The Bible's Earlier Versions?

Question

i've heard that the bible was edited over the centuries. huge chunks of the original were clipped out and parts were added. so what was removed? i've heard that stuff about adam's first wife, lillith, was all removed. and what about all the stuff lost in translations. translations can be woefully inaccurate. i've heard that in the hebrew bible, the word translated to mean virgin in the case of vergin mary simply means young woman. so she wasn't a virgin at all, in the original sense.

so what parts were removed and where can i find them? is there an estimate of how far the bible has strayed from it's original meaning?

i'm not looking for answers along the lines of "the bible is unchanged since the day it was written, it's the word of god." you can reply with that if you want to, but i'm looking more along the lines of an objective statement of the bible's changes. i'm especially interested in the removed chunks.

so do you have any information? thanks in advance. i appreciate it.

does anyone know anything about lillith? i hears she was adam's first wife, before eve, but i don't know a whole lot else.

it only makes sense that the bible was edited. even today, someone could add their own stuff to the bible, publish it, and tell everyone it's te real bible. it's an ancient book that's been translated loads of times. and it has two powerful things going for it. a lot of people believe in it, and it tells them what to do. it only makes sense that you want to control a book that people will obey. so if you want them to listen to something specific, you kind of edit it to make it fit what you want. plus all the translation stuff. translators can be really bad. it only makes sense that the bible has changed a lot.

cheir: that's my point exactly! lots of the bible was taken away because it didn't support jesus. so it was obviously edited by someone who had an agenda. if it was the word of god, wouldn't it not need editing? or is your claim that the edited bits are stuff added in by people and later taken out? what was the original bible like? who actually wrote it?

Answer 1

There's a ton of stuff on the Internet. Google the Council of Nicea. Also a couple of authors who talk a lot about this are John Shelby Spong "Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism" and Dominic Crossan. Good luck, its an interesting topic. Yes there have been a few colossal mistranslations. Google King James and errors. One site counts 4,000 known translation errors in the King James version of the Bible. My favorite is where the original language says "women should not gossip in Church" and it is translated into "women should not speak in Church" and as a result, Catholics don't ordain women.

Answer 2

while the King James' Bible became printed, there have been a minimum of four significant variations of the English Bible. the 1st became made by William Tyndale, interior the process Henry VIII, and comprehensive by Miles Coverdale. this popular version became the muse of the Queen Elizabeth Bishops' Bible, the valid textual content cloth in England, which became got here upon truly unsatisfactory (while Tyndale and Coverdale's artwork is stunning). The Puritans had the Geneva Bible, which remained in use a minimum of two centuries, and specific became the e book the Pilgrim Fathers, as Puritans, delivered with them in united statesa.. The final version became a Catholic English Bible made on the continent by English Catholic exiles, too finished of Latin words to be clever. So the King James' Bible did no longer truly exchange something, considering it fairly is a on the fringe of the unique Hebrew and Greek as any protestant Bible. The translators made a synthesis of all the English variations available and apparently took the terrific of each. the main physique of the textual content cloth is Tyndale and Coverdale's, and something is culled from the different variations, each little thing being controlled on the unique texts. This Bible is amazingly a uncomplicated and perfect artwork, deserving its popularity by the centuries. It more desirable the beauties of the previous variations and erased a number of their defects.

Answer 3

There are many writings omitted from the Protestant canon for various reasons. Many did not support Jesus as God, or the resurrection, or the sinlessness of Christ. There are, at least, twenty-eight books mentioned in the Bible, but not included. It is thought that there are at least another 500 writings omitted: for example -
Book of Jasher
Book of Enoch
Book of Samuel the Seer
Nathan the Prophet
The Book of the Acts of Solomon
Shemaiah the Prophet
Prophecy of Abijah
Story of Prophet Iddo
Visions of Iddo the Seer
Iddo Genealogies
Book of Jehu
Sayings of the Seers
Book of Gad the Seer
Epistle to Corinth
Epistle to the Ephesians
Epistle from Laodicea to the Colossians
Nazarene Prophecy Source
Acts of Uziah
The Annals of King David
Jude, the Missing Epistle
Chronicles of King Ahasuerus
Chronicles of the Kings of Media and Persia
The Chronicles of King David
The Chronicles of the Kings of Israel
The Chronicles of the Kings of Judah
Old Testament Apocryphal Writings
"The Apocrypha"

Answer 4

1) "Earlier Versions"
The first bible was "compiled" and translated into Latin about 400 C.E. There is no version earlier than this. This version did, indeed, contain books which most versions today do not (3 & 4 Maccabees, and 1 & 2 Esdras, for examples). However, these books were not considered "canonical" (inspired) even at that time. The New Testament contained books identical with what we have today. The Old Testament contained books found within the Greek septuagint (abbreviated LXX), but *not* all of these books (for example, the book of Enoch was excluded). Which books should be included is a matter of (mostly minor) contention between sects. Books not normally included are referred to as "pseudepigrapha".

