- Jul 10, 2007
- 21,571
- 3,561
- Country
- United States
- Faith
- Eastern Orthodox
- Marital Status
- Single
- Politics
- US-Others
Which Bibles do you believe are actually authentic?
Here's some info on this:
The Church is not based on the Bible. Rather, the Bible is a product of the Church. For the first few centuries of the Christian era, no one could have put his hands on a single volume called The Bible. In fact, there was no one put his hands on a single volume called The Bible. In fact, there was no agreement regarding which books of Scripture were to be considered accurate and correct, or canonical. Looking back over history, there were various lists of the canonical books comprising the Bible:
When Protestant Western Christians reviewed the canonical books of Scripture, they adopted the Hebrew Canon accepted by the Jews since AD 100. See The Books of the Old Testament
The Holy Scriptures were preserved by the Orthodox Church. These books and letters were studied, copied, collected, recopied, passed from group of early Christians to another, and read in the services of the Church. Testimony to the fidelity of reproduction in this milieu is the consistent agreement among the Church Fathers when they cite Scripture, and their common understanding of Scripture in their deliberations at the local and Ecumenical councils.
Over the centuries, alterations crept into some manuscripts. Sometimes the texts were altered by accident (e.g.., mistakes made in copying these books by hand). At other times intentional alterations were made, either by misguided but innocent copyists who thought they were correcting errors in the manuscripts they were working from, or by heretics who full intended to change the words of Scripture to suit their purposes. The Church, however, guided by the Holy Spirit, distinguished between authentic and inauthentic manuscripts, discarding or ignoring the latter, copying and handing on the former. Even today we see the authentic words of Scripture preserved. When a young priest or a chanter mispronounces a word in its original Greek, there will be a Bishop, an older priest or even a venerable Orthodox grandmother who will be quick to point out the aberration from the way the text has always been sung or read!
The authentic Greek text of the Bible is preserved by the Orthodox Church. When translating the New Testament into English, there are many Greek manuscripts to choose from. To ask, What does the original Greek say? is to beg the question, which Greek text? For Orthodox Christians this is a very easy question to answer. We simply use the Greek text handed down within the Orthodox Church which has been proven consistent by 2000 years of liturgical use and which the Church, guided by the Holy Spirit, has given us. To Scripture scholars there is a huge body of ancient Greek manuscripts, known as the Byzantine text-type, which embodies the Orthodox textual tradition. These old manuscripts and lectionaries differ very little from each other, and are indeed in overwhelming agreement with each other throughout the whole New Testament. Furthermore, they are great in number and comprise the vast majority of existing Greek manuscripts.
Most modern English Bible translations are based on bogus versions of the Scriptures. Unfortunately, no English translation of the Bible has been made using the Byzantine text-type manuscripts of the New Testament since the King James Version (KJV) in 1611. The others are all based on the eclectic Greek New Testament manuscripts and various Hebrew Old Testament texts. The bottom line is that manuscripts which the Orthodox Church did not use or copy have been elevated above those texts which the Church has preserved by modern and contemporary Scripture scholars and translators. Sadly, but perhaps significantly indicative, is the fact that the scholars who put together those eclectic critical texts decisively reject the Byzantine (that is to say, Orthodox) text-type, claiming that the Byzantine text was corrupted by Orthodox copyists eager to conform the text of Scripture to Orthodox theology as it developed over the first several centuries of the Church's life.
Modern translations obscure the Divinity of Christ. In what can only be a return to the ancient heresy of Arius, even the much touted 1952 Revised Standard Version (RSV) translation of Scripture tends to minimize Christ's divine nature. Forty years ago the King James translation was widely impugned for being based on the Greek Byzantine texts which were called corrupt an amazing accusation considering the pedigree of the eclectic critical texts. In the liberal theological milieu of that time, many Protestant theologians denied not only the virgin birth, but also the divinity of Christ and His resurrection. One curious feature of the RSV translation is its apparent mixture of old and new English; the older traditional second person singular pronoun, thou/thee/thy, is intermixed with the nondescript modern ye/you/you. While at first glance this seems chaotic, it actually serves as a hidden code. The traditional thou usage is employed when God is addressed, but you whenever anyone else is addressed. Note, for example, that the Our Father in the RSV retains the word thy in referring to God's name, kingdom, and will. But note that in the RSV translation a leper addresses Jesus in Mark 1:40, Saying If you will, you can make me clean, and Peter says in Matthew 16:16, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. The only time in the RSV that Christ is addressed as Thou is after He is no longer on earth, but even this is found mainly in Hebrews when Paul quotes from the Old Testament.
