Forgery in the Bible

[snr5557]

I've only begun to learn about this, so I am by no means an expert

But I found this very interesting, and there are Bible scholars who have found that there is a chance that people have forged parts of the Bible.

Also, there are parts of the Bible that were added later too!

What do you think about this topic, like your thoughts and feelings towards it? I find it very interesting, so I naturally just want to share it with everyone.

 

[Mr.Bride]

I don't believe none of that stuff. Our God is God enough not to let the enemy tamper with His Word that He has given us. And even if they thought they did(added or took away)it worked right into His plan. What the devil meant for evil...That Word that we have is absolutely, undeniably, infallible and pure. Blessings

 

[ChristianJuggarnaut]

Such as? Or are you just trolling?

 

[snr5557]

Such as? Or are you just trolling?

I would never troll, but since you don't know me you wouldn't know that.

I have just one example of the Bible being added to, because again I am still learning about this.

John 7:53-8:11 The story of Jesus and the adulterous

A large portion of Bible scholars agree that this has been added into the Bible at a later time.

I'll be back with information about forgery. I want to make sure I explain clearly what I'm trying to say so I want to have the book in front of me. And also I have to get this online assignment done so I don't get an F on it ^_^

But please everyone continue adding your thoughts and opinions!

 

[ChristianJuggarnaut]

How many biblical scholars do you know?

 

[horsecamp]

He has been confused by unethical bible scholars who are trying to make a name for them selves by trying to prove the bible is false.


they come up with a very few verses that are not in every manuscript which absolutely change not even one teaching of the bible and try to make a big deal of it..


they find a variant in a single word or two which changes not one single teaching of the bible and try to make a big deal of that also..

there unethical clowns and they prey on naive individuals.. who will Pariot there trumped up empty charges..

for instance the KJV has some passages that change not one bible teaching at all..
that is only found in the textust receptus manuscripts..

but once one understands how God preserved his word by sending such a flood of manuscripts that were impossible to stamp out because of the vast number and he sent them all through out the world ..
and found centuries apart from each other

and they all teach the same.. a variant or two do to hand copying is nothing at all. especially when the copiers
had no idea some one else was copy from another biblical manuscript.
.found in another part of the biblical world and the teaching were the exact same thing not only that but every word.except a variant or two do to hand copying. and that VARIANT OR two had no effect on what God was teaching at all..

remember God preserved his word through hand copies of the originals.

copied centuries apart from each other found in other parts of the world and all matched except for a variant or two do to the hand copying .

the originals are now Gone only God knows where they are,, yet we know the copies are from the original because despite the centuries apart they were copied and different places they come from they all match.

a study just on how God preserved his word through thousands of copies copied by different people in different places
at different times and yet they all match is just mind boggling.

.much more awe some than God preserving his bible through by us having the original manuscript. which God has now hidden from us..

 

[Arnie Manitoba]

I've only begun to learn about this, so I am by no means an expert

But I found this very interesting, and there are Bible scholars who have found that there is a chance that people have forged parts of the Bible.

Also, there are parts of the Bible that were added later too!

What do you think about this topic, like your thoughts and feelings towards it? I find it very interesting, so I naturally just want to share it with everyone.

.
There are a couple of discrepancies between manuscripts .... most of them are pretty minor for the most part .... most bibles will have footnotes describing the slight differences between manuscripts.

That is the opposite of forgery .... it is called honesty.

 

[Dodo_David]

The NIV (this site's default version) has this to say after Mark 16:8.

"The earliest manuscripts and some other ancient witnesses do not have verses 9–20."

The NIV also states, "The earliest manuscripts and many other ancient witnesses do not have John 7:53-8:11."

Other English versions of the Bible say the same things.

 

[HammerStone]

First off, I would strike the term forgery and replace it with additions. It becomes almost entirely anachronistic to say forgeries because of the care and respect given to copying manuscripts. Number one, in spite of the attempts to employ the use of pseudonyms and other devices to explain various stylistic divergences and discrepancies, the Bible was a sacred text that was copied with much care.

The only analogy I can come up with right now to draw upon is imaging if we picked a particular law, copied and pasted to Word, added what we thought to it, and then took it to someone and showed them the entire document as the true law. We know that there would be legal repercussions, but even that fails in comparison to the reverence for the text that scribes had, viewing it as a matter of life and death for the most part. So forgive the imperfect analogy, but this was no fleeting matter.

