Friend says bible has changed from original

[ffg]

Interesting thread. Thanks all.

 

[PRmerger]

I beg to differ; your implying that if the bible changed so did the Kerygma.

Exactly.

That is the implication that is being espoused.

Except that nmgauss, apparently, was unaware that the Catholic Faith is not a religion of the Book.

He was not informed that the faith was given once for all to the Apostles, and handed down to us through the Paradosis.

NOT through the pages of a book, no matter how holy.

Your argument only disproves the Sola Scriptura faith, which is an invention by men, never revealed by God to our humanity.

Peace be with you

Egg-zactly.

So if this were a Sola Scriptura Forum, perhaps we’d be confused and befuddled by the implications.

However, as this is a Catholic forum with knowledgeable Catholics, not so much.

 

[nmgauss]

I beg to differ; your implying that if the bible changed so did the Kerygma. There exists an abundance of evidence that the Catholic faith has never changed since apostolic times. Let us be clear here.
Peace be with you

Your mind set appears to be, “My mind is made up, don’t confuse me with the facts.”

Your loquacious response is evident of the emotional stake you have in your response. If you want to give some concrete evidence of your points, please cite some references as I did.

You seem to want to ignore the contributions of Irenaeus, Athanasius, Augustine, Gregory the Great, Thomas Aquinas, etc. Are you saying these authors had no role in changing the Catholic faith?

 

[PRmerger]

You seem to want to ignore the contributions of Irenaeus, Athanasius, Augustine, Gregory the Great, Thomas Aquinas, etc. Are you saying these authors had no role in changing the Catholic faith?

Their contributions enhanced our understanding of the kerygma. But they did not change it.

 

[Aramis]

It depends on which part of the Bible you’re talking about.

There is a lot of nuance in the Hebrew that is completely lost in any translation (Latin, English, or otherwise), so in that sense, any exit from the Hebrew is going to be some sort of “corruption.”

Furthermore, it is my understanding that the official canon of the Bible wasn’t officially settled until the fifth century (and all the Christian churches still don’t use exactly the same canon). So in that sense, too, the Bible did change over time.

But without knowing what exactly your friend was referring to, it’s very difficult to dispute his claim. The Bible is a big book, one that has received influence and (name removed by moderator)ut from a lot of people over the course of many centuries. Just by its nature, it’s something that has been in flux for a long time. But just because it had been in a state of change that doesn’t mean that it’s “wrong” per se. You just need to have an understanding of what you are reading.

Not even all Catholic Churches Sui Iuris use the same canon. Byzantines add 3&4 Maccabees. The Ehtiopians add 3 or 4 additional books.

 

[pablope]

And…in undertaking their studies…what was their point in doing so? To disprove Catholicism (among one of them)?

Every religion has an agenda. It chooses the literature and doctrines it wants to promote.
That is true of Catholicism as well as Protestantism.

Okay…what do you think is the agenda of Catholicism and what literature and doctrine it is trying to promote?

You mean I have to bring up the name of Martin Luther as a reminder about why Luther disagreed with the Church?

I am familiar with his disagreements, which started out about practices but turned doctrinal…so why did you bring up the Reformation in this thread?

 

[pablope]

"Mark gives no accounts of anyone seeing Jesus as Matthew, Luke, and John later report. In fact, according to Mark, any future epiphanies or “sightings” of Jesus will be in the north, in Galilee, not in Jerusalem.
This original ending of Mark was viewed by later Christians as so deficient that not only was Mark placed second in order in the New Testament, but various endings were added by editors and copyists in some manuscripts to try to remedy things. The longest concocted ending, which became Mark 16:9-19, became so treasured that it was included in the King James Version of the Bible, favored for the past 500 years by Protestants, as well as translations of the Latin Vulgate, used by Catholics. This meant that for countless millions of Christians it became sacred scripture–but it is patently bogus. You might check whatever Bible you use and see if the following verses are included–the chances are good they they will be, since the Church, by and large, found Mark’s original ending so lacking.
Here is that forged ending of Mark:

[C

[COLOR=“RoyalBlue”]Even though this ending is patently false, people loved it, and to this day conservative Christians regularly denounce “liberal” scholars who point out this forgery, claiming that they are trying to destroy “God’s word.”

biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-topics/new-testament/the-strange-ending-of-the-gospel-of-mark-and-why-it-makes-all-the-difference/

So…the bishops who were contemplating the canon back in Ad 382…knew about this, yet included it. And as you said, it was in the Latin Vulgate, which was started by St. Jerome in AD 382…and included…so when the canon and LV were completed, it was part of the Gospel of Mark…so how does this prove the Bible has changed?

And again…how did this addition change the teachings of the CC?

