The Bible

[James D 0]

Hi,I'm not really a religious person, and I've never posted in this section of the forums.But a friend of mine was telling me yesterday that they went to the Natural History Museum in London. This got me thinking about the original Bible.So, I assume the 'original' was written 2,000 years ago, correct? (lol @ my lack of religious knowledge, I know!). So, where was this written? There was no way to print a book as such, so when was the first official copy written? Does it still exist somewhere? Also, the first printed version must have got it's content from somewhere... maybe scrolls? or something? What has happened to them? Is there any actual 'first-hand' Bible material available anywhere? (don't say ebay, lol!)Thanks.

[Loismustdie 0]

Hi,I'm not really a religious person, and I've never posted in this section of the forums.But a friend of mine was telling me yesterday that they went to the Natural History Museum in London. This got me thinking about the original Bible.So, I assume the 'original' was written 2,000 years ago, correct? (lol @ my lack of religious knowledge, I know!). So, where was this written? There was no way to print a book as such, so when was the first official copy written? Does it still exist somewhere? Also, the first printed version must have got it's content from somewhere... maybe scrolls? or something? What has happened to them? Is there any actual 'first-hand' Bible material available anywhere? (don't say ebay, lol!)Thanks.

Collection of books written long ago to make one text. Original transcripts are available, partially, and sparsely, and I am sure that the Vatican has quite a bit under lock and key. Now, use of the word available is wrong, in that you can't just go buy biblical parchments and if you could, these are largely dead languages. Google is your friend on this one.

[NotReady 0]

Also, the first printed version must have got it's content from somewhere... maybe scrolls? or something? What has happened to them?

There's lots of stuff on the net about this. I would also recommend Josh McDowell's Evidence That Demands A Verdict - he has a good summary of how we got the Bible with many references to more scholarly works.Briefly, there's a big difference between the Old and New Testaments. The Old Testament was meticulously copied for hundreds of years BC in accordance with a very long list of detailed rules - when it was determined that the copy was exact, the scroll from which it was copied was destroyed. The reason for this was they knew the old scrolls would eventually deteriorate so they wanted to keep it new.I'm not sure what we have of the copies of the New Testament, though I know we have thousands of copies. We also have thousands of copies of writings of the early church fathers who quote most, if not all, of the New Testament and much of the Old, so that serves as a check.I think you will find that serious scholars, even non-religious ones, don't really question the accuracy of 99% of the Bible. We can be very certain we have what was originally set down.

[HubDub04 0]

I think you will find that serious scholars, even non-religious ones, don't really question the accuracy of 99% of the Bible. We can be very certain we have what was originally set down.

How can anyone be certain of something like that? That's a pretty strong statement considering noone that could make that assumption was around when the events of the bible took place.Have you ever played the game where you get 10 people in a room, the person at one end tells the person next to them a story, then the story gets whispered to the next person until they get to the last person at the other end and he tells the room what he was told? Well it almost never comes out the way the original storyteller told it. Same goes for the Bible.

[NotReady 0]

Same goes for the Bible.

No it doesn't. It's not a good analogy. The correct analogy is if you have one person(God) tell a story to one other person(a Bible author) who then tells 10000 other people(the copyists), and then all 10000 people(copies) agree on what the second person told them. You will have what the 2nd person(Bible author) said so then your only question is whether he's telling the truth about what the first person(God) said.

[Zeatrix 0]

Exactly, and that's where it ultimately fails, since they never got it directly from god, but thought it up in some hallucinogenic state. Can I prove that? Nope, but neither can you that it was the word of god, therefore equally plausible alternatives.

[fighter 4]

Exactly, and that's where it ultimately fails, since they never got it directly from god, but thought it up in some hallucinogenic state. Can I prove that? Nope, but neither can you that it was the word of god, therefore equally plausible alternatives.

Your right but if we use occums razor..... scratch that. how dare you question god :bubble_jk:Although in seriousness of the 50 odd books that make up the bible they couldnt all be on drugs. I mean 50 books written on weed and not ONE good joke. Now that doesnt add up

[KramitDaToad 0]

I think you will find that serious scholars, even non-religious ones, don't really question the accuracy of 99% of the Bible. We can be very certain we have what was originally set down.

