Is the Bible corrupted?

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rouselweis

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Ok, one last question.

I asked my Muslim friend about his opinion of the Bible. He said that the Bible was corrupted. As evidence, he states that 1 John 5:7-8 was proven by a scholarly board from Christians of 50 different denominations to be a fabrication (this is seen as the Revised Standard Version the New Revised Standard Version, the New American Standard Bible, the New English Bible, the Phillips Modern English Bible took out the verse). He also states that Sir Isaac Newton wrote a book entitled A Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture proving that it was a fabrication.

My questions are
  1. Does the Bible contain any corruptions that would alter the message of Christ?
  2. Is 1 John 5: 7-8 a fabrication (probably created during the Church’s confrontation of Arianism to promote the trinity)?
  3. Are there any refutations to these claims (Newton’s claim, the claim from the board of 50 scholars)?
Sorry for the huge series of questions, but I feel this to be a very important topic.
 
rouselweis said:
Ok, one last question.

I asked my Muslim friend about his opinion of the Bible. He said that the Bible was corrupted. As evidence, he states that 1 John 5:7-8 was proven by a scholarly board from Christians of 50 different denominations to be a fabrication (this is seen as the Revised Standard Version the New Revised Standard Version, the New American Standard Bible, the New English Bible, the Phillips Modern English Bible took out the verse). He also states that Sir Isaac Newton wrote a book entitled A Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture proving that it was a fabrication.

My questions are
  1. Does the Bible contain any corruptions that would alter the message of Christ?
  2. Is 1 John 5: 7-8 a fabrication (probably created during the Church’s confrontation of Arianism to promote the trinity)?
  3. Are there any refutations to these claims (Newton’s claim, the claim from the board of 50 scholars)?
Sorry for the huge series of questions, but I feel this to be a very important topic.
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I would ask who these “Scholarly Board of Christians” are/were and what are their credentials which would lead me to believe anything that they have to say. I would also like to know what evidence that they have that “proves” that the 1 John was tampered with as well as any other portion of the bible.

One can claim a great many things, but not necessarily be able to prove anything.
 
Never believe anything you hear regarding any element of YOUR faith, from a Muslim.
 
No, the Bible is not corrupted. It is inerrant, since it was written by inspiration of the Holy Spirit. God cannot lie.
 
The text we have today in almost certainly corrupt. Our oldest copies of the New Testament writings do not completely agree with each other. However, most of these differences are minor.

As to 1 John 5:7-8 you should do some research on “Comma Johanneum.” It is not an easy issue, but the best short answer is that it the clause is not in the oldest copies we have of the letter. Newton did write a book about it making the argument that it was a corruption. And I don’t think anyone knows the origin of the corruption, but part of the evidence that it is a corruption is that early Church Fathers that confronted Arianism did not quote the comma.
 
I just checked and the comma is not in the Nova Vulgata or New American Bible. It is in the Douay-Rheims Bible.

I believe these are the three Bibles most used by American Catholics.
 
rouselweis said:
Ok, one last question.

I asked my Muslim friend about his opinion of the Bible. He said that the Bible was corrupted. As evidence, he states that 1 John 5:7-8 was proven by a scholarly board from Christians of 50 different denominations to be a fabrication (this is seen as the Revised Standard Version the New Revised Standard Version, the New American Standard Bible, the New English Bible, the Phillips Modern English Bible took out the verse). He also states that Sir Isaac Newton wrote a book entitled A Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture proving that it was a fabrication.

My questions are
  1. Does the Bible contain any corruptions that would alter the message of Christ?
  2. Is 1 John 5: 7-8 a fabrication (probably created during the Church’s confrontation of Arianism to promote the trinity)?
  3. Are there any refutations to these claims (Newton’s claim, the claim from the board of 50 scholars)?
Sorry for the huge series of questions, but I feel this to be a very important topic.
Click to expand...
No, it is not.

Islam has a corrupt view of Christ because scholars have determined that Mohammed’s exposure to Christianity came through Gnostic heretics.

And we must believe whatever scholars say, must we not?
 
lak611 said:
No, the Bible is not corrupted. It is inerrant, since it was written by inspiration of the Holy Spirit. God cannot lie.
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The difference between the bible and the qu’ran is that the bible was penned by 60+ different writers over the course of some 2,000+ years, and it is entirely congruent and without error.

The qu-ran was written after the fantasy of only one person.
 
The Bible itself is not corrupted.
But it can be corrupted by the people , who use this book in the form of the idol.
The people who do not consider cultural , historical context of the Scriptures.
The literalists who worship the letters and certain words of the Bible and the ones who build the new ‘’ theological buidings’’ and new doctrines by their schismatic discoveries in theology ; those people definitely corrupt the Bible .
 
