Corruption of the Bible

[Guest shiloh357]

21 hours ago, OneGodBeliever said:

No Christian scholar believes they were disciples but came hundreds of years later after Jesus.

That is simply not true.   And the reason that we know it not to be true is the fact that that in 70 AD, the Romans came into Jerusalem and sacked the city and utterly destroyed it.  They didn't just destroy the Temple.   They came into Jerusalem and destroyed most of the city and the much of the surrounding areas.   And what was destroyed was built over so as to completely change much of the landscape of Jerusalem. Much of what was there was buried until the advent of modern archeology and many of the inhabitants were murdered and the rest were exiled, never to return.

The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke  and John contain a lot of detailed information about Jerusalem and environs that only a person living in pre-70 AD Jerusalem would have known about.   The Gospels mention places like the pool of Siloam, the pool of Bethesda which had the five porches.   Those areas were not uncovered until modern times.  Anyone trying write a Gospel hundreds of years after Jesus' life and ministry , would not have the detailed  information about a number of places that didn't exist at hundreds of years later after 70 AD and were not mentioned in any contemporary writings at that time.   

Secondly, the Gospel of Luke and the book of Acts demonstrate an intricate knowledge of the complexities of ancient Roman politics that baffle even modern historians and Luke/Acts have been instrumental in helping modern scholars untangle parts of the political landscape of Rome.   Someone living hundreds of years later would not have known the intricacies of first century Roman politics particularly when not even modern historians understand it.

The third reason we know that the Gospels were  not written hundreds of years after the fact is that the Gospels do not reflect the theology of the post apostolic/medieval Church.   The theological tenets that existed hundreds of  years after Jesus are not reflected anywhere in the Gospels. We would expect to see all kinds of Latin words and theology and theological terms that would be reflected in the theology of the post-apostolic, post Nicene Church.

 

Edited April 13, 2018 by shiloh357

[Justin Adams]

35 minutes ago, OneGodBeliever said:

My friend Jesus spoke Aramaic and the bible is in Greek language which Jesus never knew.

Mostly Aramaic, but some passages indicate he had a working understanding of Greek. There is much in the Aramaic Targums that translators sometimes include in the scriptures. Some are quite funny as Yeshua had a poetic way with humor (completely lost in the Greek). Aramaic is a Semitic language and swaps letters with it. Lots of the OT are also in Aramaic. The interesting point is that the 'bible' of all the early church is the OT. When Saul mentions that all scripture is beneficial etc., he is talking about the writings that all Jews and Israelis recognized as the old testament. They did not have the NT (as we do) and he was NOT referring to the NT either; except for a few letters and epistles they all relied on the Torah and other Hebraic scriptures.
Much later, when mankind got a hold of it all they passed doctrinal laws and made a few canons of scripture. Then today the 'moderns' all fight over which version and which books. They threw out some of the very good books, like Jasher and Enoch and the apocrypha because they were so afraid of people reading them. Why? Because they have this weird idea that believers are stupid and cannot tell truth from fiction and allegory. They decided to be god by denying Christians all scriptural literature. They still play god about this.

So today we have Cessationists that do not want you to believe in the Gifts of the Holy Spirit. You have the KJV only people that only recognize the Septuagint, and a whole lot of people that hold the 'bible' up as some kind of icon to be worshiped. I believe that only Yeshua and Yahweh should be worshiped. The words of the Lord are not to be confused with THE WORD (Yeshua) but many can not make that distinction and get themselves in a real bind over it.

 

[GandalfTheWise]

4 minutes ago, OneGodBeliever said:

My friend Jesus spoke Aramaic and the bible is in Greek language which Jesus never knew.

 

Now the verse 1John 5:7 which I think is most important verse for Christians:

For three who bear record in heaven, the father, the word and the holy ghost & these three are one.

This is not to be found in RSV and also verse 8 is removed too in ESV. Why?

 

Aramaic, formal Hebrew, Greek, and Latin were languages used in that geographic region at that time.  Jesus was a carpenter who potentially had contact with a range of people before starting his ministry.  Given that Aramaic was the common language in use among the masses, that was likely his native language.  However, it is not clear to what extent he may or may not have known other languages.

