Who put together the original bible?

[Ailina]

Was it the Catholic Church? Or just a group of Christians outside of the Catholic Church or before the Catholic Church? If it was the Catholic Church that pulled the Bible together, then don’t all bible-based Christians actually refer to the Catholic based Bible when adhering to their scriptures?

 

[passus]

Was it the Catholic Church? Or just a group of Christians outside of the Catholic Church or before the Catholic Church?

It was the Catholic Church who wrote the first official canon.

If it was the Catholic Church that pulled the Bible together, then don’t all bible-based Christians actually refer to the Catholic based Bible when adhering to their scriptures?

Yes, it’s ironic isn’t it?

 

[GeorgeSword]

Was it the Catholic Church? Or just a group of Christians outside of the Catholic Church or before the Catholic Church? If it was the Catholic Church that pulled the Bible together, then don’t all bible-based Christians actually refer to the Catholic based Bible when adhering to their scriptures?

There were no Christians before the Catholic Church. Afterall, it was Jesus Himself who started it.

 

[DOShea]

Ailina,

There was a Bible then, and many Bibles now. It may be helpful to clarify so we are talking about the same thing.

It was, as passus points out, the Catholic Church who formalized the canon (the list of books), and that canon included books from the Hebrew Scriptures which we call the Old Testament as well as writings after the period of Jesus’ life on Earth - the New Testament. Many biblical skeptics try to present these events as a sudden burst of events, almost like a lottery drawing, where on one day a group sat in front of a pile of books/writings and took a vote. Worse, some try to claim this process was corrupt to the point of doctoring the texts at this point to “add” aspects of Divinity to Christ’s ministry as a way to add credibility to the claim He was the Son of God when he actually was just some sort of highly “attuned” run-of-the-mill human.

Don’t believe that; it’s demonstrably false.

There were no copy machines then, but writings were copied and shared among the various churches all over the middle east and eastern Europe. Scholars can date when a text was written (approximately) but have greater difficulty p(name removed by moderator)ointing how far these texts actually spread and when. I don’t mean the evidence is scarce, what I mean is they may be able to show a particular church had Mark’s gospel but can’t show it had Luke’s gospel at or near the same time. But the writings of the Apostles were in use by the early church, perhaps not all gospels at the same time. The scholars seem in consensus that Paul’s letters were circulated as a collection (not necessarily every single one of them) by about 100 AD. The Moratorium Fragment tells us that there was a collection of books similar to what we think of as a New Testament some time around the year 200 because it includes arguments against objections made to their content.

So we know there were writings and there was some back and forth between the early Fathers about them. This is fully two centuries before the Bible canon was officially defined.

As it turned out, and as one might expect would happen, each church had a different collection of writings. It’s not as though they had good ones and bad ones, but each one they did have was useful in some way, though not necessarily as a direct testimony to Christ’s ministry. Some texts were simply ecclesiastical, meaning they were useful in teaching about the faith or the practice of the faith, but they were not, themselves, what we would consider “scriptural.” Think of a Bible commentary for example… useful, good teaching, but not Scripture.

Over centuries these various writings were shared, read, and commented upon by the various early church Fathers, and there was discussion about the veracity and usefulness of one text as opposed to another. Origen of Alexandria was the first one to propose a canon in a writing of his around 240 AD, and it is fairly close to what we ended up with. His differed from the official canon by including the Shepard of Hermas, and didn’t include James, 2nd Peter, and 2nd and 3rd John.

Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, wrote an Easter letter in the year 367 and in the letter lists the exact set of books that would become the New Testament. He describes them as “being canonized.” 26 years later, in 393, the Synod of Hippo approved the canon of Scripture containing the New Testament books as we have them today, and adopted the Septuagint version of the Old Testament books. This Synod was not discussing books for the first time in a random selection, but was ironing out the fine points of the earlier discussions on what should be in the canon. Most books were in use and were readily accepted, so the focus was on the books that were questionable in some people’s minds. It was a consolidation, not a an invention as is sometimes claimed.

The Septuagint was a Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures made around the year 200 BC. Septuagint means “seventy,” and it gets its name from the seventy rabbis (some say 72) who did the first translation attempt. The translation was requested by the rabbis who lived apart from Jerusalem in Alexandria. There the everyday language was Greek as opposed to in Jerusalem where it was Aramaic, very close to Hebrew. As the generations passed, it was increasingly difficult for Jews in the diaspora (areas apart from Jerusalem) to read the Scriptures easily.

