Friend says bible has changed from original

[nmgauss]

So far, most the recent posts in this thread contribute nothing to answering the question: Has the Bible changed from the original?

Since we have no original copies, we cannot answer that definitively. But based on scholarly research of the several thousand manuscripts that have survived, we have to conclude that the Bible has changed.

The Bible is a collection of about 70 books.

It was written over a period of some 1,500 years, from around 1450 B.C. (the time of Moses) to about 100 A.D. (following the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ).

Thus there is no “original Bible”.

 

[PRmerger]

Thus there is no “original Bible”.

I suggest you take this argument to a Bible Alone forum, for here all we do is shrug and say, “It doesn’t matter. For we are not a religion of the book.”

Still, the Christian faith is not a “religion of the book.” Christianity is the religion of the “Word” of God, a word which is “not a written and mute word, but the Word is incarnate and living”-CCC 108.

We do not distill our doctrines from the pages of a book, no matter how holy, nmgauss.

 

[PRmerger]

But based on scholarly research of the several thousand manuscripts that have survived, we have to conclude that the Bible has changed

I find your appeal to “scholarly research” to be quite suspect, nmgauss.

If this site (christiandmi.org/docs/tracts/21-HowTheTrinityBecameAChurchDoctrine.pdf) that you just referenced is any indication of the “scholarly research” that you utilize, no one can blame us for dismissing your appeal to such.

It is, frankly, embarrassing, to see you quote that source.

 

[nmgauss]

I find your appeal to “scholarly research” to be quite suspect, nmgauss.

If this site (christiandmi.org/docs/tracts/21-HowTheTrinityBecameAChurchDoctrine.pdf) that you just referenced is any indication of the “scholarly research” that you utilize, no one can blame us for dismissing your appeal to such.

It is, frankly, embarrassing, to see you quote that source.

Are you embarrassed? I just brought it up for discussion. I am not supporting what it says, but I offer it as a counter statement to your all encompassing assertion which you don’t support with citations.

Do you have any web sites that counter those statements? If not, I rest my case.

 

[nmgauss]

I suggest you take this argument to a Bible Alone forum, for here all we do is shrug and say, “It doesn’t matter. For we are not a religion of the book.”

Still, the Christian faith is not a “religion of the book.” Christianity is the religion of the “Word” of God, a word which is “not a written and mute word, but the Word is incarnate and living”-CCC 108.

We do not distill our doctrines from the pages of a book, no matter how holy, nmgauss.

Your preaching at me does nothing to answer the claim in the title of the thread.

One of the distinctive characteristics of the Judeo-Christian tradition is that it is based on a book. Because of this, it was superior to the pagan religions that preceded it. The Prophet Muhammad admired the Judeo-Christian Bible and was envious that there was no similar book in Arabic. So he wrote the Koran.

There are no other religions in the world so heavily based on written literature. There has to be some advantages to it.

 

[Gabriel_of_12]

First of all, the synoptic gospels were not necessarily written in their entirety by Mark, Matthew, or Luke. Nobody knows for sure who wrote the gospels. In some cases, differences in style and wording indicate multiple authors of a single book.

One of the problems with ancient Greek texts is that when they were copied, no marks of punctuation were used, no distinction made between lowercase and uppercase letters, and no spaces used to separate words. This kind of continuous writing is called scriptuo continua, and it obviously could make it difficult at times to read, let alone understand, a text. The words godisnowhere could mean quite different things to a theist (God is now here) and an atheist (God is nowhere); and what would it mean to say lastnightatdinnerisawabundanceonthetable? Was this a normal or a supernatural event?

No,no, no, speculation is all that you are presenting here with distorted opinions guessing from afar of what actually took place in Catholic Church history, from which the bible is canonized as Inspired of God.

What the Friend and your view neglect to reveal and understand is that no new testament existed nor did any canon of scripture was ever confirmed by either Jew or Christian in the first century.

What dictated the new testament letters came from what Jesus already revealed and from what the original apostles were already practicing and orally preaching as Christians before anything got written down by the eye witnesses (apostles).

Sacred Tradition handed down from the original apostles were already in practice before the letters of the new testament were sent out to the Church communities. The new testament was written for the Christian Converts from Jews and Gentiles who made up the Church.

The practices of the Catholic Christian faith we have today are the same ones the Catholic Church practiced since the original apostles handed them down to the Church both orally and by Sacred Tradition.

The new testament came later, which confirmed the Christian faith and practices from the original apostles.

