Was the Torah and the Bible Altered?
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Was the Torah and the Bible Altered?
The facts are the original text of the Bible comes from ancient hand-written manuscripts. The Old Testament was written in Hebrew, and the New Testament was written in Greek.
No one has the original articles, but thousands of ancient copies have been discovered.
Since these copies are hand-written, there are variations in spelling, word order, and sentence structure among them. Even though these variations do cause some confusion about the biblical text.
None of the ancient copies date back to those times.
To start this inquiry we have to go back in time. As well as validate the books. We will look at the first 5 books of Moses ( Musa) (pbuh) and we will be looking at Genesis, Exodus,Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruthe, I Samuel, II Samuel, I Kings, II Kings, I Chronicles.
When we look at this the first thing we find is that there are some serious problems with the dates and archaeology. They do not match up.
This is a big problem and a clear indication that something is wrong. This also is a big problem for those who claim according to the Torah the Jewish origin.
Lets review some of it.
The Torah and Biblical archaeology does not match up for these gates. In fact its not at all what the two books tell us. These findings date back to the 7th and 8th century and the books are supposed to be in the 10th century.
This creates another issue of the Jewish origin as well as the size of it. In fact it is two small settlements in the hills totally different then what the books tell us.
Some are trying to use monuments and different findings to create the illusion that they support their claims or which are used to validate the books. When in fact it does not. Doing so they are avoiding the archaeology or any real ways of validating such things. As we continue one can clearly see that in fact something is very wrong.
The dates of the Torah and the Old Testament simply don't match with the archaeology facts or physical evidences and findings.
The Solomonic Gates and many others monuments dates don't match up with the physical evidences still present to this day as well as others still being discovered.
These facts tell us that there was no big kingdom as many of Jewish origin are claiming. That in fact there were scattered settlements in the hills. In the North was a Kingdom called Israel and in the south a Kingdom called Judah its capital being Jerusalem. It is not at all as the Torah or the Bible tells us.
Israel from these findings and facts was not a great empire but a small village. Limited to the number of people that inhabited it. There is no evidences of inscriptions as one normally finds as well.
In fact all the scribings and writings come much later in fact centuries after these times.
This is a big problem because we can not validate Kings, Exodus as well as Genesis. All of those dates according to Torah and Bible now become wrong or in fact altered.
When we go to the current editions and text we find many discrepancies.
For example in Genesis 1 and 2 the creation stories are completely different. We also notice 2 flood stories 2 calls to Moses ( Musa) (pbuh) and Moses (Musa) (pbuh) writes about his own death?
The facts are and the scholars of these religions agree and if you research it that its not very likely that Moses (Musa) (pbuh) wrote these books.
There are apparently are 4 different literary sources that underline the Pentateuch, ( The books that some are saying Moses ( Musa) wrote. So the facts that are appearing show that its a lie or a misconception that Moses ( Musa) (pbuh) wrote these books or that they were written during his lifetime.
The facts are there are 4 different authors and another problem we find no one knows who they are or were. Each one has his own style of writing penmanship's and each having their own characteristics.
Academics in fact have given each of them a letter because they don't know their names or family linage. Or can they validate that they were even in the times of Moses (Musa) (pbuh).
They are identified as J or the Jahweh because he called God Jahweh, E who calls god Elohim. P for the priestly scribe and D for the Deuteronomy scribe.
In J the writings are elaborate and have a lot of details as well as emotions. They have god dealing directly with the people.
E In E's version god mediates his relationships with the people through angels or dreams there is no direct relationship with the people and god. God uses an intermediary.
P has a great deal of interest in dealing with rules and laws and priestly affairs sacrifices.
D focuses on monotheism.
There are clear distinctions between these stories in fact these scriptures disagree about god. They conflict with each other as well. They were also written in different periods.
The scholars have known this and have not taught this and in fact have alluded the people away from it.
Archaeology presents some artifacts such as the buildings of the city of David and jewelry used for marking sealing and by scribes seem to indicate that the time frame is of the 8th century.
Also most of the Torah was written in the 7th century and major part of it has been written earlier.
Palms again has yet another unidentified or undocumented scribe who writes totally different then the prior mentioned ones. The books clearly appear to have occurred during the 7th century.