With that in mind, these additions were probably added because someone, somewhere thought they they were relevant or authentic stories. I've always guessed (rather logically) that some of these were oral traditions that were added. However, we don't know for certain that they were not in the originals (autographs) as we don't have those.

The historic Church has maintained these additions and they really don't introduce any new doctrine nor do they conflict on really any point of theology. I am perfectly comfortable using a Bible based on the Byzantine or Majority (called Majority because of total number) or the Critical Text (which is more or less a reconstruction based on textual scholarship).

 

[Wormwood]

I agree with HammerStone that forgeries is an incorrect term for what is being described here. In the ancient world, there was no printing press. You had people laboriously copying by hand every letter and phrase. Many of these scribes worked for hours and hours on end by candlelight with no eraser. Moreover, they did not have a stack of paper to work with like we are fortunate to have today. Parchments were very expensive and the process was very difficult. It is natural that some scribes would miss a line, change a word, or some may even have added a phrase to correct perhaps what they thought was a previous scribes error. Moreover, many of the additions were likely added in because someone may have written notes next to the biblical text and those notes were then incorporated into the text by the following scribe. Stories like the woman caught in adultery was likely not part of John's manuscript, but that does not mean the story didn't happen. As HammerStone noted, someone probably wrote down an oral tradition in a place they thought it made sense in the written tradition. However, it was very unlikely to be part of John's text. The same is true with much of Mark 16. Here it is likely that some scribe at some point sought to add a more fitting ending based on oral tradition to the Gospel because it appears to end so abruptly according to the earliest manuscripts. However, I think that abrupt ending aligns perfectly with the Gospel as a whole.

So, these are not "forgeries" but are simply minor mistakes and additions due to scribal error, oral traditions, and efforts to provide clarification by early scribes. None of this was done with intent to harm or twist the meaning of the Scriptures as the term "forgery" would imply.

 

[snr5557]

Oh this is going fabulously! :wub:

I love all these different views. However, I would just like to add

Forgery: The creation of a false written document or alteration of a genuine one

From what I've been able to read it seems that people are using the usual copyist mistakes in the Bible as forgeries. What is meant by forgery is described above.

I would like for everyone to continue to display what they think about this topic based upon the above discription of what forgery is please and thank you!

I'm off to get some school reading done. It's much less interesting then this but, you know, education first!

 

[HammerStone]

You gave the [incomplete] denotation of a word, connotation is everything my friend, but the definition of forgery you're providing is not consistent within the usual range of dictionaries.

 

[snr5557]

Not going to lie, I'm kind of sad not more people posted on this but I know these things take time.

In light of the comment above, I went back to the the free dicitionary. com (with the section focusing on legal matters) and I found that in my haste I did leave a part off. So here is the full defintion.

"The creation of a false written document or alteration of a genuine one, with the intent to defraud."

I'll also include other online dictionary sources, so there is absolutely no confusion:



"forg·ery
noun \ˈfȯrj-rē, ˈfȯr-jə-\

: the crime of falsely making or copying a document in order to deceive people
: something that is falsely made or copied in order to deceive people : something that is forged"

"


for·ger·y
[fawr-juh-ree, fohr-] Show IPA
noun, plural for·ger·ies.
1.
the crime of falsely making or altering a writing by which the legal rights or obligations of another person are apparently affected; simulated signing of another person's name to any such writing whether or not it is also the forger's name.

2.
the production of a spurious work that is claimed to be genuine, as a coin, a painting, or the like.

3.
something, as a coin, a work of art, or a writing, produced by forgery.

4.
an act of producing something forged. "

forgery: "the action of forging or producing a copy of a document, signature, banknote, or work of art."

Now that we're all on the same page with the right definition, please continue to display your thoughts!

 

[Quantrill]

There are no forgeries in the Bible.

Everyone likes to use the term 'biblical scholars'. It is supposed to add validity to their position. False Bible teachers are biblilcal scholars also. Nothing was added to the inspired Word of God and nothing has been taken away.

Quantrill

 

[Mr.Bride]

There are no forgeries in the Bible.

