Has the bible been altered? Not translated, interpreted, but altered?

wil · 10-23-2007, 03:53 PM

From a link that Flow provided in another thread...

Quote:

As an example, the Rt. Rev. Alexei Smith, ecumenical and interreligous official of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles, quoted from the Gospel of Mark: "Go into the world and preach the gospel to the whole creation. He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned."....

...In explaining the passage from the Gospel of Mark, Smith said that the troubling portion was appended a century after it was written -- when the four Gospels were compiled.

He said the longer ending, which added 12 verses, was written at a time when Christians either were questioning their faith in the resurrection of Jesus or defending it against skeptics and nonbelievers.

Gospel of Mark changed 100 years after it was written??

bob x · 10-23-2007, 04:29 PM

The ending of the gospel of Mark is the best-documented case of tampering (Jerome in his "Vulgate" translation set it off with a line of asterisks, and noted that it was not found in any of the oldest and best manuscripts; it is not present in the two oldest manuscripts we have today, either, and of course Jerome had a fuller supply), but there are others: the "woman taken in adultery" story was not added to the gospel of John until the 5th century, and the gamous "trinitarian" verse 1st John 5:7 did not appear until medieval times.

Thomas · 10-23-2007, 05:14 PM

Indeed, but one must take into account a synchronic reading as well as diachronic reading of the text ... for example Bultmann's extreme position — that the NT as a whole is a myth — had been utterly debunked. One cannot comprehend Scripture without Tradition.

However, the question of Scriptural authenticity is one that engages scholars at all levels and in all denominations, and is a matter requiring broad and deep consideration. A rule of thumb is there are rarely easy or definitive answers.

Bob X's comment on 1 John 5:7 is correct, yet to balance this we have:
200 - Tertullian quotes the verse (Gill, "An exposition of the NT", Vol 2, pp. 907-8)
250 - Cyprian, who writes, "And again concerning the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit it is written: 'and the Three are One'" (Vienna, vol. iii, p. 215)
350 - Priscillian cites the verse (Vienna, vol. xviii, p. 6)
350 - Idacius Clarus cites the verse (MPL, vol. 62, col. 359)
350 - Athanasius cites the verse (Gill)
415 - Council of Carthage appeals to the verse as a basic text proving a fundamental doctrine when contending with the Arians (Ruckman, "History of the NT Church", Vol. I, p. 146)
450-530 - several orthodox African writers quote the verse when defending the doctrine of the Trinity against the Vandals. These writers are:
A) Vigilius Tapensis (MPL, vol. 62, col. 243)
B) Victor Vitensis (Vienna, vol. vii, p. 60)
C) Fulgentius (MPL, vol. 65, col. 500)
8) 500 - Cassiodorus cites the verse (MPL, vol. 70, col. 1373)
9) 550 - Old Latin ms r has the verse
10) 550 - The "Speculum" contains the verse
11) 750 - Wianburgensis cites the verse
12) 800 - Jerome's Vulgate includes the verse
13) 1150 - minuscule ms 88 in the margin
14) 1200-1400 - Waldensian Bibles have the verse
15) 1500 - ms 61 has the verse

Thomas

wil · 10-23-2007, 05:22 PM

Namaste Thomas, Bob,

Surely the trinity discussion is a. not relying on one verse...and b. has plenty of threads to debate.

Beyond this...do we have...can you point to...or post...

a comprehensive list of scriptural lines that the consensus says:

a. Have definitely been added
b. Have definitely been altered
c. are debated as to whether they've been added or altered?

ie again this is not a trinity discussion however if a line that 'proves' the trinity was an added line...we should simply omit that scripture from discussion as proof.

similarly if "He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned." was added we should omit this from our proofs as well

as it would not be well....gospel

bob x · 10-23-2007, 07:47 PM

A "comprehensive" list of all those that have debatably been added to or altered would be very long. But the ending of Mark, the "woman taken in adultery", and 1 John 5:7 (despite what Thomas claims) are well agreed to be late tampers to the text.

I, Brian · 10-23-2007, 09:36 PM

I think this is where the argument that scribes who added notes which were later integrated into the text were divinely inspired comes into play? Or is it an example of human limitations?

wil · 10-23-2007, 09:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by I, Brian

I think this is where the argument that scribes who added notes which were later integrated into the text were divinely inspired comes into play? Or is it an example of human limitations?

Please to expound on the human limitations concept.

As I know it there are three kinds of scribe alterations...

1. errors, additions/omissions which are duplicated by later copiers...
2. intentional additions omissions by scribes that didn't like what they read
3 commentary/contemplations/notes in borders which later scribes thought were corrections and then added to their copies

then there are the powers that be that told scribes to add/alter to suit an agenda.

