Posted on 12/19/2018 8:56:04 AM PST by Gamecock
Myth #1: The text and translation of the Bible is completely unreliable.
In a Newsweek article a few years back, the author claimed, “No television preacher has ever read the Bible. Neither has any evangelical politician. Neither has the pope. Neither have I. And neither have you. At best, we’ve all read a bad translation—a translation of translations of translations of hand-copied copies of copies of copies of copies, and on and on, hundreds of times.”
I hope this is hyperbole, because I don’t understand how a journalist could publish this. He is saying that the best we can hope to find is a translation of a translation of a translation. I think he means that our modern English translations of the New Testament are translations of a Latin translation that was a translation of the original Greek. I can’t speak for televisions preachers, evangelical politicians, or the pope, but I know that I have many students and colleagues who read the Greek New Testament quite often and quite well. And what we’ve found is that our English translations—the ESV, the NIV, the NASB and many more—are very reliable translations.
But some might say even if we can translate the Bible, we can never know what the original wording was. After all, the text of the Bible was copied by hand over thousands of years by thousands of people who made tens or even hundreds of thousands of intentional and unintentional mistakes.
It is true that until the 15th Century, the text of the Bible was copied by hand and sometimes scribes made mistakes. But this does not mean the text we have is nothing close to the original writings and completely unreliable. In fact, it is just the opposite, especially when we compare it with other ancient texts. We have over 6,000 manuscripts of the Greek NT (not to mention close to 20,000 ancient translations).
Of the 6,000 Greek manuscripts, the evidence of their contradictions has been greatly exaggerated. While there are many variations in the text, most of these are either spelling differences or word order. There are several other differences that do not change the meaning of the text at all, especially the use of synonyms. Less than 1% of the variants amount to a meaningful change, and none of these affect any essential Christian doctrine. None of this even considers the tens of thousands of Hebrew Old Testament scrolls and codices that show a similar level of reliability. The evidence is clear: our modern English translations are reliable translations of a reliable text.
Myth #2: The books of the Bible were arbitrarily chosen.
I’ll call this second myth The DaVinci Code myth (even though the first myth showed up in that book as well). The story goes something like this: during the first two centuries AD, there were hundreds of Christian documents being used in churches. Books like the Gospel of Thomas, the Acts of Peter, and even the Gospel of Judas were read alongside Matthew, Romans, Revelation, and the rest of the NT books. It wasn’t until Emperor Constantine legalized Christianity in the early 4th century that we narrowed the list down to our twenty-seven NT books. In the DaVinci Code, Dan Brown has one of his characters describe what happened next. “More than eighty gospels were considered for the New Testament, and yet only a relative few were chosen for inclusion—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John among them.” When asked who decided which Gospels to include, he replied, “The Bible, as we know it today, was collated by the pagan Roman emperor Constantine the Great.” Even though these claims are a little grandiose in Brown’s book, many people believe some version of this today.
It is true that the early Christians wrote dozens, maybe hundreds, or documents in the first two or three centuries AD. It is also true that the NT canon was debated until around the time of Emperor Constantine. But that is about as much as The DaVinci Code gets right. But Christians were never considering eighty Gospels; in fact, the four Gospels we have in the NT were the only Gospels that Christians seriously considered for inclusion in the canon of the NT. They are by far the earliest Gospels, they have the most links to the apostles, and they were universally accepted by the church from the beginning. The Gospel of Thomas is probably the earliest of these other “Gospels,” but it was probably written somewhere around 150–180 AD. The NT Gospels were written around 60–100 AD, in the lifetimes of the apostles.
The same could be said about the other NT books. While it took some time for the twenty-seven books of the NT to be universally recognized by the early Christian church, there is no evidence from anywhere that suggests Constantine had any influence about which books were chosen.
Myth #3: The Bible is scientifically ignorant and unreliable.
Even many Christians believe some version of this myth. They will say that the Bible intends to teach late-Bronze age or Ancient Near Eastern scientific theories. We cannot trust a book that is so misinformed about science, right?
