is the bible a story book from years gone by ,and has it been adaptaed and twisted?

Answer 1

To believe in God is to believe that His word is true.

The bible is the most scrutinized book in history, been highly translated and highest publications sold.

If it lines up with historical accounts and hasn't been proven false with those, why would I believe it would lie about its central core---Jesus??

Oh please, not the earth is flat thing again, the bible does not state it is.

Answer 2

The bible can not even draw the "based upon a true" story theme.

Let's say it this way. The bible is a rehashing of much older myths and religious stories that were told and written down thousands of years before christ.

Examples include, performing miracles, walking on water, great floods, virgin birth and resurrection.

The bible isn't very original at all. Only the names and places (in some cases) have been changed to give it the illusion of originality. For example, changing the names of places to places that existed 2,000 years ago gives it a sense of historical credibility. But it has no more credibility than does Stargate in explaining the origin of the pyramids.

So If I were to have published an original work just like the bible I would be a plagiarist. That to is what the bible is. wholesale plagiarism.

Answer 3

There still exist today over 2,300 copies of manuscripts of the New Testament books that date back to the first generations of the Christian faith. All predate any of the "church councils" that allegedly altered the New Testament, some by as much as 300 years. Copies exist that have been placed as close as 17 years after the original books were written.

Then compared, these manuscripts agree word for word with each other 99.7% of the time. Of the 0.3% variants, most of those are either different spells of the same words, or the reversal of the words "Jesus Christ" and "Christ Jesus". In total, there are about 40 lines of the over 7,000 line of the New Testament where there is an debate over the original reading. None affect any major church doctrine.

The "understanding" or "application" of the scriptures have changed with different generations and culture. For example, until this generation no one needed to try to figure out how to apply the Bibile principles to the Internet. There wasn't one.

There have been times when people have "twisted" parts of the book to suit their own needs or to justify their own sins. But is there anything that has not been twisted by some pervert somewhere? With a book that runs over 3.6 million words, if you want to find something in it to try to justify anything, you probably can. That is why you need to read and understand the whole thing, not just parts.

The actual text of the New Testament has remained unchanged since it was originally written. The major Bibles on the market today are accurate and reliable translations of those texts. When compared, you will find that the difference in them are not in content or in doctrine, but in writing style. The English used by Americans varies from the English used by the Brits. Because of difference in grammar between the original languages and English, a word for word in exact order translation (which you can get) can be difficult to understand. So there are translation designed to be more readable in their style. But if you put several side by side, you will find they have the same books, chapters, verses and teachings.

Finally, if you take the time to read the New Testament, you will find that the majority of is not a "story book". It includes a collection of letters and other theological writings which clearly show that the people living within 15 years of the death of Jesus already accepted the gospels as "fact", and worshipped him as the head of their religion. If this was merely a "story book", no such documents would be included.

Answer 4

There are about 6,000 handwritten copies containing all or part of the Hebrew Scriptures; the oldest dates back to the third century B.C.E. Of the Christian Greek Scriptures, there are some 5,000 in Greek, the oldest dating back to the beginning of the second century C.E. There are also many copies of early translations into other languages.

Translation is different from adaptation and twisting.

It is true that God's name, Jehovah, has been removed from some Bibles, but not all. We only know that because the early copies mentioned above have been preserved and are still available.

It is also true that some translations of the Bible adhere more closely to what is in the original languages than others do. Modern paraphrase Bibles have taken liberties that at times alter the original meaning. Some translators have allowed personal beliefs to color their renderings. But these weaknesses can be identified by comparison of a variety of translations.

Many people make the mistake of thinking that the God of the Old Testament was angry and vengeful. True, there were occasions when God had to deal severly with Israel's surrounding nations and also with Israel itself on occasion. However, there are also great examples of God's mercy and forgiveness in the Old Testament, for example: King Manasseh, King David, the nation of Israel, etc.

The New Testament obviously deals heavily with Jesus' life, ministry and death and also explains how the early Christian congregation grew after Jesus ascension to heaven. God rejected the nation of Israel due to it's continued disobedience and, as a nation, they rejected Jesus as their Messiah. Christians are therefore not under the Mosaic Law / 10 Commandments, however the entire Old Testament deals with much more than just the Mosaic Law and a lot can be gained from considering it. 2 Timothy 3:16 says: "All scripture is inspired of God", so the Old Testament is still relevant to Christians.

The Mosaic Law was put in place to show the Israelites that they needed a Messiah. Once the Messiah had arrived and died, the Law was no longer necessary. It was never meant to be permanent.

Believe it or not, many cultures around the earth, even primitive ones, have stories and legends about man and woman beginning life in a park or garden and all humans descending from them. The same goes for accounts about a global flood which was brought about by a God because of a moral issue with only a handful of people surviving.

