Is The Bible We Have Today In English The Same As The Original Bible
In order to answer these questions, lets first decide what we mean by the original Bible. That phrase refers to the revelation that came from God to the human authors. They wrote down exactly what was revealed to them, using their own vocabulary and writing style. These messages from God came to some forty different people over the span of 1600 years! The concluding one, the book of Revelation, was given 2000 years ago around 100 AD.
Unfortunately, none of these original manuscripts exist today. Well over 3000 years have passed since Moses first penned the book of Genesis. None of his own writing has survived, but copies have been made down through the centuries. The scribes who made these copies were extremely careful as they did their work. We know this because there are over 5000 complete or partial copies of the originals, actually copies of the copies. Yet these thousands of copies agree with each other to an amazing extent. There is no major variation in any of them. No other book from ancient times has this much underlying documentary support. So we are sure we have the original text as it came from the mind of God.
Because what we have are copies of so many manuscripts, there is no single location where the original Bible is housed. The Bible text most often used by scholars and translators is a composite made from the oldest and most reliable of the ancient manuscripts. These old manuscripts are housed in several museums and other places all over the world.
The Hebrew Bible In English Jps In Pdf
This is a personal favourite and hope it will be of much benefit to you!
This English translation of the Hebrew Old Testament is used around the world and is extremely popular.
The Official Title is The Holy Scriptures According to the Masoretic Text.
Please be advised, that with all ancient texts, one must be careful and view it together with other editions/reprints . However, this does not reduce the pleasure of reading the original and ancient texts!
Please also be advised, that to ensure speedy download and reading, the Bible/book has been embedded whilst it is downloading you will see a progress bar. However, before the download completes, if you scroll up or down, during this time, the page WILL look a bit weird. Wait till it downloads and all will be OK.
The Original Bible or book is below:
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If you do not see the book on this page it is probably because Google Docs has not loaded it. Please either refresh the page or change the page number and it should start to work.
Index of the book :
Why This New Bible Is Making Modern History
With all due respect to the King James Version of the Bible, its books are quite out of order! The fact is, King James and his team of 54 translators missed a golden opportunity to produce a complete Bible in which the books follow the original manuscript orderwhich, ironically, was well known among those scholars. Why was the inspired canonical order intentionally ignored? Was it political/religious expediency? Was there a real fear of offending the doctrinal sensitivities of the Church of England?
Now, 400 years later, a new Bible is making headlinesThe Holy Bible In Its Original Order. This extraordinary Bible is unique in three ways.
First, it is theonly complete Bible ever published in one volume that accurately follows the original God-inspired manuscript order. Today, nearly all scholars and theologians recognize this manuscript order, but overlook its importance. The Holy Bible In Its Original Order gives you, the reader, concrete, verifiable proof of the original, inspired manuscript order of the books of the Bible. Commentaries are included that trace precisely how the order of the books of the Bible was mysteriously altered by early church fathers in the fourth century, leading to the present 66-book format.
IMPORTANT NOTICE: Due to oversea shipping being very expensive this special offer is extended only to USA and Canada.
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The Addition Of Words Were Part Of Each Translation Of The Bible
The translators who produced the first edition of the King James Version in 1611 were given specific instructions regarding aspects of the work. The substitution of words was allowed for the purpose of improving readability. Supplied words, that is, words which were not translations from the original texts but which were added for the purpose of sentence structure were to be presented in a different type face. The procedure was not applied consistently by the companies which worked independently translating different portions of the Bible, and was barely used at all in the New Testament books. Subsequent editions and revisions corrected that discrepancy in some areas.
It was the translators of the King James Bible who removed Yahweh, which appeared as YHWH , and replaced it with The LORD, rendered in small capital letters. Where YHWH appeared with the Hebrew Adonai the translators presented it as Lord God, again in small capitals. IEHOHAH appeared in four of the Old Testament books, Exodus, Psalms, and twice in Isaiah. The Hebrew books of 1 and 2 Esdras were renamed as Ezra and Nehemiah respectively, a practice adopted from the Geneva Bible rather than the source documents, and 3 and 4 Esdras, which were in the Apocrypha, were renamed 1 and 2 Esdras.
Where Can I Find Scans Of Original Biblical Manuscripts
I want to study different translations of Bible and compare them to Bible in Hebrew and Greek. Can any one tell me where can I find the pictures of original Biblical manuscripts online?
