origin of the scriptures

The first sentence is entirely true. The "hundreds of years after" is extreme, since the canon was generally widely agreed upon before officially codified except in a few instances. The last point is a actually a much more interesting...

 

In my opinion, this is too large a topic to adequately discuss in a forum, but I strongly recommend a book on the scruptures, written in 1973, by David Alexander of Berkhamstead, Herts, England.

Eerdman's Handbook to the Bible, later published by Eerdman's in the USA. This book will answer most of your questions in a sound fashion.

Cheers,

Jim

 

The statement is wrong. The Bible is one book but composed of 66 different books much like other tomes have volumes. See "the Works of Josephus." But the Bible is vastly different. These 66 books were written by about 40 different authors over a period of approximately 1500 years. There are 30 books in the OT and 27 in the NT, and what put together we have one book from the beginning of creation to the end of time with one continuous theme--redemption through the work of God (specifically Christ), a book in which there is no contradiction. Every seemingly contradiction can be accounted for in one way or another. There are very few books in which there is any dispute about the authorship. For example, the book of Hebrews is one such book. But even then most people give Paul the benefit of the doubt. We have a good idea who wrote each of the books of the Bible.

 

There were many manuscripts floating around in the first and second century, all claiming some sort of "inspiration". Hence the need to develop the canon of scripture. It is not as clear cut as some would have us believe. Joaephus is not the most reliable source of truth. He did error on some facts. He was Jewish and not Christian!

In the New Testament, we read of some other manuscripts which contained the truth and some errors, and this led to some of the offshoots of the original churches of Christ. Paul corrected some, and Peter others.

A forum such as this is hardly the place to get into all the details of the unity of scripture and the 66 books we now claim as the Bible. Even the original King James translation included the Apocrypha books, later removed by the Church of England because of the confusion they caused.

Cheers,

Jim

 

The exact same things the Muslims say about the Gospels is true about the Koran. It was actually written decades later by people who knew Muhammad, and people who knew them. So I don't see how they can always try to throw that claim at us.

 

I believe if one reads the whole story on how the scriptures we have came about, one will believe we have the Word of God at hand.

What I said, was that it is not as cut and dried as some whould have us believe. Examine how the men determined which books were to be accepted and the criteria they used.

Manuscripts and copies of manuscripts were passed along from church to church and not always the correct copies. This is historical fact, and the fact that brought about having a council to determine which manuscripts were valid.

If one person, or a group, take one aspect of historical fact, yes, even the Muslims could be correct. This is why we must study the history to get the whole story.

Cheers,

Jim

 

What happened to Joseph? He would call you a heritec for making this assertion but I agree with you 100%.

 

Muslims believe that the Bible has been so corrupted that not one verse remains true to the original except that which remains in the Koran. The defence for this assertion is:
The Koran commands them that they must accept:
1. The Torah (the five books of Moses.
2. The Prophets
3. The Gospels.

However, if the Bible is so corrupted the question must be asked (as a challenge): who corrupted it? There are three major groups of people today (in the Muslim's mind) outside of Islam, and having to do with Christianity or the Bible.
1. Judaism.
2. Catholicism.
3. Protestantism.

Now, when would one of those groups ever let the other two groups conspire together to deliberately change the Bible? How could that be? When and where would it have been done? Please point to any day in history where our Bible was changed. And point to the place in the Scriptures where the changes were made.
Would the Jews allow the Catholics and Protestants to change the Bible?
Would the Catholics allow the Jews and Protestants to change the Bible?
Would the Protestants allow the Jews and Catholics to chante the Bible?

ON all three counts--Absolutely not--an impossibility. There are not changes in the Bible. Furthermore there are actual references in the Koran which state that the Bible cannot be changed.

 

Major changes, no. But minor changes abound through the various English translations. Compare for example 1 John 5:7-8 in the KJV:

7For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.
8 And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.

with the same passage in the NASB:

7 For there are three that testify:
8 the Spirit and the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement.

The ancient translators either made up a critical phrase and inserted it or the modern translators didn't like and took it out. It is unkikely that John wrote it both ways.

 

Learn some history about the Koran.
Mohammed was illiterate. He could not read or write. All of his revelations were written down by his disciples. They were written down on stones, palm leaves, animal bones, and such things. Many of his disciples memorized large portions of Mohammed's revelations. This continued over a period of 23 periods until Mohammed's death. After about a year of Mohammed's death (633 A.D.) the battle of Yamamah took place in which many of Mohammed's followers were lost. Many of those were the ones who had the Koran memorized. The second Caliph, Umar, realized that if all the fragments of the Koran were not collected and then collated into one book the Koran would be lost forever, and he needed the help of those remaining followers still alive who had great portions of it memorized. He enlisted the help of one, Zayed, a trusted friend of Mohammed, who was able to accomplish such a work and come up with one official "Koran."
A number of years later, after Umar died, and the third Caliph Othman had taken place, the Muslim community faced another crisis. They found other Muslim communities using different versions of the Koran. This would cause chaos and confusion among the Muslims as a whole. Thus Othman ordered all copies of the Korans to come to him. He had Zayed to take them, edit the first edition of the Koran, come up with another edition, and this edition is the one that we presently have (the Othman edition). Othman, at that time, took all other copies "and versions" or translations of the Koran and burned them. Thus there is only one Koran.

Nowadays you never see a Koran of any language without the Arabic side by side, and it is claimd to be the original That is a lie, of course. They have burned all their manuscript evidence.
Christians on the other hand have never had anything to hide. We have over 5,000 manuscripts all attesting to the same thing. The variations in these manuscripts do not affect any major doctrine in the Bible. Compared to the differences between what was claimed to be the Koran before Othman had everything revised, the differences in our Bible pale. Why did Othman have to burn all the evidence if he had nothing to hide?

 

There are many many excuses for practicing the ripture of scripture - discounting some Bible texts such a the following

1. All of the OT and Gospels pre-cross (Church of Christ)
2. All of the OT but accepting the Gospels
3. All of the OT, the pre-cross Gospel teachings and the book of Acts...
4. Parts of the OT and NT that debunk atheist Darwinist evolutionism.

However in this thread's affirmation of "all 66" (a healthy trend for this board) -- what about the Appocrypha? That is a case of going into the "other ditch" claiming that the RCC has the right to toy with what is called scripture since "it gave us the Bible to start with".

in Christ,

Bob