The clearly Protestant bias against the Theotokos, and her Orthodox definition as critical to preserving the divinity of Christ is also very evident in the RSV. Consider Matthew 1:25 (KJV): (Joseph) knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son; and he called his name Jesus. But in the RSV: (Joseph) knew her not until she had borne a son; and he called his name Jesus. From the Byzantine, Orthodox, texts, the KJV tells us that Mary brought forth not a son, but her firstborn precluding her having had previous children. Moreover, He is clearly her son; but not Joseph's. Note how the RSV is distinguished from the KJV in Luke 2:33; after Simeon returned Jesus to His mother, the narrative tells us (KJV): Joseph and his mother marveled at those things which were spoken of him. But the RSV: And his father and his mother marveled at what was said about him. The RSV infers that Joseph is Jesus' father, presumably his biological father a clear refutation of the dogma of virgin birth.
Or again, consider the following notable omission in John 3:13. KJV: No man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven. But the RSV: No one has ascended into heaven but he who descended from heaven, the Son of man.
The Byzantine text is clearly reflected in the KJV; the eclectic text by the RSV. Yet only a tiny handful of manuscripts omit the expression which is in heaven while the vast majority of manuscripts include it, as do the quotations of Church fathers such as Saint Basil the Great, Saint Hilary, Saint John Chrysostom, and Saint Cyril. This particular Scripture text is the clearest witness to the Orthodox teaching that Christ is fully man while not being circumscribed in any way as God, since it indicates that Christ was simultaneously on earth in the body and in heaven with the Father. It also indicates, contrary to modern liberal theology, that our Lord knew very well just Who He was, where He came from, and what business He was about.
The Corruption of Paraphrased Bibles. There is no need in this article to provide such critical analysis of the various other translations which followed the RSV (e.g, NIV, NAB); all are even more flawed. A comment should be made, however, of several very dangerous paraphrased versions of the Bible, such as Today's English Version and the volume sold as The Book. If the Scripture scholars can criticize the Byzantine copyists for corrupting the text to conform to Orthodox theology, what are we to say about the non-Orthodox paraphrases who have radically altered not only text, but the whole meaning of various passages? These Bibles are to be totally and completely avoided by the Orthodox; they have no good purpose whatsoever because they are gross distortions of the truth, and serve only to infiltrate a completely corrupted theology into the minds of the faithful.
The Orthodox Witness. One very interesting question, never asked, is this: If scholars are willing to assemble an eclectic text out of Scripture fragments from various sources often of unknown doctrinal origin or authority why haven't they ever considered the living archeological evidence of Scripture segments that have been repeated faithfully for ages in the Orthodox Liturgy? Why haven't serious modern scholars considered the incredible coincidence that 72 Hebrew scholars could all translate the Old Testament in exactly the same manner into the Septuagint Greek? Why haven't they examined the translation of the Scriptures done a thousand years ago from Greek into Slavonic, which has preserved exactly, accurately, and precisely the meaning of the Greek original? And, more to the point, if errors have crept in and accumulated as texts were copied over the years, why aren't the existing copies of these Greek and Slavonic Scriptures divergent?
