How do theists justify the translations of the scriptures?

[Drich]

never said there where 25,000 copies from the first century. I said this message has been preserved for over two thousand years. out of that preservation during that time period we have over 25,000 hand written copies of text that all tell the same message.

What you actually said was:

the fact that there are over 25,000 copies of the bible hand written and preserved over 2000 years

This is patently untrue.  There is, in fact, NO copy of the Bible that has been preserved for over 2000 years.  The oldest copy of the New Testament is the Codex Sinaiticus, which was most likely written around the middle of the 4th century.

So... I reworded it to now read correctly. I did not mean to say all 25,000 copies came from the first century because I knew 5000+ complete NT bibles where not available till the 200+ years after the fact. that's complete, that does not include the 1 first century orginal letters written by the apostles themselves.

My emphasis was on the message being kept intact for 2000 years, meaning everything written in those 25,000 manuscripts all say the same thing, they all teach the same God and Same salvation.

That is what a discourse/conversation is. it is the introduction of an idea and the refinement over a discussion. Why are you afraid to allow me the ability to refine my ideas? why do you insist that I maintain what you only THOUGHT my position was?

I'll try again, since you appear to have missed it.  A 'copy' is not the same as a 'manuscript'.

Smart guy... look up the words before you keep using them wrong. A manuscript is a hand written text as apposed to being printed. That is all manuscript means.

As I pointed out in Isaiah there are only 25 discernable differences between the oldest version of the book and the second oldest which all other copies of the book are made. there is a 800 year span between thee two books. In the ancient world only two copies f a given text need to corroborate each other before the text is a certified historic text concerning any other document other than the bible. here again we have 5000+ completed text just 3 generations away from the recorded events and for closed minded people this is still not enough. we even have individual accounts/books 50 to 75 years away, and this is still not enough.

yet something like the history of herodias which the earliest copy is 1300 year separated with only 8 total fragments in known existence... no that for you is undeniable history.

  If I write out all the words of  'Moby Dick' by hand, that's a copy AND a manuscript.  If I write 'Call me Ismael' and nothing else, that's not a copy, but it's still a manuscript. Prior to Codex Sinaiticus, what we have are manuscripts in fragment form, some more substantial than others.  But none of these are 'copies of the bible'.

that's not how codacees work sport. a codex is a collection of manuscripts. now a codex may be compiled in say 1000AD but it may contain books from the 2nd century and still yet be credited as a 1000 AD codex.

No one had the mind to compile codacees till the formation of what would become the RC church. which is why you have such a later date. there was a push to bring all of the separate denominations under one authority. Seperate denominations like the church peter strted verse the churches paul started ext..

I'll happily grant that the New Testament has over 25 000 extant manuscripts. Big deal.

it is a very big deal when on is intellectually honest with themselves as no other document of that time period even comes close.

what do you think is happening when we go to the greek texts?

I think that I admire the scholarship and the effort by Christians who do that, but I'm unconvinced that this is something that Christians 'generally' do.  Until it is demonstrated otherwise, I'm going to hold to the notion that the great majority of Christians don't engage in any serious scholarship regarding scripture,


Boru

to each one of us has been given a gift by the holy Spirit. For some that is to study and teach of those who have been such a gift I can honestly say I have never ever met one who has NOT studied the greek in some form or fashion.

they simply 'eat what is set before them'.

You have clearly never taught a sunday school class. even the children are sharks and will question everything because that is a mandate we have.

You seem to only be aware of faith based christians. while they are blessed they seem to be the more rare breed now a days.

[John 6IX Breezy]

I'll give you an example of what I'm getting at.  A lot of Christians are fond of quoting John 3:16.  It's a very popular verse and (I have to assume) a very comforting one.  But I strongly doubt that many of the Christians who throw this around have looked up the Greek for 'loved', 'begotten', 'perish', 'eternal' and so on.  But good on them if they do.  The verse on the face of it makes them feel good, it makes them feel loved, it gives them hope for a life beyond this one.  They really don't have a reason to dig deeper.

Boru

Typically when you talk to a Jehovah's Witness about the nature of Christ, the conversations turn to verses such as the one you mentioned, and what the Greek meant by son and begotten. John 1:1 is another favorite of discussion.

Jehovah's Witnesses like to go knocking on doors, so my guess is a good number of protestants that have talked to them have had these discussions with them. The disagreements between denominations usually lies in differences in interpretations of Scripture, so it's common to go to the Greek in those discussions. Christians are always trying to convert each other.

But I agree that this is all superfluous to living the Christian life. I don't think such a level of detail is needed to live a simple Christian life, it might even hurt it. Too much theory, not enough practice.

[Drich]

Hmm I don't know whether to agree or disagree. I can agree that there are many people, that identify as Christians, but the closest they come to practicing Christianity is having a prayer during a Thanksgiving meal.

But I also disagree because I grew up with a very traditional protestant mentality of "bring your bible to church to test if what the pastor is saying is true." There's nothing layfolk love more than going home after church, having potluck, and complaining about what the pastor said wrong and how the church leadership isn't what it used to be.

That tradition might not exist within Catholicism however.

I'll give you an example of what I'm getting at.  A lot of Christians are fond of quoting John 3:16.  It's a very popular verse and (I have to assume) a very comforting one.  But I strongly doubt that many of the Christians who throw this around have looked up the Greek for 'loved', 'begotten', 'perish', 'eternal' and so on.  But good on them if they do.  The verse on the face of it makes them feel good, it makes them feel loved, it gives them hope for a life beyond this one.  They really don't have a reason to dig deeper.

Boru

You are using one of my lessons to counter the new guys point!

Oh how disgusting is that!
https://www.blueletterbible.org/kjv/jhn/...nc_1000016

My point being this is proof of God's conditional love. IE God does not love everyone.

