R
RobertoG
Guest
Let me say at the start, that I’m a catholic, and am 99.9999% sure will die as catholic.
Also, I obviously understand and respect the church leading us into truth. I’m not trying to attack our faith, or our chuch, but rather I’m just trying to understand our faith in deeper way, and since our church is the true church set by our Lord, there must be an answer to it, and some logical at that, that through which I will be able to put my mind at ease.
Ok, lets go to the trouble I have. Only recently (believe it or not), I found out that the source of the bible we have, is not a singular source. Not only that, the sources have differences between them. Thus far, what I understood by inerrancy was that we have a 1 source of the bible that the church sealed, that he got from many, many different sources/manuscripts and that source (the collection of text, that in total compiled of the bible of today) is inerrant.
I understood that the church admits to approximations of numbers, to textual variants, but I always took those variants as variants in TRANSLATIONS. Like for example, in hebrew, or greek it could be said some word, that there is no direct translation in other language, and so one bible translation might solve that problem with one word, and other time the group of scholars might think the other word would be more suitable.
However, that is not the case. There is not only many, many different manuscripts, and sources, but those manuscripts/sources have differences within them.
Now, my trouble with it, is how can we be sure which version of say a passage is correct, if there are maybe 10-15 versions of the same passage. Obviously only one is correct and trully the one genuine copy of the original passage. So with that, if we accept that there are different variations, and we get one variation in one bible edition, while we might get other one in the next edition of the bible, well doesn’t it show a problem, of how can we even trust that we have a genuine passage among all variations we have in different sources? Maybe all of them got the wrong version, and the genuine is not there anymore?
Now I know that the catholic church sealed the cannon, but correct me if I’m wrong, she didn’t actually named the manuscripts, or books versions, that are genuine, but she only gave kinda list of contents. So named only the books, didn’t actually say which version is correct. Is that true statement?
If so, how can we put our mind to it, taking into account all those different sources (and from what I looked up, it seems some codexes are more favoured nowadays, than the ones used before, so the bible seems to “evolve” - how can that be?), and connecting it with inerrancy of the scripture, which means that there is no single error in scriptures, whether it’s historic error, scientific error, you name it. And also, how can we answer the question of preservation in the context of all those sources.
Now, to finish up, what I WOULD IMAGINE, was that the church first got the list of contents, and then selected or combined a book from different sources, and THEN acknoledged this book (source for other translations) as inspired. Then got all other books, so 27 in new testament, and 46 in old testament, and sealed it as the whole and final cannon. And being that the church is lead by the Holy Ghost, so it couldn’t err in such a thing, my mind would be at rest, knowing that there is only one source, and I would be 100% confident it’s the right one, innerant word of God. Why? Because out of many coppies, the church would be able to select the right one only with the help of allknowing God, who would know which one is a 100% genuine version, not a copy which is say 99.99% right, but wrong in 0.01%.
I would appriciate some answer from someone who studdied this topic in great depths.
Also, I obviously understand and respect the church leading us into truth. I’m not trying to attack our faith, or our chuch, but rather I’m just trying to understand our faith in deeper way, and since our church is the true church set by our Lord, there must be an answer to it, and some logical at that, that through which I will be able to put my mind at ease.
Ok, lets go to the trouble I have. Only recently (believe it or not), I found out that the source of the bible we have, is not a singular source. Not only that, the sources have differences between them. Thus far, what I understood by inerrancy was that we have a 1 source of the bible that the church sealed, that he got from many, many different sources/manuscripts and that source (the collection of text, that in total compiled of the bible of today) is inerrant.
I understood that the church admits to approximations of numbers, to textual variants, but I always took those variants as variants in TRANSLATIONS. Like for example, in hebrew, or greek it could be said some word, that there is no direct translation in other language, and so one bible translation might solve that problem with one word, and other time the group of scholars might think the other word would be more suitable.
However, that is not the case. There is not only many, many different manuscripts, and sources, but those manuscripts/sources have differences within them.
Now, my trouble with it, is how can we be sure which version of say a passage is correct, if there are maybe 10-15 versions of the same passage. Obviously only one is correct and trully the one genuine copy of the original passage. So with that, if we accept that there are different variations, and we get one variation in one bible edition, while we might get other one in the next edition of the bible, well doesn’t it show a problem, of how can we even trust that we have a genuine passage among all variations we have in different sources? Maybe all of them got the wrong version, and the genuine is not there anymore?
Now I know that the catholic church sealed the cannon, but correct me if I’m wrong, she didn’t actually named the manuscripts, or books versions, that are genuine, but she only gave kinda list of contents. So named only the books, didn’t actually say which version is correct. Is that true statement?
If so, how can we put our mind to it, taking into account all those different sources (and from what I looked up, it seems some codexes are more favoured nowadays, than the ones used before, so the bible seems to “evolve” - how can that be?), and connecting it with inerrancy of the scripture, which means that there is no single error in scriptures, whether it’s historic error, scientific error, you name it. And also, how can we answer the question of preservation in the context of all those sources.
Now, to finish up, what I WOULD IMAGINE, was that the church first got the list of contents, and then selected or combined a book from different sources, and THEN acknoledged this book (source for other translations) as inspired. Then got all other books, so 27 in new testament, and 46 in old testament, and sealed it as the whole and final cannon. And being that the church is lead by the Holy Ghost, so it couldn’t err in such a thing, my mind would be at rest, knowing that there is only one source, and I would be 100% confident it’s the right one, innerant word of God. Why? Because out of many coppies, the church would be able to select the right one only with the help of allknowing God, who would know which one is a 100% genuine version, not a copy which is say 99.99% right, but wrong in 0.01%.
I would appriciate some answer from someone who studdied this topic in great depths.