As a practical matter, from its beginning, Christianity was not based upon the idea of "here is the list of things to believe".  It was based upon the reality of God reaching out to us, putting His Spirit inside of us, and changing us.  Jesus called His disciples to be witnesses and tell people about what they had seen.  Acts 2 contains the story that Christians consider to be the beginning of the church.  The Holy Spirit came down on all of them (not just the special 12), and they started to tell people from all nations about the mighty things God had done in other languages.  God's first and foremost miracle at the beginning of the church was that each individual believer would themselves receive a measure of God's Spirit and be empowered to tell people of all nations what God had done.   For Christians, it was not about trying to teach all the converts Aramaic or Hebrew and have them memorize the OT or a series of "these are the Aramaic sayings of Jesus".  For Christians, it was about telling people of all nations about Jesus, the Son of God, and how that the death and resurrection of Jesus and the giving of the Holy Spirit was a gift from God to everyone.   They immediately started telling people in their own languages about Jesus.   At first, much of this was eyewitness and oral.   Then as Christians started traveling and spreading this Good News about Jesus, they started writing down the eyewitness testimony of those who had seen Jesus in person.  Christians quickly started translating this into the language of whatever people they were going to.  For Christians, it is not about memorizing and believing a series of statements of faith in Aramaic, it is about having an actual encounter with the living God and having God place a measure of His Holy Spirit inside of them.  It is about actually feeling God's presence in our lives and being changed by Him.

Greek became a predominant language of the NT primarily because it was in Greek speaking regions that the church spread most rapidly around the Mediterranean.  The writings of Luke (the gospel of Luke and Acts) were researched by Luke (likely from both Aramaic and Greek sources and people) and written in Greek.  It is likely John was written in Greek in Asia Minor (as most of the Christians in that area were Greek speakers and did not know Aramaic).  Christian scholars consider the potential that Matthew and Mark might be somewhat based on Aramaic writings and sayings about what Jesus did.  The epistles written by Paul were to Greek speaking churches.  It is fairly certain that he was writing to them in their common language Greek.

Today, it is well documented that within the first few centuries of the birth of the church that many parts of the NT had been translated into many other languages by the Christians who traveled to those places.  For each of those churches that spoke other languages, those translations of the NT became authoritative.

I John 5:7-8 are NOT the most important verses for Christians.  Belief in the Trinity comes from a series of passages, not just a single proof text.  For example, this passage in John 1 indicates that Jesus was something more than simply a special man.

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. 6 There was a man sent from God whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. 8 He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. 9 The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12 Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God. 14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.  (John 1:1-14 NIV)

The passage in I John 5:7-8 is referred to as the Johannine Comma and is well-known among Christian scholars.  Most Christian scholars view this passage as a corruption that was added to a manuscript as a footnote (possibly from public reading devotionals) probably somewhere around 1200 AD or so.  A few Christian scholars think it was part of the original texts. 

One thing that few people understand about NT Bible chapters and verses is that they were added around 1550 AD by a printer (Robert Estienne or Robertus Stephanus).   This means that chapters and verses in the NT completely and solely reflect the divisions chosen by him (and a probably a few associates) based upon the text he was printing.   It was a great innovation that made referring to various passages much easier.  However, there was the systematic issue that it was one person's (or one group of associates) opinion as to how the text should be divided up.  For better or worse, it became a standard used throughout Christianity.  It definitely has its issues, some verses break up sentences, chapters do not always follow logical divisions, etc. but it has become the standard way Christians (and others) reference particular parts of the NT.

To say that I John 5:7 was "removed" is inaccurate.  To state that the Greek NT manuscripts that most Christian scholars consider most definitive do not have that passage is more accurate.  The text used by Stephanus to create chapters and verses happened to be among the few that contained I John 5:7 in the trinitarian form.  It would be more accurate to state that most scholars disagree with Stephanus as to which passages were indeed part of the very original writing of the NT than to say that they "remove" them.  One can equivalently refer to the text tradition Stephanus used as "adding" passages.