According to the Jewish scholars and which is evident in the Bible there were two great Kings Hezekiah and Josiah.
However once again there is conflicting stories.
About Hezekiah, we read in 2 Kings 18:5-6:Hezekiah trusted in the LORD, the God of Israel. There was no one like him among all the kings of Judah, either before him or after him. He held fast to the LORD and did not cease to follow him; he kept the commands the LORD had given Moses.
But then about Josiah a couple chapters later in 2 Kings 23:25:Neither before nor after Josiah was there a king like him who turned to the LORD as he did—with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his strength, in accordance with all the Law of Moses.
Neither before nor after Josiah was there a king like him who turned to the LORD as he did—with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his strength, in accordance with all the Law of Moses.
Now this again is explained away by some scholars that say. "It seems best, then, to see these two passages as merely emphasizing the devotion of each of these kings to obeying God, rather than making any argument that either one is actually the greatest of the kings of Judah."
This is explained by the Jewish scholars that these Kings waged a war on anyone who opposes monetarism and established one place of worship for god. Note neither of which are prophets or messengers of god. So this in turn establishes one god and one Jerusalem temple.
We again find that there are many scribes all who are unknown and they are writing these books. They interpret each other and they don't agree with each others. In this way the Torah kept becoming bigger and bigger. Each addition adding to the prior addition.
So what was occurring was these books are being re written and edited to fit philological and political agendas. So what is occurring is the words of God are now becoming edited into the words of men with philological and political agendas. More importantly no one knows who those scribes or men are. Their history linage etc.
And the King Hezekiah now has scribes spin these books into his criterion. Also note he is not a prophet or messenger.
There are archaeological physical evidences that are still existing that verify this spin of King Hezekiah. We find there are differences and issues of spinning from the facts to whats written by various scribes again all unknown.
So this is occurring over 2000 years ago and Judaism is being promoted and again the same Judaism today promotes something different then back then.
We then see the introductions to pay taxes to the newly established religious entities.
Then in less then a century in the late 7th century BC. Josiah is killed the great King of the revival of the religion of Judaism is destroyed and the population is exiled.
This creates the situation we still see currently in Israel were the people say they are not immigrants but people who were in exile and why they hold claim to those lands and justify the crimes being committed everyday. Which the world is ignorant to. As this is in these current times their back then promised lands.
In the past this occurred in 516 BC after more then 50 years in exile they returned to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem. In fact today what remains of that temple is the wall that the Jews worship at. Again a contradiction were people are worshiping a wall made by human hands. When the very teachings of the religion say that god does not reside in a temple made by human hands.
All of this once again changes the Old Testament. The rewriting take place which now takes us to Isaiah. Today there is no whole original copy of the Bible currently but there is currently a large portion of Isaiah and it adds a whole new spin. This introduces the coming of a new prophet or a messiah or chosen one.
And again virtually no one today attributes the entire book, or even most of it, to one person.
A typical outline based on this understanding of the book sees its underlying structure in terms of the identification of historical figures who might have been their authors.
1–39 – Proto-Isaiah, containing the words of the original Isaiah;
40–55 – Deutero-Isaiah, the work of an anonymous Exilic author;
56–66 – Trito-Isaiah, an anthology of about twelve passages.
While one part of the consensus still holds – virtually no contemporary scholar maintains that the entire book, or even most of it, was written by one person – this perception of Isaiah as made up of three rather distinct sections underwent a radical challenge in the last quarter of the 20th century.
While it is widely accepted that the book of Isaiah is rooted in a historic prophet called Isaiah, who lived in the Kingdom of Judah during the 8th century BCE, it is also widely accepted that this prophet did not write the entire book of Isaiah.
The observations which have led to this are as follows:
Historical situation → Chapters 40–55 presuppose that Jerusalem has already been destroyed (they are not framed as prophecy) and the Babylonian exile is already in effect – they speak from a present in which the Exile is about to end.
Chapters 56–66 assume an even later situation, in which the people are already returned to Jerusalem and the rebuilding of the Temple is already under way.
Anonymity → Isaiah's name suddenly stops being used after chapter 39.[25]
Style → There is a sudden change in style and theology after chapter 40; numerous key words and phrases found in one section are not found in the other.
