The Bible: The same as it was thousands of years ago, or tampered with by man?

Question

I got into a discussion with a friend the other day about whether or not the Bible is something that we should trust undoubtedly. I have the feeling this question is going to make some people mad...

The Bible has been through a lot, you must admit. How are we to know that some king, or religion, or pope, or... someone... hasn't changed bits and pieces of it over the years? For example-the Catholic church, in the beginning, was a more political religion than it was spiritual. Even history books record that back then religion was used to keep people ignorant, under control, and from thinking for themselves. So...if the catholic church was run by the government back then, how can we know that somethings were not ommited, and others added, to get people to do what they wanted them to do?

Before you start jumping to conclusions, I am a Christian. I am not being blasphemous, and nowhere in the bible does God promise to protect it. I've already received those answers, and I am...

wanting to hear some new answers. This question is completely serious, not meant to be sarcastic, not meant to upset anyone, and not meant to imply that God does not exist, or that religion is wrong. I simply am trying to understand something about my religion.

Answer 1

Protestants, Catholics, and most Orthodox agree now 1 that the New Testament should consist at least of the 27 Books (Matthew through Revelation/Apocalypse) that the Catholic Church determined were canonical, but the Protestant Old Testament is lacking 7 entire books 2 (Tobias, Judith, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus/Sirach, Baruch, I Maccabees, and II Maccabees), 3 chapters of Daniel and 6 chapters of Esther, leaving them with 66 incomplete books while Catholic Bibles have 73 books.

In the 16th c., Luther, to his own inner demons, removed those books from the canon that lent support to orthodox doctrine, relegating them to an appendix. Removed in this way were books that supported such things as prayers for the dead (Tobit 12:12; 2 Maccabees 12:39-45), Purgatory (Wisdom 3:1-7), intercession of dead saints (2 Maccabees 15:14), and intercession of angels as intermediaries (Tobit 12:12-15). Ultimately, the "Reformers" decided to ignore the canon determined by the Christian Councils of Hippo and Carthage (and reaffirmed and closed at the Council of Trent4), and resort solely to those texts determined to be canonical at the Council of Jamnia.

The idea that all revealed truth is to be found in "66 books" is not only not in Scripture, it is contradicted by Scripture (1 Corinthians 11:2, 2 Thessalonians 2:15, 2 Thessalonians 3:6, 1 Timothy 3:15, 2 Peter 1:20-21, 2 Peter 3:16). It is a concept unheard of in the Old Testament, where the authority of those who sat on the Chair of Moses (Matthew 23:2-3) existed. In addition to this, for 400 years, there was no defined canon of "Sacred Scripture" aside from the Old Testament; there was no "New Testament"; there was only Tradition and non-canonical books and letters.

Our Lord founded a Church (Matthew 16:18-19), not a book, which was to be the pillar and ground of Truth (1 Timothy 3:15). We can know what this Church teaches by looking not only at Sacred Scripture, but into History and by reading what the earliest Christians have written, what those who've sat on the Chair of Peter have spoken consistently with Scripture and Tradition, and what they've solemnly defined. To believe that the Bible is our only source of Christian Truth is unbiblical and illogical.

Christ did not say, "Sit down and write Bibles and scatter them over the earth, and let every man read his Bible and judge for himself." If Christ had said that, there would never have been a Christianity on the earth at all, but a Babylon and confusion instead, and never one Church, the union of one body. Hence, Christ never said to His Apostles, "Go and write Bibles and distribute them, and let everyone judge for himself." That injunction was reserved for the Sixteenth Century, and we have seen the result of it. Ever since the Sixteenth Century there have been springing up religion upon religion, and churches upon churches, all fighting and quarreling with one another, and all because of the private interpretation of the Bible.

Answer 2

Anyone who honestly approaches the subject honestly has to believe the Bible has been tampered with. However, we do have thousands of manuscripts that allow us to track and record the differences and changes. Overall, they do not make a significant difference in the overall message of the text. Most of the differences are very minor, and some are even unintentional -- scribes made mistakes as they copied texts. Some are intentional - changing a difficult reading of the text to an easier reading -- the two different endings of the Gospel of Mark. A good study Bible will help you find out where the differences are.

These are the main reason I think the argument about inerrancy of the Bible is so stupid. Which version of Mark is inerrant? The long version? The short version? Does it honestly make a difference if Jesus threw the moneychangers out of the temple at the beginning of his ministry, as in John, or in the end, as in Matthew, Mark and Luke? Personally, I do not think it does.

