Just a quick question. Is there anything in the bible that has not been change by the many church's that use it?
Do you mean the Bible being changed? Or the Church putting a different meaning on the original verses?
To the first, the bulk of evidence would suggest that VERY little has been changed, most of which are grammatical errors. The second is bit more complicated because one would need to know what the orignal meaning of a particular passage is "supposed" to be, and they would need to support this claim.
The only thing that I know that most all popele accept as being added later was the Ressurection verses in Mark.
Well, since all Scriptures are written by the hands of men, and perhaps a few women, they are all subject to interpretation...or misuse by religious authorities.
How can anyone say that the bible has changed little or none. The thing has been 3500 years in the making, it has been interpreted again and again over 35 centuries. The game of chinese whispers began a long time ago, and is still now in play. A huge amount of information has been taken out of the bible over the years, and in Vatican city today the bible is still being reinterpreted. There have been thousands of editions published in countless languages, meanings are lost in translation, and things take meaning that are not meant to.
Romans 12:4-5*(New International Version) Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. Just for eample. Ok, first lets examine the idea od one body in chrsit. This immediatly is subject to interpretation. A universalist woudl view all of humanity as in the body of Chrsit as we are all God children so we all do different things (all things and skill sand talents we have are "spiritaul gifts" and believe different thigns to make the world go round. I more exclusivist viewpoint is that the "body" refers only to their specific denomination and that it is only this denomination that receives "spiritual gifts" and each one will compliment each-other within the denomination. Then there is midle ground for (more) inclusivist Christians like the RCC (in a sense) and Anglicans etc. "Belonging to the others". To me this expresses a sense of unity in a belief in Jesus the Christ as a united church regardless of which denominatin or congragation you are confirmed into. it expresses the belief that thoguh faith in Christ alone (regardless of other doctrinal beliefs) we all share in the power of Christ together and that all of our beliefs conpliment each other so as to provide a way of intulectally (some time) examining our belifs when someone else conflicts with the, We aren't supposed to get upset at this conflic as a bad thing, but as a way to learn. End of example of how to interpret a random passage. You understand? PS- this passage was random, I got it of of the biblegateway.com main page...
i see what you are saying. i was just trying to figure out what connection the original poster was making between "subject to interpretation" and the Bible being written by men. i think it should be said that even for a passage like the one you gave as an example, there is a limited number of acceptable interpretations when it is looked at in context. for example, to say that all of humanity is the body of Christ would go against the whole of scripture, would it not? people can read their own meanings into passages of scripture all they want by taking them out of context, but it won't make sense in light of the whole.
Do a search for "biblical textual cristism." Also, you should read a book that deals with the formation of the Bible. And yes I meant it when I said that very little has been manipulated most of which are grammatical errors. I'll even take it a step further and say that the New Testament is by far the most reliable of any ancient document.
I don't think that's quite true. Up until the printing press was invented, every single copy of the bible was handwritten by some guy with a pen. There are hundreds of different versions of the bible, and while most don't differ by much, some are missing or adding huge parts. Like Noah. I'm pretty sure that noah's ark didn't show up in texts before the latter half of the first millenium. I am also confident that given the general corruption and misuse of power by christian leaders, many copies of the bible were purposefully altered to give them more power over the populace. I highly doubt that there is a bible anywhere that is the same as the original gospels and texts.
Amen brother!! i couldn't have put it more eloquently. Jatom, I have done a great deal of reading on this subject, manipulation of religion is an area of fascination for me. I just can't believe how many people buy into these lies and misreadings that the bible is unchanged. I think you may find that if you look elsewhere other than standard christian texts you will find more balanced and precise reports on how the bible HAS been manipulated a GREAT DEAL to manage the flock of sheep.
The thing that gets me mostly is not that it is changed per se but that the translations are SO far off from the original meanings in a lot of cases that it turns out to be something else.
