Is The Bible Corrupted?

Is The Bible Corrupted? 

Here is a fun fact. The kind of Bibles you read depends on the church you follow. Contrary to popular belief, The New Testament is not the word of God but rather the corrupted words of copyists and scribes. There is no credible Biblical scholar on the face of this Earth who is worthy of the title "Scholar" that would claim that The Bible was written by Jesus himself nor was he there to correct the incoherent fallacies and mistakes of the human beings that wrote it. Many Christians will assert that these mistakes are negligible because they amount to minor spelling and grammatical mistakes which are of no theological consequence. Contrary to their claims, there are many examples of changes that have important theological implications, such as (1 John 5:7) The lack of consistency regarding the Bibles preservation should come as a surprise to no one. The Biblical world has in its possession a large collection of ancient manuscripts of The Bible. These ancient copies of the Bible were written in different locations around the world and in different ages. We are told that in our current age there are up to 24,000 such ancient copies of The Bible. These are the manuscripts that the scholars go to in order to produce our modern Bibles (such as the KJV, the RSV, the NIV, etc.). In most cases the most ancient copies of the Bible are the ones held in the highest regard and considered to be the most accurate. According to The Catholic Encyclopedia: “The idea of a complete and clear-cut canon of The New Testament existing from the beginning, that is from Apostolic times, has no foundation in history. The Canon of The New Testament, like that of the Old, is the result of a development, of a process at once stimulated by disputes with doubters, both within and without the Church, and retarded by certain obscurities and natural hesitations, and which did not reach its final term until the dogmatic definition of the Tridentine Council.^” (1)

In other words, they simply do not know where to begin in this tragedy. Isn’t this the mighty word of God we are dealing with here? A noble and righteous man would bow his head down in shame or keep quiet on the issue. Yet we see missionaries and priests doing the exact opposite. They resort to their usual devious methods and claims such as “The New Testament was an inspiration!”

Bart Ehrman, in his book titled (The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture) noted that:  "Christianity in the second and third centuries was in a remarkable state of flux. To be sure, at no point in its history has the religion constituted a monolith. But the diverse manifestations of its first three hundred years - whether in terms of social structures, religious practices, or ideologies - have never been replicated. Nowhere is this seen more clearly than in the realm of theology. In the second and third centuries there were, of course, Christians who believed in only one God; others, however, claimed that there were two Gods; yet others subscribed to 30, or 365, or more. Some Christians accepted the Hebrew Scriptures as a revelation of the one true God, the sacred possession of all believers; others claimed that the scriptures had been inspired by an evil deity. Some Christians believed that God had created the world and was soon going to redeem it; others said that God neither had created the world nor had ever had any dealings with it. Some Christians believed that Christ was somehow both a man and God; others said that he was a man, but not God; others claimed that he was God but not a man; others insisted that he was a man who had been temporarily inhabited by God. Some Christians believed that Christ's death had brought about the salvation of the world; others claimed that his death had no bearing on salvation; yet others alleged that he had never even died. Few of these variant theologies went uncontested, and the controversies that ensued impacted the surviving literature on virtually every level. … The New Testament manuscripts were not produced impersonally by machines capable of flawless reproduction. They were copied by hand, by living, breathing human beings who were deeply rooted in the conditions and controversies of their day. Did the scribes' polemical contexts influence the way they transcribed their sacred Scriptures? The burden of the present study is that they did, that theological disputes, specifically disputes over Christology, prompted Christian scribes to alter the words of Scripture in order to make them more serviceable for the polemical task. Scribes modified their manuscripts to make them more patently 'orthodox' and less susceptible to 'abuse' by the opponents of orthodoxy" (pages. 3-4)

Dr. W Graham Scroggie of the Moody Bible Institute of Chicago, stated: "..Yes, the Bible is human, although some out of zeal which is not according to knowledge, have denied this. Those books have passed through the minds of men, are written in the language of men, were penned by the hands of men and bear in their style the characteristics of men...."

Kenneth Cragg, the Anglican Bishop of Jerusalem, says: "...Not so the New testament...There is condensation and editing; there is choice reproduction and witness. The Gospels have come through the mind of the church behind the authors. They represent experience and history..."

