The Book of Ages, which is known as The Bible, has been Christianity’s handbook since the early days of the Church. It is a book that has guided many souls through perilous storms of life and has given priceless instructions concerning every facet of life, and like its author, it is no respecter of persons. Anyone who ventures therein can be helped and encouraged immensely by what they find, or they may be cut deeply and killed by its law. It has been attested that this book is THE INERRANT WORD OF GOD. However, many have not realized that this "inerrant word of God" has also guided large numbers of people down the road to spurious beliefs and grave deceptions. Therefore, the question might be, WHICH BIBLE is THE INERRANT WORD OF GOD? Is it …show more content…
Whether it was deliberate or planned, we do not know; but it seems that the greatest of infractions began with the Latin Vulgates. (Vulgate: from the Latin, vulgus, relating to the common people or the speech of common people. From which comes the English word, vulgar.) This was before Jerome wrote his Latin version. Their inception was during the 2nd century by the Latin speaking churches of North Africa, and they drifted a great deal from the Greek and Hebrew texts. Nevertheless, they used these inferior translations until the 4th century. A critical ecclesiastical revision was made in Northern Italy, which was by then also using Latin Vulgates. This was of little help, for they were also very poorly translated, and by the end of the 4th century the Latin texts of the Bible in the Western Church had fallen into the highest degree of …show more content…
His several versions were adopted by the church as well as the other Latin versions that were available, and by the 8th century the corruption had arrived to such a height, that Charlemagne instructed Alcuin to revise the Latin text, which was considered one of the more accurate Vulgates. However, by the 15th century many others were being used as well, and the invention of the printing press increased the flood of unreliable texts. When the Council of Trent declared the Vulgate to be the authoritative text of scripture, the need of a standard text became more urgent than ever. An edition was then published in 1590 under the supervision of the Pope Sixtus V, with the famous constitution prefixed, in which Sixtus affirmed the total authority of the edition for all future time. It was soon found, however, that this edition also was defective; and accordingly another edition was prepared under papal authority. It appeared in 1592 in the Pontificate of Clement VIII. This version helped some but not a great deal. All in all, the Old Testament had suffered the most at the hands of the Latin translators. In the New Testament far more has been done for the correction of the Vulgate, but even here no critical edition has yet been published. Nonetheless, the vast power which the Vulgate has had in determining the theological terms of Western Christendom can hardly be overrated.
A ban on the reading or possessing the Bible by the common people was placed from AD 500 to 1500 for about a thousand years. However, it was at the council of Valencia, the Bible was placed on “The Index of Forbidden Books.”
no doubt that it was written to please King James 1, who at the time
The study of textual criticism is important when talking about any historical manuscript or text. In particular, when talking about something with as much impact and influence as the bible, textual criticism is a necessary part of scholarship. Brad Ehrman does an excellent job in explaining the basics of textual criticism and how it can be used to determine the accuracy of biblical texts and manuscripts. His book, Misquoting Jesus, serves as a primer to the study of historical biblical manuscripts. As Ehrman states in his introduction, the thesis explained in the text is that biblical manuscripts have been changed throughout history, both intentionally and non-intentionally, and that those changes were affected by the attitudes and beliefs of the scribes.
In this work he makes mention of the fact that during his lifetime, James, Jude, 2 and 3 John, as well as 2 Peter were among the disputed writings. However, while there was some degree of confusion over the authorship, he is quick to mention that they were nevertheless recognized by many within the church. While some detractors might wish to discredit the canon over this issue of confusion, Köstenberger is quick to point out that what is more telling in this letter is that there was a discussion about which books were to be considered canonical in the first place. Athanasius, in his AD 367 Easter letter to the churches in Egypt, for the first time declared that the books of the Old and New Testament, as we have them today, were to be considered canonical. As he wrote, they are to be considered fountains of salvation. Notably, he also wrote that the apocryphal books, such as The Wisdom of Solomon and Tobit, serve as mere reading material, as they are only the inventions of heretics. His recommendations were then accepted at the Council of Hippo Regius in AD 393 when 27 books of the New Testament were affirmed. Of note is the fact that these lists were in no sense the result of debate. The church simply "recognized as scripture...those writings that had guided its
Everything about the Bible is questioned constantly by believers and nonbelievers. Bibliology discusses topics such as inerrancy, inspiration, and illumination. The Bible is looked at not only as a source for wisdom and meditation but an authoritative source. The authority behind the Bible is God. Scripture was “God-breathed” and “God-Inspired”. Handwritten by human authors which sometimes may leave people to question if it is truly the word of God or not.
