Posted on 05/06/2006 7:04:47 AM PDT by canuck_conservative
For all those folks following the Good Book, we have some bad news. Turns out a lot of our modern Bible was tacked on, scratched out, and just plain garbled from the original Gospels as scribes over the millennia tried to present Christianity in what they thought was its truest light.
In fact, many of our modern Bibles are based on the wrong originals, says Bart Ehrman in his best-selling book Misquoting Jesus: The Story behind who Changed the Bible and Why. Even our beloved King James version has several segments based on a 12th-century manuscript that scholars now say was one of the most error-riddled in the history of the New Testament.
Some of those changes hit sore spots even today. For instance, St. Paul may not have been as critical of women as we have been led to believe. Prof. Ehrman, chairman of the department of religious studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, says it was not Paul but a second-century follower of his who wrote in 1 Timothy 2:11-15: "Let a woman learn in silence with full submission. I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she is to keep silent."
Similarly, says Prof. Ehrman, scholars doubt Paul wrote a passage in Corinthians saying "let the women keep silent."
It appears these later additions were intended to address a power struggle in the early Church. For one thing, why would Paul say women should only speak with their heads covered in 11:2-16 of 1 Corinthians, only to say elsewhere they may not speak at all?
To date, 5,700 Greek manuscripts of the New Testament have been discovered, the earliest a tiny fragment of John 18 written around 120 CE. Including the 10,000 Latin Vulgate versions, and the thousands in other languages, we have between 200,000 and 400,000 variants of the New Testament today.
Scholars can compare the scripts to determine which was likely the earliest and had the fewest errors, either accidental copying mistakes or intentional changes or additions tacked on by later writers to make a point or "clarify" something.
From the moment Christ left Earth, His followers were debating what His life and death had really meant, and how His teachings ought to be preached. All manner of letters and gospels were produced, many in conflict with one another. These authors setting down the story of Jesus saw themselves as writers creating a new story, not scribes transcribing an old story.
Most people expected Christ to return imminently and overthrow evil once and for all. When it became apparent that wasn't going to happen, the early Church realized it had to get more structured if it was to survive. At that point, leaders began to decide which gospels were legitimate, and which were not. They not only had to contend with external persecution but a constellation of different varieties of Christianity all clamouring for legitimacy. It was not until 367 CE that a canon was finally established.
Even though the Church had settled on which texts to use, it had trouble making true copies of them. Almost nobody could read and write very well. Even village scribes could barely comprehend what they were writing.
Prof. Ehrman began his academic career as a fundamentalist and evangelical who took the Bible as literal truth. Now, he sees the Bible as "a very human book with very human points of view, many of which differ from one another, and none of which offers an inerrant guide to how we should live."
Bump!
(munching popcorn)
Typical moron journalism.
Thousands of minor copying errors do exist, which we would expect with people manually copying the text over many years. No doctrine comes into question because the agreement is about 99% and the copying errors are easily spotted.
The tradition of copying the Old Testament in Hebrew includes counting every letter to make sure it is letter perfect.
The Bible is the most precise ancient book with the earliest manuscripts of all.
Tektonics.org - For the clueless.
bttt
The Bible said there would be people like Ehrman.
From what I've heard, there was NO contemporary account of Christ's words - the earliest New Testament Gospel was written about 100 years after his death (presumably passed down orally until then - and we all know the problem about passing stories ...)
Yes? No?
Look's to me like another non-believer telling the faithfull what the bible really says. Like she knows the mind of the Lord.
Just don't pick up the Living 'bible' or "The Message" "bible".
Neither of those are true Bibles. They are unreliable and inacurrate.
a huge lot more bible texts survived from ancient days than say, the plays of Sophlocles or Euripides or most of the other ancient texts, but we hold the Bible up to outrageously high scholastic standards, higher than any other major ancient text.
And there is a lot less variation in texts than people feel. None of them are key salvation truths.
If you don't understand making standardized texts, then why they do this might bother you. There are some philosophies involving this that lead to the texts. One decides to use the oldest manuscripts available, thinking that these are closer to the original - might be, but they might have survived because someone tucked them into storage cause they didn't think they were as reliable.
One approach uses the majority readings, on the concept that this is what the church deemed to be the most realiable. There is a growing movement towards this approach.
I'm not sure what philosophy Erasmus used when he put together the Textus receptus, but he didn't have the oldest manuscripts around (as they hadn't had come out of storage yet), and some books he didn't have many texts to compare with.
Nonetheless, as God says, his Word does not go out from him in vain, and you can most certainly come to the truth of Jesus being the messiah and Lord using any of them.
And the variants still aren't that many compared to the text as a whole.
Just a typical anti-Christ piece. Take away the sacredness of the text, take awake the sacredness of the Lord, freedom to be as decadent as you want - without that little voice of your prayerful mother or grandmother haunting you in the back of your head.
This explains WJC carrying one, and "ministering" to Monica.
From what I've learned on Free Republic, if it was there in 1616 then that is all that matters.
And they don't claim to be 'true Bibles'. they make it very clear that they are paraphrases.
He he. Well put! Bears repeating...
Ho-hum. Really boring stuff, these error-prone journalists write.
Can we not find thousands, of errors--made up or inadvertent--in our very our contemporary journalism regarding the drinking and sins of, say, Teddy Kennedy? And yet, there are a few truthful and reliable reports?
Then the media gobbles up the erroneous reports and perpetuates them because they fit their template of what truth is? And then the really bad stories pop into the tabloid press?
Well, in the past, the truthful and reliable reports were the books of the Old and New Testament. The tabloid journals were the gnostic gospels and writings. The Weekly World News of all of that was the Gospel of Judas et al.
Ho-hum. Really boring stuff these error-prone journalists write.
Typical moron journalism.
I laughed out loud when I read this, and said "this came from a "journalist?"
I agree!
Orange County Community Tech NC ping!! Wonder why those fine folks in Chapel Hill never spend this much time helping us 'understand' the Koran...
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