Isn't it possible that the Bible has been dramatically altered over the years?
483353
Absolutely...a really good book to read is "Misquoting Jesus" by Bart Ehrman.  He did a lot of research on this topic.
748634
This is all just a story of fiction, so believe whatever you want to.  The bible has been written, re-written, translated from one language and back again so manty times, it's even more of a work of whoever was writing it and whatever was believed at the time than anything to be taken for "truth".
508860
Allow me to rephrase.. Yes it changes the meaning. But ((why)) are such things in the bible when we know they were added later? But there are more verses which were added (the NIV indicates them in footnotes). So, if such things were added, then who knows what else was added or removed?\n\nBTW, do you know about the "Secret Gospel of Mark"? This is a gem indeed. It answers the difficulty of Mark 10:46 (ie. what happened at Jericho?) and demonstrates nicely how they removed things they didn't like ;)
303878
I have faith that the Bible really was written via the INFLUENCE of the Abrahamic god, but not necessarily at the time it was written. It didn't start being actually put into written text until centuries after the life of Jesus, and therefore MUST have been shared through oral tradition over generations. As that CAN be a reliable source of information, on the other hand, did you ever play "Telephone" in elementary school: one person says a sentence or phrase into one person's ear, and that person repeats what they heard to the next person, and than that person repeats it to the next person, and so on, and it never comes out exactly how it started. Maybe Yahweh started the game, and after generations of playing "Telephone," it just got a little mangled.\n\nPlus, have you ever tried to translate anything EXACTLY from one language to another? It can't be done: words that exist in some languages don't exist in others, and vice versa; not to mention the varying sentence structure from language to language.\n\nThen, of course, the Roman Catholics had to go and alter it for their own control-the-masses power hype, and screwed it up even more. Let's face it: we're human. We’re fallible, and so is the Bible.
362940
I have been reading about that as of late and find it interesting.  plausible. The bible has seen a lot gone through a lot in that i mean translations.  It also stands that some books were purposely left out.  With that in mind I don't feel it proves with out a shadow of a doubt that its true.  However it does leave enough room for the thought and probability.
711045
The thing that we must remeber is that the bible may be corrupt. There is significant proof for the bible being selectively edited and this could mean that a lot of it isn't true. Also Evolution seems a much better theory. It is more believable and we have more proof for it. I hope this answers ur question.
110952
This was the value of the Dead sea scrolls.  It gave scholars a chance to see what had changed in time since they were written and modern day editions.  The surprising thing was that there was a remarkable similarlity.\n\nHave you heard the saying, every translator is a liar?  This is because language changes with the culture.  A word like gay has has had its meaning changed dramatically over the last fifty years.\nUnless scholars change the words of scripture to reflect current usage, then the meaning will be lost.  So to stay authentic, the bible translations must change.
380186
This is one of the realizations that I came upon after studying what I believe, and not what I was taught to believe. I'm 18 years old, and I have (as of a year ago) quit the Roman Catholic religion. I no longer believe in any religion because religion is just a set of beliefs that have changed over time. Throughout the thousands of years that man has existed, can someone actually say that every sin has not been committed? By this, I mean that if every sin has been committed, then the bible has been changed (because that is a sin). For every letter of the bible that is changed, one month of a person's portion of food will be taken away from them in heaven (food being the Tree of Life's fruit). It is absurd to follow a belief system that is outdated, sexist, prejudiced, close-minded, and just plain fallible. The Bible was "inspired" by God, not written. And since then, there have been many changes/compromises. I am thankful to say that I worship God without a religion to restrain me. Ethics, morals, and faith are my guiding stars. I can only hope that more people realize what I have realized.
1003481
that might have been contradicting to the ideas of some other author.  This way you can see how the Bible is tried to be manipulated by some shrewd persons. In that case where remains the authenticity of the Bible, where any body can modify any part of the Bible?
957633
I'm not gonna look it up but we do know the Bible was penned by men, translated by men and retranslated by men,  is it not a miracle that though all that the message with regards to how you should behave (which is the message) is never corupted.  God does not ever give us the idea that those who penned the Bible were infallible buyt that they were inspired.  This is no doubt a trivial mistake or different battles, or different view points like two people who see the same accident.  What does it matter.  The Bible talks of evil people so they no doubt exist and some of them were no doubt scribs.  I know of two other inconsequencial errors but as I watch movies who do not have even 1/10 th script and many more editing tools I always see mistakes in continuity like these you ask about, so what these things do is make it all the more real.\n\ntry reading a court trial transcript one time and see what kind of continuity you get in there,  and those trials do not take 10000 years worth of testimony.
