EXPLAIN THIS: Why The ‘Telephone Game’ Doesn’t Apply to Jesus’ Parables

You remember the telephone game from when you were a kid, don’t you? One person whispers a message in the ear of the person sitting beside them, and then they turn to the person on their other side and repeat the message.

And so on and so and so on. Off at the end, after six or seven transmissions of the message, the message ain’t what it used to be. The message started out as “There’s a green car parked just to your left” has become “That’s a mean-looking scar you’ve got on your right cheek.”

So it was with Jesus’ parables, according to critics. He told interesting stories with great morals, but then they became more and more incredible with every succeeding telephone transmission. At a certain point, what Jesus said originally is completely gone.

Not so, exclaims Erik Manning of Is Jesus Alive? in the following 4:33 video. As always, Manning’s whiteboarding is great and he presents an apt selection of logic and evidence in demonstrating why we can believe the New Testament accounts of the parables Jesus told.