 

[pablope]

Your mind set appears to be, “My mind is made up, don’t confuse me with the facts.”

Your loquacious response is evident of the emotional stake you have in your response. If you want to give some concrete evidence of your points, please cite some references as I did.

You seem to want to ignore the contributions of Irenaeus, Athanasius, Augustine, Gregory the Great, Thomas Aquinas, etc. Are you saying these authors had no role in changing the Catholic faith?

Hmmm…okay, can you cite the changes you say that those you named above have caused in the original teachings of the CC?

Can you cite an original teaching and cite the change caused by those you named above?

 

[Gabriel_of_12]

nmgauss;12037844]This could have been a story concocted among oral story tellers.

Story tellers? Are you aware of the written biblical criteria for one to be chosen to preach and teach the gospel of Jesus Christ in all truth? Are you aware that the first 30+ popes apostolic successors to Peter were all martyred for their unwavering Christian faith?

For you to label them as story tellers is an insult to history and reveals your very limited experience of Christianity and a one sided view that has no ounce of wisdom to merit such a position that you give witness to here. Never mind the hyperbole you place on sacred scripture compared to recorded Christian history.

The story puts Jesus into a dilemma with the Pharisees who are testing him.

Jesus is one who never falls into any dilemma with no one Please do not start to exaggerate about Jesus as you have with the bible?

Being a Jew, he was obligated to follow the Law, which requires stoning. But he has been teaching love, mercy, and foregiveness. So, instead of making the judgment himself, he lets his audience be the judge challenging them to act if they are without sin. When they fade away, he has made his point.

No, the woman caught in adultery reveals a first century biblical event. Maybe you don’t know this, but the Romans outlawed the Jews to exercise any form of capital punishment.

The Jews tried to prove Jesus a false prophet or have him arrested by the Roman guards for applying the Law of Moses in capital punishment of the adulteress woman. Jesus reversed their false implications back on them by informing the Jews in attendance who are without sin to cast the first stone. They did not turn away by their own judgement, they turned away because they knew Caesar did not give any mercy to any Jew who broke Caesar’s law.

The first century secular historical Roman pagan laws against the Jews ( who persecuted these first Christians) validate the biblical event of the adulteress woman as a true event that took place.

Before you place your personal judgement on these historical events from your speculative sources. Learn what they truly teach and reveal rather than discounting them as fairy tales or as you state; "concocted ", “story telling”.

 

[Gabriel_of_12]

nmgauss;12040234]Your mind set appears to be, “My mind is made up, don’t confuse me with the facts.”

That is incorrect, what you speak of is not made up by my mind. Faith is what I have expressed here. You will know when I speak my mind here.

You have not presented any facts here to substantiate your false opinion which speculates to far from recorded history.

Your loquacious response is evident of the emotional stake you have in your response. If you want to give some concrete evidence of your points, please cite some references as I did.

My faith is not based on a book nor is my faith based on any emotion. You got me pegged all wrong here.

I could serve you better if you can be more specific as to what you don’t understand from my posts that requires a reference for you to comprehend and be informed correctly of what you do not know.

You seem to want to ignore the contributions of Irenaeus, Athanasius, Augustine, Gregory the Great, Thomas Aquinas, etc. Are you saying these authors had no role in changing the Catholic faith?

Your kidding right? I am emphatically saying that these Catholic Saints had no role in changing the Apostolic Catholic faith. These Catholic Saints give witness to the same Catholic faith, myself and others have expressed to you here, that is handed down to us from Jesus and His apostles unchanged.

Did these Catholic saints live in different ages, who gave their expression of their Catholic faith most eloquently and most distinctly; yes. Did they add or change the revelations of Jesus Christ and His teachings to His apostles? NO. they never changed the Catholic faith.

You know; all of these Catholic Saints professes ed the same Creed I do today in the apostles Creed by virtue of all of our baptisms into one body of Jesus Christ.

Who ever told you these Catholic Saints you mentioned changed the Catholic faith, have mislead and misinformed you.

Not even Peter or any pope after Peter could add or change the Catholic faith.

I never heard this before, I would like to know where in the world did you get the idea that these Catholic Saints changed the Catholic faith? I would really love to know. Thank you

Peace be with you

 

[KathleenGee]

Thank you!

Great post.

Alot of people cannot believe in any human source to provide us the source of truth about God. About individuals, and here I mean disconnected individuals, such disbelief is correct and warranted.

But for people who want to prove that the Word of God has changed, in essence to bring us a different tradition, a different orthodoxy and orthopraxis, they are not truly seeking God but some form of justification to find a belief source that fits their own limitations.

Thus such a belief is a projection of self rather than of God’s revelation found in Christ, that is given to us today in the deposit of faith through the Holy Spirit.

