So I got into an arguement with a friend of mine about the history of the Bible. Her claim was that it has been unchanged since it was written 100 years after Jesus's death. Of course that isn't true, but I was wondering what the real story was. I know that some people study linguistics and stuff, so do we actually know how many authors contributed to the old testament? Do we know how many sources were used for the new testament?

"Of course that isn't true, but I was wondering what the real story was. I know that some people study linguistics and stuff, so do we actually know how many authors contributed to the old testament? Do we know how many sources were used for the new testament?"

It's a very complex issue. Things to consider:

1. Translational issues. The very many number of translations proves that it is prone to change. Plus, the meaning of words have changed through the different time. For example, hupostasis could mean assurance/faith in one era but before that it could refer to title deed.

2. Decisions of what books to include. Some have thought the book of Hebrews didn't belong, so thought Jude didn't belong, and so on. Plus some have believed that books not common to the NT should be included, nevermind the alternative apocrypha. So you basically have different bible versions.

3. You have textual variants/codexes with similar but variant wordings. Take, for example, the Septuagint - i.e. the Greek version of the OT. Deut. 32 in the Septuagint says that the nations were divided according to the number of the sons of God, but the Masoric text (i.e. the regular Hebrew text) says it depended upon the number of the sons of Israel. The Dead Sea scrolls also help in the matter with such variants.

4. Finally, you have evidence of textual corruptions, copying errors, and downright altering the text to fit your beliefs. For example, I've seen some evidence where the text was altered to support Platonic views.

The person you discussed this with would do better if she just accepted that, while the word of God itself might be unalterable, man's recording of that word obviously is.

Oh, and many of the Pauline books were probably not written by Paul - the book of Hebrews for example.

Oh yeah, here's a number 5:

5. The bible quotes from books not found in the current bible. Hence, the bible is incomplete anyways.

To add to Patrick's points, I think the consensus is that some of the original texts date from earlier that that as well -- some of Paul's epistles and early drafts of the Synoptic gospels from perhaps 30-40 years after the assumed date of Jesus' death.

Almost certainly there were some changes, additions etc within the next several centuries. The earliest surviving complete manuscripts date from the 4th Century.

PhysicsGirl, if you get back into the argument, er, discussion, with your friend, keep in mind a few of the arguments that are often made that can be pretty hard to refute unless you know a few things. One of these arguments it the so-called "Manuscript Evidence" in which proponents of the Unchanged Holy Word of God will make a claim that is basically true--sort of. They often say that there are at least 5,000 manuscripts of the New Testament in the Greek language, and these 5,000 are all in very close agreement on the text, and that the variances do not alter the basic theological message. This is true. It is also irrelevant.

Why? Because almost every one of those manuscripts were produced centuries after the time of Christ and the apostles. In fact there are no complete copies of the New Testament that were produced before the 4th century, after the reign of Constantine--Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus. Google either of those and you'll get enough material to keep you busy for the rest of the evening.

What really matters regarding manuscripts are, what copies exist that were produced in the first century? None. Now there's one tiny fragment of a page from the gospel of John, about the size of a postage stamp, that might have been produced in the first century, but most likely it was copied from the 2nd century. And, there are very very few other manuscripts that are anywhere near as old.

So if your friend makes this claim about the thousands of manuscripts, ask them how many of them have been reliably dated to earlier than the 4th century. He or she probably won't have any idea, and if they don't, encourage them to find out.

Th Paine:

To add to Patrick's points, I think the consensus is that some of the original texts date from earlier that that as well -- some of Paul's epistles and early drafts of the Synoptic gospels from perhaps 30-40 years after the assumed date of Jesus' death.

Almost certainly there were some changes, additions etc within the next several centuries. The earliest surviving complete manuscripts date from the 4th Century.

I think it's fair to say that there were very few blatant changes to the text after about the middle of the 2nd century. The mere fact of what I said in the prior post, that there are so many copies that are more or less congruent, makes it pretty clear that there wasn't a whole lot of "hanky panky" going on with the integrity of the texts.

But prior to the mid-2nd century, it is impossible to know what happened with the manuscripts, because there are none, for all practical purposes. There is evidence that some of the books, such as Gospel of John, 2 Corinthians, Philippians, had sections inserted, some of them rather lengthy. Some scholars think that 2 Corinthians might consist of up to four separate fragments from other Pauline letters.

Not that this is a bad thing per se, but we will probably never know just when this was done. Did Paul do it? Did someone directly under Paul do it? Did someone who lived years after Paul died do it? Or was Paul just a really fragmented thinker, meaning nobody did it? Who can say? But what this shows is that we just can't say the texts were altered, and we can't say they weren't, within the relatively short time between the original writing and the distribution of these texts throughout the Roman empire.

It is, however, fairly clear that by the end of the 2nd century there was a pretty even consensus across all proto-orthodox churches regarding the basic makeup of the canon of the approved Christian writings.