Sorry, but that is not even close to the truth. Scholars, both theist and secular, agree that there are a large number of alterations to what we know as todays Bible.Due to unintentional ones like faulty sources for the KJV through to admitted political alterations your claim of accuracy is misguided.The topic is known as 'textual criticism' and if anyone finds it interesting, googling it will bring a host of links on the subject.A good example is the ending of Mark. Everything after Mark 16:8 doesn't appear in the earliest versions. The ending that we have today first appears in Bibles in the 4th century AD.Also, if even if the copies were accurate you have the problems that regarding the accuracy of the 'originals'. For example when looking at Paul's letters. Pauline scholars have long known that the Greek in Paul's letters varies, including in the actual letters themselves, and some of the letters were not from the hand of Paul. This doesn't mean of course that these letters are necessarily inaccurate, however it does mean that any claim that they are definately Paul's words are hopeful at best.

[Zeatrix 0]

Your right but if we use occums razor..... scratch that. how dare you question god :bubble_jk:Although in seriousness of the 50 odd books that make up the bible they couldnt all be on drugs. I mean 50 books written on weed and not ONE good joke. Now that doesnt add up

I never said anything about drugs. My point was that people still today sometimes get "visions" when it is just your mind playing with you.

[fighter 4]

I never said anything about drugs. My point was that people still today sometimes get "visions" when it is just your mind playing with you.

my mistake i see hallucinogenic and i think drugs. one track mind ay.

[NotReady 0]

Sorry, but that is not even close to the truth. Scholars, both theist and secular, agree that there are a large number of alterations to what we know as todays Bible.

There are many small errors, such as spelling a word differently or failing to capitalize a proper noun, etc. These are all copy errors and given the enormous amount of material even the number of these is a small percentage of the entire Bible. Less than 1% would cause any difference in doctrinal teaching at all, and none of them would affect the major doctrines of orthodox Christianity. We know with a very high degree of reliability what was in the original manuscripts - exponentially higher than any other ancient documents.Issues like the authorship of some of the books is a different question and not an important one. We don't know who wrote Hebrews, for instance. It doesn't matter because the content always placed it in the class of "Scripture". The same is true for Paul's letters.

[KramitDaToad 0]

There are many small errors, such as spelling a word differently or failing to capitalize a proper noun, etc. These are all copy errors and given the enormous amount of material even the number of these is a small percentage of the entire Bible.

Complete nonsense. You might want to spend some time doing some research.There are additions of large numbers of verses as in the ending of Mark I've mentioned before as well as ommissions of entire words and sentences with Corinthians being a good example. We are not talking about spelling mistakes and capitalisation problems.

We know with a very high degree of reliability what was in the original manuscripts - exponentially higher than any other ancient documents.

Another fanciful claim. Most of the originals were written on papyrus which doesn't have a very good lifespan. Also you need to look at the circumstances surrounding the early Christians and their texts.Kenyon describes it rather well"If therefore we look back over the earliest generations of Christianity, from the time of our Lord to the date (somewhere about A.D. 325) when Christianity became the accepted religion of the Roman Empire, we see first of all a period of some forty years when the narrative of our Lord's life and teaching circulated orally, in the preaching of His disciples, or in written records which have not come down to us; and when St. Paul was writing his letters to various Christian churches which he and his companions had founded. Then, about the years 65 to 75, we have the composition of what are known as the three Synoptic Gospels, Mark, Luke and Matthew, Mark's being the earliest, and Matthew and Luke using him and also other narratives and collections of sayings. The Book of Acts belongs to the same period, being the second part of Luke's history. Revelation is now generally assigned to the time of the persecution of Domitian, about A.D. 95; and St. John's Gospel also must be late in the century. Then we have a period of rather over two hundred years, when the various books circulated, either singly in separate papyrus rolls or combined into small groups in papyrus codices, with no central control to ensure a uniform text, but rather exposed to indefinite variation at the hands of local scribes, and perhaps assuming a somewhat different character in different parts of the world. During this period also translations were made into Syriac, Latin and Coptic. Meanwhile Christianity was from time to time exposed to persecutions by the Roman Emperors and governors, when copies of the Scriptures were a special object of search and destruction, which increased the difficulty of securing an accurate transmission of the text. Many churches must have been dependent on copies locally made by inexperienced scribes; and though scholars or bishops may from time to time have tried to secure and circulate more correct copies, their efforts would probably have effect only in their own neighbourhood. It is a period of confusion, when people were thinking only of the substance of the Christian teaching, and caring little for the verbal accuracy of the text; and when there were no great libraries, as there were for pagan literature, in which the books could be carefully copied and revised by skilled scholars. It is by realizing the conditions in which Christians lived in these earliest centuries that we can best understand the problems presented to us with regard to the text of the Greek Bible."

