# about the different versions of the bible
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-different-versions-of-the-bible/150246
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [January 22, 2003, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-different-versions-of-the-bible/150246 "2003-01-22T16:56:17Z")
**Posts on this page:** 15
**Page:** 5
### Author:  [@Duke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duke)
#### Post date: [January 24, 2003, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-different-versions-of-the-bible/150246/81 "2003-01-24T22:24:33Z")
**John Zahn** : That view is largely, but not wholly, correct. After all, the 1407 Constitutions were specifically written in response to the use of the Wycliffite Bible by the Lollards. Most Lollards were illiterate, too, but they were usually part of groups which contained at least one “reader.” It only took one reader per group to disseminate the Bible to the rest. (Anne Hudson, in _The Premature Reformation_, gives a good explanation of this.) And while it’s true the Wycliffite Bible was prohibitably expensive, a lot of the groups just used parts of the text, or passed the text on to other groups after they’d made crude copies. Finally, yes, a large number of priests were illiterate in the 16th-century, but a surprising number had a pretty good reading comprehension level–about 50-60% according to Caroline Litzenburger.
The Constitutions of Oxford were specifically targeted at these “reading groups” and rogue priests. Norman Tanner, _Norwich Heresy Trials, 1428-31_, noted that there were at least six “active” readers of the Bible in East Anglia detected by the trials. Over 200 “Lollards” confessed to hearing at least one of them preach about the Bible. Ergo, a tiny handful of the literate could disseminate the Bible to a large number of listeners.
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### Author:  [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)
#### Post date: [January 24, 2003, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-different-versions-of-the-bible/150246/82 "2003-01-24T22:30:21Z")
> [@](#):
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> \*Originally posted by royjwood \*
> Monty,
> I am answering those questions as I have the time (I am at work)
Don’t care where you are at the moment–you obviously have access to the Internet. Pull some proof from some honest sites.
> [@](#):
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> …you seem to believe that God does not wish us to read the Bible, however, he clearly has advised us to do so.
And exactly where in the heck did you come up with that bullshit about me believing God doesn’t want us to read the Bible? What I explicitly asked you was to prove your assertion that the RCC tells people not to read the Bible period.
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### Author:  [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)
#### Post date: [January 24, 2003, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-different-versions-of-the-bible/150246/83 "2003-01-24T22:35:42Z")
> [@](#):
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> \*Originally posted by royjwood \*
> Monty,
>
> You obviously have not yet read all of the posts, because I avoided naming names…period!
Actually, I have obviously read all of the posts. In addition, I don’t cotton to damn lies.
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> And I have already answered some of your other questions already as well.
Provide proof of both the answer and the honestly attributed reputable source.
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> Such as Martin Luther.
Last time I checked (10 seconds ago), Martin Luther went to his death as a Protestant.
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> But bu the way, just because someone does not support the RCC does not make them the anti-Christ,
Did I call you the anti-Christ?
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> does not warrant them being murdered,
Have I murdered you?
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> and does not make them heretics.
Did I call you a heretic?
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> It only makes them non-catholics.
So, here’s an interesting question for you: Do you think I’m Catholic?
The rest of your posting was already dealt with by someone who, unlike you, appears to love Truth.
BTW, what’s someone called who spreads damn lies?
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### Author:  [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)
#### Post date: [January 24, 2003, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-different-versions-of-the-bible/150246/84 "2003-01-24T23:07:54Z")
> [@](#):
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> what’s someone called who spreads damn lies?
A trained statistician? 😉
Ancient AOL/SDMB joke. No statistician, professional or amateur, was harmed in the production of this post.
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### Author:  [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2003, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-different-versions-of-the-bible/150246/85 "2003-01-25T00:58:27Z")
Well, I’ll speak to the Episcopalian tradition on your “errors of Catholicism” item here:
> [@](#):
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> charity saves: #837
No. Christ saves. How He judges is fairly explicitly set forth in the Parable of the Sheep and Goats – and it’s only a baby step from that to the idea that charity is the criterion by which He judges.
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> the RCC forgives sins (not God (Mark 2:7), through Christ’s sacrifice (Eph 4:32): #979, 982, 983, 986, 1448, 1461
No. God forgives sins, through the ministry of the priest in the Apostolic Succession, as explicitly set forth in John 20:21-23.
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> Baptism saves #818, 950, 1212, 1213, 1257, 1265, 1263
No. Baptism incorporates the baptized into the community of the faithful and gives the grace of regeneration to the believing candidate or to the child whose parents undertake to raise the child as a Christian. It symbolizes and effectually transmits the grace of God which is the primary cause of one’s salvation.
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> the sacraments save: #1113, 1129
The sacraments, received by the believer, bless. God’s forgiveness is expressed and transmitted through them.
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> Mary saves: #494, 969, 1172
If there’s any validity to this canard whatsoever, I’d like to see it explained. Catholics (and other Christians) give honor to the Mother of Christ because we are His brothers and sisters by adoption and grace. We clearly distinguish that respect from the worship due to God alone, and to none of His creatures, Mary and the Bible included.
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> the Eucharist saves: #1364, 1405
See “the sacraments save” above.