Everyone likes to use the term 'biblical scholars'. It is supposed to add validity to their position. False Bible teachers are biblilcal scholars also. Nothing was added to the inspired Word of God and nothing has been taken away.

Quantrill

That's it!!

 

[Tropical Islander]

Forgery is a verk strong word. When does it apply?

Let's do an example where statements are made that directly oppose each other, like for example in:

Is the fall, recorded in Isaiah 14 about Lucifer [as the KJV and Hebrew text indicates] or Jesus, the morning star, as the NIV and NASB imply?

Give me your ideas, what you think about that contoversy. AND Who created that controversy?

 

[Quantrill]

Forgery is a verk strong word. When does it apply?

Let's do an example where statements are made that directly oppose each other, like for example in:

Is the fall, recorded in Isaiah 14 about Lucifer [as the KJV and Hebrew text indicates] or Jesus, the morning star, as the NIV and NASB imply?

Give me your ideas, what you think about that contoversy. AND Who created that controversy?

Discussing who is addressed in Isaiah 14 would be a good topic for another discussion. The point I am making is, though you disagree with some other view, does not indicate the Bible has any forged writings in it.

Though you may come across some 'apparent contridictions', does not mean the Bible has some forged writings. It just means you or I don't yet know what God is saying.

Quantrill

 

[Wormwood]

There are no forgeries in the Bible.

Everyone likes to use the term 'biblical scholars'. It is supposed to add validity to their position. False Bible teachers are biblilcal scholars also. Nothing was added to the inspired Word of God and nothing has been taken away.

Quantrill

Neither does the term "biblical scholar" imply someone who is all head knowledge with a lack of love for the Lord and the Scriptures. I think you are missing the point here. We do not have original documents from Moses, Paul, Peter, John, etc. We have copies of copies of copies. Some of these copies date back a few hundred years and some date back almost two thousand years to the second century. So, let me ask you....if you wanted to know what someone wrote 2,000 years ago and you had 10,000 copies of the letter they wrote....5,000 of which were copied in 1,000 AD, 700 which were copied in 700AD and 300 which were copied in 150AD, which would you trust more? If a story is found in none of the ones written in 150AD, in half of the ones written in 700AD and in 90% of the ones written in 1,000AD, would you think that was a story in the original document or not? I would think not. That is how textual criticism works.

As Christians, our aim should always and only be to know the truth...not to cling to things simply because of our personal predilections or preferences. Most of all the textual discrepancies deal with verb tenses and minor additions or subtractions such as one text having "Christ" and another having "Christ Jesus." Even in the areas where a section has been added that is not found in any texts that exist in the first few hundred years after Christ, nor have they been referenced by any of the church fathers, no one is saying the events didn't happen. We are just saying it was likely not in the original autograph.

 

[Dodo_David]

There is no evidence that I know of that an attempt to defraud is the reason for additional material being inserted into the New Testament.

Let's consider a statement made by Wormwood:

So, let me ask you....if you wanted to know what someone wrote 2,000 years ago and you had 10,000 copies of the letter they wrote....5,000 of which were copied in 1,000 AD, 700 which were copied in 700AD and 300 which were copied in 150AD, which would you trust more? If a story is found in none of the ones written in 150AD, in half of the ones written in 700AD and in 90% of the ones written in 1,000AD, would you think that was a story in the original document or not? I would think not. That is how textual criticism works.

If a story or certain verses or words were not in the original document, but were added to a later document by someone other than the biblical authors, then shouldn't we be honest enough to admit it? Those additions may not be forgeries, but they still aren't the words of the biblical authors.

Bible scribes and translators of previous eras didn't know that the later additions weren't from the biblical authors. So, the former kept passing on the additions.

 

[Tropical Islander]

Though you may come across some 'apparent contridictions', does not mean the Bible has some forged writings. It just means you or I don't yet know what God is saying.

Hey Quantrill,

That is a little weak position that "we wouldn't know what God is saying" - of course we know. Jesus himself told us:

Revelation 22:16 I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star.

simple facts as these are required to notice, and that is just one of hundreds of examples. Once you dig into this theme you are "gone for weeks even months". Before that I would not even dare to compare two different documents and declare them both as true. That concept of 'opposites are equals - and both origin from the same source' would be trashed in any court, earthly or heavenly.