The simple equation for you and the Friend is; remove the new testament all together today, and it removes your speculation and opinions of grammar and languages. What you have left standing is living proof from what has been practiced and believed in by all Christians in the Catholic faith for over 2000 years from Jesus and His apostles.

How do you discount a 2000 year old practiced faith in the Catholic Church, that is supported and revealed from sacred Scripture which comes after the Church.

It is from the pillar and foundation of Truth which is the Church according to holy writ. Who gave us the bible we have today.

You see, your false view does not hold up to Sacred Apostolic Tradition which predates the letters of the Apostles.

All was already revealed by God to the Apostles who handed down the revelations UNCHANGED to the Catholic Church today, which included the Trinity before the gospels record the historical event of Jesus commissioning the apostles to baptize in the name of the Trinity. This is sacred Tradition before it gets recorded in a letter and sent out to the other Church’s.

Your view pretends to falsify the Word of God was changed, when Sacred Tradition has never changed, thus the gospels or the bible has not changed, which gives witness to the revelations of God from the sacred Traditions which is practiced unchanged in the Catholic Church since apostolic times.

In short, your view is in error, the 2000 year old Catholic Faith is never based on a book. The Catholic faith and practices were already in practice before the new testament was written and sent to the Christians communities for the Christians to practice their liturgies in absence of an apostle. So they were given an infallible letter revealed and inspired of God as Truth and Truth does not change, nor can anyone change Truth.

Your view is lacking the whole Truth, without the Oral Tradition, the Sacred (practiced) Tradition attached to the Sacred Scriptures from the eyewitness living accounts by the apostles who hand them all down from their unity as one body unchanged.

Speculation on grammar and languages and transcriptions never discounts from what is already believed in and practiced before it was written. This means that you would have to prove that Jesus never lived, the apostles never lived, baptism was never practiced, nor was the Trinity ever believed before changing the bible.

Peace be with you

 

[SAVINGRACE]

I give that as much credibility as I give the 6000 year old earthers, the Holocaust deniers, and the people who say we never landed on the moon.

http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ma24sw5D041rpmw1no1_r1_500.gif

 

[PRmerger]

Your preaching at me does nothing to answer the claim in the title of the thread.

And yet you seem to be permitting yourself to preach without addressing the claims of Catholics in this thread.

Why do you reserve for yourself the right to preach while objecting to others doing so?

One of the distinctive characteristics of the Judeo-Christian tradition is that it is based on a book…

You seem to have forgotten that you are on a Catholic forum in dialogue with knowledgeable Catholics.

Again, let me quote from our Catechism for you:

Still, the Christian faith is not a “religion of the book.” --CCC 108

And see here:
vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/apost_exhortations/documents/hf_ben-xvi_exh_20100930_verbum-domini_en.html

Remember, you are not on a Bible Alone forum. Rather, this is **Catholic **Answers.

We do not subscribe to this exaggerated cult of the printed word that your argument presupposes.

I suggest you take this to a Bible Alone forum.

Right now, your argument has as much merit as if you came here saying, “Look at this rock! It’s 10,000 years old! This proves that the earth is not 6000 years old!”

We Catholics would look at you and say, “Ummm…ok. Were you under the misapprehension that we believe the earth is 6000 years old? Perhaps you should take it to this forum: http://hubpages.com/forum/topic/97011”

 

[nmgauss]

The thread is entitled “Re: Friend says bible has changed from original”.

All of this preaching ad infinitum does nothing to try to answer the claim. Writing thousands of words and never subsuming any of them is pointless when regard to the title of the thread. What is the point?

I say that the bible has changed and base my claim on material that every seminarian is taught. Just because none of you heard it from your church does not mean that it is not true.

 

[pablope]

The thread is entitled “Re: Friend says bible has changed from original”.

All of this preaching ad infinitum does nothing to try to answer the claim. Writing thousands of words and never subsuming any of them is pointless when regard to the title of the thread. What is the point?

 

[nmgauss]

Okay…so some words may have changed from the original Bible…but the bigger question, has the meaning and teaching and understanding changed?

Are you asking whether the meaning and teaching and understanding changed? In fact, these changed from Mark, to Matthew, to Luke, to John. These were written in different time periods and the history occurring during the times was rapidly changing and turbulent. In addition, each writer chose to include new stories in their versions.

Not only is Luke different from Mark, the first manuscripts of Mark and Luke have been lost, so that the only editions we have were copied by poorly supervised scribes whose new versions were often poorly edited to make sure that they were copied accurately. In the case of Mark, new text was added by later scribes. This is also true of Chapter 7 in John.