Jesus is the Alpha and the Omega, He does not change.

 

[nmgauss]

All of the recent posts depart from the theme of the thread. Has the Bible changed from its original?

Tangential issues that were mentioned in passing have no place in this thread. You may object to my positions on these separate issues, but they have absolutely nothing to do with the title of this thread.

The facts support the conclusion that the Bible has changed from its original.

 

[Isaiah45_9]

Do you want to follow the teachings of the Church because they appeal to you without knowing the origin of these teachings? For the vast majority, that is what faith is all about. Determining the differences between guesses of Jesus’ teachings (they are guesses because no documents survive from that era) versus the Apostolic Creed versus the teachings of the Church today may not appeal to you. It can be unsettling. Believing in the infallibility of the Pope and Bible may appeal to some without knowing whether there is justification in believing this. I have to agree that if it makes you feel good, then by all means go for it.

Just like it makes you feel good to not go for it.

For Dr. Ehrman, he needed to know the original teachings. If the original teachings were truly inspired, then what were they? He needed to know. And through his many years researching the history of Christianity, he came to the conclusion that Christianity as we have come to know it did not, in any event, spring into being overnight. It emerged over a long period of time, through a period of struggles, debates, and conflicts over competing views, doctrines, perspectives, canons, and rules.

No **** Sherlock… Of course we can choose to ignore that you were killed and tortured (not in that order) for professing a Christian Faith. Unlike most of us that can say whatever we want to (for the most part) without fear of persecution and death. Forget about that history.

We can choose to ignore the historical struggles to preserve that one Faith from all the attacks it suffered. We can rather choose to believe that it was all a big invisible and unnameable conspiracy.

The ultimate emergence of the Christian religion represents a human invention. People invented Christianity, not Jesus, and not God.

How exactly this happened?

Whether one stresses the continuities or the discontinuities in the development of early Christianity, it is clear that the beliefs and perspectives that emerged among Jesus’ later followers were different from the religion of Jesus himself.

How is this clear?

Paul was not the only one responsible for this set of theological innovations, this invention of what we think of as Christianity. He may not even bear the grestest responsibility among those who transformed the religion of Jesus into the religion about Jesus. There were numerous Christians involved in these transformations, the vast majority of them lost in the mists of antiquity,** unnamed Christians**, thinkers, and preachers who reinterpreted the traditions of Jesus for their own time, whose reinterpretations were guided and molded by historical and cultural forces that we, living later, can sometimes only surmise and ponder.

Very few times have I seen such a collection of demagogue statements.

You understand you have offered nothing to support your comments here…

How did it transformed the religion of Jesus?

Who were these numerous Christians?

What were these transformations?

What were these vast majority? (For a majority to be vast it has to be well over 51%, I would love to see how these number come up)

Unnamed Christians thinkers and preachers… That you happen to know they were thinkers and preachers although they are unnamed… Holy Cow… How do you come up with this?

What were the traditions of Jesus? and How did they changed the Traditions of Jesus? and What were these specific Traditions?

Cultural Forces… Examples please.

 

[PRmerger]

All of the recent posts depart from the theme of the thread. Has the Bible changed from its original?

Tangential issues that were mentioned in passing have no place in this thread. You may object to my positions on these separate issues, but they have absolutely nothing to do with the title of this thread.

The facts support the conclusion that the Bible has changed from its original.

Of course these tangential issues have every right to be mentioned in this thread.

That’s why it’s called a thread.

And a forum.

If you wanted something without further discussion, I suggest you post your question on a site like, “ChaCha.com”.

In case you’ve forgotten, this is a Forum.

 

[nmgauss]

How do all the issues brought up in the last few posts have anything to do with whether the Bible has changed from the original?

Catholicism does not focus on the Bible; so why bring up issues that have nothing to do with whether the Bible changed? The Bible is only the starting point. After the Bible comes all the councils and writings of the Saints that have been influenced Catholicism over the centuries.

So has Catholicism changed? Yes, otherwise all the councils were a waste of time. Also, the writings of famous Catholic theologians since the time of St. John and St. Paul are meaningless.

Any discussion of issues other than those pertaining to changes in the Bible are a waste of time in this thread.

 

[PRmerger]

How do all the issues brought up in the last few posts have anything to do with whether the Bible has changed from the original?

It discusses the implications of your assertion.

So, if you started a thread that said, “This rock proves the earth is older than 10,000 years old!”

the discussion would address that and then the implications of Catholicism and science and evolution, and of reading the Bible literally, and of how the Church is the champion of science and how it is because of the Church that we have the university system, and how we can thank the Church for the progress of western civilization…

and *that’s *how threads here work.

Because it’s a forum.

For discussion.

