Almost everyone has read the bible, even have heard of it right? What if I were to tell you that the bible you've read since you were young has pieces missing to it? Did you know that there are letters from Thomas the apostle missing and even kept in secret? That also there have been words taken and added to this book? How can my faith and yours stand knowing, "What if it was translated wrong; miss interpreted?"
"Age does not protect you from love. But love, to some extent, protects you from age."
Jeanne Moreau
Been watching Stigmata lately?
You make a good point though. Most people aren't aware that the Bible, as it exists today, was compiled long after the life and death of Jesus Christ. At that time, human beings compiled the texts that were inspired by God which laid out the tenets of Christian faith. Who is to say that these human beings didn't miss something, or that they didn't choose badly or worse?
2 Timothy 3:16 says that all scripture is inspired of God (etc etc). You find similar references elswhere in the Bible. It's hard to take a book's own word for its credibitly, but history has really proven this out. The internal harmony between all the books that are in the Bible is fantastic. It's continued relevance to our lives even two thousand years later is awesome, to use the word literally.
So what about those missing books? Thomas is not the only one. Take a look at the difference between Catholic and Protestant Bibles. There's a whole set of books that the Protestants didn't keep (the Macabees, Tobin, etc). The reason for this is that after carefully examining these books, it was found that they do not show the same signs of being inspired of God that the other books show.
The last thing I would point out is this: if you choose to believe that God truly does exist, don't you think he would see to it that his Word is preserved the way he wants it?
You ask difficult questions, Gozeta. If you're honestly curious about finding the answers (as opposed to just baiting the Christians to see if you can get anyone riled up), there are certainly resources to find the information you want.
100,000 lemmings can't be wrong. ~heard from a friend
Life is the first gift, love is the second, understanding the third. ~ Marge Piercy
Earth's crammed with heaven, and every common bush afire with God;
but only he who sees takes of his shoes. ~Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Well mankind is blessed with enough of common sense,
every one doesnt live life exactly as is written in bible.
People usually take what is good for them.
Anyways it is seen that most of the things written out
in the bible is in good sense and for the well being of the
human community. So I don't think it is a big deal to fret
about something else. The pages left on the bible are enough
to enlighten anyone. Yeah, words get taken or added from
the book as it goes down the histroy line and on translation,
from generation to generation. Yet the basic message of the
bible and the well being of the human beings is conserved,
that is what I suggest.
I say Carpe Diem...
~
"It is not that I am mad; it is only that my head is different from yours.”
~
So, are you presuming that God had some devine intervention to how the book should be? How can you be sure if this is how God wanted it?
"Age does not protect you from love. But love, to some extent, protects you from age."
Jeanne Moreau
The book is just a combination of stories packed into one volume of many chapters. Sure there were things left out, the Church built the book and the religion. God, assuming one exists, just inspired the people around the world to write about it. Religion decided what to tell the people God really meant through picking and choosing of the books to keep in the Bible.
That's just life when a religion is comprised of loosely translated text like that.
To think is to blog is to distract is to stop is to destroy is to die is to think therefore I am not good enough
I am the last one to say "you can't really know" or "God works in mysterious ways." Faith is nothing without support.Originally Posted by Gozeta
But to answer your question, you have to either accept the fact that God exists as an all good, all powerful being or tell me that you believe something else. Because if you think God is just an abstract force that doesn't care about human beings, then you've answered your own question - it doesn't matter.
So the rest of this post will assume that God exists and that he is all powerful and all good, and that Jesus Christ was his son, sent to redeem our sins.
An all powerful God who loves humankind would have little reason to want humans to simply forget him. This necessitates a provision whereby we can learn to know about him and learn to know what he wants from us. For the first couple thousand years of human history, God was in direct communication with humans. When the oral tradition finally gave way to writing, God was still in communication with humans. (Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible). Seems pretty likely that he would have made sure Moses got it straight. The same is true for the books of kings and prophets.
When Jesus came, God no longer spoke directly to his people because he had sent Jesus as his new promise to mankind. The fact that Jesus directly quotes the books in the Old Testament is very good proof that God approved of and inspired those books. The New Testament, in turn, is written by men who had God's holy spirit, which was given to them by Jesus. You'd think that Holy Spirit would fill the same function, since it was sent from God.
So the simple answer to your question is that yes, God did have a direct hand in how his Word would be recorded and passed on through history. Obviously human imperfection makes it a bit tricky (the Catholics and Protestants having a difference of oppinion over which books belong in the Bible) but a bit of historical reseach can provide some insite into the reasons for that as well.
And finally, one last comment on translation in reply to Drywen:
I find it interesting that you choose to say that the Bible, of all texts in human history, is "loosely translated." I'll leave it at that.
100,000 lemmings can't be wrong. ~heard from a friend
Life is the first gift, love is the second, understanding the third. ~ Marge Piercy
Earth's crammed with heaven, and every common bush afire with God;
but only he who sees takes of his shoes. ~Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Yeah, considering it went from something like Greek to Hebrew to Greek to Latin to English, I'd say it has its share of problems in that department alone. hehI find it interesting that you choose to say that the Bible, of all texts in human history, is "loosely translated." I'll leave it at that.
To think is to blog is to distract is to stop is to destroy is to die is to think therefore I am not good enough
I don't know... I'm just confused. I need to make more research of this. Thank you all for your statements.
"Age does not protect you from love. But love, to some extent, protects you from age."
Jeanne Moreau
I grant that there are problems out there with many old translations, but by now, most of them have been resolved. It's a strange case of more time making it possible to have better translations. Finding the Dead Sea Scrolls, for example, gave many new original texts to corroborate the original texts already in use.
But any GOOD translation of the Bible is translated directly from the original languages - Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. Many originals (that is to say, contemporary with the original writings) of every book of the Bible exist and modern translators use all available texts while compiling translations. Any time the texts disagree, there is a footnote in your translation giving both possible translations. The differences are rarely significant.
You're entitled to think whatever you'd like about the skills of the translators (who usually work in teams of dozens, or in the cases of the NIV and NWT, hundreds) but at least realize that they're not translating from translations of translations.
100,000 lemmings can't be wrong. ~heard from a friend
Life is the first gift, love is the second, understanding the third. ~ Marge Piercy
Earth's crammed with heaven, and every common bush afire with God;
but only he who sees takes of his shoes. ~Elizabeth Barrett Browning
You should. If you feel the need to find out, then you should do some research about it. But I suggest you dig from both sides, from the opinions which counter the Bible as the book consist of words, purely inspired by God and remains "original" until this very moment, and the opinions which are contradictory. Then, determine yourself, which side you want to believe in. And eventhough you already come in to a conclusion, don't stop there. Keep searching, cause there's no boundary for knowledge. I mean we know that crows are black, but who knows, maybe there are white crows out there, but we just haven't find them yet.
Your right! But do you have any ideas to where I can start searching?
"Age does not protect you from love. But love, to some extent, protects you from age."
Jeanne Moreau
Books, literature, a preacher serving in your church (if you go to church), intelectual devout Christian, people who don't believe in the Bible and have strong arguments as the basic of their action. Things around you I suppose.
Si' Seniorita. If there is a God, he would want exactly that.
A "brief" History of the Bible if you'd like, check that out. Very comprehensive. Yet in the context of it being about the Bible, pretty "brief".
To think is to blog is to distract is to stop is to destroy is to die is to think therefore I am not good enough
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