Corruption of the Bible?

[Mr Rayon]

Unlike the Quran, there are many accepted translations of the Bible that Christians regard as holy.

 

The Muslims like to tell us that the Bible got corrupted over time.

 

Through the process of translating from one language to another, how likely is it that the Bible maintained it's original meaning entirely to how they were in Hebrew (as is the case with the Old Testament) and Greek (New Testament)?

 

How accurate is the process of translation? Is it possible to translate from one language to another without altering the original meaning? I have heard that it is impossible to do this but is this correct/incorrect?

 

Also, as language changes, for example the English language over time, will we see new English translations of the Bible being printed?

 

Has the Bible been constantly changing and will it continue to change?

 

In regards to Muslims only considering the original 7th century Arabic script as holy, does this indicate that corruption is inevitable when translating from one language to another?

 

Is it actually possible to translate from one language to another, without changing the original meaning, and hence corrupting?

 

What is the position of the scientific community regarding possible corruption of the Bible during the translation process from the original languages they were in?

[John Cuthber]

"What is the position of the scientific community regarding possible corruption of the Bible during the translation process from the original languages they were in? "

 

Disinterest.

[ydoaPs]

Has the Bible been constantly changing

 

 

Yes, it is a point of fact that the texts we have now are not exact translations of the originals. The texts from which we translated aren't even exact copies of the originals. There's quite a bit of variation in texts. For instance, the ending of what we call The Gospel According to Luke now contains an ending which wasn't always there.

 

and will it continue to change?

 

There are those who think the Bible is too liberal and are translating translations so that it doesn't talk so much about how we should help the sick and poor.

[John Cuthber]

That is frightening.

[Phi for All]

Jesus answered, "If you want to be perfect, go, donate your old clothing to the thrift store (get thee a receipt), and you will have stock options in heaven. Then come, follow me to the club." Matthew 19:21 Neoconservative Translation

[John Cuthber]

"I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich poor man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich poor man to enter the kingdom of God"

[imatfaal]

Unbelievable! The first example - one of the nicest bits of the bible - is such a strange choice it is clear that this is a project fixated with an ideological message, even if that means changing the bible.

 

First Example - Liberal-Promoted Falsehood

The earliest, most authentic manuscripts of the Gospel According to Luke lack this verse fragment set forth at the start of Luke 23:34:^[13]

 

Jesus said, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." Is this a corruption of the original, perhaps promoted by liberals without regard to its authenticity? This does not appear in any other Gospel, and the simple fact is that some of the persecutors of Jesus did know what they were doing. This quotation is a favorite of liberals, although it does not appear in the earliest and best manuscripts of the Gospel of Luke. It should not appear in a conservative Bible, because in point of fact Jesus might never had said it at all.

 

 

This section of the bible is one of the most famous tie-ins with the Old Testament:

 

"Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. And they parted his raiment, and cast lots." Luke 23:34 KJV.

 

The second section directly reprises Psalms 22:18 "They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture." and the first section is a clear fulfilment of Isaiah 53:12 " ...and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors."

 

Now I don't believe any of this - but if I did, and saw someone proposing to change such a key line from the bible which ties in to both David and Isaiah in the OT then I would be thinking apostasy and faithlessness. The hypocrisy of claiming the need to stick to the bible in a literalist fundamental fashion - yet changing the words of the bible substantively is amazing and, as JC said, truly frightening; it is the overt and deliberate use of religion to indoctrinate and pursue an ideology at complete odds to the core of that faith. No one is surprised that there are political agendas within religion, that certain parts of the creed are soft-peddled and others pushed to the max, that embarrassing parts of the bible are conveniently dropped from the daily missal, and that personal hardship and self-sacrifice are better practiced in the word than in the deed; but changing the text of an important section, through the guise of re-translation, is heretical from within the religion and indoctrination from without the religion.