Otherwise, post your questions on Chacha.com and be done with it.

 

[KathleenGee]

People are people. You meet someone who you think is most worthy of your admiration, but you keep your eyes on that one person, in time you will begin to see his failings…and his sins.

We as Catholics who persevere, constantly work at keeping our eyes on God – that is provided us through the Church through Word, Sacrament, and communion of faith.

People’s use of words change…How many times has great literature’s English from the 1800’s been changed to help modern readers understand the author’s intent? Many times. I heard one book from Jane Austin has been changed 2000 times.

What is important to know is that our faith revolves around God, not around people.

Protestantism revolves around man’s opinion minus Our Lord and the apostles who were His chosen witnesses.

It is Martin Luther who no longer believed in the Holy Spirit transmitting the faith down through the apostolic succession. He looked too much to those who fell into clericalism. Luther is the one who branded the pope as the anti Christ. But read the documents of the popes down through the ages and they all point to Jesus Christ.

So many countless Catholic believers encountered the love Christ has had for them in the Catholic Church before Luther. Those who fell away in Germany and England were likewise caught up in nationalistic movements.

Luther grew up in a home with very disciplining parents. And if you read about his behaviors by documents that were not expunged by his followers, he spoke in a very base way. That makes me wonder if he was a handful as a child as well. In his own conversion process, he became a very scrupulous person and did not think God loved him…Isn’t that a reflection more of his home life than the Church???

He went about to create a Christianity of his own that would help him experience the love of God. And he would speak of how God loved him in spite of his own sinfulness. We know God loves us.

But to develop a form of Christianity that helped Luther with his scrupulosity, in 1522 Luther committed anathema by messing with Scripture and adding the word ‘alone’ to follow the word ‘faith’ in Romans 3:23…

The problem with translations is that changing one word can create a new meaning…and this new meaning was so severe, that in time it completely tore up the sacred unity of universal Christianity.

The issue is not about varying intellectual translations.

The issue we have as Catholics is the issue of true faith.

There is nothing in Sacred Scripture that points to faith alone. The ancient Jews did not practice faith alone and in the development of their faith based culture, it is full of the Mosaic Law.

What is important to know is that we need Our Lord to teach and guide us. We could not create the 10 commandments for ourselves. Confucius came as far as defining how we are to be towards our neighbor, but he did not have divine revelation as to Who is God and what is His nature and what is His relationship to us.

So what we Catholics approach our faith the same as the Jewish believers, our faith a gathering of people centered around God, and that we listen to those who have God’s authority who then in turn authored Sacred Scripture rather than finding God in reflecting on text of itself.

The great error of Protestantism, looking at Scripture through their own personal interpretation and this led to a number of translations of Scripture that projected Protestant grievances, biases, and misperceptions of the Catholic Church.

To the Catholic our faith is in the Living God, the Living Word which is none other than Jesus Christ Himself.

One must ask one’s self when reading Scripture…Am I making Scripture say something I want it to say, or am I dying to my own way of looking at things, putting on the mind of Christ, and asking His help in understanding His Word?

Finally, as was the case with the apostles, even up to Our Lord’s Resurrection, it is the Eucharist that enables us to understand Sacred Scripture according to the Lord.

The Bible is the summation of Jesus Christ, the Alpha and the Omega.

 

[Irishgal49]

A friend who is Sheikh says the bible has been corrupted and changed over time can some people offer proof it hasn’t I am going to share this link with him

Thanks

Does the Sheikh want to change their faith? If they don’t it’s a waste of time.

 

[nmgauss]

I assume the Sheikh is Muslim and has the original Arabic editions of the Koran. If somebody asserts that the Arabic Koran has changed from the original, at least we have modern editions to compare it with. Supposedly it was written by only one person.

That sort of comparison is not possible with the Bible, it was written at various times by various authors using various languages and nobody is quite sure what the original is. So, has the Bible changed from the original? Since there is no original, the best we can say is that various editions throughout the centuries are different so that what we are using today is not the same as that used 1800 years ago.

 

[PRmerger]

I assume the Sheikh is Muslim and has the original Arabic editions of the Koran. If somebody asserts that the Arabic Koran has changed from the original, at least we have modern editions to compare it with. Supposedly it was written by only one person.

That sort of comparison is not possible with the Bible, it was written at various times by various authors using various languages and nobody is quite sure what the original is. So, has the Bible changed from the original? Since there is no original, the best we can say is that various editions throughout the centuries are different so that what we are using today is not the same as that used 1800 years ago.

And since Islam is a religion of the book, if someone asserted that the Koran had changed from the original that would indeed affect their theology greatly.

Catholicism, however, does not get its teachings from a book, no matter how holy.

We are not a religion of the book.