The original manuscripts are not believed to be in existence any more, and most manuscripts we do have aren’t easily accessible. But some important ones can be viewed online:
Because there are so many manuscripts, most scholars rely on critical texts: the editors of these texts choose which variations they think are most likely to be authentic, and then in footnotes list the alternatives and which manuscripts support each. The most widely regarded critical text for the New Testament is the Nestle-Aland, whose text can be read online, but without the critical apparatus . It looks like this:
As others have said, the original manuscripts no longer exist. But the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts is making an effort to photograph extant Greek manuscripts and make them available for study. Many of the manuscripts are fragments, but some are complete books of the New Testament. The photographs that are available online are high resolution.
Here is a sample:
- @outXast, where did the colors come from PacerierDec 27 ’18 at 13:40
BUT the best and easiest way for one person to look at the greatest amount of manuscripts available would be to use something like the CNTTS database which is available in BibleWorks 9 and Accordance 10/11.
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New Testament: Who Wrote The Gospels
Just as the Old Testament chronicles the story of the Israelites in the millennium or so leading up to the birth of Jesus Christ, the New Testament records Jesuss life, from his birth and teachings to his death and later resurrection, a narrative that forms the fundamental basis of Christianity. Beginning around 70 A.D., about four decades after Jesuss crucifixion , four anonymously written chronicles of his life emerged that would become central documents in the Christian faith. Named for Jesuss most devoted earthly disciples, or apostlesMatthew, Mark, Luke and Johnthe four canonical Gospels were traditionally thought to be eyewitness accounts of Jesuss life, death and resurrection.
12th-13th century depiction of evangelists Luke and Matthew writing the Gospels.
But for more than a century, scholars have generally agreed that the Gospels, like many of the books of the New Testament, were not actually written by the people to whom they are attributed. In fact, it seems clear that the stories that form the basis of Christianity were first communicated orally, and passed down from generation to generation, before they were collected and written down.
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They Have Been Used As An Object Of Worship
While there are historical reasons as to why the originals of Scripture no longer exist, there are also some people who have advocated theological reasons as to why these books have not been preserved. They believe that if the originals of any books of the Bible had survived, they would be made objects of worship. The faith of the believer, they contend, would be placed in the wrong object. The text, rather than the ultimate Author of the text, would receive worship.
In fact, it seems that this is what did happen. In the writings of Peter of Alexandria, who died in A.D. 311, he relates how the original of the Gospel of John still existed in his day. He made the comment that this copy was adored by the faithful. This sounds like the people were giving a status to the actual writing that it did not deserve. We do not worship the text of Scripture! On the contrary, we worship the God whom the text of Scripture reveals.
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The Text Is Still Trustworthy
These are some of the reasons as to why we do not possess the originals of any of the biblical books. However, the text we now have, while made from copies, is a completely trustworthy text.
This is not surprising. Indeed, God made the following promise some 2,700 years ago. The prophet Isaiah wrote:
The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God endures forever.
Gods Word has lasted forever.
Consequently, we can conclude that the Bible has been transmitted in such a reliable manner that we can trust what it says. The message has not been lost or distorted.
God Preserved The Writings
The Bible was carefully preserved from Genesis to Revelation.
The Old Testament: This canon was started about 1400 BC and completed about 450 BC . According to Josephus, the Jewish people divided the Hebrew scriptures into the following sections:
- The Five Books of Moses: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy.
- The 13 Prophets: Joshua, Judges, and Ruth Samuel, Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Lamentations Ezekiel, the 12 Minor Prophets Daniel, Job, Esther, Ezra, and Nehemiah and Chronicles.
- The Four Writings: Psalms, Proverbs, Song of Solomon, and Ecclesiastes. Sometimes Job, Ruth, Lamentations, Esther, Daniel, Ezra, and Nehemiah, and Chronicles were added to this third section of writings.
The New Testament: Soon after the church began, the need for a second canon of accepted Scripture writings developed.
The New Testament canon formed much more quickly than that of the Old Testament because of the loss of the apostles and other witnesses, the expansion of Christianity beyond Palestine, the need to protect the message from false teachings, the persecution of believers , and the missionary enterprise .
The early church went through several steps to finalize the New Testament canon. Most of the books were widely recognized as canonical in the second and third centuries. Some seriously questioned only a few of the later books in the New Testament. By AD 397, two official church councils had confirmed the canonical nature of the 27 books of the New Testament.
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The Vatican Eliminated 14 Books Of The Bible Really
- Pedro M. Rosario Barbosa
- 12:37 am
This post is based on one previously published in Spanish in my other blog, Razónypolíticapública.
