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."
"many of our modern Bibles are based on the wrong originals"
Amazing! I'll bet he just happens to know where the "right originals" are and what they say.
The existence of textual variants in the New Testament suprises no one with even a rudimentary theological education. Serious Biblical scholars have tools that tell them what exactly the variants were. It's in the margin of every edition of the Greek New Testament.
The vast majority of these textual variants are shortened names for God or Jesus, or circumlocutions where part of one verse is transferred into another. Most are readily recognized by textual critics as being the work of scribal errors.
The substance of the text is beyond doubt. If you want to debate whether a word here or there doesn't belong, fine. I am not aware of a textual variant that changes the meaning of the text, however.
This attack on the veracity of the Word of God is as old as the Garden of Eden.
The number one weapon of Satan is doubt
The first thing Satan will try to do is create doubt
It shows up early in Genesis.
Gen 3:1 Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?
Forget this garbage. Pray for discernment and read your King James. The God of all creation can certainly provide all the security His Word needs.
Isa 40:8 The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever.
1Pe 1:24 For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away:
1Pe 1:25 But the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you.
Mat 15:8 This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me.
Mat 15:9 But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.
Rev 22:18 For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book:
Rev 22:19 And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.
Your points are all worth repeating.
I would also note, in amplification of your post, that the version of the Gospel available to Mohammed, and cited in the Koran, was plainly a heretical Gnostic text: the anti-materialist Gnostics usually denied the reality of the Crucifixion with at least as much vigor as they denied the Resurrection. And it is that version of the events of the first Great and Holy Week that found its way into the Koran.
He actually gave several commmandments to Adam and Eve besides "don't eat that".
"Be fruitful and multiply" comes to mind readily. I'm sure if I had the ambition I could find half a dozen more easily.
You've missed my premise. If God is able to "see the end from the beginning" then he would have known that the seprpent would show up to tempt Eve, that Eve would fail, that Eve would corrupt Adam, and so on and so forth.
God, then, either has foreknowledge of what will happen or has pre-ordained what will happen (He cannot do both simultaneously). The implication is that God is a rotten bastard in the sense that he knowingly set A&E to fail, or, conversely, that A&E possessed something that God was not prepared for (the ability to confound all his well-laid plans beyond his sight and ability to prevent it). In which case, God has done something unthinkable: created something with an ability that he Himself does not possess and cannot detect or counter. We call it Free Will, which is a catch-all description of "human nature".
Actually the really moronic part is that most of the errors in modern translations result from the protestant rationalist enthusiasm for a hypothetical ur-text, and the consequent questioning of the Scriptures as received by the Church and prayed by Her for centuries whenever a new manuscript is unearthed (whether a piece of rank heresy like the 'Gospel of Judas', or an old fragmenantary parchment of one of the canonical books).
The LXX and the Byzantine Majority Text are the Scriptures of the Church, period, and there is no dispute as to their content or the original Greek text.
Not my perspective.
Josh deals with those more eloquently than I would.
For most of my 59 years, whenever I've taken The Bible literally, the most wonderful results have occurred. Whenever I didn't, usually far less than wished for results occurred.
But anyone can perform their own experiment. They just need to realize that God is not an automatic vending machine AND He does things on HIS TIMELINE, HIS WAY.
"So the little dust eating serpent symbolically speaking is set for us to this day about a method of operation, lies using the very Scripture itself twisting and turning it ever so little or ever so much."
Ah, so now the Seprent is merely "symbolic" and not the physical manifestation of Satan or some other fallen angelic spirit (and God created that lot too, didn't he?), who also operates outside the sphere of God's control and knowledge? So much for being the all-seeing Almighty!
You argue on the one had for literal interpretation of the text, and then when the illogic of doing so is handed back to you, you call it a lie and the twisting of the truth. Wonderful thing about people who take their Bible literally: they can always have it both ways, and protective stupidity in the defense of scripture is a virtue.
"Paul uses some descriptive language about what went on in the Garden. Yet here we are alll these years later and it is still hidden to most of humanity, you think the Heavenly Father was not aware what would be???"
I'm going to interpret this to mean that you believe the Garden, as a physical place (as opposed to the symbolic serpent, I guess the Garden can't be a metaphor too), still exists someplace. Of course, you cannot in this day and age, with all our technology and knowledge of geography, pinpoint it's exact location on the globe (beyond much of an educated guess), so that non-metaphorical, physical garden must therefore exist in a non-methaphorical, non-physical reality.