Answer 5

The bible is many books.
The books of the Old Testament have been preserved faithfully for over 2,000 years, but no one knows how many iterations the early oral stories went through before first being recorded in writing. Also, the redactor of the first several books was obviously a collector, and not trying to codify a religion. Attributing the authorship to Moses must have happened much later by a priestly caste who came to revere the works.
The New Testament was edited together by committee at the Council of Nicaea, and they threw out at least as much as they agreed by vote to include. Many of the books had already been modified and appended. For example, the resurrection story was grafted on to at least one of the gospels. Also, Matthew and Luke were attempts to expand on and improve Mark, which was not very well written. John was an attempt to further add to the story and put a gnostic twist on it.

Answer 6

Yes, to both. The Old Test is a collection of stories (many double stories like Genesis, Noahs ark, etc) which were written by a tribal people that was just starting to become "civilized" in the sense that they were starting to live in cities rather then wandering in the desert. The New Test has 4 different stories about one man, as well as additional stories made by people who never met him, but assumed things about him according to Tradition. It most certainly has been adapted, you can see that from the Old to the New. the Old shows a wrathful God who only loves his chosen... to the New where God suddenly loves everyone. One small proof that it has been changed is the fact that God's name, in Hebrew, was removed almost 7,000 times (yes, that does say seven thousand) from the Old Test and was replaced with LORD or LORD GOD. That alone shows me that man can tamper with the Bible and do so on a whim.

I do think it's funny when people say it's all literal, but then tell me that the Old Test is done away with. God just changes his mind all the time, writes laws to be followed and then discards them. But it's all Absolute according to them... If it were truly Absolute, they wouldn't ignore over half of it.

Answer 7

Well, when you think about it, no one could ever perform any of those so-called miracles. As far as I am concerned, Jesus was not the son of God. He was just a doctor of his time. The turning-a-blind-man-into-a-seeing-man miracle means that he taught a blind person to see via his hearing. The deaf-can-hear-again miracle is obviously just Jesus teaching deaf people to hear what people are saying via their eyes (lip-reading). A leper-to-healthy. This 'miracle' may never have occurred, though, I believe that it was not Leprosy that was cured, but something simpler, like, a cold, perhaps. Water to wine is the easiest to pull off, all you have to do is mix some grape juice with some water and no one will notice! But, again, this may never have occured.
With the men who couldn't catch fish, that is very easy! When you think about it, fish are very smart creatures, and know all the fisher mans tricks. Jesus simply picked up on this, and just told them about it. The feeding of the 5000 may have just been a banquet he was throwing for his friends, family and colleagues.
The last supper, however, did occur. But, the 'holy grail' as a cup, never existed. The real holy grail is Mary Magdaline. She wqas pregnant with Jesus' child at the time of his execution, and fed to France, where she gave birth to a daughter, Sarah.
We know she's dead now, and no, she was not a prostitute, the church just wrote this to make the Pagan belief that women are holy look satanic.
I hope this answers your question, and I hope the Answers team don't take it off of the website, because I want people to know what I have written.

Answer 8

To believe in God all you need is Faith, don't believe in those who say you need to believe the Bible, all you need to believe is that Jesus was born to die for our sins and he was the Son of God. That's all end of story and you're a Christian, don't let the Bible thumpers get to you. Anyway, the Bible is a story book, yes, because it tells a story, (duh! two points for me) and it teaches morals, it HAS been adapted to nearly every language in the world, so therefore things have been lost in translation or left out because some words in Arabic and Hebrew couldn't be translated into the various other languages, and it HAS been twisted nowadays to fit what an individual Christian may need to prove their point, yet ignore everything else. Hope this helps you.

Answer 9

No it is not. It is considered amongst scholars to be the same today as it was in its original form. There are over 24,000 manuscripts of the new testament, 250 of them fall within the first 100 years of Jesus death and a number that are contemporary. There is no other book in history that has this much support for it. We can safely say if we through it out we have to through out all other history as well.Also there are what is know as extra-biblical supports. Recordings of people who where not Christians that mention Jesus his disciples and his death by crusifiction. If we compare what we read today we find it to be 99% the same as what was first written, the question is not is it real but do you believe what it claims to be.

THere are many tests historians place upon the bible and they all pass when it comes to Jesus. AS I said before it is the most reliable ancient historical document we have in exsistace. Only is it true? you decide that one.

Answer 10

the BIble was written by men ubder the finger of GOD so that everything in it was written correctly. it was not tapered with or adapted or twisted in any way since it was first written. IT is GOD's HOLY WORD to us so that we might understand what lead up to the new Testament and then so that the new Testament would then carry us forward to the new World that Christ has made for us and that we will live in after the war at Armageddon when the final conflict on earth as we know it will take place.

Answer 11

What a sweet and original theory. Try reading 'why trust the Bible' by amy orr-ewing for an honest appraisal.