[immortal]

Through the process of translating from one language to another, how likely is it that the Bible maintained it's original meaning entirely to how they were in Hebrew (as is the case with the Old Testament) and Greek (New Testament)?

 

Its just you need to know when to take things literal and when to take things allegorical.

 

Gnosticism and the New Testament

 

The Gospel of John is indeed very mystical.

 

 

The face of Truth is hidden by a golden disk. O Pushan (Effulgent Being)! Uncover (Thy face) that I, the worshipper of Truth, may behold Thee. (Isha Upanishad)

XVI

 

O Pushan! O Sun, sole traveller of the heavens, controller of all, son of Prajapati, withdraw Thy rays and gather up Thy burning effulgence. Now through Thy Grace I behold Thy blessed and glorious form. The Purusha (Effulgent Being) who dwells within Thee, I am He. Here the sun, who is the giver of all light, is used as the symbol of the Infinite, giver of all wisdom. The seeker after Truth prays to the Effulgent One to control His dazzling rays, that his eyes, no longer blinded by them, may behold the Truth. Having perceived It, he proclaims: “Now I see that that Effulgent Being and I are one and the same, and my delusion is destroyed.” By the light of Truth he is able to discriminate between the real and the unreal, and the knowledge thus gained convinces him that he is one with the Supreme; that there is no difference between himself and the Supreme Truth; or as Christ said, “I and my Father are one.” Gospel of John 10:30

 

Its in all the religions of the world but scientists are very slow to realize this.

 

Has the Bible been constantly changing and will it continue to change?

 

Yes, the lost side of Christianity is coming back.

 

 

 

 

"What is the position of the scientific community regarding possible corruption of the Bible during the translation process from the original languages they were in? "

 

Disinterest.

 

A very big mistake.

 

 

 

The physicist Wolfgang Pauli, who was deeply interested in the dialogue between science and religion, said:

 

. . .Contrary to the strict division of the activity of the human spirit into separate departments. . . I consider the ambition of overcoming the opposites, including also a synthesis embracing both rational understanding and the mystical experience of unity, to be the mythos, spoken and unspoken, of our present day and age.

[studiot]

Whenever sensible discussion of any subject is undertaken is is necessary to agree (define) what that subject is.

 

In this case you need to answer the question

 

"Which Bible" ?

 

since there are more than one and these are different.

[chilehed]

Part of determining the reliability of ancient manuscripts is an evaluation of how many fragments exist, how far removed they are from the autograph, and how widely scattered they are across the world. As the number of copies and fragments increases, as the geographic range over which they are found becomes wider, and as they are closer in age to the autograph, it can be more reliably concluded that we can know what the autograph actually contained.

 

This information is from about 1980, there may be some revisions since then but it's not likely to be significantly different today:

 

We have only 35 of the historical works of Livy (59 B.C - A.D 17), known from only 20 manuscripts, only one of which is as old as the 4th Century, and that only having fragments of Books III and IV.

 

Only 4 of the Histories of Tacitus (ca A.D. 100) survive, and 10 of his Annals (with another two partials). These all depend on two manuscripts from the 9th and 11th Centuries. The extant MSS of his minor works all come from a codex that dates from the 10th Century.

 

The History of Thucydides (ca 460-400 B.C.) is known from eight MSS, the oldest dating to ca 900 AD, and a few papyrus scraps dating to the 1st Century.

 

The earliest extant MSS for the plays of Sophocles date from 1400 years after he died.

There are a handful of MSS of Caesar's Gallic Wars, the oldest from the about the 10th Century.

Homer wrote the

Iliad

ca 900 B.C, 643 copies extant, the first dating from ca 400 BC.

Herodotus wrote his History ca 425 B.C., 8 copies extant, the earliest from A.D. 900.

Aristotle from ca 384-322 B.C., the greatest number of copies we have of any one of his works is 49, earliest copy from 1100 AD.

 

There are more than 5,300 known Greek manuscripts of the New Testament, the earliest from the 3rd Century, and they're scattered all over the place. There are over 10,000 of the Latin Vulgate, 2,000 of the Ethiopic, 4,000 of the Slavic, and 2,500 of the Armenian.

