A Reminder of Reasonableness

This past weekend, I happened to catch a documentary on PBS concerning the popularity of Shakespeare's play Hamlet. The main questions the producers asked were "Why is Hamlet popular?" and "Is Hamlet still relevant?" However, since I am odd, I picked up on a completely unrelated point which quite fascinated me.

Hamlet is of course one of the most quoted plays although many people may not realize what they are quoting. "To be or not to be" remains a famous quote and the full line is well known for what is essentially English literature. But the question is, was that actually what Shakespeare wrote? In the documentary, they mentioned that there are only a few copies of the text of Hamlet which are relatively close to the time of its writing around 1600. Yet each of these copies present significantly different texts including that famous line. Even Wikipedia mentions this conundrum; "Three different early versions of the play are extant, the First Quarto (Q1, 1603), the Second Quarto (Q2, 1604), and the First Folio (F1, 1623). Each version includes lines, and even entire scenes, missing from the others."

This sort of discontinuity becomes very interesting when held up next to the text of Scripture. While Hamlet, written about 1600, has two or three copies which are vastly different, the New Testament was written about 100 and has thousands of old copies and pieces. If you examine the age and quantity of the copies of the Bible, you will realize that the textual evidence of a consistent record of the Bible is overwhelming. Lee Strobel spends a whole chapter in his work The Case For Christ dedicated to explaining how we know the record of Scripture we have today is amazingly close to what was actually recorded.

This fact is no mere trivia tidbit. The Bible claims to be written by eyewitnesses of Jesus Christ. It is important that we as Christians are able to effectively argue that the Bible represents a reliable witness of eyewitness testimony. From that point forward, many other details can be argued with greater surety.

The more I read and study, the more I realize that our faith, while still faith, can be measured and tested by the facts. The Christian faith is intellectually reasonable and consistent. While I have never argued these points in order to win someone over, they are beneficial points to learn for personal growth. Every Christian should ask the questions and find the answers for themselves. Then you will be ready to answer the questions when someone else asks you.