Early modern-period scholars treated Isaiah as independent collections of sayings by three individual prophets, brought together at a much later period, about 70 BCE, to form the present book. And again no one knows who they were.
The irony is the main theme of these new writings is that the nation has suffered in exile for the worshiping of idols and objects walls etc. But introduces a mission and a messiah or a chosen one. And even more alarming is that to some the religion is just for the Jews and not for all of mankind.
In 1947 the dead sea scrolls are discovered and again no one knows who the author is the schools are dated 100 years before Jesus (Esa) (pbuh). This was written by a group of hard-line Jews and it dares to once again re write these books. This is a revised and rewritten scroll of the Torah. It revels the discrepancies of the various versions.
Ironically they are note part of the Torah or the Bible today. Some Jewish scholars explain this away by saying the books have been sealed. Yet they can not show us in the text where it says that.
Then what occurs is the picking and choosing of whats the words of god and what is not even within the existing scrolls.
In Hebron some of the Jews believe that religion belongs to just them and so does the land and its exclusive to them and no other race or culture. The masters of religion and controlled and promised to one race.
Ironically the same things Hitler preached and subjected them too they are doing to the Palestinians.
Many regard these writings and books as actual eye witnesses to these events or accounts. But in fact they are not. No one knows who these scribes are or do the original text exist or are any from those exact times.
More concerning is the fact many people believe that the new testament is true and accurate eye witnesses to these events as well.
People also think these are the writings and statements of the disciples of Jesus (Esa) (pbuh) when in fact they are not.
That these are things that in fact these men Mathew, Mark , Luke and John or the Gospel as its well know as. Wrote and eye witnessed as well as were with Jesus (Esa) (pbuh).When in fact they were not written by them or during his lifetime and were written many years later.
We also find that these writings don't agree and have different accounts of the stories. Things like about the wise men the star the location the age of Jesus (Esa) (pbuh) his birth etc. This raises all sorts of questions as to the accuracy of these writings basically there are 4 different eye witness accounts that the events are different in. We also find the Trinity being introduced here.
There is no archaeological records or or preserved accounts. In these writings all the new things come in to the religion. For example the Christmas story. Some copying each other and others rewriting the events.
So at this point we can not take the old and new testament as historical facts.
In fact we have also find out that the writings of Paul were not his own as well and that of a scribe and once again we don't know who that was.
In fact none of these writings are eye witness accounts or were they written during Jesus ( Esa) (pbuh) life time and were in fact written hundreds of years afterwards.
The Torah and Bible were books written by men and women. And not recorded writings of what the prophets and messengers had said are the words of God.
In fact those books did occur but throughout the years they were altered by men and women who were not eye witnesses. And this is how we get to the point where we have the current altered books.
In 312 AD the Roman emperor Constantine converted and once again the editing of these books occurs. Within the next generation the list of the books were locked as what was in and what was taken out.
Then what occurs is a consensuses occurs in 4thcentury when these books are re written from papyrus to animal skins and then and the list of the books were locked as what was in and what was taken out. Which leads us to the Codex Vaticanus the oldest copy however note.
No one has the original articles, but thousands of ancient copies have been discovered which are the codex Vaticanus .
To see the Codex Vaticanus Click here.
So what occurred is basically censorship. So there was a discussion or a consensuses among those who were not eye witness or who lived in the times of these events. None of who were prophets or messengers. And they decided what was to be in these books and what was not.
There are many older and original writing that were left out and Ironically those that have Jesus ( Esa) (pbuh) as a prophet and not the son of God or God himself. As well as books that are said to be that of Jesus ( Esa) (pubh) siblings.
Writings about Mary Madeleine who is taught was a whore when in fact that is not correct.Written by her 2nd century followers. There is no evidences that she was a prostitute in any of the books yet to this day many say and teach that about her. But if we read the text its simply not there. There are many Marys in these revised books the confusion about Mary Madeline was brought about in the 5th century AD.
So what happened was a group of rich and powerful people put the text together and who decided what will be included and what will be excluded no different then politics today.
The politics don't end at 4th century Rome at to get to these books in their current edition in English today there was new authors, politics and bloodshed.
These books were again prior to the current English revisions changed and this time into Latin by Jerome and his translation is deeply flawed. But would dominate the Bible for centuries and then again rewritten again a thousand years later to English. And at that time the only people who could read the Bible were experts in Latin.