In addition, the Early Fathers of the Catholic Church quote extensively from the New Testament. For example, the Letter of St. Polycarp (A.D. 70-156) to the Philippians quotes the NT so much that people have mocked him or not having anything original to say. Ignatius of Antioch's (AD 70-110) seven letters contain quotes from 15 books of the NT. Clement of Alexandria (AD 150-212) quotes the NT what, over 2,000 times, from all but three of the books.

 

So it's not like we have to worry about making translations of translations of translations. The extant manuscript evidence for the texts of the New Testament is vastly superior to any other ancient work.

 

And the textual variations are really very trivial. It's a serious mistake to think that the oldest MSS is the most reliable. If you have one MSS 100 years removed that has a variation, and you have dozens 150 or 200 years removed that are scattered from Gaul to Persia that don't have it, it might be a good indication that the single example is a miscopy.

 

And there aren't any variations on the most important part: that Jesus was dead and then he wasn't.

Edited September 20, 2012 by chilehed

[studiot]

Part of determining the reliability of ancient manuscripts is an evaluation of how many fragments exist

 

It's not determined what by exists but by what to include and what to leave out.

 

Different 'editors' at different times and places have made different choices resulting in a plethora of different 'Bibles'.

 

The christain Bible is not a single manuscript but more like a folder collection of different documents from different times and places.

Edited September 20, 2012 by studiot

[chilehed]

It's not determined what by exists but by what to include and what to leave out.

 

Different 'editors' at different times and places have made different choices resulting in a plethora of different 'Bibles'.

That's not really true, at best it's a seriously distorted oversimplification of what really happened. But this is not relevant to anything I said.

 

The christain Bible is not a single manuscript but more like a folder collection of different documents from different times and places.

And for each document, the question is "how do we determine what the autograph actually said?" And that's done by the method which I briefly described. There's very little doubt as to the contents of the original NT documents.

Edited September 21, 2012 by chilehed

[Moontanman]

That's not really true, at best it's a seriously distorted oversimplification of what really happened. But this is not relevant to anything I said.

 

 

And for each document, the question is "how do we determine what the autograph actually said?" And that's done by the method which I briefly described. There's very little doubt as to the contents of the original NT documents.

 

 

All of it is at best second hand accounts, most of was written centuries after the fact, none of it is actual testimony, and at least some of it was actually changed intentionally. Not very credible by any reasonable definition...

[studiot]

That's not really true, at best it's a seriously distorted oversimplification of what really happened. But this is not relevant to anything I said.

 

And for each document, the question is "how do we determine what the autograph actually said?" And that's done by the method which I briefly described. There's very little doubt as to the contents of the original NT documents.

 

A simplification, yes, overdistorted, no. I like to think of it at getting to the essence of the matter.

 

And certainly it is relevant as each version of the Bible includes or leaves out different documents from the available set.

 

And translation is actually a side issue as well. there are postgraduate courses available in the UK that study these documents in their original language, thus rendering translation unneccessary. Would you not agree this is the best?

 

So the answer to Mr Rayon is that the development of the Bible is studied scientifically at some establishments.

 

So you have not actually addressed my question/comment, merely sidestepped the issue.

Edited September 21, 2012 by studiot

[LimbicLoser]

A number of things have been laid out in the OP. I can only think that they should be handled in some good order--that order being considered good, being as it may.

 

Unlike the Quran, there are many accepted translations of the Bible that Christians regard as holy.

 

If 'many' were to be held primarily as being some number of translations (considering at least, for argument's sake, more than three; relative to total number existing), then I am not sure if we could assign any pragmatic value to the assertion that the Quran would be unlike the Tanakh, and/or the Greek Christian documents of canon. However, I have noticed above that studiot has highlighted the need for setting our definitions, and I agree that that is most important.