The problem here is when people assume that the Bible is intending to be scientific textbook that does not use normal language. I recently read someone accusing the Bible of a scientific error because it describes the circular bronze Sea in the temple with a circumference of 30 cubits and a diameter of 10 cubits (1 Kings 7:23-24). This would make the value of pi 3.0 instead of 3.14. Others say the Bible teaches a geocentric universe because Ecclesiastes 1:5 says that the sun rises and sets. This demands a level of precision in language that we do not use in normal conversation.
If I told you that sun is setting at 6:45pm, would you accuse me of being a heliocentrist and scientifically ignorant? It is true that the sun is not actually setting at 6:45 pm. The earth is rotating on its axis to the east so we will move out of range of the sun’s light. But if I talked about the earth is rotating out of range of the sun’s light at 6:45 pm instead of just saying the sun is setting, you’d think I was a little off. So the Bible uses normal human language to describe scientific phenomena, just like you and I do. To apply a different standard to the Bible is unfair and doesn’t hold up to the way language actually works.
Even though questions about the age of the earth and the details of creation are a little different, and Christians disagree about how best to interpret these chapters, even Genesis 1-2 is not intending to teach us a detailed scientific account of how the universe began. Instead, it uses normal human language to teach us about God’s power over his creation from the very beginning. When read in this way, none of the so-called scientific mistakes in the Bible amounts to a serious challenge to its absolute truthfulness and authority.
Helping readers grasp the overarching story line of the Bible, this concise resource explores 16 key verses that serve as “turning points” in the biblical narrative, highlighting God’s sovereignty, glory, and grace throughout his Word.
Myth #4: The Bible is misogynistic.
Many people assume that in the Greco-Roman world, women were treated with honor, respect, and dignity until Christianity came along and messed everything up because the Bible teaches us to mistreat women. But this fails to understand what the Bible actually teaches about women. It is true that God also designed men and women to fulfill different roles and responsibilities in some areas, like the home and the church. But different does not mean unequal.
Many people have twisted Scripture to oppress women, but this is a failure to understand both what the Bible teaches about women and how God has designed men and women to relate to each other. From the very beginning, the Scripture is clear. Both men and women are created together in the image of God (Gen 1:26-27). Although women were consistently mistreated and abused in the Ancient Near East, the OT is full of stories of women of faith, like Hannah (1 Samuel 1-2), wise and courageous women, like Deborah (Judges 4) and Abigail (1 Samuel 25), and women who saved God’s people from destruction (Esther). In a world where women were hardly ever seen as anything more than property to serve men, the Bible’s view of women who are made in the image of God and used by him to accomplish his purposes is remarkable.
The NT only makes this picture clearer. Jesus treated women with dignity, love, and respect, even when they were shamed by the culture they lived in (John 4; Luke 7:36-50). While he certainly called women to repent of their sins, he did not leave them in their sin, but saw them as God’s image-bearers who are to be loved and honored. Throughout the rest of the NT, we see women playing key roles in evangelism and teaching, like Priscilla (Acts 18:24-26), church planting, like Lydia (Acts 16), and prayer, like Mary, the mother of John (Acts 12:12). Women were important co-laborers with Paul and the other apostles (Romans 16:17).
Myth #5: The Bible is a random collection of disconnected stories and inconsistent ideas.
Imagine if we took a legal document written in 1718, a collection of poems from 1818, a biography written in 1918, and finally a historical narrative written in 2018, and tried to make a it tell a coherent story. It would be difficult, right? This is how many people conceive of the Bible. It was written over thousands of years by dozens of people in several different cultures and languages. How could this book tell a coherent story?