Non-Orthodox scholars cannot answer these questions because, to do so honestly and truthfully, they would have to admit that in fact the Orthodox Church, through the guidance of the Holy Spirit, has preserved intact and correctly the Holy Scriptures. And, moreover, this preservation is in part assured by the dogma and doctrine of the Church which both draw from the Scripture and provide evidence and support of its truth.
http://www.geocities.com/trvalentine/orthodox/bible_texts.html
Here's some info on this:
The Church is not based on the Bible. Rather, the Bible is a product of the Church. For the first few centuries of the Christian era, no one could have put his hands on a single volume called The Bible. In fact, there was no one put his hands on a single volume called The Bible. In fact, there was no agreement regarding which books of Scripture were to be considered accurate and correct, or canonical. Looking back over history, there were various lists of the canonical books comprising the Bible:
- The Muratorian Canon (130 AD) cities all the books we considered as parts of the Bible today, except for Hebrews, Jude, 2 Peter, 2 John, 3 John, and Revelation/Apocalypse
- Canon 60 of the local Council of Laodicea (364 AD) cited Revelation/Apocalypse
- A festal Epistle by Saint Athanasius (369 AD) lists all of them.
When Protestant Western Christians reviewed the canonical books of Scripture, they adopted the Hebrew Canon accepted by the Jews since AD 100. See The Books of the Old Testament
The Holy Scriptures were preserved by the Orthodox Church. These books and letters were studied, copied, collected, recopied, passed from group of early Christians to another, and read in the services of the Church. Testimony to the fidelity of reproduction in this milieu is the consistent agreement among the Church Fathers when they cite Scripture, and their common understanding of Scripture in their deliberations at the local and Ecumenical councils.
Over the centuries, alterations crept into some manuscripts. Sometimes the texts were altered by accident (e.g.., mistakes made in copying these books by hand). At other times intentional alterations were made, either by misguided but innocent copyists who thought they were correcting errors in the manuscripts they were working from, or by heretics who full intended to change the words of Scripture to suit their purposes. The Church, however, guided by the Holy Spirit, distinguished between authentic and inauthentic manuscripts, discarding or ignoring the latter, copying and handing on the former. Even today we see the authentic words of Scripture preserved. When a young priest or a chanter mispronounces a word in its original Greek, there will be a Bishop, an older priest or even a venerable Orthodox grandmother who will be quick to point out the aberration from the way the text has always been sung or read!
The authentic Greek text of the Bible is preserved by the Orthodox Church. When translating the New Testament into English, there are many Greek manuscripts to choose from. To ask, What does the original Greek say? is to beg the question, which Greek text? For Orthodox Christians this is a very easy question to answer. We simply use the Greek text handed down within the Orthodox Church which has been proven consistent by 2000 years of liturgical use and which the Church, guided by the Holy Spirit, has given us. To Scripture scholars there is a huge body of ancient Greek manuscripts, known as the Byzantine text-type, which embodies the Orthodox textual tradition. These old manuscripts and lectionaries differ very little from each other, and are indeed in overwhelming agreement with each other throughout the whole New Testament. Furthermore, they are great in number and comprise the vast majority of existing Greek manuscripts.
Most modern English Bible translations are based on bogus versions of the Scriptures. Unfortunately, no English translation of the Bible has been made using the Byzantine text-type manuscripts of the New Testament since the King James Version (KJV) in 1611. The others are all based on the eclectic Greek New Testament manuscripts and various Hebrew Old Testament texts. The bottom line is that manuscripts which the Orthodox Church did not use or copy have been elevated above those texts which the Church has preserved by modern and contemporary Scripture scholars and translators. Sadly, but perhaps significantly indicative, is the fact that the scholars who put together those eclectic critical texts decisively reject the Byzantine (that is to say, Orthodox) text-type, claiming that the Byzantine text was corrupted by Orthodox copyists eager to conform the text of Scripture to Orthodox theology as it developed over the first several centuries of the Church's life.
Modern translations obscure the Divinity of Christ. In what can only be a return to the ancient heresy of Arius, even the much touted 1952 Revised Standard Version (RSV) translation of Scripture tends to minimize Christ's divine nature. Forty years ago the King James translation was widely impugned for being based on the Greek Byzantine texts which were called corrupt an amazing accusation considering the pedigree of the eclectic critical texts. In the liberal theological milieu of that time, many Protestant theologians denied not only the virgin birth, but also the divinity of Christ and His resurrection. One curious feature of the RSV translation is its apparent mixture of old and new English; the older traditional second person singular pronoun, thou/thee/thy, is intermixed with the nondescript modern ye/you/you. While at first glance this seems chaotic, it actually serves as a hidden code. The traditional thou usage is employed when God is addressed, but you whenever anyone else is addressed. Note, for example, that the Our Father in the RSV retains the word thy in referring to God's name, kingdom, and will. But note that in the RSV translation a leper addresses Jesus in Mark 1:40, Saying If you will, you can make me clean, and Peter says in Matthew 16:16, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. The only time in the RSV that Christ is addressed as Thou is after He is no longer on earth, but even this is found mainly in Hebrews when Paul quotes from the Old Testament.
