[JeffVandenburg]

GodsReal.org » Blog Archive » Is the Bible of today the same as the original?

Is the Bible of today the same as the original?

Weather it’s Secular Humanists, Muslims, or just skeptics your talking to, be prepared to hear that the Bible has been changed. They always say that. They can’t answer when or by who, but they still slang this idea of an altered Bible as if it were true. Well has the Bible been changed or not? Let’s examine the evidence.

What Version?

One “proof” some people try to use to show that the Bible has been changed is that there are many different translations. However this does not prove that there aren’t good translations, or that the Bible has been changed so that we don’t have a good copy today by any means. The fact is that we have so many ancient copies of the Scriptures that we absolutely can be 100% sure of the Bible we have today. Are there translations we should avoid? Sure, just like there are false Gospels we should avoid. I would suggest using the KJV, NKJV or NASB English versions of the Bible- they are some of the truest versions available in English.

Ancient Manuscripts of Scripture

The amount of ancient Manuscripts of the Bible is amazing. There is no ancient book of any kind with the amount of early manuscript evidence that the Scriptures have left. A count taken in 1980 showed 5,366 separate Greek Manuscripts (the New Testament was originally written in Greek). Codex Sinaiticus contains the whole New Testament and much of the Old Covenant Scriptures and is dated to 340 AD. That’s pretty old. Cotex Vaticanus dates to around 325 AD and has all four Gospels and almost the whole Old and New Testaments. Some of the most amazing finds though are smaller fragments of Scriptures found. The Chester Beatty Papyri has most of the New Testament and is from about 250 AD. The Bodmer Papyri 2 collection, discovered in 1956, has the first 14 chapters of the Gospel of John and alot of the last 7 chapters and dates to around 200 AD. The John Rylands Papyri contains a part of the Gospel of John dating around 117 AD- with the original Gospel being written about 90 AD. What’s interesting is that this fragment was found in Egypt, showing that this Gospel was delivered all the way to Egypt just a couple decades after it was originally written!

The Verdict

Alot of Bible bashers attempt to discredit the Bible by mentioning that there are some 300,000 individual variations of the Text in the New Testament. What they don’t mention is that the vast majority of these differences are spelling errors, punctuation errors, and inverted phrasing. The Gospel and the Word of God needs to be preserved, not exact spelling of ancient words. Scholars have proven that the Modern Text is 99.5% textually pure, and even with the debate over a couple small portions, no teaching would be effected by any of these portions. Therefore is the Holy Bible reliable? You can trust that your Holy Bible is 100% reliable and preserved!

[wheelworks]

Originally Posted by JeffVandenburg

What they don’t mention is that the vast majority of these differences are spelling errors, punctuation errors, and inverted phrasing. The Gospel and the Word of God needs to be preserved, not exact spelling of ancient words.

Small errors such as spelling errors, punctuation errors, and inverted phrasing lead to big differences over time. It is impossible for it not to. So to put it in a nutshell the Bible is definitely not preserved. I guess you can live in your own delusional world and keep on believing it is. I don't know what gospel scholars this article is referring to, but they're obviously delusional and in denial as you are donchaknow

edit: Psssh they even rejected the Bible of Barnabas

[Khairan]

The Catholic Bible and the King James Bible are different by entire books. This isn't a matter of a "few punctuation errors."

[Zam]

subhanAllah, the Qur'an is preserved to such an extent that even the pronounciation of each letter in Arabic is preserved as it was revealed through tajweed

[Variable]

I don't honestly see why this is even a big deal.

[Skinwalker]

Just as a matter of interest. How old is the oldest Koran in existence? Is it on display somewhere?

[Blue_Phoenix]

"Are there translations we should avoid? Sure, just like there are false Gospels we should avoid."

That's from your paragraph. Yeah, false gospels and bad translations are nothing more than punctuation errors. With this very phrase, the guy who wrote this so-called argument counterpoints the very argument he's attempting to make. In fact, he is admitting that the Bible is a very screwed-up book.

[Anderson]

Originally Posted by JeffVandenburg

GodsReal.org » Blog Archive » Is the Bible of today the same as the original?

Is the Bible of today the same as the original?

Weather it’s Secular Humanists, Muslims, or just skeptics your talking to, be prepared to hear that the Bible has been changed. They always say that. They can’t answer when or by who, but they still slang this idea of an altered Bible as if it were true. Well has the Bible been changed or not? Let’s examine the evidence.

What Version?