Since we have so many manuscripts from so many different places, it becomes possible to track some of the changes. So, we can usually see when someone changed a text. This is one of the big reasons why modern translations, such as the NIV and the NRSV are so much better than the KJV. The KJV used some flawed manuscripts, and we now have many more manuscripts than the translators did in 1611. Modern translators also have a much better understanding of Biblical Greek and especially Biblical Hebrew than the KJV translators did. This is why we can only use the KJV as a secondary reference in my classes at Divinity school. The newer translations are simply better, not to mention easier to read.

If you want to read more about this, pick up the book Misquoting Jesus by Bart Ehrman. It is a great lay person's introduction to textual criticism and will give you some specific examples of texts that there are questions about. It is an easy read, and will provide answers to all of your questions.

Thanks for asking a great question!

Answer 3

Well there are manuscripts dating to before the Catholic church rose to power and they do not contradict anything in the Bible of Jesus being the Messiah, dying and raising again ,etc. The oldest fragment of the New Testament dates back to as old as 90AD from the gospel of John (which has always beeen considered the last gospel written). Plus non-Christian details affirm the Biblical message. Plliny the Younger talking about Christians worshiping Jesus as a God and binding themselves in an oath to do no evil. The Jewish Talmud affirming that Jesus did miracles and had a unique birth.

Learn Greek and read the Greek New Testament. You will find it, if anything, is much better argued than the English translations. The things that are fuzzy in the English bibles are very clear in the Greek.

Answer 4

There is Only ONE GOD and that tells the collision between these two religions. Islam and Christian. The Qur'an has only 1 version from the day of its existence until now but not for the Bible. The Qur'an has never been changed or rewritten with addition of any author. The Bible in other hand has been changing versions till now and added by certain authors to keep up with the change of time. The Qur'an is the words of GOD Himself, therefore can never be challenged with the human mind and it fits through all times regardless of what era are you in. That explains why it has never been changed. The Bible too before was the words of GOD but since that it has been changed many times, the reliability has been degraded even though it came from the same GOD because as i said before, there is only One God.

Answer 5

Religion is always used to keep the people in control. The leaders don't act like they're part of the religion, but they make a show of doing so.

Tons of tampering. In the King James Version, Psalm 46, read the 46th word from the beginning. Also look up the 46th word from the end. You must count "Selah" which is not really a word but a kind of musical instruction for the psalms whose exact use is unknown.

If you find those two words, you get "shake" and "spear". Shakespeare! The drunken translators for King James were trying to fashion a Bible for England, one of a series, but also encoding a little tribute to Shakespeare because the words made them think of him and they rearranged the order to be 46th from the beginning and end.

Answer 6

The Hebrew bible that the Jews have is still the same now as it was thousands of years ago, as proven by the Dead Sea Scrolls in which there were only about 12 letters different than what the Jews have today.

Do not confuse this with the Old Testament that the Christians have, because they changed it when they tacked it onto their New Testament, in order to reflect their theology and "prove" prophecies there that don't actually exist, etc.

There are over 30,000 differences between the Old Testament and the actual Jewish Torah/Tanakh that the Jews still have today, which is the same as it was at least as far back as the time of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Answer 7

The basic text of the Old Testiment is still somewhat close to the same scrolls used by the Jewish religion.

A lot of what we have to face is how language changes over time.

One, for example, need only read the writings of the Doctor who was with George Washington at Valley Forge to say, my goodness, he's illiterate for a college graduate!

But that's the way literate writing was back then.

Answer 8

Definitely tampered with which is why I believe none of it. It was the Emperor Constantine and his hand picked from the early Roman Catholic Church that took the information from scrolls and put it in the form you see today. They picked and chose from a number a scrolls - not all information was included so that tells one it was done because they only wanted you to see what they felt was relevant.

Answer 9

Anyone that knows even a little of Theology knows that the bible has been messed with many times. Many changes were made to suit the wants and needs of men and religions.

Answer 10

Theentire bible is supposed to be based on the witness o he diciples of Jesus .ther have been lot of contradictionand he church has taken lot of efforts tosee that the contradicions are removed and the reports of all the disciples agree to some extent .There are many versions of the Bible .so hey have been tinkered with many times .the tmpering of hem arises only iof some one single person has made one single version of he bible .