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phyl2 -> RE: Manipulated Bible? (4/5/2008 1:04:35 AM)
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Well I don't want to be the bearer of bad news, but there is overwhelming evidence that supports scriptures have been tampered with. And they obviously have. One can simply read the bible and see that much has been changed or removed. Not every change is detrimental mind you, but some changes or additions very much are.
Actually, the evidence is overwhelming that we have the true word of God exactly as He preserved it and as He gave it. It is interesting, though, that you say on the one had "One can saimply read the bible and see that much as been changed or removed." but on the other hand claim that we don't even know what was in the originals because they are long gone.
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The biggest downfall to the idea that the bible is infallible is a simple concept really. NONE of the original manuscripts exist. Period. Even copies of the copies of the copies of the copies do not exist. Our earliest known copies are from 2nd century AD, 150-200 years after the death of christ. So there is no way to go back to the original source to see how it compares.
The earliest known copies are from the 2nd century AD, true, but that is NOT 150-200 years after the death of Christ. Jesus' death and resurrection happened mid-30's AD, so your claim of 200 years is way off. But, we aren't dating from the death and resurrection of Jesus, we are dating from the time it was written, which in the case of the last book was around 90 AD. So, early to mid 2nd century AD is not that long after the NT was written.
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It's like the secret game. You whisper a secret into the ear of a neighbor, they whisper it into their neighbor and so on and so forth. By the time it reaches the end, the story has completely changed.
Copying manuscripts is way different from the secret game. In the secret game, the message is whispered into the ear, with the listener not always hearing correctly, and not allowed to ask questions to make sure they heard correctly. That's what makes the game so fun. But, in manuscript copying, you have the text in front of you, you see exactly what was written, and you can go back and check your work and correct it.
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There were no printing presses, no copy machines, no scanners. If you wanted a copy of the book, you had to sit down and copy the entire thing word for word.
It's true, copying by hand was very difficult, however, the manuscript evidence shows that the accuracy of the Biblical manuscript copies is phenominal. First it is incredible that the earliest known copies dates as close to the original manuscripts as they do. If you take other ancient documents, such as the works of Plato or the writings of Caesar, the earliest known copies are around 1000 years after the original documents were written.
Second, the number of Biblical manuscripts that we have today is also phenominal. There are over 5000 Greek NT manuscripts or manuscript fragments known to us today, and then there are the ancient translations manuscripts. There are around 8 or 9000 manuscripts in Latin, and I believe the total number of NT manuscripts is around 2400. But, the other documents that I mentioned have only a handful, some have only 5 or 6, some have around a dozen, I think one has around 100.
Third, although there are some differences textually in the Biblical manuscripts, the agreement amongst them is actually incredible, whereas those other documents have a much higher incidence of textual variances. And, since we have such a great number of manuscripts as we do, we can pretty accurately determine which variant is the correct one.
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This creates even more of a problem because of the literacy rates of the time were horrid. As is expected. That's why most of the times scriptures were read publicly so those who could not read, could hear.
Literacy rates have nothing to do with it. It wasn't illiterate people who were making the copies. But, I have an idea that the literacy rates were not as horrid as you think they were!
But, we have other means of confirming that scripture was accurately copied, and that is found in the works of the early Christian writers and the Biblical quotes that they wrote. I have read that if all copies of the Bible were to ever be destroyed, it could reasonably well be recreated using the Biblical quotes that are found in the works of the early Christian writers.
Yet another evidence that our Bible is accurate can be found in the copies - some copies were copied in Africa, others in Europe, and others in Asia, yet with that diversity of geographical areas, there is a very close agreement between the copies when compared from one geographical area to another.
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Bart Ehrman give a good example of this, he states that the earliest known manuscripts of Mark do NOT have the last 12 verses.
Yes it is true, some of the earliest manuscripts do not have this passage, and there is one other passage where the situation is similar, some manuscripts have it, others don't. This has been the case since early in Biblical history. We have the testimony of some of the early Christian writers that some manuscripts had those passages while others didn't. For these instances, we can ask for the guidance of the Holy Spirit concerning them. He has been given us in order to guide us into all truth, and we can be sure that He will!
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