Is it possible that parts of the Bible may have been incorrectly translated or interpreted completely wrong?

Question

Also wasn't it written hundreds of years after these events took place by many different people, then translated. After all that things could have been misinterpreted and exaggerated and all sorts. Also, what if it wasn't even intended to be 'lived by'.

Answer 1

Yes & Yes

Answer 2

You ask some very good questions. I hope I can give a sufficient answer for each of them.

You asked:
Is it possible that parts of the Bible may have been incorrectly translated or interpreted completely wrong?

Answer: Anything is possible. However, it's not likely. With the number of manuscripts that are currently in existence (over 24,000), dating back to within less than a hundred years of the originals, it's just not likely. There is more that remains of the Bible than ANY other ancient manuscripts.
Scholars prior to the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls had often wondered if the Bible had been copied correctly. The oldest known copies only dated back to about the 10th century. However, in nine hundred years of copying, not more than one percent had changed, and the meaning had not changed one bit.

You asked:
Also wasn't it written hundreds of years after these events took place by many different people, then translated?

No, it was not written hundreds of years after the fact. The earliest date given for any of the Gospels has been placed at between 10 and 20 years after Jesus was crucified (That would be Mark). The other books of the New Testament were written either by people who KNEW Jesus personally (like the Apostles Peter, John, and Matthew; and Jesus's brothers James and Jude Thomas.) or had been taught directly by Jesus's Apostles (like Paul).
ALL of the Gospels are thought to have been written by eyewitnesses because the authors say that they witnessed these things, and if somebody didn't believe them, they could go ask someone else who was there. There were literally HUNDREDS of people walking around, if not THOUSANDS, who had seen at least one of Jesus's miracles, and HUNDREDS who saw the resurrected Christ.

You said:
After all that things could have been misinterpreted and exaggerated and all sorts.

I want you to consider something. The Gospels were mainly written in, or had origins in, Jerusalem. This means that if even ONE detail had been off, the Romans and the Jews would have been only too happy to correct it. The fact that they were strangely silent (other than claiming that Jesus's body had been stolen) says that EVERYTHING that was said was true!
Also, can you think of even ONE TIME where events were exaggerated within twenty years of the fact by dozens of eyewitnesses? How about HUNDREDS of eyewitnesses?
I can tell you, it's never happened. Not once. Especially not with something as HUGE as Jesus Christ and His life, death, and resurrection.
In addition to all that, don't you think that if it had all been lies that Jesus's disciples would have said so, instead of being violently killed, as all of them but ONE was? And even John, who is the only one thought to have died naturally, was imprisoned, stoned, and even BOILED ALIVE! Somehow, in that last one, he stepped out unscathed.
Even with all that, the historical aspects of the books in the New Testament were 100% accurate. If the authors took that much care in those details (even the minor ones, like the number of columns at the Bath of Bethesda where the paralyzed man was healed in John 5) one would think that they would extend the same care towards the major details.

You said:
Also, what if it wasn't even intended to be 'lived by'.

If it wasn't intended to be "lived by," it never would have been written down.

Answer 3

The Bible was written on a continuous basis. Each author, except Moses, wrote in the time he lived. It seems to be a common misconception here that the written works were not actually written until the council that determined what books would go into the Bible. You must remember that the Old Testament is the Torah. The New Testament letters and Gospels were quoted so often when they were first written that they were widely circulated by 70 AD. We could reconstruct the New Testament from the letters we have from that era.

Most of the Old Testament is written in Hebrew with Daniel being written in the language of Persia. The New Testament was written in Greek because it was the "common" language of the day thanks to Alexander the Great.

Also, just because we are sloppy about relaying information does not mean the ancients were. Anthropological studies have shown that people without written language are very particular about using the exact words in every retelling of an event. When the words of the Torah were written they were given the same standard.

