THE TRIP UP TO WEST CHESTER was a blast. All the teammates were getting to know one another, practicing their forensics pieces, sharing life stories, and just laughing together. It was a very eye-opening experience for me, since it was my first time becoming intimately acquainted with people who had widely divergent lifestyles and thoughts. One girl on the team advocated legalizing drugs, one of the boys lived with his girlfriend, and another boy lived with his boyfriend.
“Welcome to college,” I thought.
We stopped for dinner at an Italian restaurant in Maryland. After the staff arranged a table large enough for all of us, they sat us down next to the kitchen where we had a clear view of all the cooks. David and I had spent the past few hours getting to know more about each other. We decided to sit together over dinner and split a pizza.
David can read people pretty well, and he quickly realized that I do not get offended by playful comments. Far from it, I always appreciate when people let down their guard with me and speak completely unfiltered. Political correctness is for acquaintances, not friends.
So as we read through the menu, he turned to me with mock concern and said, “Nabeel, since you’re probably feeling homesick, I was looking for a pizza that might cheer you up. But they only have a Mediterranean pizza, not Middle Eastern pizza.”
Unfazed, I replied, “But lucky for you, they do have a white pizza. My guess is that it’ll be bland and tasteless. You’ll love it.”
David laughed. “You’re on. I hope this place is authentic. There’s a way to test that, you know.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah, watch this.” With that, David turned to the kitchen and yelled, “Hey, Tony!”
Immediately, three of the cooks looked over at us, and we started laughing hysterically. “David, next time you pull a stunt like that, wait until after they’ve made our food!”
So the night continued in lighthearted frivolity. When we finally made it to the hotel, our coach told us there were two rooms to be shared among the four guys on the trip. It was a no-brainer for us, and before long, David and I were getting settled.
The rest of the team wanted to go out and celebrate. Most members left to go drinking or dancing at a nearby bar, while some of the others went looking for a suitable place to smoke various things. I had never engaged in any of these activities, and I was not looking to start. David also decided against joining them, which intrigued me. I wondered what made him different from the rest of the team and more like me.
I did not have to wait long to find out.
While I was unpacking, David sat down in an armchair in the corner of the room and kicked up his feet. He pulled out his Bible and started reading.
It’s difficult to express just how flabbergasted I was by this. Never in my life had I seen anyone read a Bible in his free time. In fact, I had not even heard of this happening. True, I knew Christians revered the Bible, but I figured they all knew in their hearts that it had been changed over time and that there was no point in reading it.
So in the same moment I found out David was a Christian, I also concluded that he must be especially deluded. Since there were no barriers between us, I just asked him.
“So, David,” I began, still unpacking my clothes. “Are you a . . . hard-core Christian?”
David looked amused. “Yeah, I guess I am.”
“You do realize that the Bible has been corrupted, right?”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. It’s been changed over time. Everyone knows that.”
David looked unconvinced but genuinely interested in what I had to say. “How’s that?”
“Well, it’s obvious. For one, just look at how many Bibles there are. You’ve got the King James Version, the New International Version, the Revised Standard Version, the New American Standard Bible, the English Standard Version, and who knows how many others. If I want to know exactly what God said, how am I supposed to know which Bible to go to? They are all different.”
“Okay. Is that the only reason you think the Bible isn’t trustworthy?” David’s calm and controlled response was surprising. People were usually caught more off guard.
“No, there are tons of reasons.”
“Well, I’m listening.”
Breaking away from my suitcase, I collected my thoughts. “There have been times when Christians take out whole sections of the Bible that they don’t want anymore, and they add stuff that they wish were there.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know the exact references, but I know that they added the Trinity into the Bible. Later, when they were called out, they removed it.”
“Oh, I know what you’re talking about. You’re talking about first John five.”
I had no idea what “first John five” meant, but I practically jumped him for admitting the flaw. “So you’ve known all along!”
“I know what you’re referring to, but I don’t think you’re seeing it right.”
“How am I not seeing it right?”
“It’s not that Christians are just adding and removing things, as if there is some grand conspiracy with people controlling the text of the Bible. I mean, let’s just imagine for a second that someone did want to add stuff. Do you think he could just change all the Bibles in the world?”
“Well, maybe not all,” I admitted, approaching my bed and sitting across from David, “but enough.”
“Enough to effectively change the text.”
He looked unimpressed. “Nabeel, are you telling me that Christians the world over would just let someone change their holy texts . . . and that this massive change would not be recorded anywhere in history? Come on.”
“Not the world over, but I can imagine someone getting away with that in a specific region.”
“So you agree, then, that if there were an interpolation in a specific region, we would find copies of the Bible without that interpolation elsewhere in the world?”
“I guess so.”
“Well, there you have it,” he said with an air of finality. “That explains the multiple versions of the Bible and the issue with first John five.”
“Umm, what?” I felt as if I had been playing a game of chess with David, and he had unexpectedly declared “checkmate.”
“The fact that there are manuscripts of the Bible all over the world means we can compare them and see where changes have been introduced. It’s a field of biblical study called ‘textual criticism.’ If anything is changed, like the verse about the Trinity in first John five, then we can easily find the alteration by comparing it to other manuscripts. That explains the major differences between various versions of the Bible. But don’t get the wrong idea; there are only a handful of major differences between them.”
Manuscript: A physical copy of a text, whether in part or in whole
“What about all the minor differences?”
“Well those are just stylistic differences in translation, for the most part. There are different translations of the Quran, aren’t there?”
“Yeah, but they’re all using the Arabic text to translate, not foreign language transmissions.”
“Well, it’s the same with the Bible. Most of the differences between Bible versions are just matters of translation, not the underlying Hebrew or Greek.”
I let all this new information sink in, and I looked at David in a new light. Where did he get all this information? Why hadn’t I heard it before? I found it all hard to believe.
My incredulity won out. “David, I don’t believe you. I’ve got to see this for myself.”
He laughed. “Good! You’d be letting me down if you didn’t look into this further. But if you’re gonna do this right, you better bring it!”
Where did he get this information? Why hadn’t I heard it before?
I got up and started walking back toward my suitcase. “Oh, don’t worry. It’s been brought.”
After I finished unpacking, we focused on final preparations for the tournament. All the while, I kept thinking about our conversation. I was still fully convinced that the Bible was corrupt, but I had to deal with more advanced arguments than I had previously heard. I was excited to return home and dive more deeply into these matters.