As has been stated, this does not matter to the CC, for our teachings are not based on the Bible solely.

But because the teachings are based heavily on the Bible means that its inconsistencies should be acknowledged. To totally ignore the Bible says that the Catholic Bible does not count.

Which seminarians are you talking about? Catholic seminarians? protestant seminarians?

For one, Princeton Divinity School. Seminarians are taught the origins of the Bible and are also guided as to what to teach about it. Thus the pastors job is to be leaders in their parishes and to further the aims of the Church. Concentrating on the weaknesses of the Bible instead of the strengths is not the way to lead a congregation.

If you are not, then what is your basis for believing as you do that the Bible has changed?

I have read Karen Armstrong, Bart Ehrman, and Bruce Metzger, and they all point out that the Bible has changed over the 2000 years of its existence. Because the Greek used in the original New Testament was the vernacular Greek rather than classical Greek increases the likelihood of mistranslation when coverted into Latin. And then in completing the Book of Revelation, Erasmus had to retranslate the Latin back into Greek in order to complete his first printed Greek edition of the Bible. Whether he was able to accurately reproduce the original Greek passages is highly problematical.

 

[FabiusMaximus]

So far, most the recent posts in this thread contribute nothing to answering the question: Has the Bible changed from the original?

Since we have no original copies, we cannot answer that definitively. But based on scholarly research of the several thousand manuscripts that have survived, we have to conclude that the Bible has changed.

The Bible is a collection of about 70 books.

It was written over a period of some 1,500 years, from around 1450 B.C. (the time of Moses) to about 100 A.D. (following the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ).

Thus there is no “original Bible”.

I’m sorry but this shows a clear lack of understanding of Middle Eastern history and how historians look at ancient documents.

If we adopt your approach that we must have the physical, original text in order to ascertain whether it is authentic or not, then we must dismiss nearly all of ancient Mediterranean history. We do not have original manuscripts of Alexander’s biography, or Tacitus or Pliny’s works on Rome, or Caesar’s Gallic Wars. All we have are copies written hundreds of years later - and guess what? Historians still accept their validity, and I assume you do too, you’re just less skeptical of these texts because they don’t talk about miracles, even though by your logic, they should all be dismissed.

The scholarly research we do have on the subject claims that the New Testament in particular is 99.5% textually pure, and we already know that the Old Testament has been faithfully preserved. You are also forgetting about the nature of oral tradition. It was not uncommon for rabbis to memorize the entire Old Testament, and often the New Testament was preserved in a similar manner. And despite what you might think, oral tradition was an absolutely accurate way to transmit ancient religious knowledge (as well as other knowledge). Even today, there are schools that teach children to commit the entire Qur’an to memory, so it definitely can and has been done. By the sheer amount of textual attestation and copies we can conclude the accuracy of the Bible.

Your argument is not enough, I’m sorry.

 

[nmgauss]

If we adopt your approach that we must have the physical, original text in order to ascertain whether it is authentic or not, then we must dismiss nearly all of ancient Mediterranean history. We do not have original manuscripts of Alexander’s biography, or Tacitus or Pliny’s works on Rome, or Caesar’s Gallic Wars. All we have are copies written hundreds of years later - and guess what? Historians still accept their validity, and I assume you do too, you’re just less skeptical of these texts because they don’t talk about miracles, even though by your logic, they should all be dismissed.

The scholarly research we do have on the subject claims that the New Testament in particular is 99.5% textually pure, and we already know that the Old Testament has been faithfully preserved. You are also forgetting about the nature of oral tradition. It was not uncommon for rabbis to memorize the entire Old Testament, and often the New Testament was preserved in a similar manner. And despite what you might think, oral tradition was an absolutely accurate way to transmit ancient religious knowledge (as well as other knowledge). Even today, there are schools that teach children to commit the entire Qur’an to memory, so it definitely can and has been done. By the sheer amount of textual attestation and copies we can conclude the accuracy of the Bible.

Searching for the original is not paramount in historical research. But when the question comes up, “Did they say that originally?”, that is when people begin to search. With the evidence of substantial differences between the oldest and newest editions of the same books of the Bible and the picky way people cite chapter and verse of favorite passages to support their points, it is important to know if those chapters/verses were in the original. We can’t be sure of our citations if we don’t know whether they were changed by scribes or added in subsequent editions. New text does appear in later editions. That is certain.

Your argument about oral transmission is irrelevant to the discussion. We are talking about written words.

To answer the theme of this thread, the written Bible has changed from the original.
How much has it changed is not the question. Has it changed at all?

