Was the original version of the Bible ever discovered as this is the only living proof of christainity?

Question

If there is such a book where is the original placed

Answer 1

The oldest translations of the various books that were assemble into what we now call the bible date from about 300 C.E. And these of course are copies of copies with all the inherant errors that may be compounded by that. There is no surviving copy of any of the original gospels or letters, so we don't know what the original versions said.

The earliest gospel according to Mark was not written until at least after the fall of Jerusalem, which we know from the Romans meticulous records, was in 70 CE. And it was likely a bit later than that. So at a minimum...there is a 40 year gap from the supposed amazing/miraculous/earth changing events of Jesus' life before anyone bothered to write it down. Kind of makes you wonder what the hell they were doing for 40 years.

Mark was essentially a written version of some oral traditions, not a first hand account. It is the simplest and shortest of the gospels. Note, it is the gospel "according to" Mark...not written by Mark. The interesting thing about Mark is that there is no reference to the miraculous birth of Jesus, to his early life, and no reference to him being a demi-god, and has the simplest and vaguest reference to his rising from the dead. Jesus just seems to be a "good man" who said some common sense things.

Mattew and Luke copied and added to Mark, throwing in (2 different) lineages back to David, as well as the miraculous birth (2 different versions) and his death and resurection (you guessed it, 2 different and contradictory versions) and threw in a few more miracle stories. Matthew and Luke also go the next step in Jesus' evolution as a folk hero, and allude that he was a man who became god.

John...the last gospel written, goes the furthest and claims that Jesus was always god, and repeats and adds a few more miracles. By the time the current version of the bible was put together at the conference of Nicea, they discarded at least 80 other gospels, epistles and letters which didn't agree with the then current ideology that had evolved of Christ as a risen god, dying for the sins of mankind etc.

It is fascinating stuff if you read the bible as an other work of ancient literature, like the Illiad, and not through the eyes of a believer.

Answer 2

There is no "original" version of the Bible. By the Third Century CE, a variety of documents and fragments of documents had been compiled and were beginning to be edited and cross-referenced and brought together into a collection of volumnes. Over the following centuries, many groups of scholars went over the existing documents again and again, revising, interpreting and reinterpreting what they had and compiling new versions. At various points, scholars began to try and determine which of these documents should be considered sacred and acceptable to the church and which should be accepted only as supporting documents. Gradually, all this material morphed into more or less a single volumne, and about the time of the invention of the printing press, a single volumne became generally accepted. The Vulgate is probably the first widely circulated example of such a mass-produced Bible. Look up Johannes Gutenberg and the date of his invention of said printing press and you'll have an approximate date for that particular version of the Bible. Be aware, also, that many of the sacred writings/documents that were not included, being determined "non-canonical" still exist and can be purchased in a wide variety of translations, including in English. They make fascinating reading and add a great deal of insight into the mindset of people of the time during which those documents were originally produced. There're lots more gospels, for instance, than the standard four mentioned in the King James Version. Why don't ya look 'em up and do some independent reading? I betcha you'd find it interesting to read the Gospel of Mary!

Answer 3

No such thing. All of it was Oral Tradition for a long time. Especially the Old Test. And if you look close enough, you'll find double stories, so it looks to me like several stories were in circulation and finally, when Civilization started taking over and ppl started keeping track of these things... they included the stories of the Bible. But there is no Original of the Bible. So far, only fragments have been found and they are claimed to be copies as well.

Answer 4

There really is not an original version. The Bible is a compilation of many different books. These "books" were written by many different people all at different times.

Portions of the different books were compiled into one book know as the Bible. This is true for both the new and old Testament.

Was there information left out from the some of the books that compiled the Bible? Of course
Is there other information hidden away? Of course
Was any information altered, lost, translated wrong? Yes

But most people don't want to hear that or even know that. Imagine you spent your WHOLE life wrapped up into one version, one way and all of a sudden a change comes up to challenge you. You are going to slam it, say its wrong, deny it, call the message the devils work, anything but actually face it.

Watch the negative responses to this answer!

A side note:
Some of the changes that were made to the ancient texts were done by man to keep other people in the dark. Some of the "lost" information is actually very glorious!

Answer 5

Original manuscripts containing various books of both Testaments are available. They're in one of the Vatican Libraries. There are later texts (written within a century of Christ's death and resurrection) and they are in A) the British Library, B) the library of Israel, C) the National Archives and D) several private collections.

Original manuscripts of the Old Testament are no older than about 100 BC. And those are incomplete.

