Some people say the Bible has changed, so why not just use the original scriptures?

Question

as Christians priests claim they still have?

(Original documents are still kept, so why not use them, instead of having updated Bibles?)

Answer 1

Actually they are lost.

.

Answer 2

By original, I suppose you mean the papyrus on which the original author originally penned his writings?

If so, fahged aboud id! Ain't none. Not nohow, not nowhere.

BUT, if by original you mean the oldest EXTANT copies, well, none of them are in English, dear. If you want to read Scripture in its original languages then you have to learn two Hebrew dialects, Koine Greek, Classic Greek, Aramaic and Latin. If you study hard and are fairly good at languages, especially those which do NOT have an alphabet, you can probably become proficient in about 5 years. Get a doctorate in some subject that pertains to Scripture or any of these languages and then it's possible that the Vatican Libraries will allow you to enter those very special vaults and read them for your own self. Oh, and there's the little matter of the special garb and the gloves you gotta wear to go in there. These suckers are nearly 2,000 years old fer goshsakes! They're incredibly fragile!
Of course, if you want to spend the money, they'll send you copies, provided you can show that you know what you're doing with them. Holy Mother Church takes a very dim view of people who interpret Scripture for their own benefit or bright ideas.

Answer 3

some Christians, alongside with those optimal energetic in theology, do learn the Hebrew scriptures interior the unique Hebrew. Christianity accepts the Hebrew scriptures as portion of the sacred scriptures. of direction, regardless of the actuality that, those Christians have not come to artwork out matters the comparable way Jews do. i assume that there are additionally Muslims who've studied the Hebrew scriptures interior the unique language; yet those scriptures are not from now on sacred in Islam. The Koran is their sacred scripture. With those reservations, i'd desire to assert that needless to say it truly is effective for human beings to income the Hebrew scriptures interior the unique. there is not any translation that does no longer lose some ingredient to the unique journey.

Answer 4

I have found" The Complete Jewish Bible" to be really enlightening. It is translated from the original text to English by Jews. OT and NT. It is not that different but it gives a much better idea of what was meant.

Answer 5

Unless you read Greek and Hebrew the original wont help you. The only change the bible has taken is to put it in the language you speak and read. No other change is found.

Answer 6

There were no original documents, Scripture was handed down from generation to generation by "word of mouth" up until writing (and paper) was invented. From then, it still gets mistranslated from the original script because thing have changed so much.

Answer 7

Judaism and Islam require adult members of their faiths to at least have a perfunctory knowledge of the language of their sacred books.

Christians are too lazy to learn Greek. Translations are NOT accurate. Just look at the "not" that appears then disappears in Matthew 7:1 from KJV to the NIV to the NSRV.

At least the bloody vulgate has been consistant for over a thousand years.

By the way, Koine is simplified Greek. You can read the gospels with ONE SEMESTER of Greek. I did. It requires a dictionary and the ability to know what sounds go with what letter.

By the way, if you think that praying for 15 minutes a day is not too much to do for your god, then learning his bloody language in 15 minutes a day should not bug you. Too busy for your god, are you? Hmmmm?

Answer 8

Then you'll have to study Greek, Aramaic and Hebrew first. But why not leave it to the theologians? They have knowledge of these languages and they know how to compare and interpret the different translations that are available. Years and years of hard work have already gone into this.

Answer 9

The only thing that's changed is the language. If we were to use the original which were in Hebrew and Aramaic we would still have to translate them to our english. Times have changed and our vocabulary has changed so the only thing change is the translation to our modern language not the Bible itself.

Answer 10

The Dead Sea Scrolls are as close as we get and they come exactly literate to the King James Bible version. Very little difference and not enough to change meaning.

Answer 11

The original scriptures do not exist. For 500 years many people have devoted their entire lives to reconstruct the 4th century scriptures - which is the best we can hope for.

Read "Misquoting Jesus" for more detail.