If you don't believe the Bible, Why is it the oldest book in print today?
920409
The oldest book in print today!\nbut what about the new & more new chapters being included??\nwhy are their new testaments & old ones???\nWhy not one complete book like the HOLY QURAN.\n\nActually the only book that has not yet been changed to a full stop or an alphabet is the holy Quran.\n\nJust tell me How many People have learnt Bible by heart.\nExact word to word...\nI guess none...\nNot even the Pope has learnt bible by heart....\n\nBUT \n\nQuran is the only book that can be & IS being learnt by heart by billions of muslims.....\n\n& exact word by word....\nfrom first alphabet to the last one...\n\n& no one can make the entire billions of muslims forget the Quran....\n\nEven if all the written Quran is lost, the billions of muslims can recreat it in written form exactly word by word....\n\nNow tell me how many christians U know have learnt Bible by heart??\nJust seen around, in ur family or friends or in the church...\nCan u find atleast 10 people who have learnt Bible by heart word by word???\n\n\nHere I can find 17 in my relatives who are Quran learners by heart...\n\n\nSo now tell ....\nWhich holy book is more taken care of??\nWhich is same as it was at the time it came upon us...??\nQuran is the right answer....
1101825
Yup I do and its funny in a weird sort of way how people will adapt what is in the Bible to suit their own needs. The book hasnt changed in a few thousand years I doubt its going to any time soon. Its all a matter of personal interpretation I guess but it shouldnt change every time you read it or speak about it to someone if you are a person of your convictions then it will stay the same.
1095635
The book of moses is about moses, not by moses.\n\nI agree with what you are saying, in general.\n\nAs to your question, people who are uneducated about history misinterpret the bible on a daily and ongoing basis.\n\nThe power of the bible, for me, is not diminished by it's being dated only 3000 years ago.
640086
There are lots of people who analyse the Bible. They tend to be quiet, academic people who's views are not "exciting"enough to make the press. We only hear from two sorts of people :\n\n1) Those who read it and are convinced that every word is absolutely true. WRONG! It may be inspired by God but it was written by men, and has been translated goodness knows how many times, of course it has many errors and  inconsistencies, and even (dare I say it) deliberate falsehoods.\n\n2) Those who don't read it and are sure it is absolutely false. WRONG! At the very least it is an admirable work of history : even if you are an atheist, you can't blindly say its not true.\n\nThere are adjectives that describe both types of person ; bigot, closed minded, well, OK, I'll stop, but I could go on for quite a while.\n\nJust ask yourself this if you are worried about the Bible being robust : how many YAHOO! Answers will be discussed or debated in 2-3000 years time?\n\nHave you analysed it? Try, its actually a very good read.
830958
Not only that, but *originals* for the vast majority of books in the bible haven't existed for thousands of years.  All the translators have to work from are copies of copies of copies of copies...\nOh, but of course, we *know* that nobody made any errors, changes, or intentional additions or deletions when they made those hand-written copies, right? ;-)\n\nForget about the actual content, OF COURSE there are errors in just getting what's called the bible into your hands from the people who originally wrote the books.  Anyone who thinks there are no errors of any kind in the bible is very, very deluded.
1000575
I don't think it's a question of whether or not one believes in the bible.  The bible's existence should not some into question, it does exist, The more important question is how it is interpreted by people.  Is it the actual word of God (a relatively modern concept bought about by the church in reaction to scientific advances of the 18th century, prior to this it was not seen as the true word of God)  Is it human accounts of ture events in history, or is it allegorical stories, written to demonstrate the concepts of the christian faith.  I believe, personally, that it is a combination of the last two.. I am not christian, but I do believe that Christ existed, though I don't know what he was, I do believe that he was a wonderful spiritual man, with many wonderful ideas, but I do think that some bible stories are written to demonstrate the tenets of the christian faith, and may not have been actual events.  I don't think that the bible is the actual word of God, I don't think God would have contradicted himself as much as the bible contradicts itself, and there are alot of human constructs in there, I don't mean this as an insult to anyone's faith, I don't think it lessens the bible's importance, but I cannot believe that it is God's own words.  I believe that some of the things the bible say's are good and true and everyone can learn from the bible, Jesus said some amazing things, and sometimes it seems that the churches ignore Jesus, who said the meek shall inherit the earth, and yet the catholic church is disgustingly wealthy, I don't mean to sound like a religious nut here, I'm not religious at all, but I do have respect for what Jesus had to say, So whilst I don't believe everything the Bible says, I do believe that the bible exists as part allegory, and part history, and mainly as a very heavy book found in most hotel rooms.