So what occurs next is a group of people got together and decided to once again rewrite the Bible and this time into English which in that time was an act of subversion.
On the late 1370's century a scholar called John Wycliffe He was an influential dissident in the Roman Catholic Church during the 14th century. His followers were known as Lollards, a somewhat rebellious.
The Lollard movement was a precursor to the Protestant Reformation. He has been characterized as the evening star of scholasticism and the Morning Star of the Reformation.He was one of the earliest opponents of papal authority over secular power.
Wycliffe was also an early advocate for translation of the Bible into the common language. He completed his translation directly from the Vulgate into vernacular English in the year 1382, now known as Wycliffe's Bible. It is probable that he personally translated the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; and it is possible he translated the entire New Testament, while his associates translated the Old Testament. Wycliffe's Bible appears to have been completed by 1384, with additional updated versions being done by Wycliffe's assistant John Purvey and others in 1388 and 1395.
His ideas on lordship and church wealth, caused his first official condemnation in 1377 by the Pope (Gregory XI), who censured nineteen articles. He argued that the Church had fallen into sin and that it ought therefore to give up all its property and that the clergy should live in complete poverty. The tendency of the high offices of state to be held by clerics was resented by many of the nobles. John of Gaunt, who had his own reasons for opposing the wealth and power of the clergy, may have used a naive Wycliffe as his tool.
The Council of Constance declared Wycliffe a heretic on 4 May 1415, and banned his writings. The Council decreed Wycliffe's works should be burned and his remains removed from consecrated ground. This order, confirmed by Pope Martin V, was carried out in 1428.Wycliffe's corpse was exhumed and burned and the ashes cast into the River Swift, which flows through Lutterworth.
What this created was people would now come up with their own interpretation of what the Bible said. Even though he never rewrote Jeromes Latin version into English he encouraged others to do so.
So what occurs is a Wycliffe Bible by him and his circle which was illegal to have in ones possession during those times.
Then after him comes William Tyndale who was an English scholar who became a leading figure in Protestant reform in the years leading up to his execution. He is well known for his translation of the Bible into English.
While a number of partial translations had been made from the seventh century onward, the spread of Wycliffe's Bible resulted in a death sentence for any unlicensed possession of Scripture in English—even though translations in all other major European languages had been accomplished and made available.
Tyndale's translation was the first English Bible to draw directly from Hebrew and Greek texts, the first English one to take advantage of the printing press, and first of the new English Bibles of the Reformation. It was taken to be a direct challenge to the hegemony of both the Church of England and the laws of England to maintain the church's position.
In 1535 Tyndale was arrested and jailed in the castle of Vilvoorde (Filford) outside Brussels for over a year. In 1536 he was convicted of heresy and executed by strangulation, after which his body was burnt at the stake.
But Tyndale's Bible continued on and parts of it until this day.
Then in 1604 King James orders another reversion.
The King James Version (KJV), also known as the Authorized Version (AV) or King James Bible (KJB), is an English translation of the Christian Bible for the Church of England begun in 1604 and completed in 1611. In 1612, the first King James Version using Roman Type was issued. This quarto version is only second to the 1611.
First printed by the King's Printer Robert Barker, this was the third translation into English to be approved by the English Church authorities. The first was the Great Bible commissioned in the reign of King Henry VIII (1535), and the second was the Bishops' Bible of 1568.
The translation was done by 47 scholars, all of whom were members of the Church of England. In common with most other translations of the period, the New Testament was translated from Greek, the Old Testament was translated from Hebrew and Aramaic text, while the Apocrypha was translated from the Greek and Latin. In the Book of Common Prayer (1662), the text of the Authorized Version replaced the text of the Great Bible – for Epistle and Gospel readings (but not for the Psalter which has retained substantially Coverdale's Great Bible version) and as such was authorized by Act of Parliament.
Over the course of the 18th century, the Authorized Version supplanted the Latin Vulgate as the standard version of scripture for English-speaking scholars. With the development of stereotype printing at the beginning of the 19th century, this version of the Bible became the most widely printed book in history, almost all such printings presenting the standard text of 1769 extensively re-edited by Benjamin Blayney at Oxford; and nearly always omitting the books of the Apocrypha. Today the unqualified title 'King James Version' commonly identifies this Oxford standard text.
