Some errors were caused by sight.

• Permutation: Letters which resemble one another can be difficult to distinguish, especially when reading someone else’s hand writing. In this error the copies sees one letter and mistakes it for another.
• Dittography is when a word or group of words is picked up a second time by the scribe and as a result the same line is copied twice when it only appears once.
• Haplography is the opposite of Dittography.  It occurs when a text is missing a line owing to the fact that two lines have a similar ending.  The copiest sees the second line, mistakes it for the one he’s already copied and moves on to the third.

Others are caused by hearing.

It is easy for someone with perfect hearing to hear incorrectly when words are confused because of similarly sounding letters. The scriptorium—the ancient “copy center”—worked by having one person dictate to a group of scribes who produced the copied manuscripts. Even when a scribe copied a manuscript alone, he would have read a portion out loud and then written it down. During the time from reading a text to writing it down, errors are bound to happen. Writing down something that sounds the same as that which was read is a common error that is detectable.

And still others were caused by lapses in memory.    You read one thing but in between reading the

• Substitution of Synonymns
• Variations of Sequence
• Transposition of Letters
• Assimilation of Wording

Intentional Errors

“They write down not what they find but what they think is the meaning; and while they attempt to rectify the errors of others, they merely expose their own.” (Jerome, Epist. lxxi.5, Ad Lucinum concerning scribes copying his own works.).

• Spelling and Grammar Changes
• Harmonistic Alterations
• Corrections
• Conflations
• Doctrinal Alterations

I never took Greek in college.  I thought it’d be too difficult on top of school and work schedules.  I thought I couldn’t devote the time required to memorize a new lettering system, new words and all those declinations.  And of course to justify my decision I told myself it wasn’t important.

Sometime after college, however, I started recognizing that to take my study of the Bible to the next level  I had to at least get a basic understanding of Greek.  But by then there were no classes, no instructors, no tutors that could help me on my way.  I decided to take the step and do it myself.

Just recently I picked up my Greek New Testament after studying Greek on my own and started reading the gospel of John.

Now I’ve spent countless hours studying the gospel of John.  Reading books on the gospel of John.  Writing on the gospel of John.  I feel like I know John pretty well.  I’ve spent more than ten years studying John.  But with a matter of minutes of reading John in Greek I discovered something I had never seen before.

Over the last couple posts I’ve been talking about Bible translations.  I hope you know by now that English is not the language the Bible was written in.  Every English version is a translation.  Every time you read an English version you are reading someone else’s translation.

There is of course nothing wrong with that.  But as I showed in my first post there is something less than to be desired through reading an English translation. While you get about 90% or more of what the original authors meaning, there is that important 10% that you are certainly missing.

If you value the Bible and want to get all from it that you possibly can there is now no excuse for you not to take the next step and learn to understand it in its original language yourself.

It really does help with bible study.  The problem doing word studies is that you never know which word to study.  I used to look up words and find that they meant exactly what the english translation said they meant.  WOW!  That was special.  In learning Greek, I found that a lot of the people who said a word meant something really spectacular – weren’t all that revealing.  It’s like a magician who wows you because you don’t know what he’s doing.  Learn Greek and you won’t be fooled but people who say they know what there talking about.

You don’t need to take a class. The internet is chalk full of resources to infuse you with the knowledge necessary for you to make a go of it on your own.

1. Write it out – over and over and over again.  Doesn’t take long before you know the letters and how they sound.

2. Listen to it spoken.

3. Use flash cards.

4. Get

The era of using tracks to proclaim the gospel is just about over.  People don’t pass out tracks anymore.  But people still go to the movies and watch great films.  One film, the Shawshank Redemption, is a gospel made track.  And beginning with the scriptures he explained to them the message of Jesus.  Paul in Acts 17, atop Mars Hill, began not with the scriptures but with the idols and the words of pagan poets.  Here’s how to witness to your friends beginning with the Shawshank Redemption!

I’m like most people.  I hate to ask for charity.  Perhaps that’s why I’m not a missionary.  I would hope that people would just give of there own accord.  But how can people give unless they are asked.  Like Paul says I can they believe unless someone is sent.  Here are few ways that you can support Logos Made Flesh and none of it includes money.

The blank page.  The blank canvas.  The blank life.  I’ve found that our inability to perform comes less from having nothing to say or do than from having the confidence to start and see it through to the end.  Of course every time we sit down to write or create something we want what we produce to be brilliant, powerful, transformative.  We want to grow, to do something better than we did last time around.  And so we wait.  We wait for inspiration to strike us.  For the muses to bless us.  For that moment when we feel like we can do it right the first time around.  We try and order everything in our minds.  To make sure all the pieces fit together.  And so we sit and think.  Think about the post.

In sports, a false start is a movement by an athlete before being permitted by the rules to begin.  And like an athlete we wait for inspiration to strike us.  For the muses to bless us with the creativity to do it right the first time around.

Without permission to fail we can never succeed.  Because in order to succeed we must fail.

When I was a kid I’d sit in my parents car and try to turn the wheel.  Of course the car wasn’t moving so it took great effort to turn that wheel.

Such a rule is in place to give all participates the same even chance.  While the false start is not permitted in Sports I’ve found that its necessary in life.  So often we play the game of life like it was like a race, waiting for the signal to start.  But here life has already begun.

The blank page.  The more I read about the writing process the more I find how much it scares every writer.  What do I say?  How do I say it.  It stands there daring us to make our first move – to write our first word.  But wait.  Waiting for the moment of inspiration.  Waiting to be blessed by muses.  Waiting to say it perfectly the first time around.  And so we wait.

That’s my problem.  I like to say everything perfectly so I forever correct what I have just written and never quite move on to the next sentence.  the next paragraph.

You have to start to change, to grow, to get better.  You’re not going to be perfect the first time around.  You’re not going to be perfect every time around.

You have to be moving to change direction, to adapt, to live.

I want everything I write and say to be brilliant, persuasive, powerful, and transformative.