But consider how the “offspring” unfolds throughout the Bible. Genesis 3:15 speaks of the “offspring” of Eve who would one day crush the head of the serpent, the devil. God promises Abraham, the descendent of Eve, that he would give certain promises to his offspring (Gen 12:1-3; 17:7) and Abraham’s great-grandson Judah received a promise that his offspring would rule over the nations. Centuries later, God told King David that his offspring would rule over a kingdom that would never end (2 Samuel 7:13). Centuries still after that, the prophet Isaiah spoke of the offspring of the virgin, who would rise up to rule over the nations (Isaiah 7:14; 9:6). When we get to the New Testament, we discover that the offspring of Eve, who is the offspring of Abraham (Galatians 3:16) is also the royal son of Judah and David (Romans 1:3-4). Finally, in a symbolic picture of the fulfillment of Genesis 3:15, a dragon, the “ancient serpent” tries to destroy the offspring of the woman, but he defeated the dragon and his allies once and for all (Revelation 12).
This is just one theme of many that we can trace through the story of the Bible. There are layers of themes that tie in this big story in a remarkable way. Some parts may have different emphases and different authors have different styles, and the story develops between the old and new covenants. But the story and details of the Bible are unified in amazing ways. The Bible tells one story of the one God who is redeeming one people in his one creation through the one Savior Jesus Christ. The unity of the Bible is breathtakingly joyous.
If this were any other book, I’d be hard-pressed to explain its consistency and depth. How could a book written in such a diverse way have such a remarkable unity? The only answer we can give is the inspiration of Holy Scripture. Christians throughout the centuries have confessed that this is no ordinary book. It is the very word of the living God. But he has revealed himself in this book, and we would be wise to read it, understand it, submit to it, and so be transformed by the gospel message it proclaims.
Myth #1 is a particular type of deconstructionism that tries to show that we can’t ever really know anything. It’s tactical nihilism.
Threads like this one are amazing. There are Freepers who don’t realize that this is a piece that refutes the stated MYTHS about the Bible. These are probably the 5 most popular myths, and he does a pretty good job of dispatching them in short order. The author is disagreeing with the stated myths about the Bible. “Myths” is right there in the title, so this isn’t a case of people reading only the title. This is something else.
In a Newsweek article a few years back, the author claimed, “No television preacher has ever read the Bible. Neither has any evangelical politician. Neither has the pope. Neither have I. And neither have you. At best, we’ve all read a bad translation—a translation of translations of translations of hand-copied copies of copies of copies of copies, and on and on, hundreds of times.” …This lie is one of the really pure forms of antisemitism here, never mind just being plain old communism attempting to discredit religion. The millennia-old system in place to transmit the Masoretic Text in particular by hand is so meticulous that for those who have learned the system, making accidental errors is quite impossible. The same care has been applied to the Greek Received Texts, and any “erroneous” Greek texts were attacked with deliberate errors to sow doubt and to engender heresies.
The most accurate works of man prior to the printing press/computers.
One proof is He used the same terms to mean the same thing throughout scripture. A tree in Genesis is a man and a tree in Revelation and everywhere in between is a man. An olive tree is an anointed man. Water is words. Satan has words and God has words. Satan comes as a flood and God comes as a fountain, spring, river, ect. Unnamed women are churches or denominations. Virgins are the church, widows are Israel, Harlots are the Babylon religion. The High Priest can only marry a virgin. Garments are "righteousness". You can have your own garment or receive a garment from the Bridegroom. Food is what you put in your body. Satan has food and God has food. Jesus is our Bread. Isa 4:1 speaks of the last Days church. They want their own garment and eat their own food, but they want to be called Christian instead of the church of Satan. Beasts of the field and unnamed birds are demons. There is a tree in Ezekiel so large that birds are in the branches( I am the Vine, you are the branches)and Beasts of the field are in the shade it creates. God will cut this man made religion down, but save the stump (Jesus). Dogs are unbelievers, Wolves are demons, "The Assyrian" is the Antichrist, Rocks and stones are always Jesus. Even Mathew 16:18 is saying the church will be built on the revelation that Jesus is the Christ, NOT A MAN. A billion people mistake this "rock" as a man (Peter) instead of Jesus. EVERY other instance of a rock, represents Jesus but somehow this instance is a man? If it was a man, why wouldn't it be John, whom Jesus loved? These same people will anoint the Antichrist( A Man) as their Messiah. This is the false prophet in Revelation. They are the Harlot in Revelation and the church of Thyatira. 7 is the number of God, 6 is the number of man, 3 is resurrection or the Trinity, 40 is the number of testing, 8 is eternity, every number has a meaning and can be looked up if you care. Colors have spiritual meanings also. It also helps to know the clean and unclean animals. There is a prophesy about a stork carrying a vessel and dropping a lead lid on it. You can't possibly know if it's good or bad unless you know a stork is an unclean bird to the Jews.