1 John 5:7 is regarded as the strongest argument as presented by Christians.  "For there are three that bear record in heaven, the father, the word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one." [1 John 5:7] Also known as the Johanine Comma, contains the only single clear reference to the Trinity in the New Testament, and yet does not appear in any New Testament manuscript before the 16th century. 
As stated according to the N.I.V Bible: "Late manuscripts of the Vulgate testify in heaven: the Father, the Word and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one. And there are three that testify on earth: the (not found in any Greek manuscript before the sixteenth century)"

To put it into layman's terms, the concept of a Trinity is undoubtedly forged, man-made and was inserted to The Bible approximately One Thousand five-hundred years after the departure of Jesus. Yet these believers have the audacity to declare that these mistakes are negligible because they are simple spelling and grammatical mistakes? Another example of an added forgery is the story of John 8:2-11, which they love to run to as a safe haven away from the laws of The Old Testament. This whole story is another later addition as the earliest New Testament manuscripts do not contain it. In fact the story does not even exist in any manuscripts before the 5th century, and the vast majority of those prior to the 8th century lack the story. Here is a footnote regarding this verse from the New International Version of the Bible: "The earliest manuscripts and many other ancient witnesses do not have John 7:53—8:11. A few manuscripts include these verses, wholly or in part, after John 7:36, John 21:25, Luke 21:38 or Luke 24:53." Without these verses, we can find no other examples of Jesus not following the Old Testament laws.

As all level-minded intellects know that the four Gospels are completely anonymous, and they were composed decades after the departure of Jesus. The early Church fail to mention them; they fail to address the miraculous events recorded in the Gospels, in their additions to The Bible the Churches did a perfunctory job. Non-Christian and Jewish historians never even mentioned the Gospel events, or the resurrection of Jesus.  Academically, at its rawest form; Christianity melts under the lens of observations.

Biblical scholar Lloyd Graham writes:“… We have here a good example of the credulity of Western man. For two thousand years he has been reading about this convulsion and “darkness over all the earth” without ever questioning it or demanding proof of it. Yet had it happened, would not some of those able historians have recorded it? Why did they not?” (Deceptions & Myths of the Bible,)

 The book of Deuteronomy, which has some of the most controversial verses which Christians claimed to be written by Moses is not actually written by him. The NIV Bible Commentary states: "The book itself testifies that, for the most part, Moses wrote it (1:5; 31:9,22,24), and other OT books agree (1Ki 2:3, 8:53; 2ki 14:6; 18:12)--though the preamble (1:1-5) may have been written by someone else, and the report of Moses' death (ch.34) was almost certainly written by someone else." (Page 240) The Book of Genesis, they state: "Historically, Jews and Christians alike have held that Moses was the author/compiler of the first five books of the OT. These books, known also as the Pentateuch (meaning "five-volumed book"), were referred to in Jewish tradition as the five fifths of the law (of Moses).However, a certain amount of later editorial updating does appear to be indicated ." (see, e.g., notes on 14:14; 36:31; 47:11). (Page 2) Then we have the Book of Esther "Although we do not know who wrote the book of Esther, from internal evidence it is possible to make some inferences about the author and the date of composition." (Page 707) "The Psalms consist of one hundred fifty poems of Israel written at different times by different authors, though mainly by David, around 1000 B.C. The funny part is they try to make up for it  by adding "Because of the vast range of human feelings expressed in the Psalms, this book remains one of the best loved and most used books of the Bible." (page 801)

(Tom Harper, The Pagan Christ,) ⁽²⁾ “The ultra-conservatives keep insisting on a “physical” resurrection of Jesus. Paul, whose work pre-dates the first Gospel, insists on the exact opposite. His fifteenth chapter of 1 Corinthians could not possibly be clearer. I invite you to read to reread that passage for yourself. This passage is almost pure Platonism. Paul knows only a spiritual resurrection.” (page 174)

The bigger question is, who then are the real authors of The Bible? It would be logical to assume that The Church would have known and held them in high regard. After all, they did write The Bible... right? Actually, no, The Church do not know. 

Peake's Commentary on the Bible, : "Yet, as a matter of fact, every book of the New Testament with the exception of the four great Epistles of St. Paul is at present more or less the subject of controversy, and interpolations are asserted even in these." (page 633)

There is no original document of the Bible available to us to verify its tragedy of a doctrine. Concerning the New Testament documents The Interpreter's Dictionary Of The Bible confirms that: “The original copies of the NT books have, of course, long since disappeared. This fact should not cause surprise. In the first place, they were written on papyrus, a very fragile and perishable material. In the second place, and probably of even more importance, the original copies of the NT books were not looked upon as scripture by those of the early Christian communities.” 

