To all who say that the bible has never changed from its original words?

Question

If someone wanted to examine the original New Testament writings, where would they be found?

The point is that they do not exist any longer. Therefore how can anyone claim that what we have today as a Bbile (no matter which version) is the word of god?

The original wrtings do NOT exist any longer (if they ever did).

Who can say what was changed, edited, left out, added?

Answer 1

I'm pretty sure that in all cases, the earliest complete codices we have of any of the four canonical gospels date to the 4th century. Before that there are only fragments. Most scholars surmise, based on the evidence of these fragments and quotes or references in other documents, that the "originals" were written in the first century, or perhaps the early 2nd; but of course there's no way of knowing whether the 4th century copies we have represent them accurately.

Answer 2

I wouldn't say the original scrolls do not exist, but they made many copies to be copied and distributed over and over and I think the many Bible translations are indeed consistent with each other. They all follow a pattern but i'm sure some words have changed to make one misinterprate the Bible. But we all have a brain and common since so we can come to our own conclusions about the Bible and what God's Word truly means. The close to original text can be found in The Shrine of The Book in Jerusalem, with the Sea Scrolls which were discovered in 1947-56.. Here si more information

Answer 3

They already have. The Dead Sea Scrolls were found dating back before Christ and another small metal scroll dating to near Moses' time. The translations were close to word for word to todays versions and using several modern translations with the differences in modern language together, they form an almost identical message.

Later works of copying kept up the standards of the Jewish copiers. There were efforts that succeeded to take out the divine name, replacing it with LORD, but that is just about it.

This is being careful to note that no translation is perfect. Words in different times and languages change meanings. For instance: Greek has four words to describe "love". English has only one. So love, love, love, love does not help. For another: 1Corinthians 10:25 in the KJV, what is a "shambles"? It is English of 1610. In a modern English translation, it is "meat market". Makes a good deal of difference, doesn't it?

Answer 4

John Rylands Library, Manchester, England
Inventory Number 457, dated 125–150 CE

Dated c. 200 CE:
P4 : Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, France.
P64 : Magdalen College Library, Oxford University, Oxford, United Kingdom.
P67 : Fundación San Lucas Evangelista, Barcelona, Spain.

No one know what the original is or where. No record kept of the first one.
Above are the oldest writings found for new testament on papyrus.

Answer 5

Yeah, they talk about the "original" manuscripts, but when asked to produce them, suddenly they are nowhere to be found. They even admit that these mysterious texts do not exist, so how can they possibly know if anything has changed? The NIV Bible leaves out many verses from the KJV because they are not found in the earliest manuscripts, and the translators wanted to be as true to those earliest texts as they could. How do we know that there weren't earlier texts still, ones that are so utterly different than the modern Bible that Christians would barely recognize them?

Answer 6

The words have changed. For example, the Greek word baptizo means to immerse but King James already believed in sprinkling. So instead of translating the word into immerse, KJ's scholars transliterated the word into baptize. But we do the best we can with what we have. The only other thing we can do is to learn the original languages.

Answer 7

They would be found within the several thousand transcriptions available all over the world. This cannot be said of any other book of antiquity. Not Plato, Homer, the Sophists, Epicurius, and so on.

Notice too the irony of those criticisms that have claimed to know it was changed and how. The reverse claim is that they know the original. This is what the rest of us claim. It is just two sides of the same coin. Accuracy is what we are all after.

Answer 8

Both the new and old testaments were compiled from thousands of old documents and hundreds of "interpretations" from the "church" (Roman Catholic).

Prior to King James, there was not one book.

As, a lot of the original transcripts were destroyed by King James (that way you can't learn things he & the church did not want you to know) you can't examine them.

And many were lost when the great library in Alexandria burnt.

Answer 9

None of the original texts exist anymore, they have been lost to the ages, the best of which are currently held in the Vatican library, which is closed to public access. The best we have are copies of copies of copies of copies- subject to reinterpretation and error as any writing.

Answer 10

There are no real scholars who make any such claim regarding the Bible. Even Christian scholars recognize the problem of the multitudes of differing ancient copies.