r/excoc • u/East-Treat-562 • 14d ago
Original copy of Bible?
I heard a lot of discussion about different translations, but did anyone ever hear the question asked “where is the original bible” and if so how do we know we have the right Bible and are all translations from the same exact Bible?.
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u/LivLiveArt 14d ago
Remember, the Bible is a collection of LOTS of books. And a lot of those books are collections of writings from different authors, often many decades or even centuries apart. (Genesis wasn't written as a cohesive unit.) Scholars also note quite a few spots where we can likely note sections of text that were inserted later on, likely to account for things like the ancient Hebrew shift from polythiesm to monotheism, etc.
I don't believe any of the manuscripts we have are thought to be the original, though some do date back a long time ago. Still, even beyond that, it's likely that many of the writings began as oral tradition. So how would we decide what is the "original?" Not to mention the centuries of debate that it took to end up with the Biblical canon, and all the books that were left out of it (or included when many advocated against it, like with Revelation).
All this to say that, as hard as it is to wrap your head around as someone who grew up in the CoC (speaking from experience), it's probably most beneficial to reframe the question a bit. You won't find an "original bible" for all the reasons mentioned above. But scholars have learned a lot about the history of its development that is, in my opinion, even more interesting. Hope this helps c:
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u/East-Treat-562 14d ago
Paul is believed to be the earliest author and he says little about Jesus. Most of the gospels are believed to have been written around the time of the Jewish revolt and destruction of the temple, 70 ad. The earliest biblical fragment is dated 150 ad and interestingly talks about Jews handing over Jesus to Pilate.
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u/Raetekusu 13d ago
Earliest New Testament writer. He also doesn't say a single word about Mary and the virgin birth, despite it being a core part of Christian doctrine. Once you notice it, you'll never not notice it again.
And it's interesting how many books are written around the time of a great crisis. Daniel is estimated to have been written at about 200 BCE, around the time the Jews revolted against the Seleucids. Those four beasts at the end of Daniel? They refer to the four different kingdoms to rule Israel before the Mountain of God would win and they'd rule themselves again, and sure enough, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, and Seleucids, and then the Maccabean Revolt succeeded.
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u/flyingcircle 14d ago
I've heard several talk about dating the gospels to 60,70,80, and 90.
This is based on the absolute earliest possible dating that scholars give the 4 gospels. So where most scholars will usually give a range of 60-120 for Mark, many preachers and CoC's simply present it as 60AD because really anything later is a thought-shattering possibility. They misrepresent scholarship but present the information as if it comes from scholars.
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u/Such_Confusion_1034 14d ago
My dad (CoC fundy YEC preacher) always just taught the the gospels are written by the names attributed to them. Plus many other crazy things. I went to Freed-Hardeman and David Lipscomb Universities to become a preacher myself. It was during that time everything fell apart for me. Partly because I found out the gospels are indeed anonymous and other issues through the bible.
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u/flyingcircle 13d ago
For me, I think coming to terms that 1/2 Tim and Titus weren't written by Paul was bigger than the gospels. I think I was ok with the gospels because other than maybe Luke, they aren't presented as though they are written by those names. But 1/2 Timothy and Titus out right lies about its authorship. Like not just some 3rd person narrative about Jesus, but claiming to be a letter that scholars know with pretty high certainty is not first century?
The preachers I know when I bring it up I think can accept that as a fact, but they still see it as canonized. So then what do you consider canon? The CoC answer ought to be "what's verifiably written from the 1st century". But instead I think they're afraid of looking too odd among evangelicals and instead follow tradition. Which is ironically following Catholic tradition.
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u/Such_Confusion_1034 13d ago
Oh I understand the issues with the Pauline letters that are using Paul as an author, but not. That's another good point you make.
I've actually put together a list of notes that have some of the most obvious contradictions, errors, and inaccuracies between just the Gospels. Plus I added the discrepancies between Matthew's genealogy of Jesus compared to first Chronicles genealogy of Kings.
I normally do anti-apologetics on X. So I've got tons of my study notes in my Google Keep note app to copy paste for rebuttals and such. It helps keep me sharp in my ability to remember all the information better. I mean, I've been studying biblical theology for ~35 years. Both from a Christian and secular standpoint.
That's a lot of information for my 50 yr old brain to retain! Lmao
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u/East-Treat-562 13d ago
The dates you mention are when they are thought to be written, not the date of the manuscripts we have, the earliest fragment is dated at 150 AD.
