Bible was rewritten?

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A lot of anti-religious people claim that the Bible was rewritten so many times throughout history to the point that the original Bible does not resemble what today’s Bible is like.

Where do they get this claim from and what evidence do they have for it?
 
Melek said:
A lot of anti-religious people claim that the Bible was rewritten so many times throughout history to the point that the original Bible does not resemble what today’s Bible is like.

Where do they get this claim from and what evidence do they have for it?
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I don’t know but I have a friend who claims to be Christian and does not believe in the Bible because it’s been translated so many times that it’s not accurate anymore.

My question to her would be: if you’re a Christian and believe this, then how do you know what is true or not?

Actually, the answer to my question would probably lie in the fact that she is very much swayed by moral relativism. She will absolutely NOT call anything ‘wrong’. What she will say is that whatever is morally in question “is not for her”. Yet, she complains from here to eternity about everyone and everything constantly.

Go figure… 🤷
 
Anti-religious people lack faith in the power of the Holy Spirit. They don’t believe in the power of the Holy Trinity, nor do they believe in Christian salvation history. In most cases, they don’t want to be reminded of the 10 Commandments or of personal judgement by a Deity.

The beautiful truth about Judaism and the Early Church is the ability to pass the faith to their children and to converts through oral traditions.

(Anti-religious hate this because their minds only accept what they can see, touch, smell, feel, hear). They need physical proof of the existence of God.

Jews had a systematic life that centered on advancing Judaism. God the Father was central to their life, work, holidays, ceremony, liturgy, daily commands, etc. They lived their faith in totality. It wasn’t an extra thing tacked onto one particular day.

That’s important to know, because oral tradition overcomes a lack of education, a lack of writing materials, a lack of ability to read.

When a faith extends out to converts (who don’t live in community) or don’t speak the language (Hebrew) then it becomes neccessary to translate the oral knowledge or to form a Church where the faith can be passed orally through a homily.

Early Christianity also primarily spread the faith through oral tradition.

As society advanced, (with increased education, translation advancements, availability of less expensive writing materials) Christianity spread.

However, Scripture also needed an atmosphere of acceptance. It’s very difficult to write, rewrite, and protect Scripture through paper means when the Churches and the early Christians were being imprisoned and martyred for their faith.

catholicapologetics.org/ap030700.htm
 
Naturally some sentenses has been miss-translated in the Old Testament,but also in the New,however,the meaning has been the same. If you read a Bible from,lets say 1950,You will most likely find some differences in the scripts,but that does not mean that the whole Bible is written (on purpose?) to fit the demands of churches,we can trust in the fact that the Bible we read today is as real as the one from lets say year 1600. Safe to say,the Bible is,and will always be the book of the Church,and no rewriting has or will,be made. The “rewrited” places has a wery simple explanations,would you understand english written in the begining of year 1000? No,you would not. When a Bible is “put up to date” it is only made easier for our generation to understand. But what we should be afraid of are those who “re-explain” the Bible to suit there wallets.
Blessings,Totterman
 
A grossly mistranslated bible is no more than wishful thinking on the part of relative moralists. Modern and ancient texts actually agree to a surprising level. Scribes, for hundreds of years, took great pains to copy each letter exactly. There are still present-day Jews who copy Torahs by hand for synagogues, following a prayerful procedure for each word.

It’s much easier to say “that authority has no basis so I can do what I feel is right” than to follow the Word of God.

Gem
 
Gem said:
A grossly mistranslated bible is no more than wishful thinking on the part of relative moralists. Modern and ancient texts actually agree to a surprising level. Scribes, for hundreds of years, took great pains to copy each letter exactly. There are still present-day Jews who copy Torahs by hand for synagogues, following a prayerful procedure for each word.
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Agreed. But even if the Bible had been grossly mis-translated, do those who believe it not take into account that God would be aware of it happening and put in place safeguards to protect the content’s meaning? I mean, if there are really Christians out there that don’t believe the Bible due to it’s percieved ‘corruption’, then they must not truly trust God or His power. At least it seems that way to me.
It’s much easier to say “that authority has no basis so I can do what I feel is right” than to follow the Word of God.