 

Since we have a number of Christian canons held to by the several institutions which do so (e.g. Eastern Orthodox as compared to Protestant), and a number of canons held to at the later, earlier stages of canon development, we might not want to allow the term (Bible) to be so broad a thing. (I mean, even the English speaking Jew will often enough call only the Tanakh, the Bible--more precisely, the Jewish Bible.) I reason that the OPP (Opening Post Person) will have to do that. (Or, at least, ought to be the one in charge of setting that.) My choice would be to modify the term to distinguish which canon is being used.

 

An English translation is like a copy of the recension (original tongue) which is the concerned best witness group text. Translation will (ought and should) follow the more properly determined methodological process, but will have ample chances to produce differences in the target language of translation. Of course, this happens in almost any translation situation, religious document, or not. It does not, in and of itself alone, determine corruption. I reason that this latter word has been used far too loosely by the OPP. Anyway, perhaps more on that later.

[John Cuthber]

 

 

A very big mistake.

Not really.

the scientific community really is disinterested in things like

" possible corruption of the Bible during the translation process from the original languages they were in? "

 

There may be psychologists who study why people change the meanings of books and there are linguists (barely a science but...) who look at the way language changes.

 

But the scientists will realise that there's nothing special about the bible.

Also, it is hard to see how you could do an experiment in this field or see how it is repeatable.

 

In any event,

http://www.dailywritingtips.com/disinterested-not-the-same-as-uninterested/

[chilehed]

All of it is at best second hand accounts, most of was written centuries after the fact, none of it is actual testimony, and at least some of it was actually changed intentionally. Not very credible by any reasonable definition...

Very common ideas that have no relationship with actual facts. Indeed, the first claim is easily disproven merely by studying the texts themselves.

 

But once again, not at all relevant to the question at hand.

 

Back on topic:

 

A simplification, yes, overdistorted, no. I like to think of it at getting to the essence of the matter.

Think what you like; it doesn't change the fact that what you said is a misrepresentation of what actually happened.

 

And certainly it is relevant as each version of the Bible includes or leaves out different documents from the available set.

Prior to the 4th Century not all local communities of Christians had access to all of the documents, so it's to be expected that each of them would have different lists of documents which they used in the Liturgy. But with the creation in the 3rd and 4th Century of spurious Gnostic "gospels", it became necessary to come to agreement on what had been handed down originally. So the Bishops got together at a number of local councils, the first at Hippo, and sorted it all out. The Gnostic works were rejected because none of them had been handed down from the past, no one recognised them as authentic and it was known that they were of recent origin.

 

After that time, there was no significant disagreement on the Canon of Scripture until the Reformation. The Reformers rejected seven of the books accepted by Hippo (and by the all of Christendom up to that time), in response to which the Catholic Church, at the ecumenical Council of Trent, dogmatized the Canon of Hippo.

 

And that's the way it's been ever since. It's not at all the way you make it sound, because in fact all of the available legitimate documents were included in the canon.

 

But again, this is not relevant to the topic of the OP, which concerns the best way to ensure accurate translations of the original documents themselves.

 

And translation is actually a side issue as well. there are postgraduate courses available in the UK that study these documents in their original language, thus rendering translation unneccessary. Would you not agree this is the best?...

Having reread the OP, it still appears to me that translation is actually what the OP is about.

 

If you want to translate someone's work, the first thing you have to do is make sure that you know what the work actually was. Until that's done, you can go no further.

Edited September 22, 2012 by chilehed

[LimbicLoser]

There is really so much involved here. (Yeah, I know I'd said it above too, but it just keeps getting more involved each time I go over the OP again.) In following along with the recent posts, I would wish to point out that we would surely want to keep our categorical (definition) differences between the terms 'translate' and 'decide on more (or most) likely autograph textual points through textual criticism.' We would do better to keep in mind the more often so distinction between 'translate' and 'render' (as in assign a target language word to an original tongue word). Then, we should understand that difference in rendering, as well as translating, does not equate corrupting a text.