To the best of my knowledge (fairly thorough but admittedly amateur), no scholarly translation of the bible has "edited", "added" or "removed" individual verses present in the source text. Only the inclusion or exclusion of complete books is at issue, or (in the cases of Daniel, Esther and Psalms) the inclusion of (apparently additional) Greek source texts which are not present in the Hebrew sources.

2) "Lilith"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lilith#Jewish_tradition
but especially
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lilith#Adam_and_Lilith
Notice how late the source texts are - post-dating the bible itself by 5 centuries, and biblical source texts by 9. In other words, the Adam - Lilith connection seems to be one that appeared late. There is no mention of Lilith in scripture, not even in the complete LXX.

3) "stuff lost in translations"
Here you are merely confusing a common figure of speech. The term "lost in translation" refers to the *meaning* or *shades* of meaning that are lost in a literal translation. It does not refer to the loss of any *text* during translation (for example, the name "Lilith" would not be lost in a translation).

4) "translations can be woefully inaccurate"
This is true, but many versions available today are translated by well-respected scholars who are recognized to be at the top of their respective fields. Certainly, even marginal translation would not result in the *loss* of information that concerns you, only in the *miscommunication* of it.

5) "virgin" vs. "woman"
Your source is accurate, and the difficulty is explained here
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Isaiah%207:14;&version=46;
In other words, though the Hebrew does *not* *specifically* refer to a "virgin" (nor does it exclude that meaning), the authors of the New Testament understood this to refer to a virgin. Many versions today assume that the inspired writers of the New Testament interpreted the verse correctly, and so translate the Old Testament verse in accordance with the understanding of the ancient Jewish biblical authors.

6) "so what parts were removed and where can i find them"
Known as pseudepigrapha, many are available on the internet. The "Book of Jubilees" has been found in Hebrew among the Dead Sea Scrolls (formerly unknown in Hebrew), as has the "Book of Enoch", and scholarly translations of these would have to be purchased. Older translations of the Greek text should be available on the web. Other books can be found on the net or in collections (for example, "the Other Books of the Bible", a cheap but worthwhile overview).

7) "Is there an estimate of how far the bible has strayed from it's original meaning"
Understand that most modern bible translations are translated by scholars who are tops in their field. You will find different versions remarkably similar. This is because these accredited scholars use all their skills to produce an accurate translation. Anyone who claims that the bible has "strayed" from its original meaning is almost certainly not as qualified as these translators, who have striven to *retain* the meaning with their efforts. In other words, the meaning is as close as the experts can make it. Any deviation of meaning that cannot be detected by these experts is almost certainly undetectable to those who are *not* experts.

8) "it only makes sense that the bible was edited. even today"
It may "make sense", but there is *no* indication of this. If someone were to "add their own stuff", those who are familiar with the bible would recognize this immediately. Indeed, a few additions *have* been detected within the New Testament in this way: namely,. older manuscripts have been discovered that exclude passages found in (much) later manuscripts. This has resulted in 2 things:
a) The removal of these "added" passages from modern translations
b) The recognition that these added passages had no significant bearing on doctrine. In other words, they are almost exclusively glosses, or additions that are in full agreement with the remainder of scripture. Your proposal - that someone could add or change the bible and then "tell everybody" that it's "the real bible" simply wouldn't work, unless that person had control of *every* biblical scholar and archaeologist in *every* country in the world, and could force them all to agree to the deception. Pretty unlikely, don't you think? Actually, it *doesn't* make sense.

9) "lots of the bible was taken away because it didn't support jesus"
Please, offer a single example? This is an unfounded statement.

10) "so it was obviously edited by someone who had an agenda"
This is also unsupported and *clearly* not obvious. Do you *really* think that there is a *worldwide* conspiracy among bible scholars, Jewish, Atheist and *all* Chrisitan sects? That is *entirely* unrealistic and, to say the least, not obvious.