Again, this is all well-known to Christian scholars and does not affect anything substantial.  The Christian doctrine of the Trinity does not rest upon this one passage.

 

 

 

[Mishael]

4 hours ago, OneGodBeliever said:

My friend Jesus spoke Aramaic and the bible is in Greek language which Jesus never knew.

You think Jesus was speaking to Pontus Pilate, a Roman governor, in Aramaic? Any historian would laugh at that. Jesus lived during the time when Hellenization was taking over, ever since the Hellenistic era when the Greeks started to settle in the Mediterranean and colonise it when the conquests of Alexander happened. Greek at the time of Jesus had become the language of the Mediterranean like Englisn is the language of the world today. Greek was the language of the Mediterranean at the time and no matter where you go Anatolia or Egypt despite different native language there was always Greek so this is the reason the Bible was originally written in Greek not Aramaic because not all people in the Mediterranean spoke Aramaic but Greek was spoken as English is today, which is why the Bible was written in Greek so that all people could understand it. Jesus also spoke Greek as he managed to communicate with Pontus Pilate and a Roman Centurion so he couldn't have been speaking Aramaic since Romans never learned the languages of people they deemed barbarians(which is everyone Non Roman). Also we Syriac Christians and Assyrians have an Aramaic translations from the original Greek version of the Bible in the language of Jesus Christ so you or any islamic scholar is free to inspect our Bibles in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, or Israel.

Edited April 13, 2018 by Mishael

[TheMatrixHasU71]

On 4/12/2018 at 10:04 AM, OneGodBeliever said:

To add can you answer what was the language Jesus spoke & what language original bible is?

The original Old Testament was Hebrew. The New was Greek. There are some who contend that the original was in Syriac (Aramaic), the original language of Jesus but there is no evidence of this. The oldest text fragments (1st-early second century) are GREEK and we have no 1st century surviving texts in Syriac

Now we know what you are implying here bcz I have heard this myself. There are those like you who believe that we cant possibly have an accurate gospel if we dont have it written in Jesus' language

But that would imply that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and Paul (who did speak Hebrew) were all liars and God is incapable of inspiring men to accurately put down His word in ANY language. 

Muslims tend to believe that the only true Koran is the Arabic one. But that doesnt apply here, I assure you. 

I should add that someone above me correctly mentioned the large Greek presence in Israel and if Jesus spoke to Pilate (probably in Greek though Latin may be a possibility) there is no reason why his apostles didnt speak it too.

LUKE too was a GREEK physician who knew Paul and perhaps Mary and some of the other apostles and their immediate followers as well. So how could they communicate if they didnt speak Greek?

I recommend you do some reading about the Dead Sea Scrolls especially the Great Isaiah scroll, the oldest one that we have that dates to about 150 AD I believe. 

Isaiah contains more about the life of Jesus (Isaiah 53 just to name one chapter) than any of the Old Testament combined. It is also nearly 100% intact which is considered by many to be a great miracle because it speaks so much of Jesus. And because it dates to before the time of Christ that alone is proof that what we used for Isaiah for centuries is accurate in its Hebrew form and has been translated accurately.

 

https://www.deadseascrolls.org.il/?locale=en_US

http://dss.collections.imj.org.il/isaiah

Edited April 13, 2018 by TheMatrixHasU71

[TheMatrixHasU71]

4 hours ago, GandalfTheWise said:

To say that I John 5:7 was "removed" is inaccurate

1 John 5:7 is very contentious. There is no evidence that it wasnt in the originals and yet no evidence that it was. But even if it wasnt (and there shall be no way to prove it this side of heaven) the teaching is still there, its still part of the bible

[ytLiJC]

Hi people

there is no commandment in the Bible to say "read scripture systematically", but it is written "the letter kills"(2 Cor 3:6), because letters might be changed or twisted (at least over time), which is why none of the Prophets/Saints who wrote the biblical books has been known as reading scriptures systematically, though They were the ones who wrote the holy scriptures - some people wrote scriptures, while others read them, but what resolves the problem is the very practice of faith - after all, the ones who wrote the biblical scriptures practiced the faith righteously, otherwise they would not manage to reach the point of becoming and being true Prophets/Saints of God as well as of prophesying/preaching His Word - so if any person wants to become and be acquainted with the truth of God, they have to practice the faith righteously, not to read scriptures systematically

in fact, even the protestant Bible is enough for starters - after all, we should (re-)read Scripture no more than once, twice or thrice anyway, because whoever sins a great sin after having been warned once, twice or thrice risks being punished by God