The first whole Bible, containing all the books, was the Vulgate, translated into Latin by St. Jerome in the 5th century AD. This was after the Councils of the Church had decided exactly WHICH books would be included in Scripture and which ones were either heresy or fairy tale and subsequently omitted.

Answer 6

There is no such thing as the "original Bible." The Old Testament wasn't written down until after the Assyrians took over Judah in the sixth century BCE (BEFORE THE COMMON ERA). And furthermore, the Bible that Christians use wasn't COMPILED until 325CE. So technically speaking, we really have no idea. If there is an original of the Christian Bible, then it would probably be in modern-day Turkey, where much of the development of the Christian institution took place.

Answer 7

Maybe this cut & paste might help:

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...How do we know these manuscripts are so very early? How do we know their dates for certain? Some of you may think "scientific" tests on the physical structure of the papyrus may yield such dates. In fact they cannot, because such tests are very inaccurate. No, we can date papyrus manuscripts, any manuscript for that matter, simply by looking at the way it is written. Handwriting is a product of human culture and as such it is always developing. Differences in handwriting are bound to appear within one generation. Just compare the handwriting of your parents with your own. Or look at your own scribblings of a few years ago. It is the same handwriting as today but an expert, a paleographer, can distinguish not unimportant differences. He cannot establish the exact date but he can confidently place one handwriting in the 30's and another in the 80's. Even printed texts can easily be dated according to the outward appearance of the type or font used by the printer.

For such an ancient period as that between A.D. 100 and 300 it is of course much more difficult to be confident about the date of a manuscript. There is infinitely less comparative material. Nevertheless we are now in a fairly comfortable position to date papyrus manuscripts according to their handwriting. We do not have to rely on manuscripts of the New Testament only. We have hundreds of papyrus manuscripts of Greek pagan literary texts from this period and again hundreds of carefully written papyrus documents that show the same types of handwriting. These documents are very important for paleographers because they are often exactly dated. As a rule New Testament manuscripts on papyrus are not. A careful comparison of the papyrus documents and manuscripts of the second and third centuries has established beyond doubt that about forty Greek papyrus manuscripts of the New Testament date from this very period. Unfortunately only six of them are extensively preserved.

Even within the period that runs from c. A.D. 100-300 it is possible for paleographers to be more specific on the relative date of the papyrus manuscripts of the New Testament. For about sixty years now a tiny papyrus fragment of the Gospel of John has been the oldest "manuscript" of the New Testament. This manuscript (P52) has generally been dated to ca. A.D. 125. This fact alone proved that the original Gospel of John was written earlier, viz. in the first century A.D., as had always been upheld by conservative scholars.

We now have early and very early evidence for the text of the New Testament. A classified list of the most important manuscripts will make this clear. Numbers preceded by a P refer to papyri, the letters refer to parchment manuscripts.


ca. A.D. 200 250300350450

MatthewP45BSin.
MarkP45BSin.A
LukeP4,P45,P75BSin.A
John P66P45,P75BSin.A
ActsP45BSin.A
Romans-HebrewsP46BSin.A
James-JudeP72,BSin.A
ApocalypseP47Sin.A

As you can see, from the fourth century onwards the material base for establishing the text of the Greek New Testament is very good indeed. The manuscripts Sin. (Sinaiticus), A (Alexandrinus) and B (Vaticanus) are almost complete parchment manuscripts. With the help of the earlier papyrus manuscripts we have been able to establish that the text of these three great manuscripts is to a large extent reliable. The papyrus manuscript P75 was the latest to be published, but it showed a virtually identical text to manuscript B. This settled the vexed question whether we have in the parchment manuscripts of the fourth and fifth centuries a safe guide to the original text of the New Testament we have.

Answer 8

There have been more discoveries of the Biblical texts than any other writings in history. They number in the thousands. The original texts were written as individual books. The Jewish Torah is made up of the historical texts of the Old Testament. The New Testament books were written after the life of Christ, many by his disciples. Archeology claims that if you can find three ancient artifacts that agree with each other, this is conclusive proof that the artifacts are authentic and factual. Thousands of Biblical texts have been found that confirm each other. With any other writing, the scientific world would accept these discoveries as authentic. With the Bible, they digress.

Answer 9

Well the speculation is that the original scripts are still hidden in the vatican - the ones they wanted to destroy - some like the mary Magdalines, St. Peters, St. thomas's were found. Others cannot be found - may be someday the Vatican will tell the truth - at that time, even the so called born again christians, Jehovas Witreness etc will have to close up there Money shops

Answer 10

There's no such thing as "the original version of the Bible."