Hey Yall,
Caitlin here- okay, so as you know this blog is about both physical and spiritual wellness. I haven't posted anything spiritual lately, so I felt like it was due time to do so. I have been pondering on a topic for a few months now and want to get others opinions, especially if you disagree. The question is: Besides some minor differences in modern day translations (ie: NLT, NIV, NASB etc), do you feel like the Bible still says the same thing it did when it was written? Or over time through the many different copies and translations, have we unintentionally changed meanings, lost parts, and just overall changed parts of the Bible? The one issue I do not include in this debate is when a culture does not have a word needed for translation. For example, some cultures in warm climates have no word for snow because they never experience it, thus making it difficult to translate the passage where it says our sins will be white as snow, etc. Thus missionaries have picked a comparable phrase to get the overall idea across. Other than that, is the Bible still intact, or do you feel it has changed over time?
I personally believe that our translations are still accurate. I believe that if God can give us His word through inspiration, then in the same way he can inspire those who translate or make copies of the Bible to keep it accurate.
What is your take?
I agree with you. I think that the people who say that the Bible has been changed over the years have not actually read it. I mean a word in KJV may have a different meaning today so in NKJV or NIV and such the word may be completely different but mean the same. Like "charity" in 1 Corinthians 13 (KJV), In NKJV it uses "love" means the same but in both translations but charity now a days has a different meaning.
ReplyDeleteI believe His word has stayed intacked.:)
ReplyDeleteSorry for being so late to respond to this, but here goes:
ReplyDeleteIs it intact or has it changed?
Yes.
It is intact. Most of my scholarly knowledge is in the New Testament (and, let's face it, most Christians ignore the Old Testament with the exception of a handful of favorite passages or Messianic prophecies). As such, I'll limit my focus to that.
There are many thousands of New Testament manuscripts in existence. The earliest complete ones (containing most or all of the text) that are in Greek date to about the fourth century--three hundred years after the original texts were penned, but there are a few scraps that go back to the late first century, and several manuscripts in Latin and so forth that go back to around the second. We have nothing substantial from the first century at all--a few manuscript scraps and some stuff from Ignatius, basically.
Of those many thousands of manuscripts, some are of single passages, some of whole books or sets of books, and some of the whole New Testament. Where their content overlaps, they agree with each other about 98.5% of the time. Considering the size of the NT text, that leaves a fair amount of variation (1.5% of 138,020 words in the Greek New Testament comes to 2,070 words, roughly, or about seven pages double-spaced). Anyone who reads the Bible with any frequency has encountered manuscript variations. You'll see a verse or passage in brackets with a footnote explaining that some manuscripts do not contain that verse or passage, or you'll see a footnote saying that some passages say "God" instead of "Son" or something like that.
Some--most, even--of these variations are very minor, indeed--spelling differences that aren't even translatable, phrasing differences that mean about the same thing, and so forth. Some of them, on the other hand, are pretty significant. The adulteress story in John 8, for example, is a pretty hefty one. Most New Testaments put that in brackets, because the manuscripts disagree among themselves, and the ones that are considered most reliable simply don't contain that passage. The ones that do sometimes truncate it, or locate it in a different part of the NT altogether (a few put it in Luke).
The end of Mark is another one, and theologically even more important (after all, even if the story with the adulteress didn't happen, other, non-disputed passages make the same points). Did Jesus really say that stuff about baptism in 16:16 or snake handling, poison drinking, and tongues in 16:17? Depends on whether the manuscripts that contain that passage are right or the ones that don't contain it are right. These manuscript variations sometimes come into play pretty heavily in developing our theology (the hyper-charismatic movement takes a hard blow if Mark originally ended at 16:9). They can be substantial.
So, has it changed? Yes. If we had the New Testament, exactly as the Apostles (and their associates) wrote it down, we wouldn't have any variations. Or, if we DID have variations, we'd know exactly which reading was original. We have 98.5% of it exactly as the Apostles and company wrote it. But the rest is disputed; the right reading is probably contained in at least ONE of the manuscripts (I say "probably" because there's at least one instance where literally all of the manuscripts are wrong). But we don't know for certain which one. That's an unavoidable fact, though many have attempted to get around it by picking a manuscript tradition (like the Textus Receptus, from which the KJV was translated) and saying that it alone represents the perfect New Testament. In addition, sometimes translations disagree on how to handle certain words or phrases. Sometimes translators make mistakes. So when you pick up your English Bible, you're probably mostly seeing what the Apostles intended for you to see, but there are a handful of places where you aren't.
ReplyDeleteBut has it remained intact? Paradoxically, also yes. Of those many thousands of manuscripts, as I said, we have 98.5% agreement, and of that 1.5%, only a very small minority of the variations are significant at all. Here's the important thing: no major truth of Christianity stands or falls on a disputed passage. So if Jesus didn't say that bit about baptism in Mark 16:16, the NT still says plenty about baptism elsewhere. If He didn't say that bit about snakes, we still have Paul being miraculously protected from a snakebite in Acts. Although the absence of some of the disputed passages may murky the theological waters, occasionally, no core truth is even remotely threatened.
In other words, the message of the New Testament has come down to us, untouched and untainted, through every manuscript tradition, despite the variations. The Gospel has not been altered even a little bit. You can pick up any translation, from Wycliffe's to The Message (it's disputed as to whether that's a translation or a paraphrase; since it was made from the original languages and not from another English version, I call it an extremely dynamic translation), and come to a knowledge of salvation through it.
I think it's extremely important that we understand that this discussion is not about what God could have done. He COULD have overseen with meticulous providence the whole process from the initial inspiration, through the manuscript copying, all the way down to contemporary translation. He COULD basically "re-inspire" every translator so that they all get it exactly right. But it appears that He hasn't done that. It seems that He has, instead, done with the New Testament what He's done with Christianity in general: given it to His people correctly the first time, and then gently guided them as they took it to others, even allowing for mistakes and foibles to be made along the way.