For centuries now Christians have claimed to possess the special revelation of an omnipotent, loving Deity who is sovereign over all of His creation. This special revelation is in written form and is what has come to be known as The Bible which consists of two books. The first book is the Hebrew Scriptures, written by prophets in a time that was before Christ, and the second book is the New Testament, which was written by Apostles and disciples of the risen Lord after His ascension. It is well documented that Christians in the context of the early first century were used to viewing a set of writings as being not only authoritative, but divinely inspired. The fact that there were certain books out in the public that were written by followers of Jesus and recognized as being just as authoritative as the Hebrew Scriptures was never under debate. The disagreement between some groups of Christians and Gnostics centered on which exact group of books were divinely inspired and which were not. The debate also took place over the way we can know for sure what God would have us include in a book of divinely inspired writings. This ultimately led to the formation of the Biblical canon in the next centuries. Some may ask, “Isn’t Jesus really the only thing that we can and should call God’s Word?” and “Isn’t the Bible just a man made collection of writings all centered on the same thing, Jesus Christ?” This paper summarizes some of the evidences for the Old and New Testament canon’s accuracy in choosing God breathed, authoritative writings and then reflects on the wide ranging
As a result of many contradictions and repeated stories, when reading the modern Old Testament it can be at times confusing. An opinion shared by many is that this confusion is a consequence of the Old Testament being written in different languages and then later translated into Latin as well as the several English versions by authors who sometimes it seems had their own specific agenda.
earliest copy was found in 400 BC. This is compared to the New Testament that
Many claimed the King James was a bitter enemy of the Catholic religion. He always tried to extend his protestant religion to the entire island. It is also said that the Roman clerics tried to kill him more then once since was born at the time of the reformation. Because of the changing conditions, another official revision of the Protestant Bible in English was needed. The reign of Queen Elizabeth imposed the uniformity upon the church. In a conference of churchmen it was requested that the Bible be revised because existing translation were corrupt and not answerable to the truth.
The Holy Bible: giant print ; containing the Old and New Testaments translated out of the original tongues ; and with the former translations diligently compared and revised, by His Majesty's special command, authorized King James version ; words of Chri. Giant print reference ed. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan Pub. House, 1994.
Holy Bible: Contemporary English Version. New York: American Bible Society, 1995. Print. (BS195 .C66 1995)
This week our studies concluded with offering students opportunity for reflection on continuing debates over biblical inerrancy and authority of Scripture. Our objectives included understanding the continuing debate of the doctrine of inerrancy and N. T. Wright’s bibliology in relation to some of his dialogue partners. Our final reading came from Denis Farkasfalvy’s book, Inspiration and Interpretation: A Theological Introduction to Sacred Scripture. This paper’s focus is my reflections of the material presented.
In this Modern age, there has been a stigma that the Old Testament is “Old” which derives from it being defined in relation to the “New” Testament, this has led as far back as Marcion of the 2nd Century, to advocate for its non-binding authority over the NT Christian and removal from the Christian Canon. The Old Testament and New Testament is a complete composition of the Bible. The Old Testament has authority since “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness (2 Timothy 3:16). In 2 Timothy, there is a clear allusion that the Old Testament is a letter to the New Testament, “what is true of the Old Testament must also be so of the New Testament as indivisible parts of divine revelation”.
The integrity of the New Testament is an area of research that is often sought out and questioned then dropped and left without further studying due to its ability to arouse deep spiritual questions concerning the integrity of ones faith. As we venture into the world of Biblical Criticism to seek out the legitimacy of The Holy Bible, we first must conceive a solid background and understanding of the topic. When Studying the integrity, thee biggest issue brought to examination is that of biblical manuscripts.
Guttenberg provided with the church’s blessing, the first of many identical bibles texts. Only a few which were printed on vellum the remaining he used the Chinese’s version of