John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
(It says in the begining the but bible hasn't existed that long.)
John 5:7 For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.
Revelation 19:13 And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God.
John 6:63 It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.
Hebrews 10
4because it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.
5Therefore, when Christ came into the world, he said:
"Sacrifice and offering you did not desire,
but a body you prepared for me;
6with burnt offerings and sin offerings
you were not pleased.
7Then I said, 'Here I am--it is written about me in the scroll--
I have come to do your will, O God.'
John 1
14 And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.
Now for instance, take the verse: "it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God" (Matthew 19:24, Mark 10:25, and Luke 18:25). Does this seem easy to interpret? Well... think again. In Jerusalem there was a very low and narrow gate through the city wall. When a caravan entered through that gate, the camels had to be unloaded, led through the gate crouching down, and then reloaded inside the city wall. That gate was called "the eye of the needle." So, what was Jesus saying.. that it would take a miracle for a rich man to get into heaven, or just that it was hard?... was He just making a point? Scholars have debated over this for a long time.
camel
needle
The Radiant Face of Moses
29 When Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the Testimony in his hands, he was not aware that his face was radiant because he had spoken with the LORD .
Saint Jerome (who translated the Vulgate - the official Roman Catholic translation for centuries) made a mistake: he mistook the Hebrew word for "rays" or "beams" for the similar Hebrew word for "horns" so in Exodus 34, his translation said that when Moses came down from Mount Sinai, horns (rather than rays) came out of Moses' head and it said this until the bible was tranlated into english- hence the many pictures and sculptures (including the most famous one by Michelangelo) that show Moses with a pair of horns!
Michelangelo's Moses
http://www.cptryon.org/hoagland/travels/stpeterchains/moses.html
The Bible was even twisted and changed in Jesus's day. You can see Jesus correcting the law all throughout the epistles. Read Matthew 23:1-15, 24-28 to see how Jesus viewed religious abuse.
The way he disagreed you can easily see he wasn't disagreeing with them because he was going to fulfill them but because he believes they are wrong or have been corrupted from the original texts. Like:
Mark 7:18-23 chided his disciples for their lack of spiritual understanding. Jesus and his disciples had been condemned by the religious leaders because they did not wash and eat according to the Law. Jesus said, "Are you too so uncomprehending? Don't you see that whatever goes into your mouth from the outside cannot defile you; because it does not go into your heart, but into your stomach, and is eliminated? (Thus Jesus declared all foods clean."). And Jesus added, "That which proceeds from within you, out of your heart, defiles you. Evil thoughts, abusive sex acts, thefts, murders, adulteries, deeds of coveting, wickedness, deceit, not caring, envy, slander, arrogance and foolishness: all of these evil things proceed from within and defile you."
"Are you too so uncomprehending?" implying that he should have comprehended it earlier before Jesus came.
Jesus frequently showed how the Bible had been used incorrectly to hurt people. See Matthew 5:17-48. Here Jesus said that he had come to fulfill the Law, not that he had come to force you to keep the Law! In this passage Jesus corrected several mistakes in the Old Testament by saying repeatedly, "you have heard it said, but I say unto you." Things that Jesus corrected were based on quotations from the Bible. Jesus corrected mistakes in the Bible.
Just some of the many errors that are in the Bible:
Leviticus 11:21-23
21 Yet these may ye eat of every flying creeping thing that goeth upon all four, which have legs above their feet, to leap withal upon the earth;
22 Even these of them ye may eat; the locust after his kind, and the bald locust after his kind, and the beetle after his kind, and the grasshopper after his kind.
23 But all other flying creeping things, which have four feet, shall be an abomination unto you.
In this passage in order to take it literally it states beetles have only four legs. Thats ofcoarse not true just look under any beetle (I know! Ew!) but whats wrong about this passage is that beetle wasn't the correct word for the hebrew word, which was:
transliterate word : (Chargol)
1. a kind of locust, a leaping creature
but that would mean what modern day fundamentalist and bible literalists call impossible *gasp* a mistranslation!
If you read the NIV regarding Lev. 11:13-20, You can see the succinct footnote to Lev. 11:19 "The precise identification of some of the birds, insects, and animals in this chapter is uncertain."
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(KJV) Deuteronomy 24:1,
1 When a man hath taken a wife, and married her, and it come to pass that she find no favour in his eyes, because he hath found some uncleanness in her: then let him write her a bill of divorcement, and give it in her hand, and send her out of his house
"then let him" should be "and he." As the Savior explained in Matthew 19, Moses did not command divorcement. This statute is regulating the permission of divorce because of the hardness of their hearts.
