Have men corrupted large parts of the Bible?

[William]

@234

onewithhim: Men have corrupted large parts of the Bible...

William: What happened to "The Bible is The Word of GOD and cannot have been tampered with because GOD made sure his Word would always be protected"?
Which is one to understand as truth, in relation to the Bible?

[Divine Insight]

I see no reason to believe that there was ever any God associated with this mythological Biblical folklore to begin with. So the idea of men having corrupted the Bible is meaningless as far as I can see. That would assume that there had originally been some pristine divine message that could be corrupted.

[brianbbs67]

There are verses known to be added later. Begs the question, what was subtracted.

[Overcomer]

Basically, you're asking if what we have now is what was written initially. Is the text reliable? Did the copyists take care? And the answer to those question is yes.

Dan Wallace is one of the world's foremost scholars in the area of Greek and textual criticism. He gives a lecture answering those questions in detail here:



If you don't have the time to listen to a long lecture, here is a short piece (a little over three minutes) by Wallace talking about variations:



Craig Blomberg has also done a lot of work in this area. Wallace reviewed his recent book on the subject here:

https://danielbwallace.com/2014/03/24/c ... the-bible/

In talking about the variants found, it's important to note that less than one per cent of them are meaningful or viable. In other words, none of the major doctrines regarding God, Jesus, and salvation are affected by them. Even Bart Ehrman who has made a name for himself picking out those variants agrees with this.

Modern Bibles make a point of designating passages that are in question (eg. the ending of Mark's gospel, Mark 16:9-20). So it's not like these things are a secret that translators are trying to hide or that scholars haven't studied in depth.

Anybody who suggests that people have corrupted the Bible down through the centuries hasn't done his/her homework and is just parrotting statements from other people who haven't done their homework but who would like such a statement to be true so they can justify their rejection of it.

[Elijah John]

@234

onewithhim: Men have corrupted large parts of the Bible...

William: What happened to "The Bible is The Word of GOD and cannot have been tampered with because GOD made sure his Word would always be protected"?
Which is one to understand as truth, in relation to the Bible?

That's what I hear from JWs here fairly often. Where do they get this? How do they know the Bible (the Protestant 66 book canon) is the Bible which God intended to transmit, incorruptible?

No matter, the corruption seems to have occured at the very beginning. Unless of course the Bible authors were taking dictation.

[brianbbs67]

@234

onewithhim: Men have corrupted large parts of the Bible...

William: What happened to "The Bible is The Word of GOD and cannot have been tampered with because GOD made sure his Word would always be protected"?
Which is one to understand as truth, in relation to the Bible?

That's what I hear from JWs here fairly often. Where do they get this? How do they know the Bible (the Protestant 66 book canon) is the Bible which God intended to transmit, incorruptible?

No matter, the corruption seems to have occured at the very beginning. Unless of course the Bible authors were taking dictation.

Short and real answer is they don't, fully(they fully understand what they are taught, though). Neither does anyone else, except me. LOL. Really , I don't know it all, for sure. But, I search and seek truth with out the confines of a doctrine. I believe that is all we can do, short of God intervening.