[NotReady 0]

There are additions of large numbers of verses as in the ending of Mark

And we know they were added, so what's the problem? And how do those verses make any difference in any doctrinal issues?For a brief description of Bible reliability, see herehttp://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/bibleorg.php"With all of the massive manuscript evidence you would think there would be massive discrepancies - just the opposite is true. New Testament manuscripts agree in 99.5% of the text (compared to only 95% for the Iliad). Most of the discrepancies are in spelling and word order. A few words have been changed or added. There are two passages that are disputed but no discrepancy is of any doctrinal significance (i.e., none would alter basic Christian doctrine). Most Bibles include the options as footnotes when there are discrepancies. How could there be such accuracy over a period of 1,400 years of copying? "There's no need for a big debate on this. The net has tons of information. McDowell's Evidence That Demands A Verdict has a good primer on textual criticism with many references to more scholarly works.Edit: I just did a little of that research you suggested, and in Evidence That Demands A Verdict I found this quote from Kenyon:"The interval then between the date of original composition and the earliest extant evidence becomes so small as to be in fact negligible, and the last foundation for any doubt that the Scriptures have come down to us substantially as they were written has now been removed. Both the authenticity and the general integrity of the books of the New Testament may be regarded as finally established."

[KramitDaToad 0]

We can be very certain we have what was originally set down.

There are additions of large numbers of verses as in the ending of Mark I've mentioned before as well as ommissions of entire words and sentences with Corinthians being a good example.

And we know they were added, so what's the problem?

The Bible was the same as it was originally.But there have been additions and ommisions?Yes.

[Loismustdie 0]

The Bible was the same as it was originally.But there have been additions and ommisions?Yes.

I think the point that the kid was trying to make- and it's a good one- is that compared to other old works of literature the Bible holds up just fine, and doctrine is not affected. The message still gets across, you dig? Of course you don't.

[jmkiser 0]

And, as usual, here comes Lois... flying into this thread telling people how dumb they are and that they couldn't possibly conceive a concept that they don't like.No, Lois, of course Christians are never wrong.Ever.

[solderz 0]

I think you will find that serious scholars, even non-religious ones, don't really question the accuracy of 99% of the Bible. We can be very certain we have what was originally set down.

Seriously. You just said that. Beautiful example of talking out of one's ass.

[11 to 1 0]

Hi,I'm not really a religious person, and I've never posted in this section of the forums.But a friend of mine was telling me yesterday that they went to the Natural History Museum in London. This got me thinking about the original Bible.So, I assume the 'original' was written 2,000 years ago, correct? (lol @ my lack of religious knowledge, I know!). So, where was this written? There was no way to print a book as such, so when was the first official copy written? Does it still exist somewhere? Also, the first printed version must have got it's content from somewhere... maybe scrolls? or something? What has happened to them? Is there any actual 'first-hand' Bible material available anywhere? (don't say ebay, lol!)Thanks.

You are asking a question that take's a book (or several) to answer. To avoid all the mis-information from self-appointed "scholars" on the 'net, if you want real answers, go find:

DeHamel, Christopher,The Book : A History of the Bible, Phaidon Press Inc., N.Y., 2001.