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> Confirmation saves: 1316
Confirmation equips the Christian with the gifts of the Holy Spirit by prayer for his ministry in the world. Insofar as “salvation” is an event and not a process, the confirmand is already saved.
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> Confession to priests saves: 1446
> Priests forgive sins: 1448, 1495
Confession to God in the sacrament of the Reconciliation of a Penitent is followed by the absolution pronounced by the priest. The old Anglican formula may be apposite to quote here:
> [@](#):
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> Almighty God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who
> desires not the death of sinners, but rather that they may turn
> from their wickedness and live, has given power and
> commandment to his ministers to declare and pronounce to
> his people, being penitent, the absolution and remission of
> their sins. He pardons and absolves all those who truly
> repent, and with sincere hearts believe his holy Gospel.
>
> Therefore we beseech him to grant us true repentance and his
> Holy Spirit, that those things may please him which we do on
> this day, and that the rest of our life hereafter may be pure
> and holy, so that at the last we may come to his eternal joy;
> through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Priests forgive sins in the same way as judges imprison criminals – they speak for that which provides them with authority to act in its behalf – God for priests, the legal system for judges.
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> Catholics are also Christ Himself: #795
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> Now you are {collectively} the body of Christ and individually members {or organs} of it. (1 Cor. 12:27)
“Let your light so shine before men…” is usually taken to mean, let your behavior be such as, when men see you, they see Christ working through you.
Of course, if the important thing is not to do what Christ commanded, but to engage in polemic arguments intended to tear down the sense of brotherhood, then you’re certainly doing God’s work. I have serious problems with a lot of Catholic teaching, such as the Blue Army’s apparent intent to elevate Mary to equality with Jesus (and yeah, I know that’s not official teaching – they’re a movement within Catholicism). We’ve done the abortion thing to death already in other threads. There’s a point at which sacramentalism descends into formalism of the sort practiced by the Pharisees and Sadducees, which Christ condemned. If you get too focused on Christ’s presence in the Eucharist, you ignore His presence in your brother or sister. But I can see the truth underlying Catholic doctrine, and try not to make a production number out of my disagreements with part of it, as a general rule. I’m speaking out in its defense here because your sources, **Roy** , appear to be misrepresenting Catholic teaching in a way reminiscent of Jack Chick’s best efforts.
Oh, and one final thing – it won’t take much searching to find cases where good Christian brothers and sisters who are members here were at each other’s throats on disagreements about what various verses of Scripture mean. To me, that suggests that somebody who has done serious study on the particular subject under discussion needs to assist with an exegesis that clarifies what the subject means. Every single Bible study follows this sort of procedure. So why do you have a problem with bishops and priests teaching what the Bible means?
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### Author:  [@Freyr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freyr)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2003, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-different-versions-of-the-bible/150246/86 "2003-01-25T01:31:38Z")
To ask a couple questions:
1. what’s a good, general reference Bible to use? Something written in modern English that come close to the orginal documents. This leads to…
2. what are the oldest documents we have that are Biblical texts? I know that some of Paul’s material goes back to the middle of the 1st century, CE. Are the originals of those still around? If so, where? Just curious.
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### Author:  [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2003, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-different-versions-of-the-bible/150246/87 "2003-01-25T01:51:55Z")
Poly: Don’t you find it as amusing as I do that very many of the same canards hoisted against the RCC are also hoisted against my church?
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### Author:  [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2003, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-different-versions-of-the-bible/150246/88 "2003-01-25T01:59:31Z")
The oldest texts of Old Testament/Tanakh of which I am aware are among the Qumran Scrolls. Several of the books are very close to identical to the Masoretic recension from 1,000 years later, indicating that the Masoretes had done an excellent job of restoring the texts that they had. A couple of other texts have huge discrepancies differing in entire passages, leading to questions regarding which is “original” and which are later interpolations.
The oldest New Testament text is a single fragment of John’s Gospel, dating to the early or middle of the second century. The oldest (mostly) complete texts are the _Codex Vaticanus_ and _Codex Sinaiticus_ dating to around the early fourth century. With 5,000 to 5,400 Greek texts to examine, scholars have attempted to reconstruct exactly what the original texts might have said (the _Textus Receptus_ was an early attempt to do just that). We can identify various “schools” or “types” of text, based on which texts have the most consistent differences, but we cannot establish absolutely what the original texts said. This can get nasty when one person or another attempts to invest theological reasons for choosing texts in the Byzantine tradition over texts in the Alexandrine tradition (named for the cities most associated with the majority of each set of texts) or in other traditions.
On the other hand, all the texts are in _general_ agreement. The differences tend to be the sort that can give translators and theologians something to argue over for the rest of time, but none of them are written with a clear bias to a particular theology with hundreds of changes to support that view. (Although, some of the polemic web sites would give the impression that one school or another explicitly denies the Divinity of Jesus or is deliberately written to support some other massively schismatic dogma.)
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### Author:  [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2003, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-different-versions-of-the-bible/150246/89 "2003-01-25T01:59:53Z")
What the…Mary saves?