New International Version (NIV)
Deuteronomy 24
1 If a man marries a woman who becomes displeasing to him because he finds something indecent about her, "and he" writes her a certificate of divorce, gives it to her and sends her from his house
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John 2:4
NRSV "Woman, what concern is that to you and to me?"
NIV "Dear woman, why do you involve me?"
TEV "You must not tell me what to do, . . ."
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Is Jesus God�s only son or God�s only begotten son?
For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. (KJV, John 3:16) In the RSV we read that he gave his "only Son".
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Malachi 4:6 should read " . . . lest I come and smite the earth with utter destruction." "Curse" doesn't give the proper sense here. Same word used in Zechariah 14:11.
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(KJV)
Matthew 5:48 should be "Become ye therefore perfect" rather than "be ye therefore perfect." "Perfect" here means "spiritually mature." Sanctification is a process of overcoming with the aid of the Holy Spirit.
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(KJV)
Luke 14:26 has the unfortunate translation of the Greek word miseo, Strong's #3404, as "hate", when it should be rendered "love less by comparison." We are not to hate our parents and family!
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(KJV)
How many years of famine?
2 Samuel 24:13 So Gad came to David, and told him, and said unto him, Shall seven years of famine come unto thee in thy land? or wilt thou flee three months before thine enemies�
1 Chronicles 21:11-12 So Gad came to David, and said unto him, Thus saith the LORD, Choose thee Either three years' famine; or three months to be destroyed before thy foes�
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John 13:2 should be "And during supper" (RSV) rather than "And supper being ended" (KJV).
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MATTHEW 7:14
KJV - "Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life..."
NKJV - "Because narrow is the gate and DIFFICULT is the way which leads to life,"
Is the way unto eternal life difficult? No, that is false teaching. The way unto eternal life is "strait," as the KJV says, meaning "constricted, restricted, distressed, narrow, restrained."
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MATTHEW 20:20
KJV - "Then came to him the mother of Zebedee's children with her sons, worshipping him..."
NKJV - "Then the mother of Zebedee's sons came to Him with her sons, KNEELING DOWN..."
To kneel is obviously not the same as worship. "Worship" was in Tyndale's translation of 1526. It was in the Matthew's Bible of 1537. It was the Geneva of 1537. It was in the Authorized Version of 1611. Even the English Revised version of 1881 and the American Standard Version of 1901 retained the word "worship." It was the modernistic Revised Standard Version of 1952 which changed to "kneeling." Now the NKJV editors follow this same error.
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Whoever wrote 2 Kings 10:30 obviously believed that Jehu's massacre of the Israelite royal family was the will of Yahweh, but the prophet Hosea just as obviously disagreed and pronounced a curse upon the house of Jehu to avenge the "blood of Jezreel" that Jehu shed in the massacre (Hosea 1:4). Apparantley these were not meant to be taken literally they were only views by both of the authors. They were meant to be interpreted while looking at the situation at the time.
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The original Hebrew and Greek texts contain a number of different concepts for the place where people will live after death: Sheol, Gehenna, Hades. Some translations transliterate these place names, and so they appear in the English text in their original forms as "Sheol," "Gehenna," and "Hades." The reader is thus aware that they refer to different beliefs about life after death. But other Bible versions are homogenized by rendering all three locations as "Hell." This makes the Bible appear more internally consistent than it really is, and clouds the meaning of the original text.
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Many Bible translations contain what appear to be intentional errors in relation to some acts. Exodus 22:18, in the original Hebrew orders the death penalty for "m'khashepah" The word means a woman who uses spoken spells to harm others - e.g. causing their death or loss of property. Clearly "evil Sorceress" or "woman who does evil, black magic" would be a clear translation. But many versions of the Bible render this word as "witch," thus inverting the meaning of the original text. (Witches and other Neopagans are prohibited by their Wiccan Rede from doing harm to others.) A similar intentional mistranslation in some versions of the Bible relates to the Greek word "pharmakia" from which the English word "pharmacy" is derived. It refers to the practice of preparing poisonous potions to harm or kill others. "Poisoner" or simply "murderer" would be an accurate translation here. But many versions of the Bible invert the meaning of the original text by render the word as "witch." These inverted translations have caused a few modern-day, devout Christians to persecute Neopagans, believing that they are following the will of God.
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How did King Solomon change the value of PI? The value of PI is 3.14159. The Bible claims the value of PI is 3.0. (I Kings 7:23)
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The first one means all scripture THAT IS inspired by God is profitable for teaching.