The Jerusalem rabbis provisionally approved a translation of only the Torah, the first 5 books of the OT, and assigned 70 rabbis to translate them into Greek. The story goes that when the translations were compared, there were NO differences as would be expected, thus indicating to them the hand of God was behind it. That translation was called the Septuaginta, and the full translation of all the books was the Septuagint.
As time passed, other writings not in the Hebrew texts were added to the Septuagint, and these texts are called deuterocanonical books, or Apochrapha. It is these books that make the difference between a Catholic and a Protestant Bible, as Protestant Bibles are based on the Jerusalem OT text where these texts are considered not part of Hebrew Scripture. Some Protestant Bibles (like the original King James) includes them, but as a supplemental, not Scriptural text.

Today there are many other translations and translating methods used that don’t alter the number of books but can change the words of the text. Some try to use a word-by-word sort of reconing, others use a phrase at a time, yet others a combination of both. So today you have to consider what Bible one is referring to before you can point to a Catholic origin for it. Also consider there are some very radical translations out there, usually associated with people who try to distort the meaning of Scripture to suit their politics or their pet beliefs.

Hope that helps

 

[Randy_Carson]

Was it the Catholic Church?

Yes.

Or just a group of Christians outside of the Catholic Church or before the Catholic Church?

No.

If it was the Catholic Church that pulled the Bible together, then don’t all bible-based Christians actually refer to the Catholic-based Bible when adhering to their scriptures?

Yes. At least for the New Testament. They have modified they OT to fit their theology.

The following might be helpful:

WHERE WE GOT THE BIBLE: OUR DEBT TO THE CATHOLIC CHURCH
By Rev. Henry G. Graham
catholicapologetics.info/apologetics/protestantism/wbible.htm

 

[mackbrislawn]

If it was the Catholic Church that pulled the Bible together, then don’t all bible-based Christians actually refer to the Catholic based Bible when adhering to their scriptures?

That’s right! They do refer to the Catholic based Bible. That’s the irony of the whole thing. All Protestants get their belief in the Bible from the Catholic Church. But then they turn around and declare the Catholic Church to be apostate and the Whore of Babylon!

Does that make any sense to you? How can the Bible be a true book if it comes from apostates and whores?

“Bible-based” Christians think they can take the holy book of a false religion (Catholicism) and from that book construct the true religion! It’s like trying to construct the true religion from an English translation of the Koran! No one would dream of doing that, but that’s the same as what “Bible-based” Christians attempt to do.

 

[royal_archer]

That’s right! They do refer to the Catholic based Bible. That’s the irony of the whole thing. All Protestants get their belief in the Bible from the Catholic Church. But then they turn around and declare the Catholic Church to be apostate and the Whore of Babylon!

Does that make any sense to you? How can the Bible be a true book if it comes from apostates and whores?

“Bible-based” Christians think they can take the holy book of a false religion (Catholicism) and from that book construct the true religion! It’s like trying to construct the true religion from an English translation of the Koran! No one would dream of doing that, but that’s the same as what “Bible-based” Christians attempt to do.

Didn’t luther alter the bible?

Is there a good reference for the changes that Luther made to the bible?

 

[royal_archer]

On the Catholic Answers Live radio show they frequently refer to the original text in Greek or hebrew. In doing so they highlight alternate English interpretations to the original words that bring additional clarification to the orriginal meaning. (for instance they said the orriginal word used for hand was “x” which actually meant everything from the fingers to the elbow, or something like that.} Is there an way to get an authentic reprint of the original cannonized bible that is readable (regular letters, not squiggly arabic looking lines) that I could use to cross reference my regular bible against to research the orriginal wording?

I assume that I could find the same chapter and verse and then start looking up the words in the original text in a Greek to English dictionary.

Is this as easy as it seems on the surface?

If so, how could I find and buy the orriginal text?

If not, what are some other options?

 

[phoage]

On the Catholic Answers Live radio show they frequently refer to the original text in Greek or hebrew. In doing so they highlight alternate English interpretations to the original words that bring additional clarification to the orriginal meaning. (for instance they said the orriginal word used for hand was “x” which actually meant everything from the fingers to the elbow, or something like that.} Is there an way to get an authentic reprint of the original cannonized bible that is readable (regular letters, not squiggly arabic looking lines) that I could use to cross reference my regular bible against to research the orriginal wording?

