Seeings how the bible that most people read was composed from documents many generations removed from the?

Question

originals (they are lost to time), and over 150 people have had a hand in in creating the present day bible (some of them not very nice people), how close to the original writtings do you think it might be?

Answer 1

Old Testament
How do we know the Bible has been kept in tact for over 2,000 years of copying? Before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, our earliest Hebrew copy of the Old Testament was the Masoretic text, dating around 800 A.D. The Dead Sea Scrolls date to the time of Jesus and were copied by the Qumran community, a Jewish sect living around the Dead Sea. We also have the Septuagint which is a Greek translation of the Old Testament dating in the second century B.C. When we compare these texts which have an 800-1000 years gap between them we are amazed that 95% of the texts are identical with only minor variations and a few discrepancies.

New Testament
In considering the New Testament we have tens of thousands of manuscripts of the New Testament in part or in whole, dating from the second century A.D. to the late fifteenth century, when the printing press was invented. These manuscripts have been found in Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Turkey, Greece, and Italy, making collusion unlikely. The oldest manuscript, the John Rylands manuscript, has been dated to 125 A.D. and was found in Egypt, some distance from where the New Testament was originally composed in Asia Minor). Many early Christian papyri, discovered in 1935, have been dated to 150 A.D., and include the four gospels. The Papyrus Bodmer II, discovered in 1956, has been dated to 200 A.D., and contains 14 chapters and portions of the last seven chapters of the gospel of John. The Chester Beatty biblical papyri, discovered in 1931, has been dated to 200-250 A.D. and contains the Gospels, Acts, Paul's Epistles, and Revelation. The number of manuscripts is extensive compared to other ancient historical writings, such as Caesar's "Gallic Wars" (10 Greek manuscripts, the earliest 950 years after the original), the "Annals" of Tacitus (2 manuscripts, the earliest 950 years after the original), Livy (20 manuscripts, the earliest 350 years after the original), and Plato (7 manuscripts).

Thousands of early Christian writings and lexionaries (first and second century) cite verses from the New Testament. In fact, it is nearly possible to put together the entire New Testament just from early Christian writings. For example, the Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians (dated 95 A.D.) cites verses from the Gospels, Acts, Romans, 1 Corinthians, Ephesians, Titus, Hebrews, and 1 Peter. The letters of Ignatius (dated 115 A.D.) were written to several churches in Asia Minor and cites verses from Matthew, John, Romans, 1 & 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, 1 & 2 Timothy and Titus. These letters indicate that the entire New Testament was written in the first century A.D. In addition, there is internal evidence for a first century date for the writing of the New Testament. The book of Acts ends abruptly with Paul in prison, awaiting trial (Acts 28:30-31 (1)). It is likely that Luke wrote Acts during this time, before Paul finally appeared before Nero. This would be about 62-63 A.D., meaning that Acts and Luke were written within thirty years of ministry and death of Jesus. Another internal evidence is that there is no mention of the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. Although Matthew, Mark and Luke record Jesus' prophecy that the temple and city would be destroyed within that generation (Matthew 24:1-2 (2),Mark 13:1-2 (3), Luke 21:5-9,20-24,32(4)), no New Testament book refers to this event as having happened. If they had been written after 70 A.D., it is likely that letters written after 70 A.D. would have mentioned the fulfillment of Jesus' prophecy. As stated by Nelson Glueck, former president of the Jewish Theological Seminary in the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, and renowned Jewish archaeologist, "In my opinion, every book of the New Testament was written between the forties and eighties of the first century A.D."

With all of the massive manuscript evidence you would think there would be massive discrepancies - just the opposite is true. New Testament manuscripts agree in 99.5% of the text (compared to only 95% for the Iliad). Most of the discrepancies are in spelling and word order. A few words have been changed or added. There are two passages that are disputed but no discrepancy is of any doctrinal significance (i.e., none would alter basic Christian doctrine). Most Bibles include the options as footnotes when there are discrepancies. How could there be such accuracy over a period of 1,400 years of copying? Two reasons: The scribes that did the copying had meticulous methods for checking their copies for errors. 2) The Holy Spirit made sure we would have an accurate copy of God's word so we would not be deceived. The Mormons, theological liberals as well as other cults and false religions such as Islam that claim the Bible has been tampered with are completely proven false by the extensive, historical manuscript evidence.