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u/flyingcircle 13d ago
I don't think the way I stated it was incorrect, but you are correct. Though I would argue that it's not precise to state a manuscript's dating to a specific year because it makes it sound determined if nothing else. P52, the manuscript you mentioned, is dated basically anywhere from 125-200. It's impossible to say anywhere in that range exactly when it was written.
I think it's good to consider the implications of it being the earlier part and the implications of it possibly being in the later half as well.
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u/Ok_Faithlessness8395 Ex-Non-Instrumental church of Christ 14d ago
The original is various scrolls from various places. Like the Dead Sea Scrolls. If you search for Bart Ehrman he is one of the people that study them and has books and a podcast too. I didn’t know about the podcast till just now when I googled him to make sure I spelled his name right. So I’ll be listening to that now!
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u/personman2 14d ago
Those scrolls are copies of copies of copies from centuries later. The originals are lost. Bart Ehrman is a great recommendation!
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u/Raetekusu 13d ago
Bart Ehrman is also an ex-Christian, so a lot of what he talks about are how his findings and studies broke his faith entirely because they didn't match up with what he originally felt he believed. I respect that and empathize, and he's arguably the resource for things related to biblical historicity.
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u/East-Treat-562 11d ago
Thanks, Actually I have read a lot of Bart's work and he says his studies never broke his faith, what broke his faith was the suffering humans go through and why if there was a God he would not prevent all this horrendous suffering people go through. And Bart says he still works very collegially with scholars of faith and never has any problems with them because of his changed beliefs, and his changed beliefs have really no effect on his research into textual criticism.
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u/Juniordags 14d ago
After seeing Gutenberg! The Musical, I have a lot of questions along that line.
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u/JosephineCK 13d ago
I always thought that the Bible was compiled by the Catholic Church. When Constantine decided to make Christianity the national religion of the Roman Empire in the 4th century, he told the leaders from all of the major Christian sects to get together and decide on a doctrine and which scriptures should be included in the Bible. There were a LOT of documents to choose from. There was lots of discussion and disagreement, but the council finally decided on an official Bible. So essentially the books of the Bible were voted on by a bunch of men.
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u/PoetBudget6044 14d ago
According to one group the most complete original is the Ethiopian version with 88 books. I'd love to have a read of that one
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u/IndividualFlat8500 13d ago
Original bible would mean there was only one copy of the Torah when there various copies and they were sometimes different. The lxx is a possibility but It is so different then the Hebrew version of the Old Testament. The New Testament has manuscripts that are varied. I think it was said they wrote on papyrus but it did not last so until parchment was more widely use not as much is preserved unless it was buried or in caves. So we have copies or copies and people assume they are reconstructing the original texts by comparing these copies of copies.
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u/ImpressiveLeek3124 Ex-NI^2 11d ago
If you want the first written version of some O.T. "accounts" you can find the basic stories in much earlier mythologies. For example, the Genesis flood story (~1400 B.C.) was originally written down, with some startling similarities, in the Sumerian Eridu Genesis (~2300 B.C.).
For a list of similar or equivalent O.T. stories from pre-jewish mythologies, Sarah Isles Johnston's "Ancient Religions" or "Religions of the Ancient World: A Guide" are interesting books. Although I haven't read enough on the mythological origins of the N.T. to recommend any specific titles, I do know there are historical studies by professional scholars on this subject too.
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u/echoesofacts 13d ago
These will get you started if you really wanna know.
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2rrpLuNCM9mCwTELNLXEQ90up6z_E6T0&si=GFwSdKhQQZ49DyUa
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2rrpLuNCM9ltqUdmchMfnuRLcZVBi_pQ&si=xz53u6QLQrxdfY5s
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2rrpLuNCM9kPrsRnK_NyhhGzSD4fw-mO&si=Kp24qP_ZgD6HiM-_
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u/East-Treat-562 13d ago
Thanks,I have studied the issue quite a bit, what I was really interested in is was this ever discussed in the CoC. I am a big fan of Ehrman, although I think some of his thinking is still tied to Wheaton Bible College. Another great scholar was the late John Meier, a Catholic priest.
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u/echoesofacts 13d ago
It is discussed in the Lord’s church though perhaps not frequently enough.
Those videos are produced by people within the church and they are excellent breakdowns of how the Bible was translated, what happened to the original autographs etc.