Many news travel in alternate worlds through the realm cyberspace, at times with implausible or non-sensical stories. One of them state that, under the evil claws of the Pope and his bishops, in 1684, the Bible was altered significantly. The Catholic Church removed fourteen books which collided with its doctrine, and hid them from public view. These are:
- 1 Ezra
- Ecclesiasticus
- Baruch with the Epistle Jeremiah
- The Songs of the 3 Holy Children
- The History of Susana
- 1 Maccabees
- 2 Maccabees
How do we know that this is true? Very simple, because it is told to us by truthful, trustworthy websites, which would never lie to the public for sensationalisms sake, and, hence, earn some money through advertisements or selling in their shopping section I mean, sites like AnonHQ, or Humans are Free, or Conscious Reminder, or that great infallible, wise, and knowlegeable that never fail ! The news is all over the place. See?
What an outrage! How dare Solomon, of all people, speak so despectively of the son of the Most High, Jesus, who lived 900 year later? The corrupt Catholic clergy wanted to hide this embarrassing information from the public, so that it never learned the truth. Evil clergy!
Ooops!
Lets have a look!
The Books Were Written Thousands Of Years Ago
There is also the factor of time. The last written book of the Bible was composed some nineteen hundred years ago. The first books of Scripture, the writings of Moses, were composed about thirty four hundred and fifty years ago. Over this long period of time, manuscripts can become lost or worn out through constant usage. This factor, along with the perishable surfaces of the documents, makes it nearly impossible for an original text to have survived.
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Script And Other Features
The handwriting found in New Testament manuscripts varies. One way of classifying handwriting is by formality: book-hand vs. cursive. More formal, literary Greek works were often written in a distinctive style of even, capital letters called book-hand. Less formal writing consisted of cursive letters which could be written quickly. Another way of dividing handwriting is between uncial script and minuscule. The uncial letters were a consistent height between the baseline and the cap height, while the minuscule letters had ascenders and descenders that moved past the baseline and cap height. Generally speaking, the majuscules are earlier than the minuscules, with a dividing line roughly in the 11th century.
The earliest manuscripts had negligible punctuation and breathing marks. The manuscripts also lacked word spacing, so words, sentences, and paragraphs would be a continuous string of letters , often with line breaks in the middle of words. Bookmaking was an expensive endeavor, and one way to reduce the number of pages used was to save space. Another method employed was to abbreviate frequent words, such as the nomina sacra. Yet another method involved the palimpsest, a manuscript which recycled an older manuscript. Scholars using careful examination can sometimes determine what was originally written on the material of a document before it was erased to make way for a new text .
The Authorized Version Continued To Change Through The 18th Century
Between the years 1700 and 1800 the English language, its spelling and its grammatical construction, changed measurably, and printers of the Authorized Version, more frequently referred to during the century as the King James Version, altered the text and the spelling in the bibles they produced. Their motives for doing so were not religious in nature but were rather aimed at making the books they printed more readily accessible to their readers. By the middle of the 18th century, there were countless editions of the King James Version in England , with wide variations in their text. Both Cambridge and Oxford took steps to address the growing disparity.
Cambridge produced a revision in 1760, which was based on a series of revisions written by Francis Parris. In his 1743 revision and all subsequent editions including that of 1760, Parris made changes which though seemingly small proved significant. In the 1611 edition of the King James Version, the translators had written, and the glorious appearing of God, and our Savior Jesus Christ . Parris removed the comma, combining God and Jesus in the sentence in accordance with the Trinitarian concept of the Westminster Confession. The change remained in subsequent editions of the Cambridge revision, and in the Oxford edition of 1769.
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Descriptions Of The Crucifixion Have Also Been Changed
In the Gospel of Luke, as Jesus was dying upon the cross, he addressed the two criminals being crucified alongside of him, though the version currently appearing in the Bible is at odds with the earliest extant copies of the gospels. Another change in Luke, which does not appear in the early copies of the Gospel attributed to him, is that Jesus asked forgiveness of his executioners, because they did not know what they were doing. The oldest known copies of Lukes gospel do not recount the forgiveness bequeathed from the cross, the story was added in the fifth century in the Greek documents. As with many additions, it was likely added to reflect the Christian teaching which had evolved by that time.
As has been noted, the translators of preceding Bibles who created the King James Version were under specific instructions from their sovereign to create a work which reflected and supported the dogma of the Church of England. When they referred to existing works, the Geneva Bible for example, they were using versions which had too been written with a particular set of beliefs in mind, Calvinism for example. The same method of translation had already been in place for centuries, with stories moved about, amplified upon, or newly created wholesale by copyists, to reflect the evolution of the Christian beliefs at the time, and to explain why they had evolved as they had. The Bible has not only recently been changed, it has always been subject to change.