PhysicsGirl:

So I got into an arguement with a friend of mine about the history of the Bible. Her claim was that it has been unchanged since it was written 100 years after Jesus's death. Of course that isn't true, but I was wondering what the real story was. I know that some people study linguistics and stuff, so do we actually know how many authors contributed to the old testament? Do we know how many sources were used for the new testament?

http://www.carm.org/bible.htm

The truth about the Bible.

They attribute, for example, the first 5 books of the OT to Moses, a legendary figure. No mention is made of ACTUAL sources, such as the 'J' (-ehovist or Yahwist), 'E' (-lohist) 'P' (-riestly) or 'D' (-euteronomist) authors.

EVERY NT book with a disciple's name on it is simply attributed to that disciple, whether there's evidence for this or not. Worst is just saying 'John' for the author of Revelation, thereby implying it was John the Disciple who wrote it (dubious, according to most modern sources who identify THREE Johns - John the Evangelist, John the Apostle, and John of Patmos, the latter of whom wrote the Apolcalypse ). ALL of the dates given for their writing are ridiculously early (Revelation, or the Apocalypse of John, was even according to tradition written in the mid '90s CE).

This isn't scholarship, it's belief. For Biblical scholarship of a more independent sort, try this source for a start:

<link>

Horus:

They attribute, for example, the first 5 books of the OT to Moses, a legendary figure. No mention is made of ACTUAL sources, such as the 'J' (-ehovist or Yahwist), 'E' (-lohist) 'P' (-riestly) or 'D' (-euteronomist) authors.

EVERY NT book with a disciple's name on it is simply attributed to that disciple, whether there's evidence for this or not. Worst is just saying 'John' for the author of Revelation, thereby implying it was John the Disciple who wrote it (dubious, according to most modern sources who identify THREE Johns - John the Evangelist, John the Apostle, and John of Patmos, the latter of whom wrote the Apolcalypse ). ALL of the dates given for their writing are ridiculously early (Revelation, or the Apocalypse of John, was even according to tradition written in the mid '90s CE).

This isn't scholarship, it's belief. For Biblical scholarship of a more independent sort, try this source for a start:

<link>

Several untruths in your post.

Nanotech:

...Several untruths in your post.

Care to elaborate, or are we supposed to guess at which those might be?

;-)

Shalom

This isn't scholarship, it's belief. For Biblical scholarship of a more independent sort, try this source for a start:

<link>

Wikipedia is good. I like Wikpedia, but it's not always reliable. It's great for background on almost anything, if you remember to check things out from other sources.

The best all-encompassing website I know of for info on early Christianity is <link> It provides summaries and text for all kinds of early Christian writings, including the books of the New Testament, apocryphal writings, Gnostic writings, etc. If you're curious about a particular book, like say Matthew, click into the book and there will be an excellent summation of the various opinions and arguments surrounding the origin of this book.

Remember that someone didn't just sit down and write out the Bible. Each book has its own history and most of the books are completely different in origin than the other books. So to really answer the question, 'Where did the Bible come from?" it's necessary to ask it of each book individually.

Horus:

EVERY NT book with a disciple's name on it is simply attributed to that disciple, whether there's evidence for this or not.

I presume you're talking about the CARM website that Nanotech cited. It's interesting, but it's an apologetic website, not a scholarly one. The best you can say is, they state their bias for Biblical inerrancy right up front so you know what you're dealing with.

At any rate, the four Gospels are anonymously written, and there is no indication at all that the writer was present at any of the events written about in the gospels. I don't personally know of any attribution of these four gospels to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John prior to Irenaeus, who wrote in the late 2nd century, at least 150 years after Jesus' death.

These gospels were written in Greek, not the native language of any of the disciples of Jesus, who were all Galileans with the possible exception of Judas and another one or two who might have been Judeans. These guys spoke Aramaic, and the New Testament wasn't written in Aramaic. The gospels were most likely written after the death of most or all of the apostles, and certainly appear to be based on accrued mythology spun by fanatical adherents to the fast-growing Christian movement.

Contrast the gospels with the letters of Paul (some of them, anyway), that clearly reflect the view of an active apostle dealing with real live issues that must have been going on in the region where Paul worked, Greece and Asia Minor. So some attributions are more likely to be reliable than others, apparently. Even among Paul's letters, some are regarded as highly likely to be authentic (Galatians, 1 Cor, 2 Cor, Romans, 1 Thessalonians, and a couple others) and others are most likely written by someone else and attributed to Paul (1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, Ephesians I think).

The bottom line here is that you have to weigh the arguments for and against each individual book.

-jay-

"These gospels were written in Greek, not the native language of any of the disciples of Jesus, who were all Galileans with the possible exception of Judas and another one or two who might have been Judeans. These guys spoke Aramaic, and the New Testament wasn't written in Aramaic. The gospels were most likely written after the death of most or all of the apostles, and certainly appear to be based on accrued mythology spun by fanatical adherents to the fast-growing Christian movement."

sarcasm/ Sure they were. Prove it./end sarcasm

Nano, it is really too much to ask for you to actually engage in the discussion rather than make unsupported, unspecific assertions?

The comments here do reflect the mainstream academic view of the authorship of the NT -- if you have arguments for different conclusions, why do you not share those?