The title of the first edition of the translation was "THE HOLY BIBLE, Containing the Old Testament, AND THE NEW: Newly Translated out of the Original tongues: & with the former Translations diligently compared and revised, by his Majesties special Commandment". The title page carries the words "Appointed to be read in Churches",and F. F. Bruce suggests it was "probably authorized by order in council" but no record of the authorization survives "because the Privy Council registers from 1600 to 1613 were destroyed by fire in January 1618/19.
Other works from the early 19th century confirm the widespread use of this name on both sides of the Atlantic: it is found both in a "Historical sketch of the English translations of the Bible" published in Massachusetts in 1815,[15] and in an English publication from 1818, which explicitly states that the 1611 version is "generally known by the name of King James's Bible"
The King James version contains several mistranslations; especially in the Old Testament where the knowledge of Hebrew and cognate languages was uncertain at the time. Most of these are minor and do not significantly change the meaning compared to the source material.
Once again the Bible is rewritten and once again with political motivations. The idea being the reunification of England under the Bible.
This became the first and only English version until the 1st world war.
From that time there are many Bibles or each one with its own revisions until this day. All of these once again books reworked by many people throughout the ages. Literary 1000's of reediting, rewriting, changing of the Bible have taken place and all of which are different from the original text.
So to recap All four of the canonical gospels are anonymous.
Based on the dating difficulties and other problems, many scholars and researchers over the centuries have become convinced that the gospels were not written by the people to whom they are ascribed.
What we do know for a fact—admitted even by the Catholic Encyclopedia—is that the titles attached to the gospels, "The Gospel According to Matthew," etc., are not original to the texts but were added later. Indeed, the term "according to" in the original Greek—kata—could be interpreted to suggest that the texts were understood to be relating a tradition of these individuals, rather than having been written by them. In reality, none of the evangelists identifies himself as a character in the gospel story. As one glaring example of this detachment, it is claimed that Matthew was recording events he himself had witnessed, but the gospel attributed to him begins before he had been called by Jesus and speaks of Matthew in the third person….
This subject of attribution is extremely important, because, as Tenney asserts, "if it could be shown that any of the books of the New Testament was falsely attributed to the person whose name it bears, its place in the canon would be endangered.
All are written in the third person and none of the authors tell us anything about themselves. All of the traditional ascriptions of authorship come from 2nd century tradition.
To summarize, the canonical Gospel of Mark is an anonymous book written outside of Palestine in a Gentile language to a Gentile audience sometime during or after the Jewish-Roman War. The author is hostile to Jews and to the apostles. He does not know Jewish laws or customs. He does not know the geography of Palestine. He does not like Peter. He never makes any claim to have known Peter or to have ever been to Palestine. In 130 CE some guy said he heard from another guy that the author was a secretary of Peter's.
Matthew
Let's move on to Matthew. The Gospel of Matthew, by tradition, is attributed to the apostle of that name. Like Mark, this authorship tradition stems from Papias (it was also claimed by Irenaeus but he was probably parroting Papias). Papias clamed that, "Matthew composed the sayings [logia of Jesus] in the Hebrew language, and each one interpreted them as best he could." (Adv Haer 3:1:1). If such a Logia ever existed, it is not Canonical Matthew.
- GMatt is not a "sayings" Gospel for one thing and was not written in Hebrew for another.
- Furthermore, GMatt is largely dependent on Mark and (most probably) another written "sayings" tradition (in Greek, not Hebrew) called Q.
- Matt's dependence on Mark also puts its date somewhere around 80 CE (if not later) which is pushing the envelope for the plausibility of the author being a contemporary of Jesus. It's not impossible, of course, but this is an era when people generally didn't live much past forty or fifty years of age.
- The bigger obstacle for apostolic authorship is the fact that Matthew copies so extensively from secondary sources. An eyewitness should not be expected to copy verbatim from a non-eyewitness.
- ?There is also the fact that GMatt contains some of the more demonstrable fictions and signs of OT cannibalism but more on those aspects in their proper sections.
- It also bears repeating that the author Matthew never claims to have been an apostle or a witness, never states his name and never claims to have known any other witnesses.