868394
The important things (dogma) do not change:\n+ The Church has always believed that Christ was divine\n+ The Bible has not changed since the canon was established (see below)\n\nSome traditions do change over the years as the Church is continually guided by the Holy Spirit and may continue to change:\n+ Priestly celibacy (see below)\n\nSome mistakes started by very human, incorrect, and even sometimes evil people are corrected:\n+ Indulgences for money\n\n+ The Bible + \n\nThe New Testament canon of the Catholic Bible and the Protestant Bible are the same.\n\nThe difference in the Old Testaments actually goes back to the time before and during Christ’s life. At this time, there was no official Jewish canon of scripture.\n\nThe Jews in Egypt translated their choices of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek in the second century before Christ. This translation, called the Septuagint, had wide use in the Roman world because most Jews lived far from Palestine in Greek cities. Many of these Jews spoke only Greek.\n\nThe early Christian Church was born into this world. The Church, with its bilingual Jews and more and more Greek-speaking Gentiles, used the books of the Septuagint as its Bible. Remember the early Christians were just writing the documents what would become the New Testament.\n\nAfter the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, with increasing persecution from the Romans and competition from the fledgling Christian Church, the Jewish leaders came together and declared its official canon of Scripture, eliminating seven books from the Septuagint. \n\nThe books removed were Tobit, Judith, 1 Maccabees, 2 Maccabees, Wisdom (of Solomon), Sirach, and Baruch. Parts of existing books were also removed including Psalm 151 (from Psalms), parts of the Book of Esther, Susanna (from Daniel as chapter 13), and Bel and the Dragon (from Daniel as chapter 14).\n\nThe Christian Church did not follow suit but kept all the books in the Septuagint.\n\n1500 years later, Protestants decided to change its Old Testament from the Catholic canon to the Jewish canon. The books they dropped are sometimes called the Apocrypha.\n\nHere is a Catholic Bible website: http://www.nccbuscc.org/nab/bible/\n\n+ The Celibate Clergy + \n\nThe celibate clergy did not come into full bloom until about 1000 A.D. There were many married priests, bishops, and popes before this time.\n\nFirst, Judeo-Christian tradition has always held that single people be celibate. This is taught by Judaism and Christianity from before the Scriptures were written down.\n\nThe question should be: Why can't priests marry?\n\nThis idea of a celibate clergy came from the Jews, John the Baptist, Jesus, and the Apostle Paul.\n\nThe Jews. The Talmud argues that a person whose “soul is bound up with the Torah and is constantly occupied with it” may remain celibate (Maimonides, Laws of Marriage 15.3). For example, Yahweh ordered the prophet Jeremiah not to marry (Jeremiah 16:1-4). Moreover, the Essenes was a group that was active in Jesus’ time that practiced celibacy and thought by most scholars to be the authors of the Dead Sea Scrolls.\n\nWWJD? What would Jesus do? Jesus did not marry.\n\nJohn the Baptist and Jesus are both believed to have been celibate for their entire lives. Some scholars believe that the example of the Essenes influenced either or both Jesus and John the Baptist in their celibacy.\n\nThe Apostle Paul is explicit about his celibacy (see 1 Cor. 7). There is also evidence in the gospel of Matthew for the practice of celibacy among at least some early Christians, in the famous passage about becoming “eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 19:12).  \n\nThe concept took many twists and turns over the years and will probably take a few more before Christ returns in glory.\n\nA priest is "married" to the Church. Some people think that a priest who takes his duties seriously cannot take proper care of a wife and family. "A man cannot ser
765667
It wasn't changed per say....there aren't any concepts that are contradictory\n\nbtw god didn't write the bible........it was written by over 40 different authors over 6 thousand years\n\nYes the bible is primarily a book of recorded events....
190601
Of course the Bible has errors, the Synoptics (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) don't even agree on what time of day Jesus was crucified.  The Bible was written by MANY differeny people and there are bound to be things that are inaccurate and just flat out wrong.  The Bible was written by people, not God, and there for it is a statistical impossibility that none of those people made absolutly no errors over a periond of two thousand years.  To me, the Bible is for inspiration and for insight into a lot of spiritual topics, but it is by no means without flaws.  To believe that the Bible is without flaws is a very, very rigid way to look at it and if someone doesn't think so, there is plenty of proof otherwise.  And those who always quote and espouse the stuff in the Bible usually can't come up with anything interesting theologically on thieir own.
