dragadiddle:
dakota-raptor:
secret–psalms–saturn:
“The bible has been translated so many times!”
We have the original manuscripts karen. We have our pastors go to seminary to study the original greek/Hebrew linda. Do you think they get their credentials from a cereal box becky.
#op is right and should say it#literally ppl only use that argument when the bible says something they don’t like its ridiculous#you wouldn’t say it about the illiad???#you would say it about friggin greek literature #whats yer deal abt this??
how dare you keep this absolutely stellar commentary in the tags
To my understanding, I thought that we don’t have many of the original manuscripts, but rather many copies of the texts in which we can weed out outlying passages and form a majority consensus of what the text is.
But also, the basis of our faith should not be in if we have the original manuscripts or not, because it is grounded in the work of the Holy Spirit through the Gospel of Christ whom God the Father has and continues to draw His children. There is a peculiar glory in the text which we can see by His power. Once that glory is made known, we cannot deny its truth. But yet some see and do not see, hear yet do not hear. Only God bestows that. Yet we do everything we can to make that glory known.
Christianity is not about evidence, but it is about revelation. People witnessed Christ’s miracles and yet did not believe. This in itself can indicate to us that it is not a guarantee if we show people evidence of Christianity’s truth that people will believe. It is ultimately by revelation, a revealing, that people come into the faith.
Your confusion is based on the use here of “original manuscript.” We do not have any of the autographs, that is, we have no copy of parchment that we can say with certainty was written on by the actual author of the book in question. We don’t have Paul’s verified handwriting anywhere.
We do, however, have literally thousands of manuscripts that were made during the normal useable life span of the autographs. These are copies made during a time and usually in a place when they could be directly compared to the originals. Of the thousands we have, there is so little variation that we can say with certainty what the original manuscript said in about 99% of the text, and nothing crucial to doctrine or practice is contained in the bits up for dispute. Aside from this, we can reconstruct almost the entire NT just from quotes by the first century of church fathers. The point is, we have an abundance of documents that far outstrips any other ancient work and they are far closer in time to the originals than anything else we can verify. We do not have the autographs, but we know what they said with a precision that cannot be matched by any ancient document that goes unquestioned.
This is important. Yes, there is a step of faith between recognizing historical value and trusting in Christ that requires something beyond this argument. But let’s not downplay the role that recognizing historical value has.
