Questions about the Bible

[Amira]

Dear everyone,I thought I'd post another questions for you all to ponder, and to explain to me hopefully.

This time about the Bible. This may have also been discussed before, but it does not seem to have been discussed recently. First of all, do you think the Bible is something that should be taken literally; partly literally and partly figuratively; or figuratively, as a kind of a guide book? I ask this because I do not know how people generally (the ones on this forum of course) feel about this.Secondly... These strange thoughts occurred to me, and I started to wonder about what Christians think about this, so... As we know there are many different Bibles, in different languages and from different periods. I also know that many Christians think that although the Bible was written by men, they were inspired by God (is that right?) This just made me think about the translations... Do you think the translators were also inspired and guided by God while translating? Furthermore, it just occurred to me that do you think it is possible for someone to make a "false Bible" (I apologize for the terrible sounding phrase, but I didn't know what else to call it

), either on purpose or accidentally by mistranslating or making some other error? I do recall there have at least been the occasional misprint or typo, but that is probably inevitable with something that has sold as many copies as the Bible. And if there is an error in it, is it still a bible or is it something else? Of course there are numerous versions of the Bible out there, and even parts of the presumably originals (or other very old versions) have survived, and any errors, especially major ones, would be soon noticed, so any such version would be very short-lived. Anyway, I was just wondering... Thank you all for your replies in advance once again! :grouphug: (I just had to use that smilie, it's so cool!)

 

[RaddSpencer]

(Amira;46784)
Dear everyone,Secondly... These strange thoughts occurred to me, and I started to wonder about what Christians think about this, so... As we know there are many different Bibles, in different languages and from different periods. I also know that many Christians think that although the Bible was written by men, they were inspired by God (is that right?) This just made me think about the translations... Do you think the translators were also inspired and guided by God while translating? Furthermore, it just occurred to me that do you think it is possible for someone to make a "false Bible" (I apologize for the terrible sounding phrase, but I didn't know what else to call it

), either on purpose or accidentally by mistranslating or making some other error?
I wouldn't worry about that too much. We know that the original manuscripts from the "ancient" times are accurate. http://www.bible.org/page.php?page_id=4010http://christiananswers.net/q-eden/edn-t007.htmlIf someone did screw up in the translations, we would all know about it. (this book sold 25 million copies (America alone) in 2005, according to this website).http://quitenoteworthy.blogspot.com/2007/0...re-sold-in.html

 

[Wakka]

(Amira;46784)
Dear everyone,I thought I'd post another questions for you all to ponder, and to explain to me hopefully.

This time about the Bible. This may have also been discussed before, but it does not seem to have been discussed recently. First of all, do you think the Bible is something that should be taken literally; partly literally and partly figuratively; or figuratively, as a kind of a guide book? I ask this because I do not know how people generally (the ones on this forum of course) feel about this.Secondly... These strange thoughts occurred to me, and I started to wonder about what Christians think about this, so... As we know there are many different Bibles, in different languages and from different periods. I also know that many Christians think that although the Bible was written by men, they were inspired by God (is that right?) This just made me think about the translations... Do you think the translators were also inspired and guided by God while translating? Furthermore, it just occurred to me that do you think it is possible for someone to make a "false Bible" (I apologize for the terrible sounding phrase, but I didn't know what else to call it

), either on purpose or accidentally by mistranslating or making some other error? I do recall there have at least been the occasional misprint or typo, but that is probably inevitable with something that has sold as many copies as the Bible. And if there is an error in it, is it still a bible or is it something else? Of course there are numerous versions of the Bible out there, and even parts of the presumably originals (or other very old versions) have survived, and any errors, especially major ones, would be soon noticed, so any such version would be very short-lived. Anyway, I was just wondering... Thank you all for your replies in advance once again! :grouphug: (I just had to use that smilie, it's so cool!)
The Bible should be taken 100% literally. But there is some figurative things thrown in to make people better understand (such as parables). It's good to distinguish what is figurative and what is literal. The garden of eve, Noah's ark, and Jonah and the Whale were all literal.Secondly, the Bible is inspired by God. When you write the paper, who actually does the writing? The pen or the person? It would be the pen because it's making the letters on the paper, but we're the one's controlling the pen. It's the same with us, God was controlling those people to write the books of the Bible. It's not forced control, those people were just more than willing.Our King James Bible (oldest English Bible and best version) is 99.8% accurate (with the exception of some typos such as names and ages). The scholars back in the day would read the English version, and recheck with the Greek/Hebrew. Look up the dead sea scrolls. They were excavated just recently, and there were thousands of scrolls (and a ton of fragments) that proved the KJV's (Byzantine text) accuracy.

 

[Amira]

Dear RaddSpencer and Wakka, I do agree that especially nowadays a mistake in the Bible would be noticed very soon. Possibly 600 years ago it might have taken a bit longer, because books were not very common. And of course anyone could just write something and call it the Bible, but it would not be what you might call an authentic Bible. So, I suppose my question was more along the lines that would a Bible with a mistake in it still be an (authentic) bible, but in the light of Wakka's reply, I suppose it would depend on the scale of the mistake.

Wakka, I thought the Wyclif's Bible was the oldest English bible? I don't think it is very commonly used nowadays though. I watched a documentary about the Dead Sea Scrolls, and another about how the Bible was put together (the different books into one compilation) not too long ago. I thought they were both very interesting indeed.

It will be interesting to follow the Dead Sea Scrolls as they will be restored and studied more.Wakka, I just wanted to ask that how can one know which parts are figurative? I have read some of the Bible, but not all of it (still working on it - it takes a while!), so I do not know/recall. Is it indicated in the text, or the name of the passage? Or the style or "genre" of the passage? Do you think there are any passages that take some thinking as to if they are figurative or literal in your opinion?