How do you know the bible scriptures weren't edited many many times over 2000 YEARS?

Question

You are just trusting what it says. Unless God spoke to you anmd told you in person that they are real (I'd like to see that). The bible we read is far from the original... how accurate can it be?

Answer 1

They were edited, FACT.

Answer 2

It's a good question, but let me turn the tables on you - you claim, "The bible we read is far from the original." How did you come to that conclusion? Why should I believe your claim? If, as we can both agree, we don't have the originals, how can you conclude what we have is "far from the original"? Using your logic, you can't make that claim.

But the reality is, even without the originals we can know what they said. We have discovered more than 25,000 ancient copies of various portions of the Bible. Some are mere fragments of passages, some are whole chapters, some are whole books, some are multiple books, and a few are entire codices (i.e., entire Bibles).

By comparing all these copies, we can discover, with a VERY high degree of certainty, what the originals said. For example, if I find 10 copies of a sentence, and we know they are copies of an original. And nine of them say, "Fred likes ice cream." And one of them says, "Fred really likes ice cream." Do you think you can figure out what the original said?

Of course you can. And it works the same way with the Bible. It's a field of study called Textual Criticism.

Taking the more than 25,000 ancient texts, and applying this field of study, scholars have been able to determine that 99% of what we have in the (original language) New Testament matches the originals the authors penned nearly 2,000 years ago. The remaining 1% contains, for the most part, very minor variations, and none of these areas concerns any major doctrines of faith.

Let me give you one more piece of food for thought. When was the last time you saw the original of ANY book? What you see, when you go to the book store, are copies of the authors' originals.

Answer 3

The Bible started as oral messages passed on and eventually written down and then compiled;so.it was edited many times. So ,what? Christians believe God was guiding the whole process and the Bible is very accurate as God's Word,which must be rightly interpreted.
As a Catholic,I believe that thew Bible must in union with the Apostolic tradition from which It came and the catholic Church that discerned it and put it together as the final editor under God's guidance.

Answer 4

It has been....Having said this. Now, if you simple look at the NIV version and read the new testiment.

It is pretty simple rules to follow, which are just about the same as the laws in every state in the USA. And some of the Countries outside of the USA.

1.The Commandments, just do them.
2.Practice loving others and showing them kindness.
3.Be happy and life is better with an upbeat attitude.

To answer your question completely, think of telling one person a story and they tell 30 others, in person, then you go ask the 30th person, what was told to them and they will only be able to tell you 1/4 if that much of the full story.

Answer 5

Many copies of the text exist. Others have pointed to the Dead Sea Scrolls, but they only verify a few books of the OT, most notably Isaiah. There certainly were variations of the NT during the first 200 years of the CE, and no one has mentioned yet that there were competing books which were ruled out of the Bible in its final form. (There's still disagreement today about the OT amongst Christians of different denominations.)

But, if the Holy Spirit was present in the writing, wasn't S/He also present in the editing and selection process, preserving a record for our faith.

You seem to assume that Christians believe in God and Jesus because of the Bible. Of course, if your contacts amongst Christians have been fundamentalists, they may have given you that impression. I believe the Bible because it shows me God and Jesus and unites me to them. We test Scripture by faith, not faith by Scripture - which is the process that was going on as Scripture was growing and developing in the midst of the living body, the Church.

Answer 6

Manuscripts.
They have manuscripts of the Old Testament that were buried more than 2000 years ago. Entire New Testament manuscripts date to within 200 years of their writing, and fragments date to within decades. Many quotes from the New Testament appear in the Church Fathers before the New Testament was even complete.

The other issue is that until a few centuries ago, there was no motivation to edit the text of the Bible. Before that, doctrine was established by the writings of the Fathers and the decisions of Church Councils.

Answer 7

If we didn't believe that the Bible was God's inspired word penned down by inspired men what hope would we have? 1 Peter 1:25 But the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached to you.

Answer 8

I don't really trust modern ones. :P Most of them contain the major important things the religion preaches (such as the Ten Commandments), but other than that, I don't know; over the centuries some of the people responsible for copying from the original did somewhat tarnished its purpose (such as the eradication of some female names in the Bible, who got to meet and speak with the JESUS, but were changed into male names.... forgot which era; I think it was somewhere during Medival times). I try to stay as half-believer and half-skeptical as possible. I think I would fully believe in God if I were to climb a mountain and was randomly struck with lightning or whatever spiritual sort then found myself holding a very ancient written thingy (like what happened to Moses)! :D

I like to believe in the existence of a God because I think it's really stupid for a person to just have faith in what they see and scientific/logical facts (not to mention it's dull).

Answer 9

Many modern Bibles are translations from very old copies of the Biblical books...sources from the first couple of centuries CE. People haven't just continued working for the most recent edition...they go back to the editions that are as close to the originals as we have.