Answer 4

I believe that the Bible is accurate to the last detail. Some descriptions of things might have been lost in translation, and there are cultural things in the Bible that we dont understand, you would need a backround in the culture of the time to get a full understanding of what they are talking about.
many criticize the Bible, saying it is inaccurate. I believe this is biased ignorance.
Example: there has been over a 900 year gap between the original writings of the ancient greek philosophers, and the time they were compiled. They are considered 98% accurate. There is less than a 300 year gap between the last writings of Paul to when the Bible was written, but it is said that the Bible is full of inaccuracies. It is not.
In 1948, the Dead Sea Scrolls were found, and among them was a complete copy of the book of Isaiah. This is a duplicate to the book of Isaiah that you would see in any Bible today. These scrolls were almost 2000 years old.
In the times of Ancient Isreal, there was a group of people called scribes. their mission in life was to make copies of ancient scriptures. The style of writing had to be the same as the original. If a mistake was made, the entire copy had to be destroyed and started anew. Every time they came to the name of God in their writing, they had to stop and wash their hands.
Jesus said about not one jot or tittle passing from the law until all is fullfilled. A jot or tittle is literally the dot of an i or crossing a t. He was speaking to Jews who knew the hassles of copying the ancient books, and they knew the law. He said it will ALL come to pass, down to the smallest detail.
I am married to a Roman Catholic Italian (sheesh!). Every year, we have the passion play. Go to the oldest churches in europe, and engraved on the walls and in the stained glass are the stations of the cross, the last days of Christ. Some of these churches are over a thousand years old.
In Bamberg Germany, they have had the longest running passion play going, over a thousand years, the same every year. I can go to any country in the world where they teach the Bible, and if I have someone sitting next to me pointing to the scripture in his Bible, and i open mine and find the same scripture, we can instantly relate, while not understanding a word of what the other is saying. GREAT! I have done this in Germany, and Italy, and have cross-referanced from Bibles of other countries.
finally, we have outside sources (non-biblical) confirming Biblical events. Ancient Jewish historian Josephus wrote of some carpenter that the romans crucified and his followers later said that he rose from the dead.
In the Old Testament of the Bible, there is a story of the king of another country coming to attack Jerusalem. David was king at the time. The Bible said that the king was humbled before the walls of Jerusalem, and basically, he was sent packing. Recently this king's records were discovered giving his side of the story, saying that he taught the Hebrews a lesson they will never forget!
and dont forget that the mideast is FULL of Biblcal names: Jerusalem, Ninevah, Damascus, Jericho, rome, Egypt, etc.
Many archeologists in the mid east use the Bible as a REFERANCE tool, and they are not even Christian!
The first book EVER mass produced was-you guessed it- the Bible. The Gutenberg Bible was made on the first movable type press.
The Bible is accurate down to the last "jot and tittle", and will be so long after todays critics, along with generations of critics before, are dead.

Answer 5

I think it is of course possible, I mean the bible was written by man therefore what has been translated or interpreted has come entirely from those men who wrote it, their views, their interpretations of what they thought was happening or the way they perceived things happening.

If you take a look into Gnosticism there a completely different interpretation of God, Jesus and the Bible. Was Jesus just a man, just a king who was voted in by the Romans as a God?
Was Mary Magdalene, trashed by these same people in the bible stories because she was really Jesus wife and mother of his children?

Is the bible fact or fiction, it is all possible, no one can say will absolute certainty that these are not all possible, unless you where alive at the time the bible was written?

Everything is a possibility

Answer 6

God has the ability to preserve his word. In fact, archeological discoveries prove this to be true.

The Dead Sea scrolls were found in the 1970's and were Bible scrolls that were about 2,000 years old. When these scrolls were compared to modern Bibles, the only differences that were found were mainly a few spelling errors. Thus for 2,000 years the Bible had remained unchanged. This would seem reasonable because the Bible is God's way of communicating with mankind. He would not allow it to be changed in such a way as to hide his message.

