Yes, i know the old testament made up of the law(torah) and the prophets were written and handed down through time and kept by the Jews,as can be seen to this day. But how was the new testament put together?
who put it together?
After all , wasn,t it the Catholic church that kept the writings in the Latin untill the time of the reformation, whereby it was only then translated into other languages?
Were there any other writings and if so why are they not in todays bible?
How do we know if there are any more writings if the only writings of the new testament were kept by the Catholic church?
How can we be sure that the letters written by the early christians were only the ones that suited the beliefs of the Catholic church?
Did they use or change any of the writings to distance themselves from Judaism ( eg using the Greek/Latin version of the messiahs name "iesous" instead of his original Hebrew name "yeshua" "yahshua" or "yahushua"?.
I very much believe that the writings are inspired of God, but i have often wondered about some of these questions. Perhaps some of you can shed some light on this topic.
The Bible: How and by whom was the bible put together?
by evergreen 11 Replies latest watchtower bible
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evergreen
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greendawn
There were many books circulating in the first few centuries claiming to be genuine but in the fourth century the then Christian historians and theologians sorted them out into what we have today and rejected the rest. The book of Revelation nearly didn't make it into these canonical books. I suppose whatever was gnostic or otherwise heretical in nature was rejected outright.
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Terry
Even casually intelligent Jehovah's Witnesses go into a tailspin when presented with the overwhelming evidence that the bible is not the way it has been represented to them.
The Watchtower Society needs the bible to appear inerrant. They prop up contradictions with apologia just like the fundamentalists.
However, textual critics have amassed considerable evidence which refutes the attempts to shore up error and disharmony.
GO to your nearest library and check out a copy of BART EHRMAN'S book on MISQUOTING JESUS.
He clearly enumerates the flaws in the inerrancy position.
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robhic
The book of Revelation nearly didn't make it into these canonical books.
And you have to wonder who, after slogging thru all this craziness, decided "Yeah, I think the stories of mass destruction and beasts with talking horns on their heads should be included!" <OK, now where's my pipe and hemp?!>
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evergreen
stillajwexelder and narkissos, .
it looks like i have some reading to do but i will research what you have given me.
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ToServeMan
Terry,
That is an excellent book. I may not agree with all of his conclusion, but I did find it facinating and enlightening. The book is a must for any body reading the bible and trying to understand the prinicples enbodied in it. Unfortunatly, many peopel refuse to read it simply because it makes the claim that the bible can be interpreted in many different ways. I'm sure this scares some people, maybe perhaps they believe that thiers is the only "true" interpretation or maybe because they are afraid of being incorrect in th way they understand the meaning of the bible.
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A Paduan
The Bible: How and by whom was the bible put together?
However you look at it Catholics compiled it and kept it together for over a thousand years, then the protestants took out some bits and had their own 'bibles' (almost), and then after that folks like the jws got hold of it, and further "improved it".
But alas I could be wrong, it may have been those "jws that have always been there"
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james_woods
Quite the dillemna for a JW, is it not? The Catholic council in which the hated Athanasius prevailed over the favored Arius was later charged with getting together the "true list"...out of apparantly many candidates of early writings...??? Problem - Athanasius was totally wrong on the divinty of Christ, but was apparantly one of the inspired faithful when it came to compiling the holy scriptures. Well, we can reconcile this: he was only partly inspired, some of his thinking was apostate...so -
We will take this "apostate" list for granted as inspired, but many of their doctrinal ideas were indeed apostate. (i.e. - they do not aggree with our beloved Arianism) We must therefore choose which places were false translations about 1600 years later, even though the original manuscripts no longer exist.
We will also make up our own bible translation, even though we do not have credible hebrew or greek translators. We further will insert the name Jehovah as we please into the new testament - although this was never in any known ancient manuscript of the writings.
Naturally, what we came up with is the most inspired and correct of all bibles forever. We will bind it in lime green; just to show it is remarkably different from the "worldly" translations that kept the scriptures alive for sixteen centuries. We reserve the right to retranslate it later and change the color of the binder, if anything embarrasing should turn up...
James