To sum up for Matthew: Papias claims that an apostle named Matthew compiled a sayings Gospel in Hebrew. The Canonical Gospel of Matthew is written in literary Greek and is not a sayings Gospel. The author never claims to have been an apostle or an eyewitness. It relies heavily on secondary Greek sources as well as the Septuagint. Once again, an eyewitness would not rely on the accounts of non-witnesses to recount events that he had supposedly seen for himself. It was written at least 50 years after the alleged crucifixion. The author includes demonstrable fictions which can clearly be shown to have been derived from the Septuagint. Papias' Logia, if it existed, has never been found.
Luke
Let's do Luke. The traditional author of Luke-Acts is supposedly a physician and traveling companion of Paul named Luke. Neither Luke nor Paul is a witness of Jesus even by tradition so I suppose I could stop right there but I think I'll take the time to point out that even the tradition which does exist is dubious.
- First of all, the author of Luke-Acts never claims to have known Paul.
- The earliest known claim for this tradition comes from Irenaeus in the late 2nd century who probably based his conclusion on the "we passages" from Acts as well as a stray mention of someone named Luke in Philemon (the name turns up in a couple of the non-authentic Pauline letters as well but the authentic corpus only mentions the name once in passing).
- There is no reason whatever to suppose that the Luke mentioned by Paul has anything to do with either GLuke or Acts.
- The "we" passages in Acts are those passages during which the narrative voice changes from third person to first person plural. This is the source of the supposition that the author of Luke-Acts was a companion of Paul's but Vernon Robbins has shown that this was merely a Greek literary device for describing sea voyages.
- Furthermore, Luke knew Josephus, which puts that Gospel into the mid 90's CE at a bare minimum and probably later. This means that Paul had been dead 30 years before Luke-Acts was written.
- Furthermore, Luke is dependent on both Mark and Q which (contrary to some Christian folklore) means that Luke had no access to first hand accounts from other witnesses.
- There are also historical inaccuracies in Luke as well as contradictions with other Gospels which I will get to in time.
- It is highly unlikely, then, that the book was written by a companion of Paul and there is absolutely no reason to connect the "Luke" who is so casually mentioned by Paul in one letter to the composition of Luke-Acts.
So, to sum up Luke, it is an anonymous Gospel whose author makes no claim to first hand knowledge and no claim to knowledge even of Paul. It was written more than a half century after the crucifixion, is dependent on secondary sources and contains numerous historical errors and contradictions with the other Gospels. The fable of a physician named Luke who traveled with Paul comes from a claim made 150 years after the crucifixion and is corroborated by nothing in the text itself.
John
Time for John. By tradition, the GJohn is written by the apostle of that name and is also identified as the mysterious "Beloved Disciple" mentioned within the text.
- This tradition, like Luke, stems from a late 2nd century claim by Irenaeus (who is known to have confused John the Apostle with another John, called "the Presbyter" and may have been doing so again).
- As with the other canonical Gospels, the author of GJohn does not identify himself or claim to be a witness.
- The seeming self-identification in 21:24 is a later redaction to the book, not part of the original manuscript and did not name the author "John" in any case. It is also not really a first person singular assertion, ("I wrote this") but a first person plural avowel that "we know" these were the words of a disciple (without naming the disciple).
- Further, there is the very late date (c. 100 CE if not later) which puts it at the absolute edge of any plausible lifespan for a contemporary of Jesus.
- It also shows a heavy Hellenistic influence, both in its literary style and its theology. How does an illiterate Palestinian fisherman suddenly become proficient in stylized literary Greek and become aware of Alexandrian Jewish-Greek concepts like the Logos?
Looking at the text of GJohn, we can see that any claim to the book as an eyewitness account does not hold water.
- GJohn is also arguably the most anti-Jewish work. It goes beyond being just a polemic against the Pharisees or the priests and becomes a full on indictment of all Jewish people. Kind of weird since the author (like Jesus) was allegedly a Jew.
- GJohn contains some of the longest, most otherwordly and most implausible speeches for Jesus. The length of the discourses in itself mitigates against their historicity simply by virtue of the implausibilty of those speeches surviving verbatim for 70 or more years in the memory of this fisherman -- and nowhere else. These discourses are found nowhere else in early Christian literature. They do not have the short and sweet anecdotal quality of the Q pericopes which are easy to remember and transmit through oral tradition.