You'll like it, it's just about the history of the actual pages, scrolls, and so forth, and tells you about how much exists from how far back, when it was gathered together as a set and so forth, who translated what and when, first printings and all that. Very readable, lots of great pictures. Scholarly but written for the general public.

[Loismustdie 0]

And, as usual, here comes Lois... flying into this thread telling people how dumb they are and that they couldn't possibly conceive a concept that they don't like.No, Lois, of course Christians are never wrong.Ever.

He is not going to get it, because he doesn't want to. None of this is special- none of this is new- it's the same stuff, rehashed over and over. The kids point was valid- compared to other works of literature the bible holds up just fine, and the message has not been lost. Now in order to know that, you would have to have received the message. I am wrong all of the time. Just not about this stuff. I am sure that there are things you know better than I. This just isn't one of them. So, do what you usually do, piss and moan at the unfairness of it all, that some people believe in something you find ridiculous, that believers are ruining the world, you can't kill and harvest babies, bad things happen and people pray and cry out to God, believers won't accept the idea of evolution as creation,and that is just so wrong, because it has been proven, right? What can they be thinking, how can they just believe in something without seeing it, these christians are so stupid. Now you don't even need to, I did it for you. So, do whatver it is that you do when you are not pineing over that which you can't do anything about. Drink coffee. Kill kittens. I don't care, just realize as you do it while you are dreaming of your next semi-not-so-clever comment, that each time you sign in and post your rehashed rhetoric, nothing is changed. God goes on, life goes on, I wil die, so will you, we will be judged. Good luck.

[brvheart 1,760]

There's lots of stuff on the net about this. I would also recommend Josh McDowell's Evidence That Demands A Verdict - he has a good summary of how we got the Bible with many references to more scholarly works.Briefly, there's a big difference between the Old and New Testaments. The Old Testament was meticulously copied for hundreds of years BC in accordance with a very long list of detailed rules - when it was determined that the copy was exact, the scroll from which it was copied was destroyed. The reason for this was they knew the old scrolls would eventually deteriorate so they wanted to keep it new.I'm not sure what we have of the copies of the New Testament, though I know we have thousands of copies. We also have thousands of copies of writings of the early church fathers who quote most, if not all, of the New Testament and much of the Old, so that serves as a check.I think you will find that serious scholars, even non-religious ones, don't really question the accuracy of 99% of the Bible. We can be very certain we have what was originally set down.

FYI, Josh McDowell isn't the best source when dealing with atheists... since he has in the past, including Evidence that Demands a Verdict, used already refuted 'facts'. That isn't to say that the entire book is crap, because I like him, but people like crowtrobot will just laugh if you use him as a reference.

[pokerfriendly 0]

I never said anything about drugs. My point was that people still today sometimes get "visions" when it is just your mind playing with you.

You have to believe in prophets to believe in the bible! prophets get visions.yes it's a hard one to swallow but what hell nothing better to do with my time,dun all the coke and whore's i can handle for this life anyway, time to be saved

[NotReady 0]

FYI, Josh McDowell isn't the best source when dealing with atheists

I agree with you about atheists, and that McDowell isn't a scholar. I use him because he's easy, atheists laugh no matter the source, and ETDAV is a very good reference for Christians. I consider my audience to be Christians and anyone honestly seeking to know - the scoffers will scoff no matter what. I long ago gave up worrying about whether they will respond honestly.

[fighter 4]

atheists laugh no matter the source

Not true. If you quote from the book of judges we never laugh. Q: What do you call a lawyer with an IQ of 50 A: Your honour

[LongLiveYorke 37]

That isn't to say that the entire book is crap, because I like him, but people like crowtrobot will just laugh if you use him as a reference.

lol, it's nice to see that we're, if nothing else, keeping you on your toes.

[brvheart 1,760]

lol, it's nice to see that we're, if nothing else, keeping you on your toes.

I actually love that about the religious forums. It helps me see both sides and really builds my faith. Just so you know Yorke, I pray for God to show himself to you and Crow all the time. So pay attention to your dreams...