The second one means ALL scripture IS inspired by God AND profitable for teaching.
Wycliffe New Testament (WYC)
2 Timothy 3
16 For all scripture inspired of God is profitable to teach, to reprove, to chastise, [for] to learn in rightwiseness,
New American Standard Bible (NASB)
2 Timothy 3
16 (1) All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness;
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KJV distinguishes (God and our Saviour Jesus Christ) as 2 different things.
While the NIV distinguishes (our God and Savior Jesus Christ) as 1 thing.
King James Version (KJV)
2 Peter 1
1 Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ:
New International Version (NIV)
2 Peter 1
1Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ,
To those who through the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ have received a faith as precious as ours:
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Was Jesus dead or alive when He was hung on the cross?
Let's see what the different versions say:
Acts 5:30 (KJV) The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree.
Acts 5:30 (NIV) The God of our fathers raised Jesus from the dead--whom you had killed by hanging him on a tree.
Acts 5:30 (ASV) The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew, hanging him on a tree.
Acts 5:30 (NRSV) The God of our ancestors raised up Jesus, whom you had killed by hanging him on a tree.
Only the KJV appears to say that Jesus was killed and then hung on a tree.
it says; killed and hanged on a tree, not killed by hanging on a tree.
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Genesis 17
23 And Abraham took Ishmael his son, and all that were born in his house, and all that were bought with his money, every male among the men of Abraham's house; and circumcised the flesh of their foreskin in the selfsame day, as God had said unto him.
The word enoshe is used in Genesis 17:23 with the word zechar (#2145) meaning �male� demonstrates this point. The King James Version states it this way:
The question arises, what other kind of men are there but males? Abraham was selecting the males from among all the �people� on his household for circumcision. The more modern translations corrected Genesis 17:23
Linguistic Drift
Language is ever changing words change meaning over time, (linguistic drift), accrue meanings that attach themselves. In short a word can change to mean the exact opposite of what it once did.
Translating from one language to another in some cases is virtually impossible, on a word for word basis. For example take the phrase "lilies of the field", try to use this phrase with some one who lives in the Amazon rain forest, they have never seen a Lilly and perhaps never seen a field. Or how about a culture that considers the liver the seat of feeling. (The Bible) you would come up to a good looking gal and say" hay babe you make my liver quiver".
There are a couple of basic truisms
1 A culture has all of the words that it needs.
2 lack or presence of a word is extremely indicative.
If I remember correctly the Inuit have approximately 20 words for snow. What you don�t say is often as important as what you do, e.g. too common place to be a concern.
For some cases you can do work around or go for equivalents if there are any.
Some factors in translations
1 language differences (lilies= orchids)
2 changes in languages over time
3 bias of the translators
4 lack of originality (not bucking the majority).
5 misunderstanding the context.
You can not isolate facts from their context and have them still be true.
We have to look at Bible passages in a number of ways.
Context, Historical
Culture
Original language
Is the theme repeated elsewhere? Is the specific concern repeated elsewhere? How do others refer to the passage elsewhere?
Does this leave a large potential area of conflict? Absolutely and not as much as you might think.
One fact that we have in essence with ancient manuscripts an unchangeable base to start from and biblical proscriptions against making changes (that jot and tittle thing) have succeeded.
One major area of conflict is the fact that a number of words with varying nuances have been translated in to one English word prime example is Sin.
One word used to translate many. Sin, 7 words with very different meaning.
Hamartia - is, literally "a missing of the mark," (and so not share in the prize)
Hasebeia - actively doing something you know is wrong.
Parakoi - Failing to hear when god speaks or ignoring what he has to say.
Anomia - means lawlessness, a contempt of Gods law.
Parabasis - Or the active breaking of a commandment. It means more than hamartia in that it implies intention.
Hittima - A sin of omission.
Agnoima - ignorance of what one ought to have known:
So we lose a great deal of vital information in the lack of English equivalents and hence meaning.
Now for a little demonstration this is a rather non-controversial passage.
Jeremiah 5:8
Septuagint [They became horses mad after females]
Vulgate Equi amatores et emissarii facti sunt [They have become passionate and wandering horses]
LB Wie die vollen mtifiigen Hengste [Like full, idle stallions]
RDV They are become as amorous horses and stallions
KJV They were as fed horses in the morning
RSV They were well-fed, lusty stallions
JBF C'dtaient des chevaux repus et bien membrds [They were well-fed and well-endowed horses]
JBS Son caballos lustrosos y enteros [They are shiny and robust horses]
JB They were well-fed, lusty stallions
JBG Feiste, wohlgebaute Hengste sind sie [Fleshy, well-built stallions they are]
NEB Like a well-fed and lusty stallion
NAB Lustful stallions they are
NIV They are well-fed, lusty stallions,
NASU They were well-fed lusty horses,
The Jersulem Bible had the same translation team for all three languages.
