With man's tendency to mythologize and change stories, how do we know the bible is true?

Question

We see so many urban legend emails and people today claiming to be divinely inspired. How do we know the bible is true, then? Were it not for the roman emperor making it the official religion, would it have lasted so long?

Answer 1

It depends what you mean by "true." Even the church acknowledges that if you're looking to the bible for dry historicity, you won't find it; that is not its purpose, and there are other secular historical works that can provide that for you.

But truth may be as G.K. Chesterton put it; "I am concerned with a certain way of looking at life, which was created in me by the fairy tales, but has since been ratified by the mere facts."

Tolkien once said that the Bible is mythology: true mythology. The church looks at it much the same way. Some of its books are historical accounts (the gospels, for instance.) Some are exhortations (epistles.) Some are parables (Job, and Jonah - we don't really think God tortured some guy to make a point, or dropped a dude in a whale.)

Augustine pointed all this out 1700 years ago, BTW. So the idea of the bible as a true myth is not some latter day revision. It is the authentic and classical approach to biblical exegesis, at least in the Catholic tradition.

Answer 2

The Roman emperor had only limited power to do that. The message of Jesus Christ could not be contained by one man, or one culture. At that time, Rome ruled the world. The Romans actually tried to suppress the gospel at first. They executed many of the disciples. They forbade them to preach the gospel, under penalty of torture and beatings. Then, they became a little craftier. They decided to create their own religion, based loosely on the apostles' doctrine. That way, they could appease the Christians who were multiplying rapidly, despite the persecution. The key motive was to derail the movement. That's how the Roman Catholic Church was started. They created a different Bible. (Yes, the official Roman Catholic Bible differs in many ways with the non-denominational Holy Bible). It was they who mythologized and changed the sacred writings.

There are still enough original documents to compile a complete, original copy of the Bible. The most accurate and faithful translation is the New American Standard Bible, (NASB), which is in plain English. It is a little stiff, but that's how the literal Hebrew, Aramaic, Chaldee, Latin and Greek texts were written back then. To find truth, ultimately, we must go to the source. I trust the original authors. NASB is word-for-word from the original texts.

Answer 3

The bible is most definitely NOT true. The Old Testament is a pseudo-history built from the myths, fairy tales and fantastical delusions of few ignorant and superstitious tribes of Bronze Age fishermen and wandering goat-herders... interspersed with a few (VERY few) actual historical events.

The New Testament is a direct rip-off of the 'salvation-cult' of Mithras, which pre-dates Christianity by over 500 years. The reason that Christianity spread so fast among the 'gentiles' was that, for most of them, 'conversion' meant nothing more than a name-change.

Religion, in general, is rooted in myth. Christianity, in particular, is the worlds longest-running and most successful criminal business conspiracy.

Answer 4

At the end of the bible is a verse along the lines of "woe to whoever adds to these words"............I see that as a warning to not ascribe unproven meanings to the scriptures, and Ive even seen a few friends lose their minds by trying to understand the bible, they were obviously trying to think their way through all the information.......it wasnt pretty for them and one girl is still in a psyche ward 20 years later.....luckily for me I never read the whole thing and Im a heathen now bwahahaha......

Answer 5

Contrary to some people's foolish beliefs, the Bible is the one book that over the years has captured the attention of scholars and holy people seeking the truth all over the world. These are not men re-writing a book for their own gain and purpose that I am referring to, but truly holy men seeking the truth of God, great scholars in the religious field that wanted to know beyond the shadow of a doubt, whether these things were real and true or not. Not someone 'cherry picking', as the first foolish answer here would have you to think.

There is no better illustration as to the truth of these words than what we have in the origin of the English translation of the holy scriptures.
King James I, although not one of England's better kings, became the imperfect human instrument through whom the Lord accomplished His holy purpose with respect to the Scriptures.

Whatever King James' personal motivation in doing so, he authorized the making of the new English translation. This translation took the king's name, and it became known as the King James Version.