- GJohn also shows layered authorship. It is not the contiguous work of a single author but the result of multiple redactions by multiple hands.
- What is really the nail in the coffin, though, is that GJohn anachronistically retrojects the expulsion of Christians from Jewish synagogues (an event which occurred c. 85-95 CE) to within the life of Jesus. An eyewitness could not have made this mistake.
To sum up for John, it is an early 2nd century book which is heavily Hellenistic in its language and theology. It is markedly anti-Jewish, it contains speeches for Jesus which are not only incompatible with the character of Jesus as he is presented in the synoptics (not to mention that it simply strains all credulity that a 1st century Jewish audience would tolerate a guy claiming he was God) but simply cannot be credibly defended as authentic transcriptions of speeches remembered verbatim for 70 years by an illiterate Palestinian fisherman (and by nobody else) and then translated into Greek by that same fisherman. It contains contradictions with the synoptics which I will get to in time. It shows multiple hands of authorship and it contains an anachronism so glaring that it is a fatal blow to any consideration of eyewitness testimony. Its traditional authorship stems from a single unreliable claim by Irenaeus (a guy who couldn't keep his "Johns" straight) around 180 CE.
And many justify this as well by saying the holy spirit was present and the re writers got it from the spirit's presence .
The oldest extant copy of a complete Bible is an early 4th-century parchment book preserved in the Vatican Library, and known as the Codex Vaticanus. The oldest copy of the Tanakh in Hebrew and Aramaic dates to the 10th century CE. The oldest copy of a complete Latin (Vulgate) Bible is the Codex Amiatinus, dating from the 8th century.
To see the original copies of the Codex click here
The majority of ancient manuscripts contain only small portions of the biblical text, like a book or a portion of a book. Among these manuscripts there are papyrus fragments, which are the remains of the most ancient scrolls, and typically represent only a few pages of text. These papyrus fragments have all been discovered during modern archaeological digs. Another group of manuscripts is the Uncials, which use all capital letters and are written on parchment or vellum, which is a smoother writing surface than papyrus, and allows for curved letters. The Uncial manuscripts were written between the 3rd and 8th centuries and were often bound as pages in a book, or codex, rather than a scroll. A few of these ancient codices have survived intact, giving us a solid view of the Bible used by the ancient church.
Two of the oldest complete (or nearly complete) manuscripts are the Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus. They are both written on parchment, and have a large number of corrections written over the original text.
Codex Sinaiticus, also known as “Aleph” (the Hebrew letter ?), was found by Count Tischendorf in 1859 at the Monastery of St Catherine on Mount Sinai. Portions of the manuscript were found in the monastery dump, and a larger portion was presented to Tischendorf by one of the monks. It is a large codex, with 400 pages (or leaves) comprising about half of the Old Testament in the Septuagint version and the full New Testament. It has been dated to the second half of the 4th century and has been highly valued by Bible scholars in their efforts to reconstruct the original biblical text. Sinaiticus has heavily influenced the translation work of modern Bible versions. Though it is considered by some scholars to represent an original form of the text, it is also recognized as the most heavily corrected early New Testament manuscript.
Codex Vaticanus, also known as “B,” was found in the Vatican library. It is comprised of 759 leaves and has almost all of the Old and New Testaments. It is not known when it arrived at the Vatican, but it was included in a catalog listing in 1475, and it is dated to the middle of the 4th century. Vaticanus was first used as a source document by Erasmus in his work on the “Textus Receptus.” Because he viewed the text of Vaticanus to be erratic, he seldom followed it when it differed from other Greek texts.
There are varying theories on how these ancient texts should be viewed by modern scholars. On one hand, some believe that the most ancient reading should be followed, as it is closest in time to the original. On the other hand, some believe that the majority should rule. Since there are thousands of ancient manuscripts, they believe we should give precedence to the reading that is represented by the most documents. One issue that is sometimes raised against the majority viewpoint is that many of those documents were written very late (9th-15th century). The answer to this is that many of the early papyrus fragments support the majority reading. Additionally, the question has been raised, “If Vaticanus and Sinaiticus represent the original reading of the text, why are there so few manuscripts that follow their lead?” If they were valued by the early church, you would expect to find many copies made from them, covering a wide period of history. What we actually find is a few early manuscripts which agree with them, but then a disappearance of that text type as we progress through history.