There are dozens more of these "idioms"( I call it spiritual language), throughout the whole Bible. The same person wrote Genesis as did Revelation. The more you study the Bible, the more sure you are of the author and the accuracy of it. The Bible is not something you read like the Clinton scandals.
There ARE mistranslated words and verses, however. As an example, Genesis 4:26 looks as though A son of Seth called upon the name of the Lord. Sounds like a good thing, right? But the Hebrew words say he "profaned" or "defiled" The name of the Lord. Big difference, especially for the people trying to make Seth some great Godly man that had descendants that were somehow "Sons of God" in Gen 6:1. Sons of God are angels everywhere in Scripture, why would a man be a son of God if he was born of human men and women? How would mating a Godly man with a daughter of man produce a 13ft monster? God spent a good part of the OT trying to wipe out these monsters inhabiting Canaan. It make more sense if these "Sons" were demonic beings thrown out of Heaven with Satan. No one doubts the Sons of God in Job were angelic.
There are more translation mistakes, but they are few and I don't know of any that would affect your salvation. Most of them are general information. Just knowing some of these spiritual representations will help enormously in understanding Scripture, esp. prophesy. An atheist can read the words in the Bible, but they have no idea what God is saying. Being Baptized in the Holy Spirit is the only way God will teach you His Word.
John 10:27 My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. You cannot follow Him if you don't hear His voice. It is imperative that He know you. He will tell you to go away from Him if He doesn't know you.
Saying the Word is not God's Word,..... you don't know Him. Saying it was written by men,.... you don't know Him. Jesus said He didn't come to judge us but to save us. But then He said the Word would judge us. You must know what's in it and you must believe it's true.
The Pharisee's memorized the first 5 books, yet they understood NOTHING! They didn't have the Holy Spirit. Pray for the baptism of the Holy Spirit and Jesus will do it. Your understanding will increase.
There is more manuscript evidence for the New Testament books coming down to us essentially as they were written than there is for the works of Shakespeare.
BTW, Jesus said they needed ears to hear and eyes to see. That’s what I was talking about. Mark 8:22-25 show the giving of “eyes to see”. Jesus asked the man what he saw and he said he saw men like trees walking first. He gave him spiritual sight BEFORE He gave him normal sight. Jesus would rather he understand the Holy Spirit than see naturally.
If he means that, he's mistaken. Almost all modern translations of Scripture are either directly from the original languages into English, or are at least compared with the best available original-language texts.
The only well-known English Bible that I know of that's wholly translated from the Latin is the Douay-Rheims, which I wouldn't call "modern".
Bttt.
5.56mm
That it i a translation of a translation is indisputable, and if you’ve ever been to Babelfish, you know what happens to anything when you translate it again and again. Try putting any phrase in and having it translated, then translate it back to see what the system came up with.
If you ever played “Telephone” as a kid, you know what happens even in the same language as you pass a message from one person to another, then another, then another, and on down the line.
Furthermore, you must keep in mind that different writers were writing to different audiences, and they presented the story to fit that audience. Anyone who has written for publication or done any public speaking knows that you write or speak to your audience, and you would tell it differently to a different constituency.
Yes, there are contradictions. For example, in the Good Friday story, Matthew has Jesus saying one thing, John another. It’s possible that he could have said both, but either or both contradicts Mark’s account that Jesus was silent all the way through. He could not have been silent and said what Matthew had him saying or what John had him saying, and certainly not both.