In 1603, when James I took the throne, the land was full of religious strife and controversy. As king, he was also head of the Anglican church.

There were two Bibles being used at the time. The Romanists used the Bishop's Bible, which was appointed for use in the English churches. The Puritans used the Geneva Bible. The king felt that the Geneva Bible was the worst of the translations, clearly revealing it's Puritan origin, and it's Puritan anti-clerical bias. It antagonized those in authority in the Anglican church.

In January of 1604, the King called a conference to explore the problems and possibilities of religious tolerance. It was agreed that a new translation was needed. One which was more accurate, and less partisan, and which therefore would be more likely to meet with general acceptance.

The new translation was to be made, not by an individual or small committee, but by a very large company of the most eminent scholars in England. Their work, when completed, was to be reviewed by the Bishops, then by the Privy Council, and finally by the King himself.

The fifty four men appointed to this work represented many different points of view, but were all men of recognized scholarship. Most were connected with Oxford or Cambridge, the two great universities.

They were organized into six groups. Two groups worked at Oxford, two at Cambridge, and two at Westminster in London. The first Oxford group was to revise the prophetical books Isaiah through Malachi. The second Oxford group revised the Gospels, Acts, and Revelation. The first Cambridge group was to revise the OT books I Chronicles to Song of Solomon, the second Cambridge group were given the Apocrypha. The first group at Westminster were assigned OT books Genesis through 2 Kings, the second Westminster group were assigned the New Testament epistles.

Whe each group completed the work on their assigned sections, those sections were then handed to their companion group, then passed on by a committee comprised of all of the groups.

Although this was a great undertaking, these scholars worked so diligently that they finished in two years and nine months. The plans were drawn up in 1604, but the actual work did not start until 1607. The time between was not wasted, but used to prepare for the assignments. There is no record of any revisions of this work by the Bishops, the Privy Council or the King. In 1611, the first edition of the King James Version was printed and distributed.

One of the revisers deserves special mention. Dr. Miles Smith, of Brasenose College, Oxford. He became Dean of Gloucester, and then in 1612, Bishop of Gloucester. He was said to have had "Hebrew at his finger ends", and was "well versed in patristic writings and rabbinical glosses." It was Dr. Smith that got this voluminous work ready for the King's printer and publisher, Robert Barker of London.

The printed work, as was natural, was dedicated to the King. It was not an entirely new translation, but a revision of earlier English translations, which unless you know the history of the Scriptures, and the great danger in the passing down of the original Hebrew and Greek Scriptures, was very tedious, and never taken lightly. From the Septuagint, which was a translating of the OT from Hebrew to Greek, even before there was a New Testament, to the Vulgate, which was the translation into Latin, to finally the Anglo-Saxon translation of the Psalms and the Gospels by the year 735 A.D.

People alive today in this country of instant gratification of any desire could scarcely imagine the incredibly complexity of the work done to bring the Scriptures to us as we know them today, or of the significance of the diligence with which it was undertaken by those that did the work.

Kinda makes the first answer here look like the foolish statement that it is.

Answer 6

That's just it, we don't! Men wrote the bible, scribes, they were called, they performed like a town crier, delivering the news to one and all by word of mouth writing letters for people who could not read, 98% of the population. So god did not write the bible, men did. Have a good day.

Answer 7

We, who use our brains, know for a FACT that the Bible is not true. The Bible has been rewritten, cherry-picked and translated over the last two thousand years. It's a compilation of absolute nonsense.

Answer 8

The Bible is the Word of God. God's Holy Spirit inspired the people who wrote the words. God is Truth and Righteousness.

Answer 9

Answer to question 1: it isn't.
Answer to question 2. it isn't
Answer to question 3: no, because they wouldn't have had the power to institute the convert or die mandates of the inquisition, the crusades and the witch trials which caused it to spread originally.. from there, it became traditional and cultural.

Answer 10

We know the Bible is true by applying it to our lives and seeing positive results. The author of the Bible is God, not man.