 

[dronald]

Searching for the original is not paramount in historical research. But when the question comes up, “Did they say that originally?”, that is when people begin to search. With the evidence of substantial differences between the oldest and newest editions of the same books of the Bible and the picky way people cite chapter and verse of favorite passages to support their points, it is important to know if those chapters/verses were in the original. We can’t be sure of our citations if we don’t know whether they were changed by scribes or added in subsequent editions. New text does appear in later editions. That is certain.

Your argument about oral transmission is irrelevant to the discussion. We are talking about written words.

To answer the theme of this thread, the written Bible has changed from the original.
How much has it changed is not the question. Has it changed at all?

How do you feel about the amazing attestation the Bible has in comparison to other historical documents? Should we disregard all historical prior to the 2nd Century because the NT is so greatly attested?

 

[pablope]

Are you asking whether the meaning and teaching and understanding changed? In fact, these changed from Mark, to Matthew, to Luke, to John. These were written in different time periods and the history occurring during the times was rapidly changing and turbulent. In addition, each writer chose to include new stories in their versions.

What I meant is the original message being conveyed has not changed, despite your claims of changes.

The teachings of the CC came first before anything was written down.

Not only is Luke different from Mark, the first manuscripts of Mark and Luke have been lost, so that the only editions we have were copied by poorly supervised scribes whose new versions were often poorly edited to make sure that they were copied accurately. In the case of Mark, new text was added by later scribes. This is also true of Chapter 7 in John.

 

[nmgauss]

All of these rebuttals fail to prove that the Bible has not changed at all from the original.

 

[dronald]

All of these rebuttals fail to prove that the Bible has not changed at all from the original.

There’s a Science behind it called textual criticism which has been undertaken by Daniel B Wallace. It’s a science that is based on the oldest manuscripts that spread East to West (1700 years ago there wasn’t Google yet; that came in the beginning of the 21st century or so.) They are almost all identical with an extremely small percentage of error, mostly from spelling errors or insignificant differences.

The most problematic passages are the women caught in adultery and the long ending of Mark. Perhaps you would like to debate that specifically?

However; the documents we have and the early citations of the Early Church Father’s give us certainty the Bible hasn’t changed. That doesn’t however prove that the stories found within are true, but for the sake of this discussion they haven’t changed.

 

[pablope]

All of these rebuttals fail to prove that the Bible has not changed at all from the original.

Well…why don’t you do this:

Cite a passage from the Bible…show where it has changed from the original( or as early as you can) to the present, with a comparison.

Then cite the teaching of the CC that was originally taught or believed by the CC, but because of that change or alteration of the passage, that caused a change in belief or what is being taught by the CC…

 

[pablope]

All of these rebuttals fail to prove that the Bible has not changed at all from the original.

And another question…so the Bible has changed…what does it prove?

 

[FabiusMaximus]

Searching for the original is not paramount in historical research. But when the question comes up, “Did they say that originally?”, that is when people begin to search. With the evidence of substantial differences between the oldest and newest editions of the same books of the Bible and the picky way people cite chapter and verse of favorite passages to support their points, it is important to know if those chapters/verses were in the original. We can’t be sure of our citations if we don’t know whether they were changed by scribes or added in subsequent editions. New text does appear in later editions. That is certain.

Your argument about oral transmission is irrelevant to the discussion. We are talking about written words.

To answer the theme of this thread, the written Bible has changed from the original.
How much has it changed is not the question. Has it changed at all?

A couple of points:

• What exactly are these “substantial differences” in the text that you claim exist among the various manuscripts of the Bible? Focusing on the New Testament alone, the “corruption” in text is nearly zero. 99.5% textual purity is unparalleled in the ancient world. Do you consider the Illiad is substantially the same as it was originally written? Yet there are more lines of corruption in that work, and far less copies of it, than the New Testament.
• Why can’t we be sure of what the text says? There are so many copies of the New Testament that are almost identical, why would you state that we can’t be sure of what it says? What other alternative could there be? Again, are you ready to dismiss all of ancient Roman and Greek history?
• Oral tradition is absolutely relevant. It was a secure font of transmission in the ancient world, and was considered as relevant and as valid as the written word. If rabbis can memorize the entire Old Testament, you think that someone couldn’t memorize various texts of the New, a shorter text? Additionally, this would have been a priority in the early Church. Just pay attention to how much emphasis was put on memorizing creeds and traditions (some of which cited in Paul’s epistles). And these same people would have allowed the New Testament to be corrupted? I don’t buy it.