The Bible is what we have and the most sure way I know to be certain of the meaning is to study the KJV along with the Strong's Concordance to understand the Hebrew and Greek, unless you are gifted with those languages.
Those that don't, that just trust their teachers and don't hold their words up to align with God's, run the risk of what God warns us of in Jeremiah 7:
4. Trust ye not in lying words, saying, 'The temple of the Lord, The temple of the Lord, The temple of the Lord, are these.'
So...even with a Book that may hold some mistranslations it, to me, is far better than anything else at our disposal, including a "temple of the Lord". (His words, not mine).
This brings me back to where we started. How do you answer the questions I have posed. How does a faulty Bible hold a story, written in different times by different people with the same story carried forward - no mistakes, the same story. Explain the acrostic in Esther (and there are others). Tell me how Ps. 22 told of the crucifixion 1,000 years before the event? Explain what the scriptures mean that I gave you about the 3 ages and what really happened in the garden.
Some are calling them dark, heretical, etc. but no one has explained them. They won't just go away. They are written for a reason so tell me why our churches don't teach it. Calling it "dark" is unfair. It isn't dark because it hasn't been taught. To me, the teaching lets in the light and brings understanding.
If you will let go of talking about the church and telling me why the Bible can't be trusted maybe you, or others, will answer the questions.
.........Ping
The Bible can be trusted. Our private interpretation cannot. The Jews were given many prophecies.
And please remember that the KJV was a political translation. Google it up; I don’t expect you to believe me on that. I’d suggest that you might use the D-R or even the more accurate but more pedestrian NAB which is online at the USCCB website.
On that note, I agree. :)
I will never take man's word over that of God
All those who trust their own interpretations take their own words for God's.
I know that there was a Massoratic text that kept it from being changed
Without vowels and punctuation marks.
The Bible is what we have and the most sure way I know to be certain of the meaning is to study the KJV
I strongly recommend you read up on the history of KJV, its foundation —Textus Receptus—and the corrupt latter-day Greek sources it used as genuine. Part of John's Gospel in Textus Receptus was retro-translated from Latin into Greek by the author whose Greek was very poor. Other sections were included directly from the unreliable Latin Vulgate (mind you TR was supposed to be a genuine "Greek" text).
KJV contains a latter-day addition in 1 John known as Comma Johanneum. I believe you need to read about that too. It is not whether we agree with it, but the fact that it was "slipped" into the NT and is clearly a forgery.
One can only wonder how many other verses were conveniently "slipped" into various parts of the Bible and everyone is saying "it must be true, it's in the Bible!"
The oldest Bibles date to the mid 4th centuries. The oldest manuscripts (fragments) are incomplete and more a curiosity than "proof" of any continuity. The language and content of the oldest bibles is in disagreement with each other and with the next oldest complete Bible, Codex Alexandrinus (5th century), which is a mixture of different text-types and very obviously redacted in more than one way.
If you are going to hang your faith on the Bible it helps to know everything about the Bible because chances are what you are reading is not what they were reading on scrolls in the first century.
The fragments, which are copies of copies, yield very little information. The variety of copies that exist is staggering. Prof. Metzger, one of more prominent biblical scholars, once said "we have 10 fragments and 12 different versions!"
They look at fragments with the same verses, and see how they differ. It is frightening how many of them are there. The dead sea Scrolls have still not been identified in their entirety. It is then a painstaking job to determine which is closer to the 'original' as they may differ in one (crucial) word. Thus Psalm 151 appears in Hebrew in the DSS and in Septuagint, but not in any of the Massoretic OT books.
There is a lot more to knowing the Bible than meets the eye. The worst thing one can do, in my opinion, is to open a fresh copy of some established Bible version and assume that these are the words "exactly as God wrote them." It is commendable that some people approach it that way, but the hard evidence points to a different conclusion.
Take, for instance the Greek word bapto and baptiso. Both mean dipping, but baptiso means dipping repeatedly and causing permanent change! Your KJV translates baptiso as baptize. So the baptists/Protestants baptize by immersion once. Yet baptizo means multiple dippings, as opposed to bapto, which suggests one dipping.
Thus, incorrect translation led to incorrect practice of immersing only once.