1 Peter 1:25
"But the word of the LORD endures forever."

2 Timothy 3:16 says that all Scripture in inspired of God. That means that the men who wrote the Bible were writing God's thoughts, not their own. (2 Peter 1:19) Therefore, even though a few parts of the Bible were written long after they happed, we can put our full trust in them because the information came from God, who cannot lie. Several prophecies in the Bible were written hundreds of years before they were fulfilled, yet they came true right when the Bible said the would.

The Bible gives us a lot of information, and very often let's the reader know that the principals found therein are intended to guide a person's life.

Answer 7

It's funny because people interpret everything differently. The bible, the constitution, an editorial in the newspaper. Anything is possible, if it were not, we would have a perfect world. Believing in God is a way of living "your" life. If you take the bible literally there are many passages that if taken as law would have everyone in jail serving time for a variety of crimes. Live your life well, harm no one, and be kind, and considerate, it is a good start, build from there.

Answer 8

> Is it possible that parts of the Bible may have been incorrectly translated

If you mean English translations, all of them are wrong- except mine, of course! If you mean that the original texts in Hebrew and Greek were not correct records, then of course they may be. But that does not really matter tuppence to Christians. Christians are people who recognise certain behaviour in each other- they are kind and compassionate, patient, forgiving, self-controlled, generous, honest, peaceful, useful, reliable. These things are, in the end, all that matters to them in this world.

But they invariably recognise the Bible, either in the original languages, or when correctly translated from those languages, as God's message to them. So they don't think that there are any serious defects in the Bible as an original record, and where there have been defects in the keeping of the record, they have been found almost always to be quite easily detected as copyists mistakes, or similar. In fact, in the opinion of many scholars, myself included, long and painstaking research has finally now got us to something very close to the original autograph documents. But this does not mean that previous generations were much mistaken, because not a single matter of belief has been changed as a result of this progress. In fact, traditional conservative interpretation (not Roman Catholic) has been regularly confirmed, and it continues to be as more is discovered, from newly discovered manuscripts, from linguistic studies, from archaeology.

Reading the Book of Mormon gives to many the impression that it was just made up, and the story that it was a work of fiction stolen from a publisher's office and adapted is very credible. In fact, any credibility that the BoM has, it gets from the Bible. And the same with the Koran, may I say. Reading the Bible in its original languages, though, especially with the latest scholarly source text, makes it very difficult to believe that it was just made up. Reading it is convincing and compelling. One can hardly believe that ordinary men could have made it up. It has 'the ring of truth', as one scholar put it.

> Also wasn't it written hundreds of years after these events took place by many different people

Some of the events were possibly written about a long time after they occurred. We don't really know about that. I don't think it's very likely that, after some great event, _nobody_ wrote about it! It's probable, imv, that original, early, single records existed but have not survived. But we must realise that oral transmission, lore passed from father to son, from mother to daughter, was the most common and indeed most reliable way of recording in ancient times. The lore of a whole nation is hard to corrupt, but a few copies of an unfamiliar book can be surreptitiously altered. So if this lore was eventually turned into 'hard copy', there is no difficulty with that.

A single book written by one man claiming to have been visited by an angel (a Biblical one, at that) is far less convincing than a record with many witnesses. It's true that the Bible's many books had many authors over many years, but they all fully agreed about the Bible's message, and they recorded, in exact detail over two thousand years of history, a complete plan that would have been impossible for mere men to contrive. That's a miracle in itself. That's why it's the Bible. Nothing comes close.
.

Answer 9

The Bible is corrupted.

It only contains a fraction of the real Gospel of Moses and Jesus. The rest are stories and fables from historians etc.

Apart from contradictions....what do you call these?
http://www.islamawareness.net/Christianity/inbible.html

About the Trinity?
There is no Trinity...its fake....and I can't be asked to explain and refute it right now....too tired.... so just read all of this....

http://www.bismikaallahuma.org/archives/2006/a-logical-reasoning-refuting-the-concept-of-trinity/

Simple as ABC....where can you go wrong :)

Heres something for the Jehovah Witnesses...
http://www.webshowplace.com/question/101quest.html

Why don't you Christians read this perhaps...
http://www.answering-christianity.com/x_rated.htm

http://www.answering-christianity.com/101_bible_contradictions.htm
Although there are more than 101....