One “proof” some people try to use to show that the Bible has been changed is that there are many different translations. However this does not prove that there aren’t good translations, or that the Bible has been changed so that we don’t have a good copy today by any means. The fact is that we have so many ancient copies of the Scriptures that we absolutely can be 100% sure of the Bible we have today. Are there translations we should avoid? Sure, just like there are false Gospels we should avoid. I would suggest using the KJV, NKJV or NASB English versions of the Bible- they are some of the truest versions available in English.

Ancient Manuscripts of Scripture

The amount of ancient Manuscripts of the Bible is amazing. There is no ancient book of any kind with the amount of early manuscript evidence that the Scriptures have left. A count taken in 1980 showed 5,366 separate Greek Manuscripts (the New Testament was originally written in Greek). Codex Sinaiticus contains the whole New Testament and much of the Old Covenant Scriptures and is dated to 340 AD. That’s pretty old. Cotex Vaticanus dates to around 325 AD and has all four Gospels and almost the whole Old and New Testaments. Some of the most amazing finds though are smaller fragments of Scriptures found. The Chester Beatty Papyri has most of the New Testament and is from about 250 AD. The Bodmer Papyri 2 collection, discovered in 1956, has the first 14 chapters of the Gospel of John and alot of the last 7 chapters and dates to around 200 AD. The John Rylands Papyri contains a part of the Gospel of John dating around 117 AD- with the original Gospel being written about 90 AD. What’s interesting is that this fragment was found in Egypt, showing that this Gospel was delivered all the way to Egypt just a couple decades after it was originally written!

The Verdict

Alot of Bible bashers attempt to discredit the Bible by mentioning that there are some 300,000 individual variations of the Text in the New Testament. What they don’t mention is that the vast majority of these differences are spelling errors, punctuation errors, and inverted phrasing. The Gospel and the Word of God needs to be preserved, not exact spelling of ancient words. Scholars have proven that the Modern Text is 99.5% textually pure, and even with the debate over a couple small portions, no teaching would be effected by any of these portions. Therefore is the Holy Bible reliable? You can trust that your Holy Bible is 100% reliable and preserved!

There's three grammatical mistakes in the first sentence of this article alone, lol. Weather it's Muslim looll.

[Aryan_]

Jeff, did you know the koran has 6666 verses?

[Blue_Phoenix]

Originally Posted by Anderson

There's three grammatical mistakes in the first sentence of this article alone, lol. Weather it's Muslim looll.

It's obvious Jeff isn't a Muslim. But do you think you can say something sensible and knowledgable for once instead of just attacking the guy who's posting?

Originally Posted by Aryan_

Jeff, did you know the koran has 6666 verses?

I always love it when people list the number of verses in their holy books. It says "I don't know anything and I'm desperate to sound like a guy who knows something." Did YOU know that in an argument like this the number of verses in ANY holy book is completely irrelevant?

[Anderson]

Originally Posted by Blue_Phoenix

It's obvious Jeff isn't a Muslim. But do you think you can say something sensible and knowledgable for once instead of just attacking the guy who's posting?

Yes, I was attacking his grammar because he wasn't Muslim..... If you want to give trolls your undivided attention go for it; wine and dine him, court him etc if you must just don't expect the same from others.

I always love it when people list the number of verses in their holy books. It says "I don't know anything and I'm desperate to sound like a guy who knows something." Did YOU know that in an argument like this the number of verses in ANY holy book is completely irrelevant?

He was being facetious nob.

[rahat]

A blog entry I wrote:

Today I heard the phrase "King James Bible - ever heard of it? It was written by Shakespeare!" in a movie.

Obviously I know that Shakespear did not translate the King James Bible, but I then began to wonder about its origins.

Thus began the Wiki Research:

The New Testament of the King James Version was translated in 1611 from the Received Text (Textus Receptus), called so because most extant texts of the time were in agreement with it. The Old Testament of the King James Version is translated from the Masoretic Hebrew Text.

What the heck is the textus recetpus? I certainly have never heard that phrase before. Wiki elaborates

Textus Receptus (Latin: "received text") is the name given to the first Greek-language text of the New Testament to be printed on a printing press. It was compiled by Dutch Catholic scholar and humanist Desiderius Erasmus in 1516 for his translation of the Bible into Greek, and later used as the basis for the translation of the New Testament by William Tyndale, for the original Luther Bible, and for most other Reformation-era translations throughout Western and Central Europe. The Textus Receptus is classified by scholars as a late Byzantine text.

Ok .. so the King James was written in 1611, and the text it was translated from was written in 1516.

But where did the Textus Receptus come from?