The clearly Protestant bias against the Theotokos, and her Orthodox definition as critical to preserving the divinity of Christ is also very evident in the RSV. Consider Matthew 1:25 (KJV): (Joseph) knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son; and he called his name Jesus. But in the RSV: (Joseph) knew her not until she had borne a son; and he called his name Jesus. From the Byzantine, Orthodox, texts, the KJV tells us that Mary brought forth not a son, but her firstborn precluding her having had previous children. Moreover, He is clearly her son; but not Joseph's. Note how the RSV is distinguished from the KJV in Luke 2:33; after Simeon returned Jesus to His mother, the narrative tells us (KJV): Joseph and his mother marveled at those things which were spoken of him. But the RSV: And his father and his mother marveled at what was said about him. The RSV infers that Joseph is Jesus' father, presumably his biological father a clear refutation of the dogma of virgin birth.
Or again, consider the following notable omission in John 3:13. KJV: No man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven. But the RSV: No one has ascended into heaven but he who descended from heaven, the Son of man.
The Byzantine text is clearly reflected in the KJV; the eclectic text by the RSV. Yet only a tiny handful of manuscripts omit the expression which is in heaven while the vast majority of manuscripts include it, as do the quotations of Church fathers such as Saint Basil the Great, Saint Hilary, Saint John Chrysostom, and Saint Cyril. This particular Scripture text is the clearest witness to the Orthodox teaching that Christ is fully man while not being circumscribed in any way as God, since it indicates that Christ was simultaneously on earth in the body and in heaven with the Father. It also indicates, contrary to modern liberal theology, that our Lord knew very well just Who He was, where He came from, and what business He was about.
The Corruption of Paraphrased Bibles. There is no need in this article to provide such critical analysis of the various other translations which followed the RSV (e.g, NIV, NAB); all are even more flawed. A comment should be made, however, of several very dangerous paraphrased versions of the Bible, such as Today's English Version and the volume sold as The Book. If the Scripture scholars can criticize the Byzantine copyists for corrupting the text to conform to Orthodox theology, what are we to say about the non-Orthodox paraphrases who have radically altered not only text, but the whole meaning of various passages? These Bibles are to be totally and completely avoided by the Orthodox; they have no good purpose whatsoever because they are gross distortions of the truth, and serve only to infiltrate a completely corrupted theology into the minds of the faithful.
The Orthodox Witness. One very interesting question, never asked, is this: If scholars are willing to assemble an eclectic text out of Scripture fragments from various sources often of unknown doctrinal origin or authority why haven't they ever considered the living archeological evidence of Scripture segments that have been repeated faithfully for ages in the Orthodox Liturgy? Why haven't serious modern scholars considered the incredible coincidence that 72 Hebrew scholars could all translate the Old Testament in exactly the same manner into the Septuagint Greek? Why haven't they examined the translation of the Scriptures done a thousand years ago from Greek into Slavonic, which has preserved exactly, accurately, and precisely the meaning of the Greek original? And, more to the point, if errors have crept in and accumulated as texts were copied over the years, why aren't the existing copies of these Greek and Slavonic Scriptures divergent?
Non-Orthodox scholars cannot answer these questions because, to do so honestly and truthfully, they would have to admit that in fact the Orthodox Church, through the guidance of the Holy Spirit, has preserved intact and correctly the Holy Scriptures. And, moreover, this preservation is in part assured by the dogma and doctrine of the Church which both draw from the Scripture and provide evidence and support of its truth.
http://www.geocities.com/trvalentine/orthodox/bible_texts.html