Early transcripts show many differences. There are known additions and deletions by scribes, deliberately or accidentally, but this includes the deletion or insertion of entire stories. Additionally, there are transcribing errors, where a scribe had to decipher something that was unclear in the copy he was working from, and perhaps chose the wrong letter or word.
Further, Jesus spoke Aramaic. Aramaic words often have dual or triple meanings, and when they were written in Greek, the writer had to choose which meaning he believes to be the correct one. (The writers, being human, could be wrong.)
And most, if not all, of the books were not written by people who actually knew Jesus. They were oral tradition (as the Old Testament also was) which someone finally wrote down. But if you’ve ever told a story multiple times or heard someone do so, you know that stories change each time they’re told.
In early Christianity, there were many different beliefs. Eventually, the church leadership set down an orthodoxy in the form of the 27 books we know, primarily because those were the most popular ones. It doesn’t make the others invalid.
Some of the pre-orthodox traditions of Christianity are beginning to re-emerge today, and many Christians seem very disturbed by the re-emerging diversity of belief.
The Septuagint was written about 300-400 BC. It was translated directly from Hebrew to Greek by the 70 translators (LXX). This copy was available to everyone including Jesus and His Apostles. Of course, the Jews could read the original Hebrew, so they didn’t need it, but everyone spoke Greek at this time. The NT was written in Greek to begin with. Any Latin translation would have come from Greek.
Just a comment on your ping to Alex Murphy.
As you know - he got the zot some 3 years ago. Forgot why - but I do remember his postings.
Anywho - carry on.
I would love to find some old gospels, just to see the differences between Matthew and a gospel who is not in the Bible.
Having said that, today we have a "Feminist" Bible with God as a woman, and various other abominations that it's a pity a tree died for it. I'm sure the Ten Commandments will end up favoring abortion and sodomy and doom climate deniers to hell. Go back to the Hebrew and Greek and we will be fine.
Certainly if you're talking about the NT. As far as the OT is concerned, I don't think St Jerome (who translated the Vulgate) exclusively translated the LXX. I'm pretty sure he had at least some input on the original Hebrew from rabbis.
The Bible was never intended to be a scientific text book. It was and is a method for God to communicate with His people in the way that We they would understand. It would not be helpful to get His message across while using terms like computers, radios, helicopters. People try to discredit the Bible by applying meanings and interpretations that are not actually written or stated.
And Holt Tradition.
Oops And Holy Tradition.
The reliability of the Bible text was proven.
What if manuscripts were put in a time capsule and dug up 2000 years later? The time capsule was then compared with modern text.
Hey, the comparison is identical.
The Dead Sea Scrolls dug up 2000 years later, untouched, are the same as modern text.
BINGO! YAHTZEE!
John Calvin stated the same saying the Holy Spirit confirms in the believer's heart the writings to be true. Consider the example from the Old Testament of King Josiah:
Likewise believers know the Word of God to be true through the Holy Spirit. Questions about authenticity and the creation of terible paraphase versions are nothing more than satanic tools to dilute a believer's trust on God's Word. This isn't blind faith but rational acceptance of the truth.
So when it comes to manuscript evidence, the New Testament definitely has numbers on its side. It's also interesting that within the early centuries of the Christian church a number of scholars quoted the New Testament. Amazingly, they quoted the New Testament so much that every single verse of all 27 books of the New Testament is quoted by these scholars with the exception of only 11 verses, all within a few hundred years of the beginning of the Church.
We could also add the fact that much of the New Testament was written within just a few decades of the death and resurrection of Christ. First Corinthians, for instance, dates from the 50s – only twenty years or so after the death and resurrection of Christ. This is important because 1 Corinthians 15 contains key elements of the gospel message, emphasizing the importance of Christ's resurrection, and claiming that more than 500 people had seen the risen Christ. People who would still have been alive at the time of the writing of 1 Corinthians would have been around to corroborate or criticize the claims made in the letter.
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