the honor and pride at being allowed to work with His Word would come into play. May be we could represent that in the game by offering a prize of a million dollars for best translation.

My point is the scribes had so many incentives to do precise work that the party game of telephone doesn’t, comparison is unreasonable. With this new set of rules we would get a drastically different result, an it would be way less fun.

With Knowledge

Now that you have a better understanding of the ancient scribes and some of the history of Bible translations, is use of the Telephone game an intellectually honest, well informed argument?

Have you considered how you debate an issue?

Complexity

In our modern society the disparity between a quick, easy sound bites for the uninformed and an informed response requiring a lengthy statement for the sake of the uninformed to get a clue places the truth at a disadvantage. It is out there, but it is not easy to find or provide. Many take advantage of this disparity to push agendas.

The complexity in stopping cruel behavior places it beyond the idea of just stop anonymous communication. That isn’t going to fix it. Reduce it? Possibly.

We have Iranians, Chinese, and others that need anonymity to reveal the atrocities of totalitarian countries. It is in the dictators best interest to silence opposing conversation and thought. As long as they know who is saying what, they can go get them.

Will we get a more civil society by eliminating anonymity online? Will it be enough better to justify the loss of another freedom? We don’t know. The smart course is figure it out before we jump. The cliché is giving up your freedom is always a mistake.

As the big social communication systems work to eliminate anonymity in the name of a more civil discourse we are likely to achieve the opposite. And we are fighting a symptom not a root cause.

The base cause of cruelty is human nature and our predilection to act from a place of ignorance. The fix is education and enlightenment. But, then we have to debate what knowledge needs to be imparted to reach some level of enlightenment that allows our society to function to the benefit of all… or at least most…

This weekend’s portrayals of the Crucifixion of Jesus show the height of human cruelty and few show the actual horror or portray the distain and hatred of those crucified. Cruelty is not a new thing.

Jesus, Galileo, and Giordano Bruno were not respectively crucified, imprisoned, executed for what they were teaching. They pissed off the wrong people by disagreeing with their cherished beliefs and authority. Galileo and Bruno insulted those in power. The powers that were slandered and rabble roused until the low information folks demanded an execution. In 2,000 years nothing has changed. Giving up a freedom, anonymity, is not going to end cruelty. It is questionable whether doing so would even slow it down.

— If you are interested in information on how ancient Bible translations were done, see the book Questioning the Bible by Jonathan Morrow for a good collection of references.