Answer 2

Ok, the Milky Way is NOT an insignificant galaxy, it is a beautiful large spiral galaxy outdone only by its immediate neighbor, the Andromeda. Glad I got that off my chest. As for the Bible, it should be obvious to anyone that its intent was to promote what would be called dumbing down nowadays. Knowledge baaad, oh sheep, do not eat the fruits of that tree or else. This paradigm held sway throughout the Dark Ages. As Murphy's law would have it, eventually stellar minds like Copernicus just had to come along and confound the witch burners. After the Copernican Revolution made itself at home, things started to get interesting, culminating at the cusp of the Picsean Age with hand held electronic devices. But the talking snake wasn't done yet, it has simply changed from being an arboreal reptile into a TV set, where the brain drain is ramping up again. This time tested formula still works...clearly! In this regard, the Bible is not so much a manual for how to botch things as it is for mind control. I would love to have been the proverbial fly on the wall when this book was cobbled together.

Answer 3

You might add that the current text is a compilation selected from hundreds of stories and documents of the time period (don't remember under which Pope). So not only are the hundreds of authors distanced from the event, but the stories selected are often at best apocryphal, at worst entirely made up to teach a particular moral lesson.

The old testament also suffers from containing stories that were oral traditions often for centuries or even millenia, before being recorded.

With that in mind - I think all the stories need to be interpreted carefully. Some, taken in historical context, are clearly warning tales that are not particularly pertinent to our time. The instruction not to eat pork for instance (or is it cloven hooved animals...) was pertinent at the time. There was the risk of disease. In a desert environment, eating shellfish was also a high risk behavior.

Neither is pertinent today, with food inspections and refrigeration.

If you are interested in a version that is purported the closest to the original texts, I would suggest reading the Ethiopian version and comparing it to a King James, or for even more contrast, one of the modern 'simplified/modernized' bibles.

That should give you a good sense of how things have changed. In particular the King James to the 'modern/simplified' version.

Just my .01

-dh

Answer 4

Not very close at all. Anyone doing a study on the Torah and the Hebrew, even of today, will see that it does not match the first five books of our English Bibles. Besides, any historian or scholar will tell you that most of the Bible was Oral Tradition long before it ever was put to "paper". This is much like you telling a fishing story to your child and your child in turn telling his friends and so on and so on.... by the time it gets back to you, it's so outrageous you're not even sure if it has anything to do with YOUR fishing story. We could also look at the stories of Robin Hood and King Arthur... stories which were slightly based on real people, but have been embellish so much that they are now considered myths/legends. So, I would say what we have today is nothing like what the "real" thing was.

Answer 5

Do you accept the philosophy of the ancient philosophers who don't have any original documents to prove their writings?, Or Homer who wrote the Illiad (but there isn't one original document)? But the Bible is to be questioned!
The Lost Sea Scrolls, discovered in 1947, documents the book of Isaiah, but this to be questioned to?
The Bible has been in a running gun battle with all sorts of skeptics and unbelievers for two thousand years, but why does this best sellers of all time seem to survive, even to this day?

Answer 6

The Bible scholars and others have original copies of the original texts, meaning they have Scriptures dating back to early centuries, the Jews were very meticulous about making copies of Scriptures, they counted each letter of each line to make sure everything was exact, our translation of the original languages is better now than in earlier days and the copies we have now(our Bibles) are indeed quite accurate. The best translation to date as stated by Jewish scholars is The New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures.

Answer 7

The written Bible was the inspired word of God. The Apostles decided to write down the events that happened so it wouldn't be lost. Over the years, the text was changed to our modern language: i.e: the thous and thines were removed to reflect more modern language. Nothing was lost in the translation. The bible remains today as it was when it was written.

Answer 8

No where close, King James was a homosexual, and hated most of the teachings from the Geneva Bible so he started the editing process by changing words little by little then they came out with the new international versions and others which just updated versions of the King James Version

Answer 9

In the beginning the Word was with God, and the Word was God! Once more for those of you who have a hard time: The Word WAS God - The Word IS God! Do you doubt that He has the power to make certain that man reads the Word that God wants them to read? If that is what you believe, then I say that you know very little about God, and are not worthy of Him! The Living God - The Living Word - they are one and the same. How long must He suffer your doubts, and unbelief?

Answer 10

As long as when you are reading the text that you read makes sense then I say that it is not to bad. If there is any contradiction then it should be questioned and do so until there is an answer. I agree too many people and that to me can go wrong. I know that scripture is inspired of God, but again we are people and can make mistakes.