As for Catholics being Christ, we ARE taught that we are all a part of him, in that, whatever we do to one another, we do to Christ, because we are all God’s children.
But um, where are you getting this stuff? Does your cource have the initials JTC?
Also, about following our own conscience, on the contrary-we are told, in difficult situations, to pray and meditate to see what is best and right in the eyes of God.
Sheesh, I’m a lapsed Catholic, not sure if you’d call me a Christian anymore (I don’t know what I believe as far as dogma, just that I believe in God), and even I know this is horseshit.
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### Author:  [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2003, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-different-versions-of-the-bible/150246/90 "2003-01-25T02:22:36Z")
**Freyr** : I think this thread is all about your first question. As for the second, [this site](http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/papyrus/texts/manuscripts.html) discusses the oldest New Testament manuscripts. Better dating information on the papyri is found [here.](http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/7547/ntmss.html) According to [this](http://www.metamind.net/AramaicBible/biblemanus.html), the Torah in Aramaic dates to 460 A.D. According to [this site](http://www.hum.huji.ac.il/staff/fdss.htm), the Dead Sea Scrolls found at Qumran date between 250 B.C. and 65 A.D. I’ve been searching in vain for a list of books included in the Dead Sea Scrolls, but it’s my memory that most of the O.T. is included among them, along with several apocryphal books. I’m certain of the presence of the Torah, Isaiah, Daniel, and Habakkuk.
**Monty** : Absolutely! 🙂 Let’s draw lines in the sand and fence out “them” in the name of the Man who said “I am come that they all may be one, as I and the Father am one.” ☹
For what it’s worth, [this guy’s website](http://www.geocities.com/brandplucked/oldbest.html) seems to provide ammunition for **Roy** ’s criticism of modern scholarship’s reliance on the Uncial codices.
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### Author:  [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2003, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-different-versions-of-the-bible/150246/91 "2003-01-25T02:23:49Z")
**Guin** : JTC? “Jesus The Christ”? 😃
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### Author:  [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2003, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-different-versions-of-the-bible/150246/92 "2003-01-25T02:59:56Z")
> [@](#):
>
> criticism of modern scholarship’s reliance on the Uncial codices.
Which would be valid if modern scholarship actually “relied” on either of those two texts. What has actually happened was that the Byzantine tradition had provided most of the sources for what have become called the Majority Tradition, based on sheer numbers. However, that was basically a historical accident duee to the rise of Islam that overwhelmed the communities where the Alexandrine, Antiochan (other than the Byzantine variant), and other traditions had been kept.
I would never accept a recension that began with the idea that either the _Vaticanus_ or the _Sinaiticus_ was supernaturally closer to the originals. However, it is in comparing and contrasting the various differences–including obvious errors–that we get a better look at what the originals _might_ have said.
(When the Sinaiticus was originally published, there was a brief rush to challenge the _Textus Receptus_, since the _Sinaiticus_ tended to support many of the variants where _Vaticanus_ differed from the _TR_. However, after that first wave, most scholars have moved back to a position of more careful analysis of all texts. Meanwhile, the polemecists have never moved off the arguments they presented in the 1890s, repeating the same charges despite a further century of scholarship.)
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### Author:  [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2003, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-different-versions-of-the-bible/150246/93 "2003-01-25T20:40:36Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by royjwood \*
> \*\*If you would read your copy of the catechism, you would see that not only does the RCC claim that it is the only path to salvation . . . \*\*
Roy, the Catholic Church does not teach this. From the Catholic point of view, this is a serious heresy, and those who hold this view and refuse to renounce it have been excommunicated. If you have looked into this matter at all you must know this. You’re fond of quoting paragraph numbers from the catechism in support of your assertions, apparently without having read them to see if they support your assertion. I challenge you to read paragraph 847 and then come back and say whether the Catholic Church teaches that it is the only path to salvation.
I’m not going to respond to the rest of your post; others - including lapsed Catholics and non-Catholics - have already done so. I simply note that throughout this thread you have made assertions about the Catholic Church, when challenged you have either ignored the challenges, purported to support your assertions with cites which do not, in fact, support them, or simply made different assertions.
As a Christian you have a right and duty to read, interpret and take to heart the holy scriptures, but I hope that in doing so you bring to bear a better critical judgment than you have displayed here.
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### Author:  [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2003, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-different-versions-of-the-bible/150246/94 "2003-01-25T21:49:07Z")
> [@](#):
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> \*Originally posted by Polycarp \*
> \*\ ***Guin** : JTC? “Jesus The Christ”? 😃 \*\*
_snicker_ Well, he certainly has a Messiah complex, at least when it comes to “educating” people, with his _tracts_.
😉
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### Author:  [@Freyr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freyr)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2003, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-different-versions-of-the-bible/150246/95 "2003-01-25T22:21:24Z")
\*\*Polycarp wrote:
Freyr: I think this thread is all about your first question.\*\*
I should have re-read the first page. So, for general uses, the NIV is pretty good. If you want to ge scholarly, try NJB (New Jerusalem Bibl)? Thanks for the tip.
And thanks to everyone’s who contributed. The philology of this thread has been fascinating!
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