However God's love is great enough to extend everyone an invitation, however it is reserved to only those who believe in Christ.

[Lek]

I don't think translations need to be word for word accurate. The question should be "do they the same message as the originals"?

[Fake Messiah]

Bottom line is that Christians don't care what is in the Bible, they just make the Bible say whatever they want. For instance, some people like to claim that if only it was written somewhere in the Bible that slavery is forbidden, but the thing is even if one of the 10 commandments forbade slavery, Christians would still interpret and translated it like it says something different and ultimately like it doesn't even exist.

[mordant]

The Bible, or any other holy book, is a translation of scriptures written thousands of years ago, and even in different tongues.

How can theists confirm these translations are 100%, or even somewhat, accurate?

One would think that if God wants to deliver such an important message, it would be translation and time proof. But I am sure that the Bible is different even in modern bibles of different languages, and even of the same language.

The problem with written revelation isn't so much translation or even manuscript copying, it is interpretation.

It is a fairly objective exercise for any qualified expert in the source and target languages to tell you if a translation (e.g., from ancient Hebrew or Koine Greek to English) is accurate or not. Translation isn't a 100% objective exercise, so some experts will disagree on some fine points. But if the original says you must not wear mixed fabrics and the translation says you must not engage in jibber-jabber, then the translation is wrong. Not rocket science really.

There is a discipline called "lower criticism" that has been used to demonstrate that even many generations of scribal copies don't usually present any appreciable issue with us feeling we have substantially accurate copies. When there are errors or "pious frauds" they are usually pretty obvious, and the textual evidence is improving all the time. I think the most telling evidence that the manuscripts are "close enough" to not waste time arguing about it is that no great controversy has arisen from the source material for the earlier translations like the KJV (based, usually, on the Textus Receptus) vs more recent 20th century translations (based, generally, on Westcott and Hort's collection and more recent discoveries of older manuscript fragments discovered since). In other words no textual evidence has arisen that anything consequential in the scripture was lost or corrupted and then restored by discovery of older manuscripts, thus creating some kind of theological crisis.

The MUCH bigger problem is in what's called hermeneutics. This is the interpretation system used to decide what scripture means once you obtain a document and translate it. THAT is where the hilarity ensues. That's where everything devolves into debates between Armenians and Calvinists, the countless schools of eschatology, on what to take literally or figuratively and HOW literally or figuratively, what to (de)emphasize and so on. It's largely what gives rise to the countless denominations within Christianity (some denominational differences are just cultural or personal preferences but whether or not for example one can "lose" one's salvation is a matter of hermeneutics).

So I agree with you that written revelation sucks as a vehicle for delivering important information in a clear and unambiguous fashion -- just not for the reasons you raise. The basic problem is that the Christian scriptures, like all holy books, were written in a vague manner to begin with that allows you to take from it more or less what you wish, and gave rise to tea leaf-reading exercises where you now have different "camps" who claim to have the correct hermeneutic (interpretational system) to untangle all the resulting confusion.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

I don't think translations need to be word for word accurate.  The question should be "do they the same message as the originals"?

Which we can't possibly know because we don't have the originals.

Boru

[mordant]

I don't think translations need to be word for word accurate.  The question should be "do they the same message as the originals"?

Which we can't possibly know because we don't have the originals.

Boru

Yes and no.

We have good copies of the originals.

The bigger problem remains that the manuscripts are full of fabulist nonsense and not even those who profess to follow them, agree on WTF they mean.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Which we can't possibly know because we don't have the originals.

Boru

Yes and no.

We have good copies of the originals.

The bigger problem remains that the manuscripts are full of fabulist nonsense and not even those who profess to follow them, agree on WTF they mean.

No, don't have 'good copies of the originals'.  Being very generous with the dates, the Gospels and the Pauline epistles were all completed no later than 110 CE. The oldest complete NT extant is the Codex Sinaiticus, which dates (probably) to about 350 CE. There is simply no reliable way to determine how many additions, deletions, interpolations, etc were conducted in the intervening two and a half centuries (regarding Paul's letters, at least - the case is even worse for the synoptics).

Boru

[mordant]

Yes and no.

We have good copies of the originals.

The bigger problem remains that the manuscripts are full of fabulist nonsense and not even those who profess to follow them, agree on WTF they mean.

No, don't have 'good copies of the originals'.  Being very generous with the dates, the Gospels and the Pauline epistles were all completed no later than 110 CE. The oldest complete NT extant is the Codex Sinaiticus, which dates (probably) to about 350 CE. There is simply no reliable way to determine how many additions, deletions, interpolations, etc were conducted in the intervening two and a half centuries (regarding Paul's letters, at least - the case is even worse for the synoptics).

Boru

Well actually there are ways. I am not qualified to fully explicate them, but the fact is we have fragments much older than any particular codex and we can see that nothing of substance (and often literally nothing) changed between those older fragments and the newer ones. We know the scribal traditions and ethos and their commitment to careful copying. We have current translations based on significantly better source material than the older ones and nothing consequential has changed.

Of course some of the people doing this vetting have vested interests in making sure any such evaluations come out as much in favor of them as possible. But the manuscripts themselves are mostly available for anyone to look at online, so it's not like a bad faith argument wouldn't have a high probability of being exposed by a rival.

But I guess my basic point is that the actual CONTENT of the scriptures are so self-contradictory and incoherent and mythical and fabulist that we really don't have to resort to attacking the provenance of the text. It's a load of bullshit anyway.

And I find the ignorant argument that keeps surfacing among some atheists that the Bible is a load of crap because it's not just "copies of copies" but, some think, "translations of translations", to be embarrassingly ill-informed.