Gem
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Also agreed… as predicited:
2 TIM 4:3, 4
For the time will come when people will not tolerate sound doctrine but, following their own desires and insatiable curiosity, will accumulate teachers
and will stop listening to the truth and will be diverted to myths.
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Melek said:
Where do they get this claim from and what evidence do they have for it?
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I’m guessing from the existence of manuscript variations that all pre-printing-press books have. Their reasoning probably goes, if it is possible to alter the text, and if there’s a reason to alter it, then it must have been altered.

The evidence is the same for everyone, but believers use it to reconstruct the original text, while nonbelievers use it to discredit religion. Nonbelievers typically have nothing to say when asked to provide evidence of radical revision.
 
Those who claim the Bible was re-written are not usually going to back it up with examples or research, quotes or scholarship. What you will get are canards about the Bible being chained to the pulpit, reserved for the clergy only, unauthorized copies being burned, and other such nonsense.

I read somewhere that some work of significant Greek philosophy has no autograph (original) and the oldest extant copy is some several hundred years younger than the known date when it was authored…just googled that and the oldest extant copy of any of Plato’s works is from 895 AD and his academy was closed in 529 AD (the autographa would be older than that). Does anyone question Plato?

OK, maybe they do. But they’ll cite studies and critiques, give figures and arguements why the preserved works of Plato are acurate. Anyone denying the Bible’s accuracy against the originals would have a very hard time by literary standards. Copied below is a Wiki entry (I know, lazy research Wiki, but informative). The body of work in textual criticism (study of books to determine authenticity to the original) is huge. The denial of the Bible is rooted in opposition to the Glorious message that is the Word of God.

“The New Testament has been preserved in more manuscripts than any other ancient work, having over 5,800 complete or fragmented Greek manuscripts, 10,000 Latin manuscripts and 9,300 manuscripts in various other ancient languages including Syriac, Slavic, Gothic, Ethiopic, Coptic and Armenian. The dates of these manuscripts range from circa 125 (the John Ryland’s manuscript, P52; oldest copy of John fragments) to the introduction of printing in Germany in the 15th century. The vast majority of these manuscripts date after the 10th century. Because there are more New Testament manuscripts than any other ancient writing (e.g., we only have 10 copies of Julius Caesar’s ‘The Gallic Wars’), Christian apologists such as Josh Mcdowell and Norman Geisler assert that by literary standards, the New Testament is a reliable witness to the original text.[3][4][5] Textual scholar Bart Ehrman disagrees: “It is true, of course, that the New Testament is abundantly attested in the manuscripts produced through the ages, but most of these manuscripts are many centuries removed from the originals, and none of them perfectly accurate. They all contain mistakes - altogether many thousands of mistakes. It is not an easy task to reconstruct the original words of the New Testament…”[6] In reference to the textual evidence for the New Testament, Bruce Metzger wrote “In evaluating the significance of these statistics…one should consider, by way of contrast, the number of manuscripts which preserve the text of the ancient classics. Homer’s Iliad…is preserved by 457 papyri, 2 uncial manuscripts, and 188 minuscule manuscripts. Among the tragedians the witnesses to Euripides are the most abundant; his extant works are preserved in 54 papyri and 276 parchment manuscripts, almost all of the later dating from the Byzantine period…the time between the composition of the books of the New Testament and the earliest extant copies is relatively brief. Instead of the lapse of a millennium or more, as is the case of not a few classical authors, several papyrus manuscripts of portions of the New Testament are extant which were copies within a century or so after the composition of the original documents.”[7][8]”
 
Of course the Bible was rewritten. Before printing was invented every copy of the Bible was rewritten from a previous one,as we do not have originals.

Many mistakes were introduced in copying, but the whole science of textual criticism is about the study of these variations in manuscripts.

The differences are in general slight.

Also modern translations, in general, do not differ substantially.
 
