RE: How do theists justify the translations of the scriptures?
September 4, 2019 at 4:20 pm
(This post was last modified: September 4, 2019 at 4:31 pm by Fake Messiah.)
Indeed, people change and manipulate Bibles all the time and this is part of the changing mythology of Christianity. Leaders usually manipulated the texts to please themselves, according to the circumstances they were in and the necessities they had to meet.
For instance there are script alteration to the word "kill" in the Sixth Commandment, which usually is translated as, "Thou shalt not kill." This creates a problem for Christian soldiers and other believers. How could any army or police force be successful if its members took "Thou shalt not kill" literally? Consequently, in many modern versions "kill" has been changed to "murder," for expediency's sake.
Another problem is Romans 3:23 ("All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God"). All means all; that's what it says. But Gen. 6:9 says, "Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations" and Job 1:1 and 1:8 say the same about Job. The obvious question is: If these men were perfect, how, then, can all be sinners? Biblicists will usually play with the word "perfect" and contend Gen. 6:9 doesn't say Noah is perfect; it says he was "blameless" or "complete." Authors of newer versions of the Bible try to escape the problem by revamping the wording.
Or 1 Timothy 6:10. We have all heard the comment, "The love of money is the root of all evil." Notice it says "the love" of money is "the root" of all evil. That is in the King James and a few other versions. But the NIV says, "For the love of money is a root." It does not say the root, it says a root, one among several. The quote goes on "of all kinds of evil" (not necessarily all evil). Another version says, "For the love of money is a root of all evil." And a fourth version that can be found, for instance, in the NWT, says, "For the love of money is a root of all sorts of injurious things." That does not necessarily mean it has to do with evil at all. So we have four different versions of 1 Tim. 6:10, all of which have differences, some small and some large, that go to a material doctrine in the Bible that is of critical importance. In dealing with evil and how it materializes we have these variations.
Or take Mark 16:9-20, in which the problem is not so much over what the verses say as whether or not they should even be in the Bible. The New International Version states as a footnote: "The two most reliable early manuscripts don't even have these verses," even though they are very important. They pertain to the biblical doctrine of taking up serpents and drinking any deadly thing. In light of the fact that many fundamentalist children have died while using these verses, a very important concept is involved. Yet, even people who support the Bible can't agree on whether or not these verses should be included.
You might think that you need to know Greek or Hebrew to verify the original meaning of a given passage, but the fact that scholars don't even agree on how verses should be translated. And also there are many old texts that conflict each other. You could be the world's greatest Greek or Hebrew scholar and still have experts dispute your interpretations. So who is correct? If scholars agreed, there wouldn't be so many versions on the market with major differences. This leads one to believe that they have access to the original autograph manuscripts. Nobody today has the original writings themselves. You know the original manuscripts of the NT no longer exist. They were written on perishable material and it is unlikely that they lasted for more than a few years, let alone 20 centuries. There was no "original Bible." At no time did the original autographical manuscripts of the 27 books of the NT ever reside between the covers of one particular book. So to say "I believe in the verbal, plenary complete, inspiration of the original Bible" is to say you believe in nothing, for no such book ever existed.
So when somebody gives you a book, be it the RSV, the KJV, the NIV, or what have you, all they are doing is giving you a writing that was put together by a group of scholars who read some ancient manuscripts that purportedly are accurate representations of the originals, which no longer exist. That's what you receive when you go to the store to buy a Bible. You cannot obtain a copy of the Bible since the book was never assembled within the covers of one particular volume.
For instance there are script alteration to the word "kill" in the Sixth Commandment, which usually is translated as, "Thou shalt not kill." This creates a problem for Christian soldiers and other believers. How could any army or police force be successful if its members took "Thou shalt not kill" literally? Consequently, in many modern versions "kill" has been changed to "murder," for expediency's sake.
Another problem is Romans 3:23 ("All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God"). All means all; that's what it says. But Gen. 6:9 says, "Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations" and Job 1:1 and 1:8 say the same about Job. The obvious question is: If these men were perfect, how, then, can all be sinners? Biblicists will usually play with the word "perfect" and contend Gen. 6:9 doesn't say Noah is perfect; it says he was "blameless" or "complete." Authors of newer versions of the Bible try to escape the problem by revamping the wording.
Or 1 Timothy 6:10. We have all heard the comment, "The love of money is the root of all evil." Notice it says "the love" of money is "the root" of all evil. That is in the King James and a few other versions. But the NIV says, "For the love of money is a root." It does not say the root, it says a root, one among several. The quote goes on "of all kinds of evil" (not necessarily all evil). Another version says, "For the love of money is a root of all evil." And a fourth version that can be found, for instance, in the NWT, says, "For the love of money is a root of all sorts of injurious things." That does not necessarily mean it has to do with evil at all. So we have four different versions of 1 Tim. 6:10, all of which have differences, some small and some large, that go to a material doctrine in the Bible that is of critical importance. In dealing with evil and how it materializes we have these variations.
Or take Mark 16:9-20, in which the problem is not so much over what the verses say as whether or not they should even be in the Bible. The New International Version states as a footnote: "The two most reliable early manuscripts don't even have these verses," even though they are very important. They pertain to the biblical doctrine of taking up serpents and drinking any deadly thing. In light of the fact that many fundamentalist children have died while using these verses, a very important concept is involved. Yet, even people who support the Bible can't agree on whether or not these verses should be included.
You might think that you need to know Greek or Hebrew to verify the original meaning of a given passage, but the fact that scholars don't even agree on how verses should be translated. And also there are many old texts that conflict each other. You could be the world's greatest Greek or Hebrew scholar and still have experts dispute your interpretations. So who is correct? If scholars agreed, there wouldn't be so many versions on the market with major differences. This leads one to believe that they have access to the original autograph manuscripts. Nobody today has the original writings themselves. You know the original manuscripts of the NT no longer exist. They were written on perishable material and it is unlikely that they lasted for more than a few years, let alone 20 centuries. There was no "original Bible." At no time did the original autographical manuscripts of the 27 books of the NT ever reside between the covers of one particular book. So to say "I believe in the verbal, plenary complete, inspiration of the original Bible" is to say you believe in nothing, for no such book ever existed.
So when somebody gives you a book, be it the RSV, the KJV, the NIV, or what have you, all they are doing is giving you a writing that was put together by a group of scholars who read some ancient manuscripts that purportedly are accurate representations of the originals, which no longer exist. That's what you receive when you go to the store to buy a Bible. You cannot obtain a copy of the Bible since the book was never assembled within the covers of one particular volume.
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