I assume that I could find the same chapter and verse and then start looking up the words in the original text in a Greek to English dictionary.

Is this as easy as it seems on the surface?

If so, how could I find and buy the orriginal text?

If not, what are some other options?

My pastor has a Greek new testiment. Unfortunately, it is in Greek alphabet (imagine that). I am sure you could find the old testiment in Arimaic, but again, there is the alphabet issue. You cannot easily get away from the aphabet issue as the sounds they letters represent do not always have a Roman alphabet equivilant.

Translation from one language to another is not as easy as looking up words in in an Engish-Whatever dictionary however. Languages change over the years and words take on new meanings. Also, when going from one language to another, some times direct literal translations do not mean the same thing in the second language. Finally, some words change meaning based on context.

The way arounf\d this is to learn the language well enough to think and even dream in it. That can take years. You are speaking about three languages only one of which is a dead language. (Dead languages are easier to translate as they have not changed over the past 2 millenium).

It is a thorny problem. From what I have seen however, most moderen Bible scholars have a pretty fair agreement on thranslation. The differences arise in interpretation. I know this is not an answer that is very palatable, but I hope it outlines some of the difficulties that must be overcome doing personal reading of original documents

 

[dnar]

The Bible fell from Heaven in the official 1611 Authorized King James Version back in the year 300. It landed on the shelves of Wal-Mart. All the local Southern Baptists ran down to the store to purchase their latest copy…and thats how it came to be.

 

[mackbrislawn]

On the Catholic Answers Live radio show they frequently refer to the original text in Greek or hebrew. In doing so they highlight alternate English interpretations to the original words that bring additional clarification to the orriginal meaning. (for instance they said the orriginal word used for hand was “x” which actually meant everything from the fingers to the elbow, or something like that.} Is there an way to get an authentic reprint of the original cannonized bible that is readable (regular letters, not squiggly arabic looking lines) that I could use to cross reference my regular bible against to research the orriginal wording?

I assume that I could find the same chapter and verse and then start looking up the words in the original text in a Greek to English dictionary.

Is this as easy as it seems on the surface?

If so, how could I find and buy the orriginal text?

If not, what are some other options?

You’re looking for a “Greek interlinear”, which has the Greek words with the English equivalents underneath.

Of course the original Greek texts no longer exist, just copies of copies, so what the very original Greek was, we don’t have. It’s the job of textual critics to determine what the original Greek said, since every Greek manuscript we have differs from all the others in some way–copy errors, words left out, spelling, but sometimes whole verses. So, in some cases it is uncertain whether they belong in the inspired scripture or not.

 

[royal_archer]

You’re looking for a “Greek interlinear”, which has the Greek words with the English equivalents underneath.

Of course the original Greek texts no longer exist, just copies of copies, so what the very original Greek was, we don’t have. It’s the job of textual critics to determine what the original Greek said, since every Greek manuscript we have differs from all the others in some way–copy errors, words left out, spelling, but sometimes whole verses. So, in some cases it is uncertain whether they belong in the inspired scripture or not.

Has it altered that much since the books were cannonized? I figured they would have cracked down on configuation control at that point even if it was a bit haphazzard prior to that.

 

[mackbrislawn]

Has it altered that much since the books were cannonized? I figured they would have cracked down on configuation control at that point even if it was a bit haphazzard prior to that.

I would imagine that most of the differences among the Greek manuscripts came in to being in the early centuries, before widespread recognition of which books should be regarded as canonical.* (Bishop Athanasius of Alexandria in the 4th century provided the first list, in a letter to his diocese, with the 27 books we now accept as canonical, and only the 27 books, as suitable for use in the churches.)Of course only the original, autograph manuscripts are regarded as inspired, or “canonical,” not the copies.* Since no one knows what the autograph manuscripts looked like, the Church can’t attest to any particular existing manuscript variant as being exact.* Since prior to printing, all scriptures had to be produced laboriously by hand, by tired copyists working in bad light, you can see how mistakes could be made.* An error made by a copyist would then be propagated by subsequent copyists.Quality control during the early period of manuscript production would have been very poor among Christians, as compared to the Jews. The Jews used devices such as counting letters, words, etc, to ensure the accuracy of the new copies they made of their Hebrew manuscripts. They had trained, educated Scribes to do this. ** Constrast this to the Christians.* They were mostly illiterate, so had to depend on whomever was available that knew how to write, to be able to make a copy of one of Paul’s letters to give to another congregation.* Writing was a skill, and even if you as a Christian knew how to read, that didn’t mean you could write, since it took time to develop that skill.* So, the production of early Christian scripture copies was most likely hurried, ad hoc, and done under less than ideal conditions…In later centuries, quality control would have been better, since the Church could use trained monks for scripture copying.