817490
Many people that believe what is written in the Bible to be true have never read the Bible from cover to cover.\n\nIt's easy to pick them out too.  When they make statements about the bible, they start off by saying:  "my pastor told me".\n\n\n\n\n\n\nThat's some deal, six questions for the price of one.
1065665
the bible is about philosophy and religion  and a history of a people.    It is not a science text book. it does not use empirical methods, nor does it require them to be used.  If  you believe in the Bible  it's because of your faith not your reason. \nA basic idea in science is that if light travels at  186 000 miles per second today on earth  it  also does in the rest of the universe both in the past and in the future and if oxygen has 8 electrons on earth then it also has them on Saturn.. These and many others are the building blocks for a sane reasonable universe.\nthose  who try to conform  the universe to biblical teaching  must out of sheer necessity  create a  crazy world  where a day isn't t really a day and a year isn't really a year and all of your reliable baselines are skewed.. it becomes lunacy.\nThe war is over ,Galileo Copernicus and Newton were right \nThe biblical version of the universe is wrong -give up
463231
Its another fake Gospel written by an early christian sect who obviously had no contact with Jesus, the disciples or the disciples followers. It was common for christian sects with no direct link to church founders to create bogus gospels to support there beliefs.\nIf the gospel is real it would have been mentioned somewhere in the ancient history or copies of it would have surfaced elsewhere. Not to mention a true gospel always matches with what the rest of the bible says.\nPeople have a bad habit of thinking if a text is old then it must be a part of Gods word.  This is not true!
1025785
“explain why you believe the Bible is incorrect”\nWe don’t have the “original” bible. What we do have are thousands of scraps of writings that are copies or fragments of stories that were probably part of several oral traditions that predate writing. There are so many differences between all of these writings that a literal interpretation is impossible. What American fundamentalists refer to as the bible is usually the Authorized King James Version. This version was authorized in 1618 when Protestants removed several books from the King James Version of 1611 that had been a part of the Catholic bible for over a thousand years. This 1611 version was itself a new translation ordered by King James (a flaming homosexual) for the Anglican Church (American Episcopalian) which had split from the Catholic Church for political reasons. All of these translations came from other translations, all of which were altered in subtle ways. To believe that any bible is a word for word, inviolate description of God’s reality is pure fantasy. There is no one bible – there are many – all made by men who were driven by different points of view. \n\nBut fantasy and mythology are two different things. The one true bible is a fantasy but the mythology in the dozens of bible versions out there is alive and well. The story of the Ark is mythology. It’s not literally true - it is a symbolic story, full of meaning for the culture from which it sprang. Mythology was like science for ancient cultures – it explained the unexplainable - and even if myths were not the literal truth, they stabilized cultures and beliefs. That’s not true for modern culture. For American fundamentalists to steal this myth and attempt to cram it into the 21st century is a sin – it’s taking the idea of the Christian God and trivializing it; it’s avoiding doing the hard work of making yourself godly by entering into ridiculous word-smithing. If you’re a truly religious person, forget all of this nonsense and go find God.
333778
No version of the Bible is correct. They can't even get Jesus's name right (Isa) or answer why the concept of the Trinity didn't show up in the original manuscripts of John, and yet it started showing up in the Latin translations out of no where.\n\nAny Christian 300 years believed that the Bible is the word of God, and yet it was neither written by God, nor by Jesus, only by people who were assistants to the disciples of Jesus, and wrote what the disciples remembered Jesus saying 50 years after Jesus's ascension into heaven. Also if the Bible is the "complete word of God", then why is it that even to this day, there are extra passages and scriptures being included into it and being found (i.e. The dead sea scrolls)?