112907
Yes. But not the contorted, twisted, taken out of context versions that were edited to fit someones personal desires. Somethings in the bible dont quite sound right, but when you understand it and read the whole story of whats going on it all makes sense. Its like zooming out from just a few threads to see the big beautiful quilt. Its all interlinked and beautifully orchestrated. Its hard to see the whole thing when you focus just on a couple threads here and there.\n\nFaith is essential for belief.\n\nI find it neccessary to rebuke this blisschameleon,"Evolution proves adam and eve wrong." Evolution is not proven. Also why are we not still evolving. The bible says God made each one according to its kind. \n\n"And our knowledge of other solar stystems proves that there isn't just one sun in the entire universe." God has one Son, Jesus Christ. He made light and darkness. Please direct me to the scripture where you claim it says "God made one sun, and one solar system."\n\n"Humans traveling to space proves the tower of Babalon wrong." The destruction of Babylon was not over how far from the Earth the Babylonians were making themselves. It was about their attitude. Their wanting to build the tower to make themselves equal to God. Certainly this would not make it so, but it had nothing to do with a tower.\n\n"Jesus' story having similarities to osirus and Hercules.God condoning slavery,racism,sexism,violence... revenge in some scriptures and disaproving them in other scriptures." God is the author of all things. My dear chameleon, you have failed to grasp the concept. God does not condone these things. He allows us to make decisions which results in our sin. You have failed to understand what is going on in the Bible. You are so far from the truth. Sexism????!!! Come on, did you even read the Bible? Women are to be submissive to their husbands, yes. But there is even greater responsibility from the husbands to the wives. And I am not sure you understand the sort of submission God is conveying here.
464991
ok ok the bible as it is now has been arround since at least for 1500 years. But after jesus resurections the diciples use to spread the word by mouth then they wrote the famous letters included in new testaments. The famous dead sea scroll that they found some years ago (1947) came to confirm that the current bible is 100 percent correct.\n\nNow you have the muslims and their incorrect interpretations about bible and jesus, these are their lies to make jesus not the absolut god. \n\nmuslims cant tell about bible, they barerly can tell about quran, where 70% of them dont know what in it.
446861
First, as is obvious from the above comments, people don't read historical documents.  They hear something from a preacher and accept it as true.\n\nSecond, I believe the primary source of the current conspiracy theory on the bible is Chick Publications who do publish actively pamphlets on a Catholic Conspiracy to alter the bible.\n\nThird, in one case a denomination really did edit the bible.  The Jehovah's Witnesses have mistranslated, or from their point of view correctly translated, the bible.\n\nFourth, the Deuterocanonical books are a source of confusion.  Luther removed James, Jude, Revelations, Tobit, 1 & 2 Maccabees, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch, parts of Esther and Daniel.  Lutherans put James, Jude and Revelations back after the Ecumenical Council at Trent.  The other books remain out of their canon.  The problem comes with the novel idea of sola scriptura.  Like predestination, it lacks any precedent prior to the 16th century.  It is a purely man made, unscriptural doctrine and goes against all prior Christian thought.  However, if you decide to use sola scriptura as your decision tool, then what makes it into scripture matters at a profoundly different level than in the older forms of Christianity because it alters the role of scripture completely.  This means that if you base your appeal on scripture and someone is using a different set, the charge that "they" edited it comes up pretty easily.\n\nThe process of choosing books was in process long before Constantine and was really triggered by the presbyter Marcion's heretical sect forcing orthodox Christianity to look at the books read during the Mass.  The current list was promulgated by Pope Innocent and Damasus following the local synod at Carthage's work and the synod at Hippo Regius and possibly a synod at Rome as well as prior work by other of the Fathers.\n\nConstantine's role was somewhat practical.  The books were in separate form and most congregations could not afford all the books and there wasn't agreement until the year 405 what books should be in it.  His role was to push for a single set of books and that the church spend to get them.  He returned three centuries of seized property of Christians tried and executed for their faith.  He didn't make Christianity the state religion, but in handing back all that property and making it legal, the effect was about the same.\n\nFinally, until the late 19th century many Protestant translations were quite poor.  A simple example of this comes from the "scriptural" Christmas carol.  The verse, "Peace on Earth, good will toward men," is not in the bible.  It is "Peace on Earth toward men of goodwill."  It wasn't really the translator's fault.  They lacked access to the oldest documents, which were in Catholic and Orthodox hands.  When they were permitted access they began retranslating the bible and found that their bibles often matched Catholic bibles.  This triggered a big response in many Protestant denominations because key verses disappeared.  Some extreme denominations lost their justification for existance.  So, it wasn't really "editing," so much as correcting and improving as the textual record improved.\n\nThat, while a long time ago, is retained in the oral traditions and memories of some modern Protestant groups.\n\nLike evolution, arguments about the trinity are arguments about sola scriptura.  Without sola scriptura, the evolution problem disappears as does the trinitarian problem.  If you take sola scriptura to its logical extreme, you have intelligent design, Christomonism, and bibliolatry.
401462
No-one really knows what they're talking about, because everything these people know has been told to them by somebody else. They dont have the ability to think for themselves so they adopt someone else's belief system. Yes, a lot more crap went on back in the day, but people change what the bible means to humanity to suit their own needs at that time, which is why beliefs keep changing. Even the New testament was written by a bunch of people who never even knew Jesus. So you or I could just as easily write another new testament and go and call that the bible.