“How can we be sure the Bible has not been changed?”

by Doug Mason 14 Replies latest watchtower bible

• 

  Phizzy

  Thanks Doug for some great work ! showing the dishonesty in quotation by the W.T is a huge eye-opener to many, if the WT really had the truth, why would they need to lie about it ?

  The "Reasoning" book, (now there is a misnomer!), is still current W.T literature, it has not yet been replaced.

  The "Aid" book was replaced by the two-volume "Insight on the Scriptures" (another misnomer.) The latter is a re-hash of the Aid book, expanded somewhat, but also dropping some of the more reasonable entries and taking a later WT line on things.

  Thanks again for your work.
• 

  adamah

  Just a point to remember:

  The Bible could be transcribed PERFECTLY from one generation to the next, and it wouldn't change the fact that LANGUAGES evolve, and the meanings of words change over time since cultural context changes. Such changes happened within our lifetimes, eg as only ONE example, look at how the meaning of the phrase 'Tea Party' implies something quite different from what it meant in 1970.

  Hence trying to ascertain the "original" meanings of ancient Hebrew words generally involves guesswork, since there's not-so-subtle nuances that are missed at times by modern interpretators who cannot help but apply their modern world-view to try and ascertain their original meaning(s).

  Adam
• 

  leaving_quietly

  Remember when Jesus said "woe to you, scribes"? Could he have done so because they had ALREADY changed the holy writings?
• 

  Fernando

  If our favourite religion/harlot did not baulk at interpreting in line with their tradition and dogma when they were supposed to be translating instead, what must their predecessors not have gotten up to (Rev 17:5)?
• 

  Terry

  As Doug rightly points out, BEFORE anything was written down by anybody, the details and facts had been passed around by word-of-mouth a long, long time.

  So, stop and consider.

  All the major damage that can be done to 'fresh details' was baked-in from the get-go.

  We can and should consider this, too. Nobody connected with transmission of what we now call the Bible needed to be deliberately dishonest.

  The so-called pious-fraud is usually caused by highly motivated honest people TRYING TO CLARIFY the text by "helping."

  Scribes, translators, copyists had only the best of intentions as they CHANGED what was written so that you, the reader, would not misunderstand!

  This wasn't fraud. It is dumb meddlesome introduction of variance.

  Keep that in mind. There don't have to be any "bad guys" in the chain of transmission. Just lots of helpful "clarifications."

  CASE IN POINT:

  The lovely folks at the Watch Tower Society introduced the name JEHOVAH where other words existed. They HELPED, you see.

  They wanted to make it "more accurate."

  They CHANGED IT with the best of intentions.

  Every Bible translation has thousands of these little damages.

  The introduced "clarifying" words in [brackets] so you wouldn't accidently think there was a Triune God.

  Aren't we grateful?