427902
The Bible claims to be actual communication from God to humanity. Notice these biblical passages:\n\nAll Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. 2 Timothy 3:16-17 \n\nAbove all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. 2 Peter 1:20-21 \n\nThe Bible claims to be the very Word of God (verbum Dei), indeed, the very words of God (verba Dei). But this claim often raises a number of objections. \n\nObjection #1: The Bibles we have today are nothing like the biblical books as they were originally written. \nThis is a real concern people have. The question of whether or not the Bible was God’s Word 2,000 years ago is irrelevant if the Bible we read today is substantially different from what was originally written. Until the invention of the printing press around 1450, all literature was hand-copied and scribes could make mistakes in copying. It’s hard to know if errors are present with many ancient works simply because few early hand-written copies exist. But this is not a major concern with the biblical documents: \n\n1. There are at least 24,800 surviving partial or complete manuscripts of New Testament books today. By comparison, the next largest number is for Homer’s Iliad, with only 643 surviving manuscripts. We have only 7 copies of Pliny’s History and only 10 of Caesar’s Gallic Wars―but we don’t hesitate to trust them. \n\n2. Furthermore, the New Testament has unusually early manuscripts compared with other ancient literature. Our earliest copy of Pliny’s History dates to 750 years after Pliny’s death. A lot can happen in 750 years. And the earliest copy of Gallic Wars was copied 1,000 years after Caesar’s death. By contrast, some early New Testament fragments date to within 30 years of their first writing, as with the John Rylands papyrus found in Egypt. There simply wasn’t enough time between the original writing and our earliest manuscripts to allow for much corruption. \n\n3. There are over 84,000 quotations from the New Testament (mainly from sermons) dating to the early centuries of the Church. In fact, even if we didn’t have a single manuscript of the Bible today, we could reconstruct all but 11 verses of the entire New Testament from material within 150 to 200 years from the time of Christ. \n\n4. Similarly, with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in the 1950s, we now have copies of the entire Old Testament from before the time of Christ―complete copies of every book except Esther.\n\nModern translations of the Bible (New International Version, New American Standard Bible, etc.) are translated directly from these earliest biblical manuscripts. \n\nObjection #2: The Bible is just a book of fairy-tales. Its account is not historically reliable. \nWhile there are letters and songs and laws and doctrinal teachings in the Bible, the most common genre within the Scripture is history. Observers point out that the Bible is an historical document in that it consistently gives accurate information on the geography, chronology, people, places, customs, nations and events recorded within it.\n\nThe Bible is therefore unusual compared to other human religious literature. The Book of Mormon, even though relatively recent, nevertheless reads like a cheap nineteenth century American gothic novel. It describes an entire pre-Columbian civilization which shows no signs of ever having existed. There simply never was a highly advanced Jewish civilization in ancient New York. There is today, but not before Columbus. Or compare the Bible with the Hindu Vedas, which explain that the moon is 150,000 miles higher than the sun and shines with its own light (like a big GE light bulb), adding that the eart
1033518
The first printed one was the Gutenberg Bible. \n\nworld's oldest book\nThe world's oldest multiple-page book, a six-page manuscript in the Etruscan language, has gone on display in Bulgaria's National History Museum in Sofia.
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.
267681
Now, imagine a book... \n\nwritten by over 40 different authors \nwritten in 3 different languages \nwritten within very different cultures \nwritten on 3 different continents \nwritten over a 1,600-year period \nwritten by kings as well as peasants, philosophers & fishermen, prisoners & doctors \nwritten on hundreds of controversial issues \nWhat kind of book would we have? \n\nYou might think, “a mound of inconsistency so confusing as to produce an all time worst-seller.” But add one element — GOD overseeing all these authors — and what do we get? The Bible, the best-selling book of all time. \n\nThe Bible’s Claim \nThe Bible claims to be actual communication from God to humanity. Notice these biblical passages:\n\nAll Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. 2 Timothy 3:16-17 \n\nAbove all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. 2 Peter 1:20-21 \n\nThe Bible claims to be the very Word of God (verbum Dei), indeed, the very words of God (verba Dei). But this claim often raises a number of objections. \n\nObjection #1: The Bibles we have today are nothing like the biblical books as they were originally written. \nThis is a real concern people have. The question of whether or not the Bible was God’s Word 2,000 years ago is irrelevant if the Bible we read today is substantially different from what was originally written. Until the invention of the printing press around 1450, all literature was hand-copied and scribes could make mistakes in copying. It’s hard to know if errors are present with many ancient works simply because few early hand-written copies exist. But this is not a major concern with the biblical documents: \n\n1. There are over 24,000 surviving partial or complete manuscripts of New Testament books today. By comparison, the next largest number is for Homer’s Iliad, with only 643 surviving manuscripts. We have only 7 copies of Pliny’s History and only 10 of Caesar’s Gallic Wars―but we don’t hesitate to trust them. \n\n2. Furthermore, the New Testament has unusually early manuscripts compared with other ancient literature. Our earliest copy of Pliny’s History dates to 750 years after Pliny’s death. A lot can happen in 750 years. And the earliest copy of Gallic Wars was copied 1,000 years after Caesar’s death. By contrast, some early New Testament fragments date to within 30 years of their first writing, as with the John Rylands papyrus found in Egypt. There simply wasn’t enough time between the original writing and our earliest manuscripts to allow for much corruption. \n\n3. There are over 84,000 quotations from the New Testament (mainly from sermons) dating to the early centuries of the Church. In fact, even if we didn’t have a single manuscript of the Bible today, we could reconstruct all but 11 verses of the entire New Testament from material within 150 to 200 years from the time of Christ. \n\n4. Similarly, with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in the 1950s, we now have copies of the entire Old Testament from before the time of Christ―complete copies of every book except Esther.