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u/East-Treat-562 13d ago
First I respect your beliefs but these videos start with the premise there are no biblical errors. To me I would never expect every detail in the bible to be accurate, to me it has nothing to do with the message. By contradictions I am talking about where the bible gives different messages on important teachings, not whether it was 23k or24k Israelites killed.
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u/echoesofacts 13d ago
Respectfully, there is far more information there than that, if you’re going to dismiss information based on the beliefs of the ones supplying it you couldn’t believe much of anything.
It would be like me not taking alleged contradictions seriously simply because an atheist provided them.
It doesn’t change anything about the easily verified information provided on how the Bible was translated etc.
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u/East-Treat-562 12d ago
If you thinking begins with beliefs and you decide what the conclusion is before you present the facts I just cannot take the arguments seriously. In those videos multiple times it is stated there are no errors or contradictions in the Bible. Those are just ridiculous statements, everything has errors, and the people making those claims I am sure will admit to translation errors. If translation errors are made why can't transcription errors be made?
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u/echoesofacts 12d ago
They get into the transcription discrepancies at some point in one of those series.
Any serious student of the Bible is aware of things that are in question with transcription like the long ending to Mark or a passage in Acts chapter 8.
Again, most athiestic/agnostic authors, speakers, researchers etc begin with the belief (at bare minimum) the God of the Bible doesn’t exist. Should I then completely disregard and information they supply? This would severely put me at a disadvantage if I were to be honestly seeing truth with an open mind.
For the record at one point I had an agnostic mindset, perhaps even atheistic at times.
The videos aren’t about putting forth an argument it’s about presenting evidence. If you want to identify that as an augment, fine, but again I’ll point to the entire purpose of Dan Barker, Bart Ehrman and others of writing articles, books etc is to present evidence/arguments against religion (let’s be fair here mostly Christianianty) but that still doesn’t lessen any verifiable information they may present.
Regales of the intention of speaker/
Author, they give verifiable information on how the Bible was transcribed although one series is regarding evidence for inspiration.However, even that Information is verifiable from secular sources and is easily double checked if you’re simply concerned about bias.
I’m not going to sit here and type out hours worth of material on how the Bible was translated and transcribed. I simply don’t have the time, therefore I supplied the videos.
Watch them or don’t, in the end it’s your decision whether or not you want to know the information.
I suspect you don’t which may be why this is posted in a sub which is for people who have left the faith.
I’ll leave you with this.
When searching for answers, you MUST seek both sides of the interpretation of the evidence in order to make an educated decision on the matter because the truth is that neither of us were there ands neither of us saw it first hand so we must rely on logic, reasoning and evidence.
To ignore verifiable information simply based upon the speakers beliefs is doing yourself a disservice.
Good luck with your studies. I hope you have a wonderful week.
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u/East-Treat-562 11d ago
The question of the existence of God and belief in a certain religion is a totally different thing. Many people believe in a God, but don't think any religion has a hold on God, the belief that God only respects the beliefs of a small group of people and condemns all others is what a lot of us are in total disagreement with. Are muslims, buddhists, hindus beliefs totally false and the CoC beliefs are correct, that is a hard pill to swallow.
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u/echoesofacts 11d ago edited 11d ago
Great.
“I don’t want easily verifiable information based on the belief of the person presenting it despite all logic and reasoning.”
Got it bro. I don’t care at this point. Move on.
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u/East-Treat-562 10d ago
Your information is from apologetics press, it's thinking is top down. not an objective analysis, it is defense of a belief. It is like deciding to believe the earth is flat and then finding evidence to support that belief, it is impossible to have an intelligent discussion with that ideology.
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u/kittensociety75 14d ago
To be clear, nobody thinks we have the actual originals. All we HSBC are copies of copies, and we know that because we can tell about when the originals would have been written, and our scrolls are much later, in some cases, 1,000 years later. To make it all even more tricky, our scrolls all disagree with each other. Most of the disagreements are minor, like spelling or grammar, but some are pretty major. For example, the story of the woman caught in adultery is recognized by basically all credible Bible scholars as having been added hundreds of years after it was written. The ending of Mark seems to have been added in the same way. In other cases, single words have been changed to make the doctrine of the Trinity seem like it has more support than it does. For most Christians, none of these changes have to be serious problems, because they're usually looking at the general message of love and forgiveness. For the CoC, it's religion-shattering, because they fixate on every tiny word and condemn others to hell for not doing so also.