Feb
13
Written by:
Semere
Friday, February 13, 2009
Addisu asked the following question in the forum:
I just come to know that Acts 8 :37 is missing from most of the versions of bibles except King James Version.
"Then Philip said, “If you believe with all your heart, you may.” And he answered and said, “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.”
My problem is, i have hard time to understand KJV.
Why is this happening scholars? Is there such kind of differences from version to version? I never had KJV (i just bought one), since i was using NIV. Which bible version is the correct one?
I am not a Bible scholar by any stretch of the imagination but our scholars are quiet and here is my response:
Ancient Duplication of the Bible
First I want us to look at how the Bible was duplicated in ancient times.
Back then, they did not have computers, typewriters, printing press or anything like that. How did they make copies? Literally, by hand. Someone handwrites the whole Bible. If they want to make a few copies and if they have the right people, they would get someone to read it out loud and a bunch of scribes to write what the reader says.
In order to ensure that those copies are accurate, some of the methods they used were, 1 ) proofreading of course, 2 ) counting the number of words per line, 3 ) counting the number of words per paragraph, book, and the whole Bible. 4) Identifying words by order; meaning for example, the 9,345th word will be checked to see if it is what it is supposed to be etc…. If the count is wrong in one line, then the whole Bible is rejected and they do it all over again.
That is a fairly tight way of verifying. I would say, a three layer protection. One when they write it, two, when they proofread it, three when they count the words.
Bible Translation
Now let's talk about how Bible translations are done today and we will see that the translation methods today also add another strong layer of accuracy protection.
A lot of people today assume that the Bible is translated from a previous translation which was translated from an earlier translation and so forth. As a result, they think all those layers of translations have destroyed the originality of the Bible.
That, however, is not true at all. Almost all Bible translations are done from the original language.
Manuscripts
It is true that we do not have the first original writings in our hands. For example, we do not have the original letter handwritten by Paul to the Ephesians or Corinthians etc…What we have is multiple copies of those letters. It is believed that we have about 24,000 ancient manuscripts of the Bible. These manuscripts are discovered all around the world, mostly in middle east, Europe, and even Africa. Bible translation is based on these manuscripts. Some are dated within 30-40 years of the original writing. Almost all of these manuscripts are dated before 300 AD.
The consistency level found in these manuscripts is so high that the accuracy of the New Testament is scientifically placed at 99.95%. These manuscripts have some minor differences in a few spots due to the inadequacy of the manual copying process used over the centuries we discussed above. Two of these spots are mentioned here. There is another spot on John 8 and another in Mark 16 I believe. But then, no fundamental doctrine of the Christian faith rests on these items.....Let's take Acts 8:37 as an example. We ca definitely say that it is a phrase that would not change anything whether you choose to include it as in KJV or exclude it as in NIV (NIV inserts it as a footnote).....So, one can strongly and scientifically assert that the Bible we have today is accurate.
How is that verified? It is simply done by comparing the content of those old manuscripts discovered thorughout the world. For example a manuscript found in Jerusalem dated 135 AD is compared to another one found in Rome dated 212 AD and another one found in Egypt dated 295 AD., three different continents, three different times. Archeologists are still finding more ancient manuscripts of the Bible. As they find them, they are compared to our Bible and the consistency is overwhelming. The accuracy of the New Testament can be summarized this way: The archeological evidence for the accuracy of the New Testament is a hundred times more reliable than for any other book of its time. In other words, if you trust the accuracy of the books by Aristotle, Plato, and all those Greek philosophers, you should literally trust the accuracy of the Bible a hundred times more. This is based on archaeological evidence. I am not even preaching yet…lol.
Even most secular historians do not doubt the authenticity of our Bible today and that it is the same Bible that the first generation Christians had. They just don’t believe that it is the word of God but they agree that the Bible we have today is the same Bible the first generation Christians have.
3 comment(s) so far...
Re: Authenticity of the Bible
Thanks for responding to my question... Seme...
I will come back with some questions later..
Addisu
By Addisu on
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
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Re: Authenticity of the Bible
Wow!! What an overwhelming evidences is this. Thank you Semere for such a fine piece of work. May God bless you brother, I had some issues about Bible versions this answers most of them.
But I have one question for the time being which I come across when I was reading about the history of Bible. What do you think about the books written in the era of New Testament? And some bible historians even think some of those books should be part of the bible. These books included the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Hebrews, an Apocalypse of Peter, an Apocalypse of Paul, and the Epistle of Barnabas, to name some. Just so you know I haven’t read any of those books.
By Dawit_Gezu on
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
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Re: Authenticity of the Bible
Dawit,
I haven't read those books either but I have read a bit about them. Here is the little I know about them:
Pseudographia was a common problem in Church history. Pseudographia is when someone writes pretending to be someone they are not. Those books are collectively known as pseudographia.
The main criteria the books of the New Testament have been filtered by are:
1) Was the author a genuine apostle or closely connected to an apostle?
2) Was the book being accepted by the Body of Christ at large?
3) Did the book contain consistency of doctrine and orthodox teaching?
4) Did the book bear evidence of high moral and spiritual values that would reflect a work of the Holy Spirit?
Even though they claim to be written by some of the apostles, that is what the writers did in order to gain accpetance in the Christian community. These books dont pass the above test.
For our assurance what we need to know is that, the church is unanimous in rejecting those books. Both Catholics and Protestants have the same New Testament books. It is usually atheists and haters who try to use those books in order to discredit the canonicity of our Bible. Come to think of it. An atheist trying to tell me what my Bible should include and not include? Give me a break...
By Semere on
Thursday, February 19, 2009
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