\n\nModern translations of the Bible (New International Version, New American Standard Bible, etc.) are translated directly from these earliest biblical manuscripts. \n\nObjection #2: The Bible is just a book of fairy-tales. Its account is not historically reliable. \nWhile there are letters and songs and laws and doctrinal teachings in the Bible, the most common genre within the Scripture is history. Observers point out that the Bible is an historical document in that it consistently gives accurate information on the geography, chronology, people, places, customs, nations and even
208161
If you are looking to find some great conspiracy you won't find it.  There is one book in the New Testament that we don't know who wrote it, the book of Hebrews.  We have some educated guesses, though.  Other than that, we know who wrote the New Testament books.  Even the most critical atheist literary critics agree that the New Testament is one of the most authenticated anceint writtings we have.  \n\nThe Old Testament is a bit harder to authenticate, but no more than any other anceint writting.  There is more actually more evidence to support that Moses wrote the first 5 books of the Bible, for example, than there is evidence to support that Homer wrote the Illiad.  And there is MUCH more reason to believe that it is, essentially, unchanged.  We know the exact process that was used in copying the Old Testament books, and we know that the books were often used for 400 years or more before a new copy was made.  \n\nI recommend "How we Got the Bible" by Lightfoot if you want to know more about this amazing piece of literature and how it has survived thousands of years.
115127
The Bible claims to be actual communication from God to humanity. Notice these biblical passages:\n\nAll Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. 2 Timothy 3:16-17 \n\nAbove all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. 2 Peter 1:20-21 \n\n The Bible claims to be the very Word of God (verbum Dei), indeed, the very words of God (verba Dei). But this claim often raises a number of objections. \n\nObjection #1: The Bibles we have today are nothing like the biblical books as they were originally written. \nThis is a real concern people have. The question of whether or not the Bible was God’s Word 2,000 years ago is irrelevant if the Bible we read today is substantially different from what was originally written. Until the invention of the printing press around 1450, all literature was hand-copied and scribes could make mistakes in copying. It’s hard to know if errors are present with many ancient works simply because few early hand-written copies exist. But this is not a major concern with the biblical documents: \n\n1. There are over 24,000 surviving partial or complete manuscripts of New Testament books today. By comparison, the next largest number is for Homer’s Iliad, with only 643 surviving manuscripts. We have only 7 copies of Pliny’s History and only 10 of Caesar’s Gallic Wars―but we don’t hesitate to trust them. \n\n2. Furthermore, the New Testament has unusually early manuscripts compared with other ancient literature. Our earliest copy of Pliny’s History dates to 750 years after Pliny’s death. A lot can happen in 750 years. And the earliest copy of Gallic Wars was copied 1,000 years after Caesar’s death. By contrast, some early New Testament fragments date to within 30 years of their first writing, as with the John Rylands papyrus found in Egypt. There simply wasn’t enough time between the original writing and our earliest manuscripts to allow for much corruption. \n\n3. There are over 84,000 quotations from the New Testament (mainly from sermons) dating to the early centuries of the Church. In fact, even if we didn’t have a single manuscript of the Bible today, we could reconstruct all but 11 verses of the entire New Testament from material within 150 to 200 years from the time of Christ. \n\n4. Similarly, with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in the 1950s, we now have copies of the entire Old Testament from before the time of Christ―complete copies of every book except Esther.\n\nModern translations of the Bible (New International Version, New American Standard Bible, etc.) are translated directly from these earliest biblical manuscripts. \n\nObjection #2: The Bible is just a book of fairy-tales. Its account is not historically reliable. \nWhile there are letters and songs and laws and doctrinal teachings in the Bible, the most common genre within the Scripture is history. Observers point out that the Bible is an historical document in that it consistently gives accurate information on the geography, chronology, people, places, customs, nations and events recorded within it.\n\nThe Bible is therefore unusual compared to other human religious literature. The Book of Mormon, even though relatively recent, nevertheless reads like a cheap nineteenth century American gothic novel. It describes an entire pre-Columbian civilization which shows no signs of ever having existed. There simply never was a highly advanced Jewish civilization in ancient New York. There is today, but not before Columbus. Or compare the Bible with the Hindu Vedas, which explain that the moon is 150,000 miles higher than the sun and shines with its own light (like a big GE light bulb), adding that the earth i