 

While I would hope that the OPP would come back and help out, I still would vote that we should hold the term 'Bible' to be--for our present purpose--the commonly enough held English edition of 66 documents (or, books). I would also like to work on clarifying (so as to avoid) a common generalization I find, namely, that of just throwing out the word 'science,' or the word 'religion,' in some 'grab-all-blanket-like-statement' manner. Scientific method is one process of thinking things through and empirically checking out our thoughts, and basing further investigation on sound knowledge as we learn and build (hypothesis testing to theory refining). Scientism would be a generalization we would probably do better to avoid, and if we say 'science this, science that,' we could end up causing more confusion than we would like to. 'Religion,' however, is another one which is vague and can cause unnecessary confusion--but that is for a different thread, perhaps.

 

I still recall the AAAS's special interest group which did the 'AAAS Dialogue on Science, Ethics, and Religion' back in 2011, and the results of that. I fully agree, that many who work within the academic field range which lies within the academic and professional scientific-method-based disciplines, do not seem to want to apply scientific method to theist-involved religious belief system information sources; but I do reason that it can be done. The information provided in the Bible (see above temporary definition appealed to) is largely testable. The claim that history cannot be tested has no influence because it is a misguided notion for the most part; in this case, actually. Scientific method, in the broadest sense of the term, is fully applicable to us today, as it had been to those others of our genus in the year 40,000 BCE. (And neither 100 BCE, nor 100 CE, are any different.)

 

Thus a long story made shorter, for here, includes the following: We need to fix our definition of the English word 'Bible,' and I would think that the one which I have suggested above, is a better one. We would additionally be better off, I argue, being careful to use as precise and categorically correct terminology as we can, too. The academic and professional discipline which will fall under the umbrella category of being a scientific endeavor, will be one that is based on, and stems from, the logical and pragmatic observation and thought process which is entailed in scientific method. There are many religions in the world, and always have been. That the word 'religion' is a countable noun here, will imply that there can be a single religion to subject to our focus of attention. (from among the many possible) 'Religion,' however, can also be an uncountable noun which refers to the general nebulous of the emotion which is usually entailed in the activity and ritual of any given theist-involved religious belief system, or any non-theist-involved religious belief system. (Though there are extremely few of the latter... possibly on the earliest form of Siddhartha's philosophy system; as far as I have researched and thought about it.) What any particular theist-involved religious belief system's information source says is open to being tested for falsification on any points that may possibly be tested by such manner. The sun does not revolve around any said fixation of the earth. While part of this is for another thread (rather 'off-topic here), the spirit of it will come to play in the question of investigating the better recensions of the original tongues which make the documents of the Bible, and that of corruption of the witness texts, as well.

[John Cuthber]

Very common ideas that have no relationship with actual facts. Indeed, the first claim is easily disproven merely by studying the texts themselves.

 

You do realise that the texts can't be evidence of their own accuracy, don't you?

The major rewrite a few hundred years later is well documented.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Council_of_Nicaea

[iNow]

On top of that, the earliest gospel was written at least 40 years after Jesus' death... a full generation later. The gospels after that roughly a century after his death. It's all hearsay really. It wouldn't even stand up in court, why should we expect it to serve as evidence for the supposedly most supreme being in the entire universe?

[chilehed]

You do realise that the texts can't be evidence of their own accuracy, don't you?

They certainly are evidence of what they contain, by definition. The issue at hand, the topic of this thread, is "how do we know that we've accurately translated the document", and to answer that the first thing we need to do is make sure we know what the document actually is.

 

The question "do the documents accurately record historical events" is an entirely different topic.

 

The major rewrite a few hundred years later is well documented.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Council_of_Nicaea

You guys crack me up. Not only have you never studied the record of the Council, you apparently haven't even the slightest idea why it convened and what the issues were. The link you provided doesn't support your characterization, and the idea that wikipedia should be taken as a reliable source is itself laughable.