This refers to the production of copies of Greek manuscripts, not translations.* The Church could, and did, attempt configuration control there.* Because translations made from the Greek into other languages could be biased, marginal notes added by the translator could be biased, all reflecting particular theological points of view
.It’s interesting to point out a couple of more or less major differences in the Greek manuscripts:* some of the earliest manuscripts do not contain the gospel story about the woman taken in adultery.* Is this story spurious?* Was it added by a later copyist?* Should this story be regarded as canonical or not?Then there is the problem of the ending for the gospel of Mark, the short ending and the long ending.* Some early manuscripts do not have the long ending.* Was it added later by a copyist who didn’t like the abrupt end of Mark’s gospel, and so took it upon himself to tell more of the story?
So, it is good to realize that the bibles we read today are translated from Greek manuscripts that scholars have created, based upon what they think is the best reconstruction of how the inspired author originally wrote them.* *

 

[jblake]

royal archer;:

Didn’t luther alter the bible?

Yes, and no.
He rearranged the order of books in the New Testament.
He also threw out one of the books that had been part of the New Testament.

jonathon

 

[GeorgeSword]

Yes, and no.
He rearranged the order of books in the New Testament.
He also threw out one of the books that had been part of the New Testament.

jonathon

Actually, I think you mean the Old Testament. But what right did Luther have to altar Scripture that had always been accepted from the very earliest days of the Church? None at all.

 

[jblake]

royal archer;:

Is there an way to get an authentic reprint of the original cannonized bible that is readable (regular letters, not squiggly arabic looking lines) that I could use to cross reference my regular bible against to research the original wording?

Those squiggly letters are the words in the usual writing system of the specific language. Whilst one can find texts transliterated into the Latin writing system, my belief is that using transliterations cripples one. (For starters, you don’t know what the original word looked like in the original writing system. Secondly, transliterations usually throw away data points that point to the etymology of the word.)

I assume that I could find the same chapter and verse and then start looking up the words in the original text in a Greek to English dictionary.

If you want to follow that course of Bible Study, I’d suggest the following:

Download e-Sword from e-sword.net/
Then download the following Bibles from there:

• KJVA;
• Douay Rheims Bible;
• Greek NT (Majority Text)
• Greek NT (Stephanus Receptus)
• Greek NT (Robinson Piermont Byzantine)
• Greek NT Westcott-Hort
• Greek NT with Variants;
• Hebrew NT;
• Hebrew OT (TaNaKh);
• Hebrew OT (TaNaKh with Strongs);
• Greek Old Testament (LXX);
• Latin Vulgate;

Then download the following dictionaries:

• Brown-Driver-Briggs’ Hebrew Definitions;
• Robinson Morphological Analysis Codes;
• Thayer’s Greek Defintions;
• Noah Webster’s Dictionary of the English Language;
• ISBE;
• King James Concordance;
• King James Dictionary;
• Nave’s Topical Bible;

From Commentaries download:

• Geneva Bible Translation Notes;
• Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

From Extras download:

• Ante-Nicene Fathers;
• Wars of the Jews;
• Antiquities of the Jews;

Then go to forananswer.org/Top_General/E-Sword_Modules.htm and download all of the resources listed there:

Then go to esnips.com/web/CatholicApolegetics and download everything listed there.
Then go to esnips.com/web/CatholicEsword and download everything listed there.

You’ll now have a fairly good collection of Catholic resources, and Biblical Language resources. With them, you will be able to do the type of cross reference Bible study that you are asking about, from a Catholic frame of reference.

Is this as easy as it seems on the surface?

Sort of. The catch is that you have to be able to fluently read the language. Dictionaries can only take one so far.
(Well, other than in Chinese, where a candidate for a PhD in the Chinese language expects to have at least a dozen dictionaries, so they can translate printed Chinese words into Chinese words that they know.)