The Hebrew words in this passage (Jer 5:8):
"They were" hayah (haw-yaw); a primitive root [compare OT:1933]; to exist, i.e. be or become, come to pass (always emphatic, and not a mere copula or auxiliary):
9999 inserted word (x);
"fed" zuwn (zoon); a primitive root; perhaps properly, to be plump, i.e. (transitively) to nourish:
"horse" cuwc (soos); or cuc (soos); from an unused root meaning to skip (properly, for joy); a horse (as leaping); also a swallow (from its rapid flight):
"in the morning": shakah (shaw-kaw'); a primitive root; to roam (through lust):
"every one" 'iysh (eesh); contracted for OT:582 [or perhaps rather from an unused root meaning to be extant]; a man as an individual or a male person; often used as an adjunct to a more definite term (and in such cases frequently not expressed in translation):
"neighed" tsahal (tsaw-hal'); a prim root; to gleam, i.e. (figuratively) be cheerful; by transf. to sound clear (of various animal or human expressions):
"after" 'el (ale); (but only used in the shortened constructive form 'el (el)); a primitive particle; properly, denoting motion towards, but occasionally used of a quiescent position, i.e. near, with or among; often in general, to:
"his neighbour's" rea` (ray'-ah); or reya` (ray'-ah); from OT:7462; an associate (more or less close):
"wife." 'ishshah (ish-shaw'); feminine of OT:376 or OT:582; irregular plural, nashiym (naw-sheem'); a woman (used in the same wide sense as OT:582):
Literally: They were plump (engorged) horses in the morning, (to roam through lust):every one neighed cheerfully after his neighbor�s woman.
Conclusion
In order to grow and be the best Christians we can be we need to take the Bible as it really is and not pretend its something its not. Otherwise its not being used as it was intended to be used.
The Bible never claimed to be entirely a word-for-word dictation of God�s message to man.
The Bible says that scripture is inspired by God.
(2 Timothy 3:16) All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.
This means that scripture is not necessarily a word-for-word dictation by God to man. At times, God suggests ideas to the mind of the writer, guiding him and allowing him to clothe the content in his own language. This is consistent with what we find in the Bible. You can see this by different apostles describing Jesus saying the same thing but each of them pronounces it differently.
Now because the Bible is capable of mistakes does that mean we should completley disregard it? Of course not, it still was the text that had God's word written on it. It's also just a translation from a long time ago. Its just is meant to be interpreted in that way, not literally. We need to see how it would make sense to the people it was being written to BEFORE we anylise how it would relate to us today. Also most of the modern Bible is without mistakes. How do we know this? The same way we know it has some mistakes.
Since the early 1900's archeologists have recovered hundreds of thousands of koine greek and hebrew literature. We have that to compare to the original biblical manuscripts.
Weve finally been able to correct 2000 years of copying, editing and reproofing. Unfortunatley some people have trouble realizing these mistakes such as religous fundamentalists.
Is the Bible inerrant, by modern standards, in everything it asserts - even incidentally - about history, science, geography, math, and every other field of human inquiry? Was it meant to be? Our answer to these questions has been a resounding "no. " The Scriptures DO however fulfill their intended purpose of communicating God's word to His people, but they never claim to be something they're not. These post-Enlightenment expectations, when superimposed upon the Scriptural testimonies, produce the most curious interpretations.
Inerrancy hinders faith. Specifically, it ties Christian faith to a particular theory of Scripture, and an untenable theory at that. This exposes Christian faith to easy criticism by skeptics who can easily point out discrepancies in fields like history and science, and it makes every claim of Scripture - from the most minute detail of every narrative - as significant as the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The Bible itself becomes an object of faith, rather than the spiritual realities to which it points.
John 5:39; 8:32: Jesus said, "You search the Scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; but it is these that bear witness of me� You will know the truth and the truth will set you free."
Jeremiah 31:33, NIV. "This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time," declares the Lord. "I will put My law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be My people."
http://www.biblestudy.org/basicart/kjverror.html
http://www.auburn.edu/~allenkc/openhse/inerrant.html#Introduction