GOD's stupidity is smarter than all of us?!
http://www.answering-christianity.com/101_bible_contradictions.htm

http://www.answering-christianity.com/ac6.htm#links

Contradiction #1
Who incited David to count the fighting men of Israel? (a) God did (2 Samuel 24:1) (b) Satan did (1 Chronicles 21:1).

Contradiction #2
In that count how many fighting men were found in Israel? (a) Eight hundred thousand (2 Samuel 24:9). (b) One million, one hundred thousand (1 Chronicles 21:5).

Contradiction #3
How many fighting men were found in Judah? (a) Five hundred thousand (2 Samuel 24:9). (b) Four hundred and seventy thousand (1 Chronicles 21:5).

Contradiction #4
God sent his prophet to threaten David with how many years of famine? (a) Seven (2 Samuel 24:13). (b) Three (1 Chronicles 21:12).

Contradiction #5
How old was Ahaziah when he began to rule over Jerusalem? (a) Twenty-two (2 Kings 8:26). (b) Forty-two (2 Chronicles 22:2).

Contradiction #6
How old was Jehoiachin when he became king of Jerusalem? (a) Eighteen (2 Kings 24:8). (b) Eight (2 Chronicles 36:9).

Contradiction #7
How long did he rule over Jerusalem? (a) Three months (2 Kings 24:8). (b) Three months and ten days (2 Chronicles 36:9).

Contradiction #8
The chief of the mighty men of David lifted up his spear and killed how many men at one time? (a) Eight hundred (2 Samuel 23:8). (b) Three hundred (1 Chronicles 11:11).

Contradiction #9
When did David bring the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem? Before defeating the Philistines or after? (a) After (2 Samuel 5 and 6). (b) Before (1 Chronicles 13 and 14).

Contradiction #10
How many pairs of clean animals did God tell Noah to take into the Ark? (a) Two (Genesis 6:19, 20). (b) Seven (Genesis 7:2). But despite this last instruction only two pairs went into the ark (Genesis 7:8, 9).

These are just 10 contradictions out of many. I have another 91 more

Answer 10

ABSOLUTELY. Jesus said "Woe to the "scribes" and Pharisees". The scribes made copies of the Word so others could read it. Since they didn't have printing presses in those days.
Modern Translations, by their very nature, are written to be "easier" to understand. So anything the translators didn't understand. They changed.
Take King Solomon's words in Ecclesiatses I belive it is. They have changed them to mean that he said everything is meaningless. But Solomon didn't originally use the word vain. If something is done in vain, it's meaningless. Solomon said "All is VANITY, and vexation of Spirit!"
He was talking about EGO, false prides. Like sexism,
racism, nationalism and religious intolerance.
The insight it gave me is that people do lots of things to try and make themselves feel better. Like feeling sorry for themsleves. Acting bigger than they are, and pointing the finger at others. But it's just feeding the EGO.
Because inside, their spirit knows there is a spirit in everyone else. So when they behave in these ways toward others. Thinking they will make themselves feel better. They only make themselves feel more like POOP!

Answer 11

Clearly, just reading it makes it obvious that the Bible was intended to live by

"... man does not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds form the mouth of God" Moses

The New Testament portion of the Bible was written by eyewitnesses or people who talked directly to eyewitnesses under the authority of an apostle (like Luke) or an apostle (like Peter or Paul) The absence of descriptions of the deaths of Luke, Peter or Paul and the absence of description of the fall of Jerusalem in 70am is strong evidence the New Testament was largely written prior to 70ad

The Old Testament portion of the Bible was written by a prophet. If you take the 5 books of Moses as an example, Moses spoke directly to God for 40 years, God would be quite available and able as editor in chief to help Moses 'get it right' In similar way every book in the Old Testament was written by a prophet or under authority of a porphet