All could be argued divine intervention....of course if they needed to be altered by divine inspiration....where was the divine when the original divinations were written down....a divine error?? divinely asleep at the wheel...or simply an author that misunderstood the divine and wrote it down wrong....in any matter of the above if we feel it so couldn't it be that my interpretations, alterations, inspirations, contemplations are not mine, but divine?

Thomas · 10-23-2007, 10:18 PM

Hi Wil and all —

This introduces, in a small way, the general argument of Biblical Criticism.

We have the texts, but that's about all we do know. On matters of authorship, I think it's fair to say we know we don't know more than we know we do know, if that makes sense?

Biblical Criticism ran its course until eventually the text had been picked over so much, all meaning had been lost. It's like an autopsy when you take the body apart to such a degree, you can no longer identify what bit's which, and what the thing loked like anyway.

Then came along thinkers who said the text only makes sense in context of the Sitz im Leben, the 'setting in life', and this cannot be ignored. Tradition, thrown out with the Reformation, was back in a big way.

The phenomenology of Continental Philosophy supports this view, the anti-supernaturalism of Anglo-American Empiricism refutes it.

Bultmann, for example, advanced the hypothesis that perhaps no-one called Jesus actually ever existed, but drew back, resting on the idea that the Church had adapted its texts and the story of a martyred Jewish prophet to create the myth of a resurrected gentile God.

Scholarship, Benoit particularly, has since driven a very wide horse and cart through his theories, but the residue remains. The classic decision of The Jesus Seminar to take each and every saying attributed to Christ and vote it authentic or not on no other grounds that the presuppositions of the voter shows how bankrupt the method had become. "I don't think he said that." "Why?" "Because I just don't believe he said it."

The 'objectivity' of the Biblical Critic has been demonstrated to be a positivist myth. One must acknowledge that one either chooses to believe, or chooses not to believe, as a matter of faith. No amount of scholarship can provide inarguable evidence either way, which leaves the scholar to accept and reject according to his thesis. Very, very few come to faith on the intellectal argument alone.

Thomas

AndrewX · 10-23-2007, 10:30 PM

The late Alan Watts wrote an article that deals with this question, also including discussion of translation and interpretation ... as well as the implications of literalism and of the failure to think about what we are reading.

The article is entitled `The World's Most Dangerous Book,' and it is an excellent read!

China Cat Sunflower · 10-24-2007, 05:42 AM

Here's a fairly objective overview if anyone is interested.

The Formation of the New Testament Canon

Chris

Thomas · 10-24-2007, 01:16 PM

Hi Chris —

Looks like an interesting text.

I am of a mind that 'objectivity' in this matter is a myth, we simply don't have enough data — if we had, the argument would be conclusive, and concluded ... but we don't, and it ain't!

Thomas

LeoSalinas22 · 10-24-2007, 04:47 PM

Deuteronomy 4:29 But if from there you seek the Lord your God, you will find him if you look for him with all your heart and with all your soul.

you know, all of this "jibba jabba" about who added this and who added that is just a waste of time. we all end up falling into a snare because of this. we are not supposed to just focus on the bible since we all know that it is plain fact that the book has been corrupted beyond repair. truth is lost in this case, so we have to look for Him. its all just a big test to see how much we love Him. just seek Him out with all our hearts and with all our souls and pray that He reveals Himself to those who are actually looking for Him. just my humble opinion...

China Cat Sunflower · 10-25-2007, 05:04 AM

Hi Thomas.

Yeah, I agree that there's never going to be enough information to absolutely and definitively conclude much of anything. But in another way I think that objectivity, as a tool or process in learning, is ever the little sister of humility.

Chris

China Cat Sunflower · 10-25-2007, 05:21 AM

Hi Leo.

I remember this hymn:

Trust and obey, for there's no other way
to be happy in Jesus; but to trust and obey.

I haven't really studied the Bible. I'd have to learn to read Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic and I just don't have the time. I don't see why Bible study has to always be directed at political point making. I do know that almost nobody studies the Bible seriously. Almost all arguments about the Bible that anyone outside of academia knows about are between people who are merely defending their sense of what others have said. They are defending the virginity of the truth by never, ever penetrating it.

Chris

mee · 12-26-2007, 03:14 AM

[quote=LeoSalinas22;126479]Deuteronomy 4:29 But if from there you seek the Lord your God, you will find him if you look for him with all your heart and with all your soul.

we are not supposed to just focus on the bible since we all know that it is plain fact that the book has been corrupted beyond repair. truth is lost in this case, so we have to look for Him. /quote]

truth is never lost , but sometimes we have to dig a bit deeper to find it , and that includes a good accurate translation of the bible , and some times that good translation is right in front of us , but we could be misled to dismiss it .

(Jeremiah 29:13) “‘And YOU will actually seek me and find [me], for YOU will search for me with all YOUR heart.

(Matthew 7:7) “Keep on asking, and it will be given YOU; keep on seeking, and YOU will find; keep on knocking, and it will be opened to YOU.