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Is the Bible reliable? (2 Viewers)

Not-That-Bright

Andrew Quah
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*yooneek* said:
Is the Bible reliable?
Yes it is.

The copies are so accurate that all of the biblical documents are 98.5% textually pure. The 1.5% that is in question is mainly nothing more than spelling errors and occasional word omissions like the words "the", "but", etc. This reduces any serious textual issues to a fraction of the 1.5% and none of these copying errors affects doctrinal truths.

Until the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in the 1940's, the oldest extant copy of any Old Testament writings were the Masoretic Text dated around 916 AD. When the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered, a complete copy of Isaiah was found. Its date was 125 BC. The difference in dates between the oldest copy and the newly discovered Isaiah document was 1000 years. This provided a pristine opportunity to judge the copying accuracy of the Old Testament documents since it would be easily discernable which errors crept in over 1000 years. The documents proved to be 95% textually identical. The 5 percent that was different were mainly misspellings of words and did not constitute any threat to the content or reliability of the text. This shows how accurately it was transmitted.

If the critics of the Bible want to disregard it because some of the copies of the documents are not perfectly identical, then they must also throw out other ancient writings which are no where near as well preserved as the biblical documents (Caesar, Plato, and Aristotle etc.)

The New Testament documents fall into three categories: 1) Greek manuscript copies, 2) other language copies, and 3) citations in early church writings. The NT was written in Greek and we have more than 5000 different Greek Manuscripts from which to compare. Additionally, there are another 19,000 manuscripts of ancient origin that are translations. That is, we have 19,000 manuscripts of the New Testament in Latin, ..... And finally, all of the NT (except for 11 verses) can be reconstructed from quotes of early church writings. It is very well preserved.



The New Testament is more reliable/accurate in it's copies than texts by Caesar, Plato, and Aristotle. Interesting eh...


http://www.carm.org/demo2/bible/reliable.htm
this page is where i got the info from and it has a really good table summarising the reliablilty of the New Testament in comparison to other historical texts. It's amazing.
I thought the troll was wondering whether the bible was reliable compared with known history/fact more than how reliable it is compared with the 'original text'? For instance, were there really jewish slaves to the egyptians? Did they really spend all that time 'wandering' the desert? It's a fairly interesting thing to look at if you're fond of the bible, there's answers both ways and I think (if anything) it could help people to put the text into a real historical place.
 

*yooneek*

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oh, i see what you're saying :)
let me see what i can find...
 

lengy

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see Blowjob didn't notice that the point of my original post was that there doesn't need to be another bible thread cause it will just be another bible bashing one and that we should just move this to the original bible thread.
 

ur_inner_child

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Helpme!!!!!!! said:
Did you think about the fact that the bible is actually the most historically accurate religious text?

Maybe you don't believe it but you can't ignore the plain, plain facts...
We are the product of incest HORAY!
 

lengy

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If there was Adam and Eve? How does Lilith come into this? And where did Cain and that other dude he killed, some brother, pick up their wives from? Does that mean we're all Jews?
 

bazookajoe

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lengy said:
see Blowjob didn't notice that the point of my original post was that there doesn't need to be another bible thread cause it will just be another bible bashing one and that we should just move this to the original bible thread.
I'm not sure if that means me, but I agree with you that this should just be merged to the Bible thread, I just felt it was a relevant time to point out I'm not entirely Christian.

And Blowjob? Even you can do better than that
 

robbie1

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Another one lol.....stick to the original & the best (i.e. my thread)

To answer the question....yes, yes it is.
 

Dumsum

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Get your hands on The Christ Files by John Dickson, basically an introduction to the historicity of the bible. It's not very detailed but it has a lot of references to other material. I'm trying to find the time to check it all out but it's difficult with uni.
 

Josie

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Helpme!!!!!!! said:
Did you think about the fact that the bible is actually the most historically accurate religious text?

Maybe you don't believe it but you can't ignore the plain, plain facts...
I'd hate to see some of the less accurate ones.

And besides, the point is not that it's a perfect copy of an original copy (I can write a perfect copy of Le Morte D Arthur, but that doesn't mean King Arthur existed), but true to the historic facts- something which we will never ever know. Of course, the same could be said for a lot of ancient texts.

Bah, sorry to bump. Merge this with the big bible thread or something.
 

ellen.louise

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Move this to da original thread!!!

but anyway, to christians the bible is historically acurate because it was 'God's influence throo da holy spirit' thingo so they wrote da right things, and if you don't beleive in that stuff then WHY THE FUCK DOES IT RREALLY MATTER TO YOU???
 

lengy

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Cause you're trying to pass off fiction as fact. It's like telling someone a lie and trying to convince them it's truth. People get offended by that.
 

^CoSMic DoRiS^^

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its fiction, which may or may not have a basis in fact, written a bazillion years ago by a bunch of people who may or may not have actually existed. therefore its not very reliable as a historical document. i won't deny that there probably is some factual stuff in there though.

but thats just how i see it.
 

newhopebrisbane

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Thanks guys. I didn't mean to stir up anything, I just genuinely wanted to know what you guys thought. Thanks for your answers - all of them! :)

NHB
 

lengy

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Read the first four chapters, that's what I did and gave up on the rest because it isn't as important. ;)
 

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