Bible accuracy question

[Line6]

Hi!
I found this on the net.Is this true? I had not expected that there are so many difference between the different manuscripts, this is kind of shocking to me. /forum/images/graemlins/shocked.gif

The NT letters and gospels circulated in the early church, and were copied time and time again by various scribes. We do not possess the original document of any OT or NT book. All we possess are copies. Whenever a document is copied over and over again, mistakes will be made, no matter how careful one is. The copies of the original manuscripts of the Scripture are no exception.

>>It is only the originals that were inspired, not the copies produced from the originals.

Currently we possess ~5400 extant Greek manuscripts of the NT. Many of these manuscripts only contain portions of the NT, or even portions of a particular book.

>>Each of these documents differ from one another in some area, no matter how small the variation may be (e.g. punctuation, spelling, addition of words, deletion of words). There is no one manuscript which completely agrees with another. The two manuscripts that are closest in agreement to one another differ in six to ten places per chapter. /forum/images/graemlins/shocked.gif

The realization that the manuscripts from which are translations are derived differ among one another allows one to see that many of the differences found in the English translations arise, not because of some conspiracy, but because different translators base their translation off of different Greek manuscripts. The Greek text underlying the modern versions is fairly uniform, differing less among themselves than from the Textus Receptus (from which the KJV is translated.

[Adam Knowlden]

[ QUOTE ]
Whenever a document is copied over and over again, mistakes will be made, no matter how careful one is. The copies of the original manuscripts of the Scripture are no exception.

[/ QUOTE ]

Wrong, we've covered this a multitude of times in the forums and in our bible studies.

Where are you getting this stuff? Aliens and the bible, the bible has errors...What are you trying to find out?

[Line6]

Erm, I did not write this.
I found it in a forum. A christian posted this. I don't know where he got it. Does this mean this "6 to 10 mistakes per chapter" stuff is a lie? I hope so cause how can I put my faith in the bible when I can question every verse wether it is really correct? This doesn't work.

http://wrongbible.com/pictures/Bible_Has_Fewer_Errors.jpg

[Venom]

Hi,

Read this, Part I- Accuracy of Scripture and Salvation (http://www.abcbodybuilding.com/forum/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=bodybuilder&Number=590954& Forum=bodybuilder&Words=How%20to%20use%20the%20Wor d%20of%20God%20Part%201&Match=Entire%20Phrase&Sear chpage=0&Limit=25&Old=1week&Main=590954&Search=tru e#Post590954) that should answer your question.

And the differences in various english translations are typically irrelevent. It does little to change the meaning of the text. They are written so that we can have an easier time understanding certain portions of scripture.

[Mavrick]

the bible=100% accurate! it was the work/insparation of a gods work. no errors.

[ QUOTE ]
Whenever a document is copied over and over again, mistakes will be made, no matter how careful one is. The copies of the original manuscripts of the Scripture are no exception.

[/ QUOTE ]
*cough* i guess copy & paste is the exception to this rule /forum/images/graemlins/wink.gif

[Line6]

Thank you for the link. Gonna check this out.

[Adam Knowlden]

No, we there are no errors in these texts. It has been demonstrated multiple times. Even liberal scholars do not debate the authenticity, they just do not accept the supernatural aspects.

There is some debate about Mark 16 however even among conservative scholars.

However, I'd like to see the authors references for these claims. Its hard to dispute something if we have no way to research it ourselves.

[Line6]

There are quite a few passages which some say are not genuine. afaik 1.John 5:7, John 7:53-8:3 + the end of one gospel where Jesus tells his disciples that they can drink poison without dying. But why should somebody add this stuff? Why should christians have made this up? This makes no sense.

[Adam Knowlden]

[ QUOTE ]
There are quite a few passages which some say are not genuine. afaik 1.John 5:7, John 7:53-8:3 + the end of one gospel where Jesus tells his disciples that they can drink poison without dying. But why should somebody add this stuff? Why should christians have made this up? This makes no sense.

[/ QUOTE ]

Who says that?

You need to give sources here, please don't just make blanket statments.

[Line6]

The parts they argue about are:

MARK16: 9-20
JOHN 7:53-8:11
1.JOHN 5:7

Maybe there are even more but I don't know any more.

You find a lot about this on the net.

http://www.gtpanell.com/mark16.html

I think even a few bible commentaries suggest that 1.John 5:7 might not be genuine and might have been added later to support the trinity doctrine.

http://www.truthmagazine.com/archives/volume25/TM025093.htm

Wikipedia says this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comma_Johanneum

The Comma Johanneum was a clause present in most translations of the First Epistle of John published from 1522 until the later part of the 19th century, owing to the widespread use of the third edition of the Textus Receptus (TR) as a sole source for translation. In readings containing the clause, 1 John 5:7–8 reads as follows (from the King James Version; the Comma is rendered with emphasis):

5:7 "For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. 5:8 And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one."
The resulting passage bears a heavy Trinitarian implication, and for this reason some Christians are resistant to the elimination of the Comma from modern Biblical translations—despite the fact that it is not present in the passage as quoted by any of the early Church fathers, who would have had plenty of reason to quote it in the Trinitarian debates, had it existed then. Nonetheless, nearly all recent translations have dispensed with the TR version in favor of older, more faithful texts which have recently been (re-)discovered, none of which include the Comma. Most current churches agree that the theology contained in the Comma is indeed true, but that it is not a true part of the Epistle of John.

Jack Chick says this:

http://www.chick.com/ask/articles/1john57.asp?FROM=biblecenter

Jack Chick is pretty hated also among christians but I don't understand why. Is he not scholarly enough? I think his tracts are simple but they explain things pretty well.

[Line6]

What do you say about this?

http://www.michaelsheiser.com/LetterDifferencesIsa53.pdf

This is from Michael Heiser who studied semitic languages and who also works for a company which produces biblical software.

He says this:

"The fundamental premise of all Bible code research is that the every-letter sequence of the Hebrew text of the Old Testament has remained unaltered since God prompted the biblical authors to compose their documents. The actual manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible, however, inform us very plainly that no two manuscripts are identical, different versions of biblical books exist in those manuscripts (sometimes involving thousands of letters), and the scribes who transmitted the Hebrew text at times made mistakes in transmission, and left notes in their copies about suspect readings in the manuscripts. These data testify unequivocally that the preservation of the every-letter sequence of Hebrew letters is uncertain. The author introduces the English reader to these phenomena so as to visually demonstrate that the certitude of the every-letter sequence required for the Bible code to be real is a demonstrable myth.

To take one example of how the manuscript evidence entirely undermines the foundational premise of a Bible code, the Dead Sea Scrolls, our closest textual witnesses to the original Hebrew Old Testament, have a markedly different way of spelling. In just a few verses there might therefore be dozens of letter differences due only to spelling convention (recall in English the word “color” vs. “colour”). The Hebrew text used by Bible code researchers is much younger than the Dead Sea material, and does not account for the ancient spellings. The significance of this can be dramatically illustrated. One Bible code proponent, Grant Jeffrey, claims to have found dozens of coded names associated with Jesus in Isaiah 52:13-53:12, the Old Testament prophecy of a suffering Messiah. In just these fifteen verses, there are 115 letter differences between the text Jeffrey uses and the Dead Sea Great Isaiah Scroll because of spelling differences."