Did Constantine pervert the bibles?

xdisciplex,

bmerr here. I think we can look at what our Bibles say about paganism, and false religions, for starters. Read Paul's sermon in Acts 17, or the numerous references to pagan idolatry in the OT, for example. If the Bible were mixed with paganism, would it condemn it so irrefutably? I think not.

Remember 1 Thes 5:21: Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.

In Christ,

bmerr

 

Pure and simple hearsay. The texts of the Bible have been verified by archeological finds. Personally, I wouldn't use Dan Brown as a reliable source for Textual Criticism and Canon studies.

 

First time I've heard about it! One will have to be a scholar to know about these things specifically. Nevertheless, I regard Justin Martyr the first wilful perverter of the Scriptures, because I have discovered for myself the very specific falseties he initiated into Matthew 28:1.

 

Heresy

Chemnitz nailed it on the head. What Brown's referring to is the Council of Nicea. It's absolutely stupid to try and suggest that this council messed with the Word of God especially since we have found fragments dating back to before 325. Period.

 

It isn't EZ to answer the question in a sentence or two. The short answer is NO, he didn't. He had nothing to do with the Canon of scripture. He ordered 50 bibles printed, which may have been a merger of two texts that someone like Origen, an official charged with preparing such items, was aware of. Those 50 bibles were not the only texts in circulation, of course. I won't go into detail about that, here.

The Lord Jesus Christ promised to preserve all of His Words (Matthew 24:35) for every generation (John 12:48). Assurance in God's having inspired and preserved His Words does not come through writings about the Bible but by the faith that comes from hearing, hearing by the Word of God. Jesus said, "My sheep hear my voice" (John 10:27). It doesn't say "might" hear, or "sometimes" hear. How do we hear? 1 Corinthians 2:9-14. 2 Timothy 2:13-17. :thumbs:

 

More da Vinci Code bunkum.

 

xdisciplex,

bmerr here. Nate makes a good point. There have been numerous "councils" through the years, but only one council was attended by inspired men, who were guided into all truth by the Holy Spirit.

In Acts 15, we have an inspired account of the things discussed, and the decisions reached by these inspired men. In Acts 16:4-5, we find that the churches that received the word that came from this council were "...established in the faith, and increased in number daily".

Every other "council" in the history of the church of Christ has only served to cloud Bible doctrine, and cause division among Christians. Pay them no mind. Stick to the Bible.

In Christ,

bmerr

 

I will give you my understanding, just keep in mind I am no expert on textual criticism.

When speaking about the majority text, there are hundreds of manuscripts with small differences between them. Differences can be introduced by hand-copying which was the way the Bible text was propagated before the printing press was invented.

The way the text is determined is by comparing the manuscripts. The correct text is based on the agreement, since the disagreements are not in the same place in all manuscripts, there is a large body of agreement on any given text. What comes out of this is a text that is complete based on the body of agreement of the various texts.

Most of the modern versions are based on what is called the critical text, rather than the majority text. The critical text has many less copies to compare and precedence is given to the oldest (I think). This is based on archeological finds, not on transmission through the years.

Any way you look at it, the differences between the underlying text, whether majority text or critical text are not large, but for accuracy I would look for an english translation of the majority text.

Now we get into the problem of translation into other languages, such as english. Any time you translate into another language, there are choices made by the translators where there is not a strictly equivalent word for word translation. Also, phrasing is different in different languages. A direct word-for word translation of Hebrew might not be very readable in English.

English Bibles fall into rough categories (most in between the extremes) of a literal translation or a dynamic equivalence translation. The NASB is pretty literal, the NIV is pretty much dynamic equivalence, most others fall in between. This is the translation philosophy.

The differences in Bibles are generally because of the use of a different underlying text (MT or CT), or different choices by the translators. As Christ promised to preserve His word, we trust that He has guided the translation of the most reliable version of the english Bible. In any case, the argument is that no critical doctrines are affected by any of the differences.

There are plenty of underlying manuscripts to go to if you wanted to validate the deeper meaning of a word or phrase. To say we don't have an accurate Bible available today shows a lack of understanding of what has gone into producing them. The diffences are what people are focusing on when they say we don't have an accurate Bible today. Don't focus on differences, but on agreement. You will find the same ideas conveyed in any mainstream Bible.

 

Dave has done a good job of laying it out. Let me just add that the NT was canonized in the 1st century a.d. The apostles were still alive ~ they knew what was correct, what was a distortion, what was a counterfeit. Read these references: Luke 1:2; Acts 1:21-22; 1 John 2:3; John 14:25-26; 2 Peter 1:16-19. All 27 books of the NT were accepted by the brethren by the end of the 1st century. That didn't just happen. The various churches communicated about the matter; the Holy Spirit directed their oral and written conversations. Within one generation, the NT was proclaimed accurate. NO Roman Catholic council, NO Jehovah's Witness, LDS-Joseph Smith, Christian Science, Sun Yung Moon, Benny Hinn, Kenneth Copeland, or other heretical group or individual, can alter these facts. It is written that if all the letters going back and forth between the churches of that day were assembled, they would contain the whole of NT scripture in its earliest form. I don't need those letters to be convinced that what we have is sufficient ~~ but I'd love to read them all.

Keep looking up, not out! Get the vertical right so that the horizontal can be taken care of, in His Name and timing! :thumbs:

 

Hullo,
Don't feel dumb. When you see something you don't know just determine to learn more. That's what I've tried to do. There is still so much all of us have to learn.

These people are just confused and should study the issue more. Many also need to bolster their faith by pray, study.

There are errors in the KJV. Everyone who reads the text in several places know this. But this alone by no means prove that we do not have a 100% perfect Word of God.

 

The TR is not the Majority text, though I believe it was largely based on the Majority Text. Someone more familiar with this would need to opiine on this to be sure.

You are correct as far as my understanding goes on what Critical Text refers to. Every discussion I have seen on this seems to refer to this as the Alexandrian textform. Majority Text is based on Byzantine textform.

I agree there is a lot to this, but why let it bother you? Compare and contrast different English Bibles or better yet, get a copy of Strong's and refer to the underlying Greek and Hebrew word definitions when you want a clarification. There is not enough difference between the different Bibles to warrant large concern. No major doctrines are affected by the disagreements.

What version do you like? KJV, NIV, NASB, or something else? If you stick to the mainstream Bibles you should do okay. Just avoid things like the Message, which is a paraphrase rather than a translation.

 

TR is not necessarily majority text, but accepted text - at the time Rrasmus compiled the text used for the KJV.
More importently though is the CLAIM that the critical text are older. Latest scholarship proves that claim highly debatable!
Most importantly as far as I am concerned (for myself) is the modern 'Versions' and so called 'translations' - usually with the appendix, "from the original". These are the source for concern for sincere Christians. I don't compare translations - they cause confusion; I go to the Greek - of any whether TR or Aland or whichever (like Nestle). There are very little differences and none of major importance and none of any importance for faith.