Athanasiy said:
The Bible itself is not corrupted.
But it can be corrupted by the people , who use this book in the form of the idol.
The people who do not consider cultural , historical context of the Scriptures.
The literalists who worship the letters and certain words of the Bible and the ones who build the new ‘’ theological buidings’’ and new doctrines by their schismatic discoveries in theology ; those people definitely corrupt the Bible .
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In the context of a text corrupted means that it “contain errors or alterations, as a text.” See the American Heritage Dictionary. Any copy of the Bible we today is going to be corrupt. See my post above.
 
Ammonius_Saccus said:
In the context of a text corrupted means that it “contain errors or alterations, as a text.” See the American Heritage Dictionary. Any copy of the Bible we today is going to be corrupt. See my post above.
Click to expand...

To this I agree. The original text was written infallibly, but since we no longer possess any original manuscripts, any copies, and subsequent translations are bound to have corruptions of intent, even if nothing more than effects being lost in translation.
 
And that is yet another reason that Christ gave us a Church with authority to interpret Scripture and teachings. . .not just for the ‘pre written Bible’ period, but for afterward. If there are ‘errors’ which have crept in, the Church can protect us by definitively pronouncing under the guidance of the Holy Spirit the TRUTH (we’ve all heard of the various copies of Bibles with egregious errors like the “Adultery Bible” which printed “thou shalt commit adultery”, and of course, even chapter and verse were never in the ‘original’ Scriptures so there could be changes to the original writing. A good example would be Christ’s words to the good thief, which are rendered now as “Verily I say to you, this day you shall be with me in Paradise” but which could as easily be rendered, “Verily, I say to you this day, you shall be with me in Paradise”. The overall intent --the thief will be in paradise–is the same, but the emphasis could be either “this day you’ll be there” or “I am telling you right now, you’ll be there”. And there is a distinct if subtle difference.) If it were enough to cast doubt on a vital doctrine, the Church could (under the guidance of the Holy Spirit) pronounce definitively on what the ORIGINAL, INERRANT TEXT actually said and meant.
 
Any time one deals with a translated version of anything there is bound to be some “corruption.” I have been told in the past by a Jewish friend that that is why they study Hebrew, so that they can read the Torah, etc. in the original language. My problem with that is unless one is raised from the get go hearing and learning the Hebrew of Biblical times it still leaves one thinking at least partially in another language when reading. Like most other languages even Hebrew changes somewhat over time. I have a son who lives in England and I daresay even contemporary English has some rather interesting twists. To expect any translations of the oldest available manuscripts to be in total agreement is totally unrealistic. I dare say any translations of the Q’ran would suffer the same drawbacks. I would have a hard time believing that even the original text which I presume constitutes the Q’ran with no changes does not read exactly the same to someone fluent in the language. Why else are there scholars to help others to understand what it says, and why are they not in 100 percent agreement all the time?

Every human being who reads or translates filters it all through their past experience. Even those skilled in a language try as they might cannot completely escape this filter. James Fischer who wrote a book called Interpreting the Bible calls this “the resident alien.” Even if a text preserved completely without even minor changes requires an authority to be the last judge as to exactly what it means and being mortal that authority dies. The successors (the Popes) even with the assistance of the Holy Spirit will differ somewhat as to exactly what the preserved original doctrine means for daily living. See for example “outside the church there is no salvation.”
 
Ammonius_Saccus said:
In the context of a text corrupted means that it “contain errors or alterations, as a text.” See the American Heritage Dictionary. Any copy of the Bible we today is going to be corrupt. See my post above.
Click to expand...

The Bible was written by the people who were transfering the Divine message.
The people with their human limitations of their human limited language.
I am sure that even if we are dealing with the arguments against some texts of the Bible , or possible archeological , geographical, linguistic or generaly historical uncertaincies - then we have to be honest to consider them.
But we should put our trust on God’s Church Teaching not on the phrases and grammatical turns of the literalists in order to hear Gods voice or will.
I can hide under the authority of the Church , but I am afraid that to hide under the authority of the book without the Church , I shall be like a hopeless child who is lost in the labirinths of the streets
in the big city.
I mean that Bible without the Church is loosing its core , its important vallue, its context.
Yes , the Church is the Bible’s context.
Atherwise there will be so many strangers who call themselves Jesus , that I shall be lost not knowing who is the real Jesus , and what is his will.
Before I thought that I have to be like many of my friends to know Hebrew , to know ancient Greek, to have a Bible guide-Book , Biblical dictionary,Biblical encyclopedia, to read the comparative interpretations of the Bible Scholars of the different denominations , who dedicated all their livesd to the theology study and have different opinions .
No , I need a Church .
The Church and her teaching makes the Bible unmistakable.
 
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