Chritians of the year 2007?

Question

Why do you Christians put their faith in a book written 2000 years ago and translated a thousand times?

Remember the game as kids where you would wisper into someones ear and then they would wisper into someone else's ear and so on. By the time it got through 20 kids it was a totally different sentence.

So how could the Bible be correct in the year 2007?

Answer 1

That's just it, the Bible's been canonized, revised, and rewritten so many times... it's incredible. Don't get me wrong, behind every grain a storm lies some semblance of truth, but that doesn't justify taking a text this old as literal.
But hey, you tell a bunch of people something is true and you keep at it for a long time... people will catch on and begin to believe you.
No serious, there's been sociology experiments to prove this.

Answer 2

The oldest documents we have of the bible correspond really really well with the not-quite-so-old ones. Using this to show us whether the bible is accurate or not (how else can we tell?) - then the bible is the most accurate book of its time - much more accurate than the Qu'ran, much more accurate than the Odyssey and the Illiad and any of Aristotle's writings (and whatever else you might name).

Yes the bible has some inconsistencies between the oldest manuscripts and slightly-less-old manuscripts - and these are clearly indicated in most (all?) translations of the bible (eg. the NIV) where there is a foot-note indicating what a word/verse/passage says in different manuscripts.

If you read the bible you will see these inaccuracies are very few.

If we are talking about accuracy, by far the biggest problem the bible would face is with people's memories. If you criticise the bible's accuracy, criticise that! Because (as with anything) if an event is written about after the event actually happened there will be some memory inaccuracies. Thus we have some small differences between the gospels in some of their stories.

Answer 3

Have you seriously considered the reliability of the bible? Ignore for the moment the whole notion of God and just think about the book's content.

Investigation by even the most skeptical will also reveal that there exists NO SINGLE SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY that has been shown to prove error, factually or doctrinally, in the Bible. There is lots of speculation and hypotheses, but not a single verifiable fact. If you or anyone should discover one, you will become quite famous. Yet, since recorded history, no one has offered it up and entered their names into the history books. Instead what we have is pseudo-science pandering to the masses, as in the recent John Cameron tomb of Christ debacle.

As a simple experiment, try turning your objective intellect towards the argument that no book, comprising 66 “mini-books”, written over a period of 1500 years by 40 vastly different authors, having an outstanding literary internal consistency and coherency, could be written by mankind alone. The bible’s authors ranged from high government officials, peasants, military officers, and fishermen, to a prime minister, a cupbearer for a king, religious teachers, and others.

Add to that the survival of the book’s ancient manuscripts, numbering in the tens of thousands, over thousands of years and yet these manuscripts remain over 98% textually pure. How this possible, when compared to all the other ancient writings are so few in number? For instance, the Dead Sea Scrolls contain all books of the Old Testament, except Esther, and have been dated to before the time of Christ. The earliest copy of Homer's Iliad dates to 500 BC, some 500 years after it was written. Only 643 copies of Illiad exist. The earliest copy of Ceasar's The Gallic Wars dates to 900 AD, some 1,000 years after it was written. Only 10 copies exist.

In comparison, there are over 24,000+ New Testament manuscripts, the earliest one dating to within 24 years after Christ. Now why would we accept the authenticity of Homer's or Caesar's writings and not the New Testament manuscripts? How can we objectively and rationally explain this book, the Bible, especially in light of the claims I have made above?

Answer 4

There are FAR more ancient manuscripts of the Bible than there is for any other ancient source! There are presently 5,686 Greek manuscripts in existence today for the New Testament. In addition there are over 19,000 copies in the Syriac, Latin, Coptic, and Aramaic languages. The total supporting New Testament manuscript base is over 24,000.


Written/Earliest Copy /Time Span /Number of Copies
Plato 427-347 B.C. 900 A.D. 1200 yrs 7 copies

Caesar 100-44 B.C. 900 A.D. 1000 yrs. 10

Aristotle 384-322 B.C. 1100 A.D. 1400 yrs. 49

Homer (Iliad) 900 B.C. 400 B.C. 500 yrs 643

New
Testament 1st Cent. A.D. (50-100 A.D. 2nd Cent. A.D.
(c. 130 A.D. f.) less than 100 years 5600 99.5%

Answer 5

"There are FAR more ancient manuscripts of the Bible than there is for any other ancient source! "

Translation for the non-brainwashed: There are for more miscopies, different versions, and outright distortions that for any other ancient source.

Of course, there is not one single original manuscript of any, repeat, ANY part of the Bible. Or any first generation copies. Or any second generation copies. Or...

You get the picture.

Answer 6

The Bible hasn't been whispered down through the generations, it's been copied from copies of copies from the originals on paper. And the reason it was written 2000 years ago, is because that's when everything in it happened to have happened. Joe Blow down the road could write another one, but I'd still go with the older version.
(Good one J!)

Answer 7

The Bible was written over a period of 1600 years, by some 40 authors in 66 books. Yet it is in perfect harmony with itself.
You should do more research.

Answer 8

because that game as kids was humans passing information. If you played that game but God wispered the sentence into the persons ear, and then made sure that they told the next person correctly, and the next person, then the information would never change.

Answer 9

the component is to not think of which you're able to do something you decide on as long as you exhibit regret afterwards. The objective is to incredibly and deeply sense be apologetic approximately for the sins which you have committed in the previous. God, being merciful, knows that we as human beings won't be able to stay our entire lives with out committing any sins. for this reason Jesus Christ died on the pass - to e a sacrifice of blood to god as repentance for our sins. the completed thought is that, in case you do sin yet instruct be apologetic approximately totally and deeply and clearly your sins would be forgiven. This doesnt meant which you would be able to run out and verify out it lower back basically on the grounds which you have been forgiven as quickly as, however the be apologetic approximately you felt whilst inquiring for forgiveness could carry on with you and you may subsequently try your suitable to on no account repeat that sin.

Answer 10

Because God preserved it. In 1611 he gave us the King James bible which is his word for the people of today. It's obvious that there are numerous books that claim to be the bible, and are not, but there is one book that God has put his seal on, and that is the King James bible.