2 Corinthians 13:1 (NASB) "This is the third time I am coming to you. EVERY FACT IS TO BE CONFIRMED BY THE TESTIMONY OF TWO OR THREE WITNESSES.",

Titus 3:10 (NASB) "Reject a factious man after a first and second warning"

Blessings

[Guest shiloh357]

1 hour ago, ytLiJC said:

Hi people

there is no commandment in the Bible to say "read scripture systematically", but it is written "the letter kills"(2 Cor 3:6), because letters might be changed or twisted (at least over time), which is why none of the Prophets/Saints who wrote the biblical books has been known as reading scriptures systematically, though They were the ones who wrote the holy scriptures - some people wrote scriptures, while others read them, but what resolves the problem is the very practice of faith - after all, the ones who wrote the biblical scri

How are you defining the word, "systematically?"  And I would note that you are completely misappropriating II Cor. 3:6.  

[ytLiJC]

1 hour ago, shiloh357 said:

How are you defining the word, "systematically?"  And I would note that you are completely misappropriating II Cor. 3:6.  

 

why do religious worshipers read the Bible daily throughout their spiritual lives in this world?!, because they know the truth or because they don't know it or seek another explanation fitting with their private interests?!

is there any guarantee that reading the Bible systematically(daily/constantly) the religious worshiper will not thus fall under the interpretive influence of the wicked one?! - what if it turns out that the wicked one watches for a maximum number of people reading the Bible and seeking explanation in it to inculcate misbeliefs/heresies in them?!

1 Peter 5:8 (NASB) "Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.",

Revelation 13:2 (NASB) "And the beast which I saw was like a leopard, and his feet were like those of a bear, and his mouth like the mouth of a lion. And the dragon gave him his power and his throne and great authority."

if everyone who read the Bible understood it all properly, wouldn't all of them be a whole army of billions of righteous people and there be salvation and peace for the whole world?! - after all, a handful of people, including Jesus and His Apostles, had been able to save thousands of people perfectly and really done it, while millions of religious worshipers have not managed to do the same since Jesus and His true disciples were taken to heaven

IOW, i could think i understand the Holy Scripture even only by reading it and at the same time close my eyes (and keep my eyes closed) to the fact that the result of my religious practice is not salvation for people around me - a person could live that way even for thousands of years - i say God forbid!, because people/souls need salvation, including in this world

Blessings

[Guest shiloh357]

Just now, ytLiJC said:

 

why do religious worshipers read the Bible daily throughout their spiritual lives in this world?!, because they know the truth or because they don't know it or seek another explanation fitting with their private interests?!

is there any guarantee that reading the Bible systematically(daily/constantly) the religious worshiper will not thus fall under the interpretive influence of the wicked one?! - what if it turns out that the wicked one watches for a maximum number of people reading the Bible and seeking explanation in it to inculcate misbeliefs/heresies in them?!

1 Peter 5:8 (NASB) "Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.",

Revelation 13:2 (NASB) "And the beast which I saw was like a leopard, and his feet were like those of a bear, and his mouth like the mouth of a lion. And the dragon gave him his power and his throne and great authority."

if everyone who read the Bible understood it all properly, wouldn't all of them be a whole army of billions of righteous people and there be salvation and peace for the whole world?! - after all, a handful of people, including Jesus and His Apostles, had been able to save thousands of people perfectly and really done it, while millions of religious worshipers have not managed to do the same since Jesus and His true disciples were taken to heaven

IOW, i could think i understand the Holy Scripture even only by reading it and at the same time close my eyes (and keep my eyes closed) to the fact that the result of my religious practice is not salvation for people around me - a person could live that way even for thousands of years - i say God forbid!, because people/souls need salvation, including in this world

Blessings

You didn't answer the question.   What does "systematic" mean to you?