One quick example is how some protestants say you shouldn't say "The Our Father" or "The Lord's Prayer" because Jesus spoke of vainly repeated prayer. Well, that is not the case. Jesus himself is said to have said a prayer three times. The word vainly is not taken into account. Thus a bogus translation. Another example...Biblical reason women shouldn't be pastors. Yes, Paul said women in a certain church shouldn't speak until after the service. This wasn't due by divine ordination though. This was because in society at the time women were not educated. It was disruptive to the service. This later was used by people to oppress women. Yet another example...Tithing. In the Old Testament tithing is talked of. For some reason it's still carried out in the New Testament. Funny thing is...Jewish people don't tithe anymore. One thing Jesus said on the matter when he was talking can be found in Matthew 23:23. When Jesus speaks of tithing yet ignoring the laws of God. Also, notice it was NEVER money. Yet for some reason most pastors today are talking about tithing money and how it's Biblical. These are just some examples. People in power using the Bible for monetary gain and power. This cycle needs to END it's damaged Christianity more than anything in the past.
To me the entire Bible is warped through the lense of 'the Church'. The religion of Jesus was that man, and everything, was of God and full of the Holy Spirit of God. Organized religion attempts to divide God, but cannot. It is illusory, unnecessary, and degenerate. The wisdom of the Bible is wasted on fools.
but is the issue here that the translations are wrong, or that men take passages out of context and/or read their own meaning into them. Jesus does tell us not to use vain repetitions to show that God knows what we need before we even ask it and not to think that by us repeating something over and over He is going to hear us any more clearly. That said, He does teach us "The Lord's Prayer" and I think the issue is what your motivation is while praying it. Are you just repeating it like a mantra as if the word themselves are magical, or do you understand the meaning behind the words and pray it from your heart with meaning and substance. It is a formula for how we ought to pray, the model prayer. But, I don't think this means that you shouldn't pray it word-for-word if you want to. I think it's much more about you motivation. That's my take on it anyway. i think that's right, that it was a matter of the culture and of education. I mean, look at all the key figures in the Bible that were women. Christianity is anything but sexist. I think this is another example of people misreading the text or people with an agenda misusing it to enforce their own views. The same thing could be said in regards to slavery and the people who claimed the Bible said it was alright when of course the Bible never endorses slavery but actually condemns it very strongly. As Christians, we are not under the law anymore. But i think a case can be made for why it is Biblical for Christians to tithe. I think again, it all comes down to the motivation of our heart. As a Christian, everything you have belongs to God, even you personally. This includes your money. The example you gave of Jesus speaking on tithing was adressing the wrong motivations of the tithers. They hearts were far from God, it was all a show. Tithing reminds us that everything we have is a gift from God and in reality belongs to God. Tithing is giving and it is better to give than to receive. Wonderful things can be accomplished through tithing. It should be an outward expression of an inward reality, so to speak. But, I don't think that there is a legalistic formula to it like some claim.
JLP Taking things out of context is what I meant by translations. We pretty much agreed on everything you wrote.
Again, I recommend that you read some resources on the matter, because it appears that you have some misunderstandings. The reason why I gave the example of the New Testament being so reliable is because of the overwhelming manuscript evidence that supports this case. And the process used to determine the reliability of the text is the same process used on other texts, such as writings by Josephus and Tacitus, or Plato and Aristotle, for example. Again, do a search for “biblical textual criticism” or even just “textual criticism.” Also, any decent intro to the New Testament, whether it is written by a Christian or not, will give you an overview of this. Which brings me to my next point. I don’t doubt that you or sibannac have read some books on the matter like many others who claim what you say; however, I’ve found that that usually means that they’ve read books such as, The Pagan Christ, The Devinci Code, The Christ Conspiracy, The Christian Conspiracy, etc., and writings by Tom Harpur,Alvin Boyd Kuhn, Acharya S, Freke and Gandy, G.A. Wells, L. David Moore, etc. My problems with books like these are numerous, however it will suffice to say that they make use of very little to no relevant scholarship (instead of using real experts from relevant fields, we’ll have bio chemist and novelist try to tell us about Jewish costumes, Greek translations, and church history, for example), complex matters are muddied up and oversimplified, objections are misrepresented and sweep under the table, and very little to no evidence is ever given for their case except for outrageous conspiracy theories in which the lack of evidence somehow becomes evidence for their case!
Grammatical errors is true. That's why I like the original King James. There's a preface in the front that tells us, we are all human and when translating from the original language to others, liable to make mistakes. Other bibles don't even so much as remark on that. I study, using a Strongs concordance and Vines Bible dictionary so they can transliterate the real meanings of the words. These were scholars of the original languages, Hebrew, Greek, and, Aramaic.