Melek said:
A lot of anti-religious people claim that the Bible was rewritten so many times throughout history to the point that the original Bible does not resemble what today’s Bible is like.

Where do they get this claim from and what evidence do they have for it?
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I’d ask them to produce evidence of their false claim. We have copies in Greek so the mistranslation argument is vacuous. And, In fact, The oldest fragments that exist, some from the first century, are identical to what we have today.
 
Melek said:
A lot of anti-religious people claim that the Bible was rewritten so many times throughout history to the point that the original Bible does not resemble what today’s Bible is like.

Where do they get this claim from and what evidence do they have for it?
Click to expand...
The Dead Sea Scrolls proves the accuracy of the Bible.
 
There are numerous ancient manuscripts available, and fragments of ancient scriptures which have been compared and used to create modern translations.

Translations of the Bible come from one of two main possible sources:

1.) The Latin Vulgate from c.400AD (translation by St Jerome from source 2)
2.) Various Greek Manuscripts anywhere from 1500BC to 500AD

The Bible has not been re-written over the years. That’s an urban myth created and perpetuated by people seeking to discredit Christianity.

The Bible has not gone through a multitude of languages to arrive in it’s present form. The original old testament texts were in Hebrew, but were translated in Greek, as by about 100BC most Jews had lost their original tongue, but had acquired Greek. The version of the Old Testament that Jesus and the Apostles would have known and referred to would have been the Greek texts. The original New Testament texts were written down in Greek. And it is from the Greek texts that we get all modern translations of the Bible.

The talk of translations comes about due to the multitude of English Translations that exist.

The earliest English translation was John Wycliffe from the Latin Vulgate in about 1388. William Tyndal got into trouble in 1526 when he did his own English Translation, which was condemned for the way he translated particular words as heretic and he was put to death by secular authorities. After this, the trouble has been attempting to make a translation both true to the original text and to convey the same contextual meaning. A person speaking Greek 2,000 years ago would understand certain cultural markers, symbols, etc that a person speaking English today would never get.

A classic example is the saying “a camel passing through the eye of a needle”

The “eye of a needle” in not of a sewing needle, but refers to a special narrow gateway found in city walls which allowed people to move in and out of the city at night after the main gates were closed and locked. This narrow passage was designed to allow people to enter and exit, but people wearing armour or carrying weapons would find it extremely difficult. Now imagine a camel, or a camel carrying a load - you might be able to get the camel in and out of the passage, but it would be extremely difficult to nearly impossible. Basically, it would be better just to camp-out and wait for the main gates to open in the morning.
 
hartleymartin said:
Translations of the Bible come from one of two main possible sources:

1.) The Latin Vulgate from c.400AD (translation by St Jerome from source 2)
2.) Various Greek Manuscripts anywhere from 1500BC to 500AD
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Actually the Vulgate was a consolidation of all the Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic Scriptures.

I use this interlinear version which gives the translation a little bit of authenticity.

sacredbible.org/studybible/index.htm
 
thistle said:
The Dead Sea Scrolls proves the accuracy of the Bible.
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exactly. This is the strongest of many strong arguments to disprove this ridiculous claim.

Even Biblical scholars were astonished that the Dead sea Scrolls versions of the Bible texts are 99.99% identical to the contemporary accepted versions.

There are slight variations in various Biblical manuscripots over the centuries. But NONE of them is a variatuion of more than a few words (usually only a letter or two) and NONE of them would make any real doctrinal significance whether it was omitted or admitted.
 
In reality…beyond the fine points made by many of you, the people who claim that the Bible has been re-written do to some extent have a fair claim. The JW bible is not the same as others…their theology is quite different, thus their bible is different. There have been versions of the bible written that attempt to “modernize” the Bible…almost down to the point where the phrases “Kewl, Yo Dude, and Wassup” are included. That I think is the basis for their claims… There are even non-Catholic sources that bemoan the fact, even though they tend to make the claim that “their version is the only correct one”…

So far as I am concerned…this is the Bible I use and stick with:

drbo.org/index.htm
 
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