Has the Bible been altered by people over the years?

Question

God said "Jot"?

Answer 1

Altered, are you kidding? It was written by people in the first place.

Answer 2

Between the earliest copies (2ND century AD) until the invention of printing there was about a 10% shift.
Marginal notes tended to get shifted into the text. None of these altered the meaning significantly. Mostly the differences were accidental misspellings.
Today for bible translation we use primarily the 4th century Codex Vaticanus and the Codex Sinaiticus of about the same vintage, referencing to earlier copies such as the papyri and the Dead Sea Scrolls.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codex_Vaticanus
The accuracy of modern translations (From what would have been the original intent) is greater than 99%.
1980 BA Bible, Messiah College

Answer 3

Every translation is fundamentally an alteration, because languages are not direct codes of one another. Furthermore, the meaning of words in languages change over time, causing older writing in English itself (e.g., the Constitution, Shakespeare's plays, Chaucer) to be difficult for some native-speakers. There are also demonstrable alterations by error in transcription or in translation, such as the well-documented substitution of "Red Sea" for "Reed Sea" in the Old Testament story of the flight from Egypt. How the texts are interpreted (not between languages, but how their meaning is conceived in the mind) also varies with societal changes, differing historical eras, and so on (e.g., the thousands of people and organizations that have been identified as the anti-Christ by Christian fanatics through the centuries).

It is also wrongly assumed by people in the modern world of autobiographies that books named after people were always actually written by those people or dictated by them; that is simply not the fact, with the apparent exception of most of the epistles in the New Testament. Rather, they are the oral tradition of events that were passed down for decades or even a century or more before ever being written down the first time, as gospels "according to" so-and-so. Realistically, how unaltered do you really think such a thing can remain in such conditions?

Then, one must also consider the various councils of the early church, in which votes (some of them very close) "settled" questions of Christian theological doctrine along lines that required the exclusion of some texts (e.g., Gnostic texts) and the canonization of others. The Protestant Reformation involved similar "de-canonization", so that the Catholic Bible differs from the usual Protestant. Exclusion and arrangement from the texts is certainly a form of alteration.

The answer, though likely to displease those who make a facile claim of believing every word literally, is clearly affirmative. The Bible has been altered significantly over the years.

Answer 4

NO! if you really read the hebrew translation the aramaic, greek, and latin if you compare it now to the niv which is the closest to the original wording because at the end if you read all this bibles they all end the same way! truly nothing has changed it not even the hand of man...it's funny how people forget that god the creater of everything has such great power he controls everything even the hand of man god has the power to bring these scrolls through thousands of years through many hands and still have it remain the same way. the point of the scriptures have not change at all it doesn't matter which version you read the kjv or new trans, niv god's point still remains the same..how much faith do you have in god? do you believe him or man who can be easily corrupted. remember the reason why we have diff versions is because we have different languages different times the kjv' was written for people at that time niv for our time although we have newer ones but it doens't matter is still god's words.

Answer 5

Of course it has. There was a bishop named Irenaeus who was responsible for determining which books (especially the gospels) should be left out. If you're really interested look Irenaues up on-line. That's a great start. Then read a book by Bart D Ehrman called Misquoting Jesus: The story behind who changed the Bible. I have too much to say about this subject to fit it into a nice neat answer but if you'll read these it will give you a great insight.

Answer 6

People translated scrolls left by generations of prophets, wars were faught over which to include which to leave in and they came up with a bible, at first the bible was written all in Latin, no doubt to confuse us further. Then the King James version came about written in english, I think one came before written in old english, still very hard to understand. So Yes I don't believe that what we know as the bible is everything that was inspired by God to be written. Whether it was done purposely is for God to judge. Just use the bible as a guide to do good in this world, love your enemies and pray for them.

Answer 7

The true bible has not

There are version that have been altered though

The KJ and the NIV and two examples of Bibles that were translated using MANY scholars so as to not alter the translation. These two are considered as close to the original maniscript as any other.

The altered version cause MANY misconceptions to people such as Britney S. The translation that she mentioned is considered to be correct. It's to bad that false teachings confuse people such as her.

Answer 8

The Bible hasn't been altered, it's interpretations have changed over the years. Each denomination has a take on what certain scriptures are suppose to mean, and its those "takes" that separates Christain from Christain, pitting them against one another in a battle of ideologies. the principles of the Bible haven't been altered, it's just Man's search for the perfect definition for a truth we will never perfectly understand.

Answer 9

No, it hasn't. God has preserved His Word. In the spring of 1947, the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered. These manuscripts were copies of the large portions of the Old Testament, a thousand years older than any other existing copies. Study of the scrolls has revealed that the Bible hasn't changed in content down through the ages as many skeptics had surmised.

Anyone can now obtain access to computer programs that give original Hebrew and Greek words, and the only "changes" have been made for clarity. For example the old English h translation of 2 Corinthians 12:8 is "For this thing I besought the Lord thrice...," while a contemporary translation is "Concerning this thing I pleaded with the Lord three times..."

Answer 10

Matthew 5:18 says "Heaven and earth shall passed away but not a jot of my word shall passed until all things be accomplished". So regardless to what man tries to do with the word of God they will be futile.

Answer 11

For the most part....NO. The Bible still gives us the basics. There are many new translations of it to help everyone understand it more clearly, but it has not been alters. There are paraphrases and translations and amplified versions, but all of them serve a purpose. They expand our understanding of God. It is up to the student of the Word of God to rightly divide it... We are not to take everything we read as what it at first seems. We are to read the word in context... compare... study... and grow.