There is much to be learned from examining these and other ancient texts, and they should continue to be highly valued by scholars. While there may be differences in opinion as to how they are to be used, one thing is certain—even with their textual variations, they show us that God has preserved His Word through the ages. We may debate the particular wording in a few passages, but the fact remains that over 90 percent of the New Testament text is unanimously supported by all the ancient manuscripts. In those passages where the proper reading is disputed, there is no major doctrinal change, and we can rest assured that we have the accurate, revealed words of God passed down to us.
To see the source of the above explanation of what are the codex click here.
The new testament all originally written in Greek.
Now keep in mind there are no original copies and all that exist there is not a single page or copy that is the original text.
All that exist is copes of the copies.
"Well, that should do it for my case against the Gospels as being eyewitness accounts (even by proxy)." said by Unknown.
The Catholic scholars also acknowledge they added the names to give the story some character Mark, Luke, Mathew, Paul and John. In those times these names did not even exist except for John.
So therefore all these stories that many think are apostles names and eye witnessed accounts. And that the priest and scholars still even though they know these are not their eyewitness accounts. And they don't know who wrote them say they are according to them?
This was explained by Fr. Pisano Named Biblical Institute Rector In Vatican.
Rev. Stephen Pisano, S.J. The Reverend Stephen Pisano, S.J. became Rector of the Pontifical Biblical Institute on September 17, 2002, the feast of St. Robert Bellarmine. He succeeds Reverend Robert O’Toole, S.J., who served from 1996 to 2002 and began a well-deserved sabbatical year in October 2002 at St. Louis University. Fr. O’Toole will return to the Biblicum's faculty when his sabbatical is complete.
Father Stephen Pisano said that they don't know the names and that this is ok because those men who rewrote the books got the truth from the " Holy Spirit". So therefore its correct. Ironically all those who rewrote these books none of them were prophets or messengers or did they get these books from them but though a spirit in the air?
Can you imagine what it would be like if we got our history books from a spirit in the air? Would you accept that?
In Islam we get the books and information's from the prophets and messengers ( pbut). Not some spirit in the air.
They got them from God (Allah).
We know who they are their lineage and all of this is documented.
All of them are preserved and the books have been sealed and it says that in the Quran. They are also taught by memory and its possible to memorized every word of them. We can introduce you to 10 year children who can, word for word, tell you every word of the Quran if you were to read the book along with them you find they dont get one word wrong. And there are many others who can do the same as well.
Throughout the years many did so and still do in today's times. The scholars can do the same with the hedeth's as well as the Quran. Hedeth's are the sayings and actions of the prophet (pbuh) as documented and verified by his companions and those who eye witnessed these accounts. We know all of the authors and scribes their family linage.The chains and narrations they all can be traced back to the prophet (pbuh).
You wont find this with the other prior books.
The Quran also fixes the prior books and seals itself and the corrections to the prior books so that the alternations or changes can not occur again. It is also the death penalty to alter or change them.
"It is a critical matter of faith for every Muslim to believe in the original revelations that came down to Moses, David, Solomon and Jesus, just as it is is important for Muslims to believe in the revelation of the Quran that came to Muhammad, peace be upon him. The key word here however, is "original." As we all know the origin of the Bible is clouded with centuries of copying, translating and passing down information, now long lost with only copies of manuscripts remaining to remind us of what once was the Bible.
Additionally, it should be noted that Muslims do not seek to destroy the Christians or Jews belief in the Word of God, rather it is an obligation for Muslims to call to what is right and to halt that which is evil. Certainly, causing the "People of the Book" (as the Quran refers to Christians and Jews) to fall into disbelief and leave off any faith in God at all, is the very opposite of the direction Muslims should take in presenting any comparison between Islam and what has come down in the past from the Almighty God. We only seek to bring about more light to the people seeking guidance and pray for all of us to be successful with our Lord in this life and in the Next life and we ask His Guidance and Support in doing so, ameen." Yusef Estes
If you like what you hear may you accept it and if not you can disregard it.
Allah Knows Best.
Jazakallahu Khayran
Allah Hafiz
Allah’s Property Mujaddid
Mahmoud Muhammad Ibrihim
(Of Sinai Peninsula )
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