 

And again, this is utterly irrelevant to the topic of the thread. Is there a reason people have such a hard time staying on subject?

 

On top of that, the earliest gospel was written at least 40 years after Jesus' death... a full generation later. The gospels after that roughly a century after his death. It's all hearsay really. It wouldn't even stand up in court, why should we expect it to serve as evidence for the supposedly most supreme being in the entire universe?

*rolleyes* This is a bunch of nonsense, in part because you're making the mistake of applying standards appropriate to evaluating evidence of a recent event to an event of the ancient world. You take for granted the historicity of many ancient events for which there is vastly less record than those described in the New Testament, and for which the ancient records were written more distant in time from the events. You're making a special pleading.

 

And yet again, this is completely unrelated to the topic. If someone wants to talk about the actual topic, then I'm still in, but I don't have time to waste endlessly commenting on manifestly absurd claims that aren't remotely related to the topic.

Edited September 22, 2012 by chilehed

[iNow]

It's not manifestly absurd to point out that there is no reasonable evidence supporting your belief. It's merely a fact. As for the thread topic, it's already been answered more than once... yes, there are flaws of transcription and content within the bible.

[John Cuthber]

"They certainly are evidence of what they contain, by definition. "

Yes, but they are not evidence of the accuracy of what they contain.

So, for example, they are not evidence that their original content has not been changed.

They don't provide much evidence of when they were originally written, because they have been copied, translated and changed over the years.

And they don't provide evidence of who said what- at best they provide evidence of someone having asserted that someone said something.

 

 

"This is a bunch of nonsense, in part because you're making the mistake of applying standards appropriate to evaluating evidence of a recent event to an event of the ancient world. "

Yes, it's called science.

 

"You take for granted the historicity of many ancient events for which there is vastly less record than those described in the New Testament, and for which the ancient records were written more distant in time from the events. "

Quite possibly, but if we fail to get the right answer about how many ships were launched by the face of Helen of Troy, it doesn't matter. There's no question that, for a lot of "history" we simply don't know the truth.

 

"You're making a special pleading."

Not really, the people who think we should live our lives according to a bad record "because it's the Word of God" in spite of the fact that it contradicts itself are the ones doing special pleading.

I'm just as happy to say we don't have proper evidence for a lot of history/ archaeology as I am to say that the bible isn't proof of anything.

[iNow]

Yes, it's contents have changed through the years.

[LimbicLoser]

Not to either intentionally, nor out of any sudden emotional impulse, interrupt the exchange, folks, but I wish to highlight, and probe just a little here; if I may, please.

 

As for the thread topic, it's already been answered more than once...

Quite a correct observation in general. Before I explain further, however, allow me to present the following quote too.

... The issue at hand, the topic of this thread, is "how do we know that we've accurately translated the document", ... this is utterly irrelevant to the topic of the thread. Is there a reason people have such a hard time staying on subject? If someone wants to talk about the actual topic, then I'm still in,...

While I fully agree that the question of the soundness and truth value inherent in what is written in any given manuscript that has made its way into our Bible would surely be more off-topic than not, in this particular thread. I am equally quite sure that there are actually a whole bunch of topics given in the OP. In short, the OPP is lost in regards to the general field of inquiry that he, or she, had been trying to make statements towards. (I consider the possibility that we are looking at rhetorical tooling to be much higher than that of looking at real questions so as to learn.) I would like to hear from the OPP, just what the intended purpose had been in writing up the OP as he, or she, had done; really!

 

The issue at hand, the topic of this thread, is "how do we know that we've accurately translated the document", and to answer that the first thing we need to do is make sure we know what the document actually is.

I will leave the matter of 'this thread's topic as being any one, single topic' aside, as I reason that it is not the case, actually. What I wish to probe a little here, is more precisely the following idea, namely, that it is necessary to know what a document being looked at actually is, in order to accurately translate it. Could I please get you to expound on this embedded thought, chilehed? Thank you.