Now you can rewrite the laws of physics using Scripture. Neat trick. Of course the illogic of this premise is negated by the "God can do anything" argument, except, apparently keep a Seprent out his garden, and stop Eve from doing what she's been specifically told not to do. God musty have been so busy creating this alternate physical universe that he couldn't watch the only two people on Earth for the few minutes it took them to eat the forbidden fruit. Which, apparently, he knew was going to happen anyway.
See where I'm going with this? By the way, neat trick of Paul writing about the events in the Garden when he wasn't there, and the place was barred to him by virtue of his frail humanity.
"The warning has been written over and over and over again as to what would bring in the end of this flesh age."
Yes it has. Every civilization has had myths and predictions about the end of the world and the fate of those that did not accept the "True" this or that. This was true long before the Bible and it's forerunners, and it will continue for as long as mankind requires faith, in any form. The Apocalypse of St. John, in many ways, is no different than the Aztec version of the end of the world and final battle between good and evil(which is supposed to arrive in 2019).
One we dismiss as "pagan" because it did not originate in the Western Tradition and was not sanctioned by the "True" Church, and the other is accepted by many as a certainty because it is sanctioned. Nothing like being hypocritical and prejudiced, even about the way in which the world will end.
"
Oh and since we are told the Heavenly Father knows what we are thinking and further that if we are of a mind not to have the love of truth, He Himself will send us strong delusions so that we will believe a lie."
Santa Claus also sees me when I'm sleeping and knows when I'm aweake, etc, etc, etc. God then, in your view, has given me the gift of choosing to either be his willing slave (although a particularly loved and cherished one) or of being outside his grace; and then punishes me for using the gift in a way he does not approve of but is powerless to prevent in the first place? Wow, this makes more and more sense all the time.
"Even those that witnessed the coming out of Egypt could not keep their minds focused for a very long time and turn their adoration upon a golden calf. Very instructive about the minds and spines of we in this flesh."
The Golden Calf was worshipped BEFORE Moses brough the Commandments down from Sinai. There is no Israel and there are no Chosen People until after the Commandments are presented and accepted, there is, to speak, no contract between God and Man, and therefore no obligation to worship him instead of a golden calf.
Get your timeline straight. Golden Calf first. Presentation of Commandments and contract between God and man for exclusive rights to symbiotic salvation and worship second.
Again, I don't have an issue with your faith (or at least the underlying philosphy) or the practice thereof, just the assertion that "because the Bible says so" is a reasonable argument for anything.
Once I was teaching third grade and a subject like that came up about prayer.
One of my little charges said "Some people need to learn that God's not Santa Claus."
Out of the mouth of babes....
Oh, I never said he was. I just find it somewhat strange to take the Bible as literal history when it is flawed and imperfect with regards to sourcing, the obvious finagling that went into it's creation, the politics that have surrounded it, etc. for centuries and consider it the end all be all.
Now that's an argument for faith over logic, and it's fine to choose one over the other if you wish, it's just that there seems to be no constructive confluence of the two when it comes to this topic and it always gets nasty and venomous.
True. And tell me, how many people know anything of the 11 century Byzantine Christian Empire? Apostates find it easy to fool the ignorant.
Many textbooks now say that Islam preserved the heritage of ancient Greece for the West. And what was happening in Constantinople (not to mention Ireland)?
Never said I have intimate knowledge as to the Lord's deepest secrets. All too often I have heard people spew thier bias against Christianity all the while exibiting thier own lack of knowledge about God or the bible. I saw this article as another in a long parade of hit pieces against Christianity.
The Bible is not just a wonderful guide in most cases, it is a solid foundation and blueprint for life!!! If you chose to live by man's wisdom , you do so at your own peril. I cannot find a single rule or law in the Bible that if I ignore it will make my life fuller or richer. If you can't believe the whole Bible is the infailable word of God then why believe any of it?
I'm sure that when I stand before the Lord on judgement day He'll have some really tough questions for me to answer. Looking to man's law and what to believe, I pray will not be one of them. Believing that the Bible is God's word has helped more people through life than the writings of all of man's greatest philosiphers combined. Since the first printing of a Bible men have pooh-poohed it and worked to disprove it.
Believe what you want, and let me belive what I want.
CC&E
CC&E
Did he say that the cult which is the subject of "The DaVinci Code" actually exists (or existed), or did he say that he believed that group to be correct?
There's a difference.
Writers of articles such as this, do not get it and are absolute fools!!!
Ecc 12:12 And further, by these, my son, be admonished: of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh.
Ecc. 10:2 A wise man's heart is at his RIGHT hand; but a fool's heart at his LEFT.
CC&E
AMEN!
Kids know a lot more than we often give them credit for.
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