Aj,
I think your thread is a very good one because it brings up a real misconception many of us have. My reply right now is going to be very general because I just donot have all the facts with me.
No there is no “Original” copy of the scriptures, we only have copies of copies etc. Also, I think there are some who donot realize that first, the scriptures were not written in English (aka KJV). Nor was the New Testament written in Latin.(the Vulgate is a translation as well).
I don’t think there is too much trouble for most people to accept that the OT was originally written in Hebrew (although this brings up the question of deutrocanonical/apotrythal books).
Also, not all of the oldest works of the Scriptures are in or controled by the Vatican. And even if they were many of these work a just plainly difficult to translate, because of the type of Greek and Hebew in which they were written in (example - in the hebrew scriptures there are no vowels. Which vowels go where often depends on the particular school or rabinnical tradition is doing the translation).
I would like to offer the work of Jaroslov Pelikan’s work, “Whose Bible IS IT?” as a interesting source to better explain this. By the way, not to give away the ending, but he does say the Bible is God’s.
Again, thank you for offering this important thread and I am looking foreward to reading the many post I am sure will follow.
