Chapter 7: Separate Artifacts from Evidence: Clean Up Your Crime Scene!
The Student Cadet Academy is approaching its final two weeks, so Jason takes the skateboard home as he carefully considers what Lacey told the class. The more he examines the board, the more he finds. On the top edge of the board he sees a thin swirl of white paint and several tiny white paint drops. He returns to the briefing room the following week, hoping his discovery might help solve the mystery.
“Has anyone else noticed this paint mark and these droplets?” Jason asks.
“You mean this ‘squiggly’?” asks Hannah, pointing to the swirling mark.
“Squiggly?” questions Daniel.
“I missed the class on squiggly evidence,” you say.
Hannah points to the swirling paint mark and says, “I never noticed it before, but there it is: a white squiggly!”
Everyone wants a look, and sure enough, everyone now notices the swirling paint mark. “What would you call that?” Hannah asks.
“‘Squiggly’ works for me.” Jeffries shrugs, and everybody laughs.
Jason wants to investigate further. “Can we have Lacey come back so we can ask her about this paint?”
“I don’t think we need to,” says Daniel. “When I first saw the skateboard, it was sitting next to an old can of white paint, and I saw similar ‘squigglies’ and paint drops on the tools next to the board.”
“Sounds like the paint is something other than evidence,” says Jeffries.
“What do you mean?” asks Jason.
Jeffries lowers his voice and takes a serious tone: “Every time I enter a crime scene … I expect to find two kinds of objects.”
The cadets lean forward to hear what Jeffries has to say. You’ve been waiting for Jeffries to share something about a real crime scene.
Jeffries continues, “Evidence and artifacts.”
“I was hoping for something a bit more dramatic,” says Jason.
Artifacts and Evidence
Detectives are never alarmed to find artifacts in the crime scene alongside evidence. In fact, they expect to find things that are important to the case, and stuff that isn’t. It’s the detective’s job to learn the difference and separate one from the other.
Jeffries picks up the skateboard and examines it carefully. “Sorry to disappoint you, Jason, but the paint on the skateboard appears to be an artifact rather than a piece of evidence.”
“What’s an ‘artifact’?” you ask.
Jeffries explains, “Evidence is all the stuff that’s related to the crime or mystery we’re investigating. Artifacts are the things that aren’t related to the case at all.” Jeffries points to the paint on the skateboard. “This paint was most likely spilled on the board after it was finally left in the shed. It’s not evidence and it can’t tell us anything about the owner. It’s an artifact.”
Jason looks disappointed.
Jeffries pulls his chair alongside Jason. “Don’t be discouraged. It’s superimportant to separate the artifacts from the evidence, so your discovery is valuable.” Jeffries pulls out his Bible. “I have to separate artifacts from evidence in every crime scene I work, and scholars also do this in the Bible.”
“What do you mean?” asks Daniel.
Jeffries opens one of the Gospels and says, “Remember, we don’t have any of the original copies of these books. Instead we have copies that were made before the originals wore out. The first believers made many copies and sometimes these old copies don’t match.”
God wants us to investigate the Bible so we will trust it and rely on it.
“If that’s true,” says Jason, “we can’t really trust the Bible. It might contain all kinds of errors!” All the cadets sit silently. Jason looks around the room. “How can we trust what the Bible says about Jesus if there are differences in the old copies?”
“That’s another one of your great questions, Jason,” answers Jeffries. “We need to think like detectives and separate the artifacts from evidence.” He stands and walks over to the whiteboard.
“I don’t get it,” you say.
“Let me explain,” responds Jeffries. “Scribes made the copies of the original Gospels and sometimes they mistakenly changed a letter or a word. Some scribes even added a word or set of words. They weren’t necessarily trying to change the message. Usually they were just trying to make something easier to understand.”
Jeffries starts to write on the whiteboard. “In the gospel of John, for example, one ancient copy says something slightly different than another ancient copy”:
“That doesn’t seem like a big deal,” you say.
“You’re right,” Jeffries responds. “None of the changes affect anything we know about Jesus.”
Jason is not so sure. “But how come your Bible only uses one of these two sentences? How did the ‘scholars’ decide which one was correct?”
“They were thinking like detectives!” exclaims Jeffries loudly, causing the cadets to jump in their seats. “They simply compared copies, and the more copies you have to compare, the more likely you are to find the truth.”
“I still don’t get it,” says Jason. He looks like he wants to understand but still seems to be struggling.
“Okay,” states Jeffries. “Let me illustrate it for you.” He writes the following sentence on the whiteboard:
“Imagine we found an ancient papyrus with this mixed-up message. What does it say?”
“I’m not sure,” admits Jason.
“I don’t blame you,” says Jeffries. “Whoever copied the original left out some letters and even put in a number that doesn’t belong. But what if I found two other ancient altered copies of this sentence and compared them to the first?” Detective Jeffries now writes two more sentences below the first:
“Can you figure out what the original sentence must have said by comparing these three messed-up copies?” asks Jeffries.
You’re getting close to completing your Academy Notebook. Be sure to stay up with the additional activities and get ready to graduate after the next chapter!
Jason reads the three sentences carefully, one directly above the other. He slowly pushes back his chair and stands up. Everyone claps and cheers for him.
“Good job, Jason!” says Jeffries. “You were able to figure out what the original said, even though you had two inaccurate copies. You compared the copies and were able to separate the artifacts—the stuff that wasn’t part of the original statement—from the evidence—the stuff that was part of the original statement.”
Jason proudly smiles and sits back down.
“Now,” continues Jeffries, “imagine that you had hundreds of copies of this sentence, instead of just two. Do you think you’d be able to figure out what the original said?”
“Sure,” says Jason.
“Well, scholars and Bible experts have thousands of ancient copies of the Bible documents to compare to one another—more ancient copies than any other book in history. It’s an amazing collection of early documents. They’ve compared them the same way you compared those three sentences. You figured out what the original message said even though the copies you had were slightly altered. You were sure enough about the original message to stand up, right?”
Don’t be surprised to find artifacts in our Bible. Most Bibles identify variations in the ancient copies by putting a note at the side or bottom of the page. Be a good detective and focus on the evidence instead of the artifacts. You can trust what your Bible says about Jesus.
“Yes sir,” says Jason.
Jeffries smiles. “Then we can figure out the original message of the Gospels using the same detective technique. That’s why you can be sure enough about the words in this Bible to take a stand for Jesus.”