KJV

Are you aware there are many different “Bible” versions today claiming to be the Word of God. Each one tells us that it is the most reliable, most accurate, etc. etc.. But which of them is God’s Word? Since they all disagree with one another, we can’t possibly say that they all are. Can we? Are we to suppose that God has written more than one Bible and that he makes statements in one and then disagrees with himself in another? No, of course not. God only wrote one Bible. How, then, do we go about determining which “Bible” is the Bible? If we look to human opinion for the answer, we will find nearly as many opinions as we find people. One person will like one. Another person will prefer another. Yet a third person will assure us that it really doesn’t matter, telling us that any of them will do just fine. Since we aren’t interested in human opinion here, we need to look to scripture for help in resolving this issue. There are two questions that we will need to consider. (1) Which are the correct manuscripts?
(2) Which is the proper translation of those (the correct) manuscripts?

__________________
Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. 2 Timothy 2:15

George

The very fact that no one who wrote the original manuscripts is alive today unfortunately makes this an unanswerable question.

It's kind of the basis of agnosticism. We aren't fence riders who can't make up our minds about which "side" to choose or which manuscript to believe is the correct one. We simply accept the fact that no one alive today can answer that question definitively.

The arrogance it would take to suggest that one does would lead me to question one's true faith as that arrogance would seem to go against it.

__________________
What's that? You haven't Gone Green yet? What are you waiting for?
Got a question? Need help figuring out how something works here?
Send me a Private Message.

MickinEngland

Each team of translators interpreted the original text in their own way, but no big deal, the basic message beneath the words comes through well enough.
It's like different singers who all do their own version of well-known songs, using different musical arrangements and so on.
The King James Version is fearless whereas some more modern versions are wimpy and politically-correct.
This online site allows us to compare different Bible versions -

BibleGateway.com: Search for a Bible word or phrase in over 35 languages and 50 versions.

Og

By fearless you mean politically correct for it's time. Which would be the definition of the king james translation.

By modern versions you mean that they scholarly translated with a wealth of knowledge from a variety of reference texts from dead languages under peer reviewed and un-oppressed circumstances. Reference texts that were not available during the penning of previous versions (see nag hamadi library).

It's unfortunate that someone can use the technological marvel of communication power that is the internet and then deny the clarity that discoveries such as the dead sea scrolls have brought to the languages used to write the oldest versions of the documents that we have.

Seems very ironic.. Even humorous on some levels.

But yeah.. We don't have the originals.

Paul

I think the way to determine which version is most correct is to go to the oldest manuscripts that we have. Take the Bible as it is today, Genesis through Revalation, whether you believe it is complete or not. Critics take all the copies that have been found, and there are thousands, and compare them to each other. If 1000 copies say one thing, and then only 3 copies say somthing a little different, then it is safe to assume that those 3 had the errors. Scribes of that time went to great lenghths to keep errors out, from counting every letter and how many times it occured. As far as versions today, you have to find out which version is based on the oldest, most accurate copies.

Og

There's a cool book called "missquoting jesus" from a scholar at UNC or duke or something. I heard him on NPR and he was talking about things like how the story of the stoning of the adulteress is not in the oldest manuscripts that we have.

__________________
Vi veri veniversum vivus vici. (By the power of truth, I, while living, have conquered the universe)
The self is not a fixed entity but a dynamic process of relationships
You & I, no distinction. - Tat Tvam Asi
Become Who You Are

jaej

It's all well and good if the overall, underlying ideas are the same, but a problem arises when an error is made once and never corrected, or a word isn't the best word it could be. I can think of a couple instances of this off the top of my head: 'Adam' in genesis being the hebrew word for mankind, and 'virgin' describing mary also means a girl who concieved the first time she had sex.

__________________
Μολὼν Λαβέ

Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate

duck

This discussion only proves that the bible is the work of man. *shrugs*

Jayhawker Soule

Your source?

Unbeliever

There are some funny versions, too!

It's also a bit ironic that the site that talks about typos in some versions itself has a typo: it says "Wide-hater Bible", instead of "Wife-hater"!

__________________
The need for critical thinking is becoming critical, I'm thinking.

"If we crave some cosmic purpose, then let us find ourselves a worthy goal."
Carl Sagan

"Just think of the tragedy of teaching children not to doubt."
Clarence Darrow( 1857-1938) American Lawyer