B man wrote:
Ravi sat there and carefully checked word for word from the 4th century copy vs. his, (which seems unlikely)? Where they in the same language, even? (Is Ravi's Mt Latin?) Is he a Bible scholar? More importantly, there are centuries between when Mt was written, and a 4th century copy. Obviously a lot of changes could have been made before the 4th century copy. Maybe its better to go by what the Bible scholars say instead of what you heard on the radio about one copy?
Um, it seems that we have some differences in the basic understanding of how well the Bibles have been preserved.
First, there is all kinds of evidence that the stories in the Bibles have been altered. For instance, weve seen how Mt changed the 1Cr geneology to make it fit what he wanted to say. So many verses (sometimes whole paragraphs, see Acts 8) have been added to the Bibles over time that they amount to thousands of words. Some obvious examples include most of chapter 16 of the Gospel of Mark, which was added long after Mark was written (and by someone else), and the start of John chapter 8, which also was added later. Both of those are missing from our earliest manuscripts.
Second, we have over 5,000 of those early manuscripts, and no two of them, except for the smallest scraps, agree with each other word for word. The most common differences are spelling errors, but there are missing words, missing lines, missing pages and paragraphs, repeated lines, and so on. The worst manuscripts we have are often the earliest ones, showing that the sloppy copying was worse early on.
Thats extremely important because (third) for most of the New Testament, we dont have any manuscripts for decades or even centuries after the originals, so we have little clue as to what was changed between the originals and our earliest manuscripts. So, for instance, several decades after, say, Mt chapter 8 was written, it may have been extensively changed added to, parts cut out, and then all subsequent copies made from that altered version (or copies of it), and we have no way to know if thats true or not. We do also have many clear instances where Christian scribes altered the text when copying it. The average gap between when the originals were written and our earliest surviving copy is over 150 years plenty of time for radical changes. On any of this, you can look all this up yourself, from credible Bible scholars you dont have to take my word for any of it.
Fourth, these isnt, and never has been, agreement on what goes into the Bible and what doesnt. The Hebrew canon (the list of books in the Old Testament or OT) changed over time. You can see this from the Dead Sea Scroll (DSS) community, which included Jubl, En & more as part of their Bible, and other Jewish writings. The gyrations used in making the New Testament (NT) were similar, with many early Christians excluding Jm, Jd and others now in most modern Bibles. The Pe[bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse]ta Bible (ha, look what it did to the name of that Bible! It's Pes hi tt a) historically lacked 2 Pt, 2&3 Jn, Jd & Rv, and those have been added to some newer versions. Bibles well into the 6th century included other books in the NT, such as Ld, Hm, 3Cr, & many more. Luther made changes too (which were changed back later). In 1590 Pope Clement VIII removed 3 OT books to an Appendix, which was finally removed by Pope John Paul II in 1979. As a result of these repeated changes throughout history and into modern times, some Bibles have over 80 books, or 73, or 66, or 79, and so on. You might want to start with basic background info, such as "who wrote the Bible" by friedman.
This is only a greatly simplified summary there are many more convolutions, changes, and differences in the many Bibles. My Bible has 73 books. How many does yours have? How can you say mine is wrong, even though its used by more Christians than yours?
The conclusion from all of this is that the Bible hasnt been preserved very well at all over history. By saying that it is Gods job to preserve the Bible, you are saying that Gods not competent to do that, because it obviously hasnt been preserved, especially not with Godly perfection. I think its much more respectful of God to attribute the terrible job of preserving the Bible(s) to humans.
For that, I'll need to make more direct arguments on why I see creationism as wrong, which is not allowed in this forum, so I'll have to leave it as is, unless you'd like to open a thread about the agreement of people from so many different religions in the main origins forum.
Have a nice day-
Papias
