Is there precise, consistant paper trail of translations of the Bible dating to the beginning of Chistianity?

Question

If there is, which church(s) were responsible for perpetuating the original teachings and how much of today's Bible has been watered down since then?

Answer 1

The letters of Paul were the first things to be written that are now included in the Christian Bible. He wrote in Greek in the generation following Jesus.

Early but no longer with us were collections of Jesus' sayings (like "Q"). Then other Gospels were written, again in Greek, 35-80 years after Jesus. (The original version of the Gospel of Thomas -- another collection of Jesus' sayings -- may have been old, but the copy we have was a later Coptic version, with Gnostic Christian editing.)

The oldest piece of manuscript still surviving is a scrap from the Gospel of John, dating from around 130 C.E., I believe.

There are LOTS of variations in the oldest manuscripts. In fact, there are more total variations than there are total number of words in the New Testament. Most variations are very minor -- like missing words or different spellings.

One variation is pretty major -- the earliest copies of the first Gospel to be written, Mark, do not have any resurrection stories. The oldest copies just end with the empty tomb. Later versions add in resurrection stories.
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Answer 2

The Bible was put into its present form in the 4th century by Catholics at the Council of Rome. The Catholic version has not changed since then -- though it has been translated from the original Greek into many languages. At that time, nearly all Christians were Catholics.

Protestants dropped many books from the Bible in the 16th century. Martin Luther marginalized some of the books, which were later dropped by most Protestant religions. These dropped books explain why Catholics believe in Purgatory and in the continued virginity of Mary while Protestants do not.

Some books of the Bible (e.g., the four Gospels) can be traced back to the first or second century.

Answer 3

Yes

http://www.carm.org/bible/textualexample.htm
http://www.carm.org/bible/biblewhen.htm

Answer 4

You should look for the books that were conveniently omitted from the bible by the Roman Catholics because if they were included, then the story wouldn't be what they wanted it to be. Unfortunately all christians are basically using the same bible (with minor differences and/or wording). Watered down would be an understatement. It's simply not at all what it started out as.

Answer 5

yes let me explain Christianity is nothing but reformed Judism, Jesus was A Jew & lived by the Law of Moses, he was the only one who was able to live by that law, But he did away with that law
(Romans 10:4) 4 For Christ is the end of the Law, so that everyone exercising faith may have righteousness.

(Colossians 2:14) 14 and blotted out the handwritten document against us, which consisted of decrees and which was in opposition to us; and He has taken it out of the way by nailing it to the torture stake.

Well Jesus used the OT scriptures to teach with & he considered them accurate, recent discoverys as in the dead sea scrolls in 1947 which corraborated the older scriptures

since christianity is just reformed Judism, & is in complete agreement, the facts show the evidence

Answer 6

Hahahah No original copies of the Gospels exist! The oldest one is from the Gospel of John called P52, That is 100-150 years after Jesus supposedly died. After that there are thousands of different copies,translations of the New testament. It's not consistent by any means.

Answer 7

No. That's why schools of ancient history are filled with professors trying to figure out what the original texts probably were like.


FYI, even the letters of Paul are not the originals. They have been heavily edited as textual analysis has shown, and several of the books traditionally said to be written by him have been shown to have been written by other writers.

Answer 8

There are many translations of the bible....none with a complete paper trail.

Answer 9

Yes there is there are more than 25000 copies of the original manuscripts we now use to make the New Testament bible

The Bible itself has not been changed the part that has been “watered down” is the devotion to its teachings.

Answer 10

Yes there is but you would have to ask a real Bible scholar about this question.