Answer 10

Is Our Copy of the Bible a Reliable Copy of the Original?
by Rich Deem

Introduction

Many skeptics believe that the Bible has been drastically changed over the centuries. In reality, the Bible has been translated into a number of different languages (first Latin, then English and other languages, see History of the Bible). However, the ancient manuscripts (written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek) have been reliably copied over the centuries - with very few alterations.

Old Testament
How do we know the Bible has been kept in tact for over 2,000 years of copying? Before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, our earliest Hebrew copy of the Old Testament was the Masoretic text, dating around 800 A.D. The Dead Sea Scrolls date to the time of Jesus and were copied by the Qumran community, a Jewish sect living around the Dead Sea. We also have the Septuagint which is a Greek translation of the Old Testament dating in the second century B.C. When we compare these texts which have an 800-1000 years gap between them we are amazed that 95% of the texts are identical with only minor variations and a few discrepancies.

New Testament

In considering the New Testament we have tens of thousands of manuscripts of the New Testament in part or in whole, dating from the second century A.D. to the late fifteenth century, when the printing press was invented. These manuscripts have been found in Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Turkey, Greece, and Italy, making collusion unlikely. The oldest manuscript, the John Rylands manuscript, has been dated to 125 A.D. and was found in Egypt, some distance from where the New Testament was originally composed in Asia Minor). Many early Christian papyri, discovered in 1935, have been dated to 150 A.D., and include the four gospels. The Papyrus Bodmer II, discovered in 1956, has been dated to 200 A.D., and contains 14 chapters and portions of the last seven chapters of the gospel of John. The Chester Beatty biblical papyri, discovered in 1931, has been dated to 200-250 A.D. and contains the Gospels, Acts, Paul's Epistles, and Revelation. The number of manuscripts is extensive compared to other ancient historical writings, such as Caesar's "Gallic Wars" (10 Greek manuscripts, the earliest 950 years after the original), the "Annals" of Tacitus (2 manuscripts, the earliest 950 years after the original), Livy (20 manuscripts, the earliest 350 years after the original), and Plato (7 manuscripts).

Thousands of early Christian writings and lexionaries (first and second century) cite verses from the New Testament. In fact, it is nearly possible to put together the entire New Testament just from early Christian writings. For example, the Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians (dated 95 A.D.) cites verses from the Gospels, Acts, Romans, 1 Corinthians, Ephesians, Titus, Hebrews, and 1 Peter. The letters of Ignatius (dated 115 A.D.) were written to several churches in Asia Minor and cites verses from Matthew, John, Romans, 1 & 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, 1 & 2 Timothy and Titus. These letters indicate that the entire New Testament was written in the first century A.D. In addition, there is internal evidence for a first century date for the writing of the New Testament. The book of Acts ends abruptly with Paul in prison, awaiting trial (Acts 28:30-31 (1)). It is likely that Luke wrote Acts during this time, before Paul finally appeared before Nero. This would be about 62-63 A.D., meaning that Acts and Luke were written within thirty years of ministry and death of Jesus. Another internal evidence is that there is no mention of the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. Although Matthew, Mark and Luke record Jesus' prophecy that the temple and city would be destroyed within that generation (Matthew 24:1-2 (2),Mark 13:1-2 (3), Luke 21:5-9,20-24,32(4)), no New Testament book refers to this event as having happened. If they had been written after 70 A.D., it is likely that letters written after 70 A.D. would have mentioned the fulfillment of Jesus' prophecy. As stated by Nelson Glueck, former president of the Jewish Theological Seminary in the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, and renowned Jewish archaeologist, "In my opinion, every book of the New Testament was written between the forties and eighties of the first century A.D."

Conclusion With all of the massive manuscript evidence you would think there would be massive discrepancies - just the opposite is true. New Testament manuscripts agree in 99.5% (5) of the text (compared to only 95% for the Iliad). Most of the discrepancies are in spelling and word order. A few words have been changed or added. There are two passages that are disputed but no discrepancy is of any doctrinal significance (i.e., none would alter basic Christian doctrine). Most Bibles include the options as footnotes when there are discrepancies. How could there be such accuracy over a period of 1,400 years of copying? Two reasons: The scribes that did the copying had meticulous methods for checking their copies for errors. 2) The Holy Spirit made sure we would have an accurate copy of God's word so we would not be deceived. The Mormons, theological liberals as well as other cults and false religions such as Islam that claim the Bible has been tampered with are completely proven false by the extensive, historical manuscript evidence.

Answer 11

The process of transcription and translating the Word is very meticulous.
Each scribe is only to translate certain words ,not whole passages ,at a time. This way no one is able to give the passages their own colourful take on any given line or story.