Frederick Nolan, an eminent historian of the 19th century and a Greek and Latin scholar who researched Egyptian chronology, spent 28 years attempting to trace the Received Text to apostolic origins.

Thats not really an answer. In some ways its a troubling sign that some researcher spent 3 decades looking for an answer to a simple question like 'what is the origin of the bible?'

Concerning ancient manuscripts, the three main textual traditions are sometimes called the Western text-type, the Alexandrian text-type, and Byzantine text-type. Together they compose the majority of New Testament manuscripts. There are also several ancient versions in other languages, most important of which are the Syriac (including the Pe****ta and the Diatessaron gospel harmony), Ge'ez and the Latin (both the Vetus Latina and the Vulgate).

The earliest surviving complete manuscript of the entire Bible is the Codex Amiatinus, a Latin Vulgate edition produced in eighth century England at the double monastery of Wearmouth-Jarrow.

The earliest printed edition of the New Testament in Greek appeared in 1516 from the Froben press. It was compiled by Desiderius Erasmus on the basis of the few recent Greek manuscripts, all of Byzantine tradition, at his disposal, which he completed by translating from the Vulgate parts for which he did not have a Greek text. He produced four later editions of the text.
Wow, so the earliest printed standardized Bible didn't appear until 1,516 years after Jesus left?

I don't know what those Western text, Alexeandrian, or Byzantine type things are referring to, but I did see some mention of the earliest surviving complete manuscript called the Codex Amiatinus. Its dated back to the 8th century.

800 years after Jesus!!! 700 years after the Bible was "written"! Thats a long time for the Bible to completely dissapear. Lets look into this codex.

According to the official Catholic description of the book:

The codex (or pandect) is usually said to contain the whole Bible; but it should be noted that the Book of Baruch is missing, though the Epistle of Jeremias, usually incorporated with it, is here appended to the Book of Jeremias.

Wow! So the oldest bible in existence is different from the bible today? What is going on here! Lets keep looking into this codex.

As I do research, the Codex Amiatinus comes from an earlier book called the Codius Grandor!

The Codex Grandior is no longer in existence, but it has left its descendants to us in the forms of the Codex Amiatinus and, most probably, the Lindisfarne Gospels, whose Matthew and Mark illuminations (the latter reversed) may also be based on the Cassiodorus portrait of the Codex Grandior.

Alright! Now we are getting somewhere.

At the same time, two sister-volumes of the Codex Amiatinus, somewhat less elaborate, were also produced. Unfortunately, all that remains of them are a few pages discovered in 1909 in a curiosity shop in Newcastle-upon-Tyne by a Rev. W. Greenwell, and eleven further leaves, used as covers for estate accounts, which came to light in the late 1930s, also in the North of England. These leaves were acquired for the British Nation by the Friends of the National Libraries.

Ok this is weird. Why are there sister volumes? Does that mean there was more to the Bible that we are missing? Or different editions? I guess the most logical route to believe is that they are different editions.

But even then, I find myself confused. Why would there be different editions of the Bible? It should all be one book. .. Right? Lets look into the Codex Grandior.

Alas, I find myself at a brick wall. the Grandior originates in the 7th century ... and its origins are unknown.

And so I cannot say that I can determine the origin of the Bible.

[Khairan]

Originally Posted by Variable

I don't honestly see why this is even a big deal.

It's a big deal in the context of the Islam-Christianity debate, both for Muslims, who see themselves as Protestants of the preceding Abrahamic religions, and for Christian apologists who see either refuting the authenticity of the Qur'an or defending the authenticity of the Bible as a way to address Islam's challenge to Christianity. You must remember that Islam defines its legitimacy as a movement by arguing that the initially true message which was delivered to prior monotheistic peoples became corrupted and lost over time.

[Variable]

Originally Posted by Khairan

It's a big deal in the context of the Islam-Christianity debate, both for Muslims, who see themselves as Protestants of the preceding Abrahamic religions, and for Christian apologists who see either refuting the authenticity of the Qur'an or defending the authenticity of the Bible as a way to address Islam's challenge to Christianity. You must remember that Islam defines its legitimacy as a movement by arguing that the initially true message which was delivered to prior monotheistic peoples became corrupted and lost over time.

Aw man, I answered this like an hour ago and it never showed up. Anyway, basically, I realize the issue of source preservation is paramount to Muslims. And I don't know a lot about Christianity, but I think there's less importance placed on the technical aspect of the sources and more placed on the general message. So this Jeff character seems interested in imposing someone else's standard of authenticity on his own beliefs... and I'm just wondering why it's important to him.