But wasn't it supposed to be the exact word from God? As there is no rebuttal, priests resort to the claim that God had inspired the unknown writers. But this raises critical issues that must go addressed. Firstly, Doesn’t that mean all their work would’ve been intact and they would all agree on the same scriptures instead of having various churches disregarding certain texts? Lastly, if God were to truly "inspire" these texts then why is it that throughout all these years, neither previous Churches nor the current theologians of today are able to find out who had written them? As if they were truly to be inspired, the authors would have been known by all. In addition, there would be no insertion of extra texts and there would be harmonious agreements with all The Biblical schools in terms of its preservation and compilation. Not a flurry of disagreements and several editions. The NIV Bible Commentary has stated in regards to Samuel: "Many questions have arisen pertaining to the literary character, authorship and date of 1,2 Samuel." "Who the author was cannot be known with certainty since the book itself gives no indication of his identity." (Page 368)

Dr. Lobegott Friedrich Konstantin Von Tischendorf, one of the most adamant conservative Christian defenders of the Trinity and one of the Church's foremost scholars of the Bible was himself driven to admit that:  "[the New Testament had] in many passages undergone such serious modification of meaning as to leave us in painful uncertainty as to what the Apostles had actually written"

Secrets of Mount Sinai, James Bentley, p. 117

The New American Bible read the following: "The author of the book calls himself John, who because of his Christian faith has been exiled to the rocky island of Patmos, a Roman penal colony. Although he never claims to be John the apostle, he was so identified by several of the early church Fathers, including Justin, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Terullian, Cyprian, and Hippolytus. This identification, however, was denied by other Fathers, including Denis of Alexandria, Eusebius of Caesarea, Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen, and John Chrysostom. Indeed, vocabulary, grammar, and style make it doubtful that the book could have been put into its present form by the same persons responsible for the fourth gospel. (Page 1373)"

The Catholic Encyclopedia have rightfully declared: No book of ancient times has come down to us exactly as it left the hands of its author-- all have been in some way altered. The material conditions under which a book was spread before the invention of printing (1440), the little care of the copyists, correctors, and glossators for the text, so different from the desire of accuracy exhibited to-day, explain sufficiently the divergences we find between various manuscripts of the same work. To these causes may be added, in regard to the Scriptures, exegetical difficulties and dogmatical controversies. To exempt the sacred writings from ordinary conditions a very special providence would have been necessary, and it has not been the will of God to exercise this providence." (3)

Bruce Metzger concluded that:“For early Jewish Christians the Bible consisted of the Old Testament and some Jewish apocryphal literature. Along with this written authority went traditions, chiefly oral, of sayings attributed to Jesus. On the other hand, authors who belonged to the 'Hellenistic Wing' of the Church refer more frequently to writings that later came to be included in the New Testament. At the same time, however, they very rarely regarded such documents as 'Scripture'. Furthermore, there was as yet no conception of the duty of exact quotation from books that were not yet in the full sense canonical. Consequently, it is sometimes exceedingly difficult to ascertain which New Testament books were known to early Christian writers; our evidence does not become clear until the end of second century.” 

In Conclusion: Christians may argue that thanks to modern scholarship they have managed to identify all the fabrications and therefore can be confident about the New Testament. This is not the case as there is a big gap in the manuscript tradition. how can we be certain that what we possess today matches the earliest copies when there are no surviving early copies to compare to? Since the manuscripts that we do possess, most of which date to as late as the 10th century after Jesus, show evidence of tampering, then the chances are that there would also be tampering in the manuscripts that pre-date these. The problem is, that these earlier manuscripts have not survived, and therefore there could well be fabrications which remain undetected in the New Testament today. The sacred Biblical scripture is full or erroneous alterations, distortions and contradictions. All biblical versions of the Bible prior to the revised version of 1881 were dependent upon the "Ancient copies" (those dated at about five to six hundred years after Jesus). The revisers of the Revised Standard Version (RSV) 1952 were the first biblical scholars to have access to the "Most ancient copies" which date roughly four hundred years after Christ. It is only logical for us to concur that the closer a document is to the source the more authentic it is. “For early Jewish Christians the Bible consisted of the Old Testament and some Jewish apocryphal literature. Along with this written authority went traditions, chiefly oral, of sayings attributed to Jesus. On the other hand, authors who belonged to the 'Hellenistic Wing' of the Church refer more frequently to writings that later came to be included in the New Testament. At the same time, however, they very rarely regarded such documents as 'Scripture'. Furthermore, there was as yet no conception of the duty of exact quotation from books that were not yet in the full sense canonical. Consequently, it is sometimes exceedingly difficult to ascertain which New Testament books were known to early Christian writers; our evidence does not become clear until the end of second century.” Despite The Biblical author's anonymity, So for about 200-300 years the concept of a New Testament was unfounded. This single argument is enough to refute the reliability of the Trinity.