11) "if it was the word of god, wouldn't it not need editing?"
As mentioned, editing has *not* occurred.

I hope this clarifies some things. The scholarly community of the world today is simply not capable, or desirous, of perpetrating such a colossal conspiracy of deception upon the world. *Individuals* certainly are capable of deceiving a group, but for a scholar to deceive (or collude with) all other scholars? That is *obvious* balderdash.

Jim, http://www.jimpettis.com/wheel/

Answer 5

You bring up a couple of good ones. When King James authorized the translation into English he was terrified of witches and had that little bit changed. The bible says nothing of witches.

Answer 6

Those that didn't make it - Apocrypha.

But, we are still discovering texts, so that is incomplete.

We don't even have the original version of the bible - we have the heavily editted version.

Monarchs have been responsible for many different editing sessions.

What was removed? Basically anything that did not fit the agenda of the religious leaders responsible for the "culling" of the herd.

The Vatican does have many works that they refuse to release to the public, both religious and non-religious.

Answer 7

ok well in the translations if they had to change the words to make it sound like we the way we talk today they had to italacize it they was never a lillith but you can believe that if you want to the Word of God IS unchangeable i advise you to get a King James version Bible in the NIV they made it young woman so that the younger kids would understand it she was a virgin in the sense of the word she may have been younger but not like 14 she was a virgin they changed it it was written as she was a virgin which made it a miracle birth

Answer 8

Well, I "heard" that the Vatican holds a very large quantity of passages and the like that were in the Bible, but taken out. I have no idea though. We will probably never know. I could be completely wrong, my source could be completely wrong, etc.

Google it, bro.

Answer 9

It has been reported for about 50 years that the Bible has been the largest seller of all books published in the history of the world.

The Bible was written by about 40 men in about 1600 years, dating from 1500 B.C. to about 100 A.D. These men wrote as they were moved by the Holy Spirit (2 Pet. 1:21). They wrote not in words of human wisdom but in words taught by the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 2:13).



English Bible

The first translation of the English Bible was initiated by John Wycliffe and completed by John Purvey in A.D. 1388.
The first American edition of the Bible was perhaps published some time before A.D. 1752.
The Bible has been translated in part or in whole as of 1964 in over 1,200 different languages or dialects.
The Bible was divided into chapters by Stephen Langton about A.D. 1228.
The Old Testament was divided into verses by R. Nathan in A.D. 1448 and the New Testament by Robert Stephanus in A.D. 1551.
There are 66 books in the Bible, 39 in the OT and 27 in the New. (Note: 3 x 9 = 27).
The OT has 929 chapters and 23,214 verses. The NT has 260 chapters and 7,959 verses.
In the OT, the longest book is Psalms. The shortest book is Obadiah.
In the NT, the longest book is Acts. The shortest is 3 John.
The word "God" occurs 4,379 times. The word "Lord" occurs 7,738 times.
Isaiah is referenced 419 times in 23 NT books; Psalms 414 times in 23 books; Genesis 260 times in 21 books.
Unusual things in the Bible

Methuselah, who lived to be 969 years old (Gen. 5:27).
Sons of God married the daughters of men (Gen. 6:2).
Baby had a scarlet thread tied around its hand before it was born (Gen. 38:28-29).
Battle won because a man stretched out his hand (Exodus 17:11).
Man was spoken to by a donkey (Num. 22:28-30).
One who had a bed 13 feet long and 6 feet wide (Deut. 3:11).
The women who had to shave their heads before they could marry (Deut. 21:11-13).
Sun stood still for a whole day (Josh. 10:13).
An army with 700 left-handed men (Judges 20:16).
Man whose hair weighed about 6 pounds when it was cut annually (2 Sam. 14:26).
Man who had 12 fingers and 12 toes (2 Sam. 21:20).
Father who had eighty-eight children (2 Chron. 11:21).
The sun traveled backward (Isaiah 38:8).
A harlot was an ancestor of Christ (Matt. 1:5).



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

Answer 10

http://www.bibleufo.com/anomlostbooks.htm
http://www.carm.org/lostbooks.htm
http://www.bibleufo.com/anomlostbooks4.htm

Here's some
To start with
Jesus mentions THE BOOK OF ENOCH but where is it in the Bible?
If it's important enough for Jesus to mention it, it should be in the Bible.
But it's not....hmmmmmm?