One downside of e-Sword, is that thus far there are no good resources that enable one to learn to read/speak/write any of the Biblical languages.

If so, how could I find and buy the original text?

Original text? No such thing exists.
Depending upon how one counts, there are between three and ten major textual variants of the New Testament. Also depending upon how one counts, there are between three and five major textual variants of the Old Testament.

That said, you can buy hard copies of each of those variants.
If you insist on hard copy, you will spend a minimum of US$50 for used copies. New copies can cost US$100 and up. I’ve forgotten which Textual Variant hard copy cost US$5,000.00.

Somehow, I suspect that your wallet would rather go with the e-Sword route.

jonathon

 

[GeorgeSword]

If you wish to study Scripture in the light of the teachings of the Church I recommend Biblia Clerus. It can be found at: clerus.org/bibliaclerus/index_eng.html
It features two Bible versions (RSVCE and NAB) along with countless commentaries from the Fathers and saints, as well as Papal encyclicals and other Magisterial writings. You can also add new .txt documents with ease, and after a little bit of practice it’s very easy to use.

 

[royal_archer]

Those squiggly letters are the words in the usual writing system of the specific language. Whilst one can find texts transliterated into the Latin writing system, my belief is that using transliterations cripples one. (For starters, you don’t know what the original word looked like in the original writing system. Secondly, transliterations usually throw away data points that point to the etymology of the word.)

If you want to follow that course of Bible Study, I’d suggest the following:

Download e-Sword from e-sword.net/
Then download the following Bibles from there:

• KJVA;
• Douay Rheims Bible;
• Greek NT (Majority Text)
• Greek NT (Stephanus Receptus)
• Greek NT (Robinson Piermont Byzantine)
• Greek NT Westcott-Hort
• Greek NT with Variants;
• Hebrew NT;
• Hebrew OT (TaNaKh);
• Hebrew OT (TaNaKh with Strongs);
• Greek Old Testament (LXX);
• Latin Vulgate;

Then download the following dictionaries:

• Brown-Driver-Briggs’ Hebrew Definitions;
• Robinson Morphological Analysis Codes;
• Thayer’s Greek Defintions;
• Noah Webster’s Dictionary of the English Language;
• ISBE;
• King James Concordance;
• King James Dictionary;
• Nave’s Topical Bible;

From Commentaries download:

• Geneva Bible Translation Notes;
• Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

From Extras download:

• Ante-Nicene Fathers;
• Wars of the Jews;
• Antiquities of the Jews;

Then go to forananswer.org/Top_General/E-Sword_Modules.htm and download all of the resources listed there:

Then go to esnips.com/web/CatholicApolegetics and download everything listed there.
Then go to esnips.com/web/CatholicEsword and download everything listed there.

You’ll now have a fairly good collection of Catholic resources, and Biblical Language resources. With them, you will be able to do the type of cross reference Bible study that you are asking about, from a Catholic frame of reference.

Sort of. The catch is that you have to be able to fluently read the language. Dictionaries can only take one so far.
(Well, other than in Chinese, where a candidate for a PhD in the Chinese language expects to have at least a dozen dictionaries, so they can translate printed Chinese words into Chinese words that they know.)

One downside of e-Sword, is that thus far there are no good resources that enable one to learn to read/speak/write any of the Biblical languages.

Original text? No such thing exists.
Depending upon how one counts, there are between three and ten major textual variants of the New Testament. Also depending upon how one counts, there are between three and five major textual variants of the Old Testament.

That said, you can buy hard copies of each of those variants.
If you insist on hard copy, you will spend a minimum of US$50 for used copies. New copies can cost US$100 and up. I’ve forgotten which Textual Variant hard copy cost US$5,000.00.

Somehow, I suspect that your wallet would rather go with the e-Sword route.

jonathon

Thanks, that is a lot more complicated than it sounded on the radio.

 

[royal_archer]

If you wish to study Scripture in the light of the teachings of the Church I recommend Biblia Clerus. It can be found at: clerus.org/bibliaclerus/index_eng.html
It features two Bible versions (RSVCE and NAB) along with countless commentaries from the Fathers and saints, as well as Papal encyclicals and other Magisterial writings. You can also add new .txt documents with ease, and after a little bit of practice it’s very easy to use.

thank you for the reference.