I love the Bible. Not just the stories or the parts that make me want to shout “Amen!” at the kitchen table. I love the Bible itself. I love knowing where it came from, who copied it, what languages it was written in, how it traveled from one generation to another and, most of all how we can know that the words we read today are remarkably close to what was written thousands of years ago.

Before there were printing presses or Microsoft Word, Scripture had to be copied by hand, again and again and again. Which means we have to deal with the fact that people make mistakes. Sometimes a scribe skipped or misspelled a word. There were even times that scribes thought they were helping by making changes.

The writers of Matthew, Mark and Luke tell many of the same stories about Jesus. Because of that, ancient scribes sometimes noticed differences in the wording and assumed one account needed to be “corrected” to sound more like another. So, they harmonized the Gospels. They weren't trying to deceive anyone, they were just trying to preserve what they believed was the correct wording.

For example in Matthew 9 Jesus is eating with tax collectors and sinners when the Pharisees ask His disciples why their teacher eats with such people. In Matthew, the question refers to Jesus eating with tax collectors and sinners. But in Luke's account, the question includes both eating and drinking. Some later manuscripts of Matthew add the words “and drink,” making Matthew sound more like Luke…. READ MORE….