Do you think the Bible is the authoritative Word of God? (and add support on why you would think that)

I don't think so because God does not exist on our level. He cannot come down from the skys and have a convo with you. All you can do is pray and hope for the best. People who wrote the bible I think were people mearly trying to start a cult and control people or try to mold them into their vision. I think they went too far with it. Example, going to hell for not believing is pure sickening deception. I also think heaven, hell, and god could very well be a metaphor for things that already exists in our world and in our lives whether you believe it or not.

I don't think the Bible is entirely authentic. How can it be if it was written by humans (which people like to keep reminding are horribly flawed themselves). I always hated the argument that the Bible is true because of all the historical things that are true in it. This does not make the entire book true. If you go into a library you'll come across a section called historical fiction. If it was God's word then how come it hasn't been updated? I think God could pull himself away from his busy schedule to update his word for our time. Wouldn't it be kind of important?

It's impossible for it to be authentic for a few reasons:
It has been translated many times over, and certain nuances of text are lost in the process.
Some translations are interpretations of the previous text, not nessicarily word for word acurate.
You have versions where people have edited them to their tastes, like King James.
And you have people even now removing bits and peices they find "undesirable".

Examples of my last statement-
Deuteronomy 22-5
"A woman shall not wear a man’s garment, nor shall a man put on a woman’s cloak, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the LORD your God."
Lots of women wear pants these days, something that was considered mens clothing.
Obviuously many people dont agree with that any more, so out it comes.

1 Timothy 2-12
"I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet"
Hear that ladies? You are not allowed to be in any position of power, nor be a teacher.

1 Corinthians 11-5
"but every wife who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head, since it is the same as if her head were shaven"
So no praying without a hat on all you wives.

Please note, these are all taken from the English standard version, but nearly every version says the same things.

I do believe the bible is completely authentic based on it's claims. Just look at the prophesy fulfilled. And another reason would be that it does not contradict itself even in the midst of so many authors.

Hoochman : Which prophecies?

One of the reasons why they might change it or translate it over is due to the fact that times change so they probably have to keep updating in order to adapt to todays standards?

Those quotes DH listed are disturbed to say the least. If you think those are authentic then go tell your wife how worthless she really is

Hooch, if the bible was authentic it would be perfect in every way, in a language everyone could read, and would never have to be rewritten or translated time after time.

Zamiel : The restoration of Israel in one day and the outcome of the six day war are just 2 of the many prophesies. These are just 2 examples.

Hoochman : I would have liked a quote from the bible but if don't want to give one that's okay, but I'm not looking for the verses myself since that's too much work for a relatively lazy person lol

Prophesy ranges in size. Some prophesy can be a couple of verses and some could be 2 pages long.

Ahh, but you see that is your problem there.
You say that bits should not be removed, but then say that these certain bits were written when certain things were true so they should be ignored now.
Because those verses I mentioned are ones that people want to remove because of their "inacuracy".
It doesn't work both ways, either you have it and follow it or you dont, it shouldn't matter the circumstances like what the culture is like.

And how about the passages from Leviticus 20, should we follow them?
Should we put all those people to death, or is it only the people of Israel that have to obey those words from god?

About JigSaws post, what I think he meant is that if the bible was dictated by god then it would originally be written in every langauge that was, is and is to come.
Because god knows all so god would know what langauges would come about.

About Zamiel and I, maybe we are both right.
I said things are translated wrong and removed.
Zamiel could mean updated in so much as things havnt been added.
Plus I think he more means updates relating to our world, cars, planes, TV, not stuffed up translations.

play4fun : Good, I don't wanna see him anyway

"Overall, none of these arguments actually state that the Bible is not authentic, neither do they deny its authority" - play4fun

Yeah, but I have yet to see anything that proves its authenticity either. In truth there is no way for either side of this argument to 100% know (JigSaw may say he his though lol) whether the bible is authentic or not. It is fun to debate though.

DH is right about our post. I hardly see how they contradict each other. I meant that it hasn't changed for our time, it's still meant for the people century's ago. I won't argue that all of it is not usable by today's people but there is a fair amount that could be thrown out and replaced for todays times.

As for the written by humans point I said it's not entirely authentic. Not completely un-authentic (I don't think that's a word ). There are some parts of the bible that are historical facts.

DarkHyren :
Context is important. Different cultures and time periods are a huge factor in this. Not just the Bible, but other literature and media. As a Chinese, there are some things that I know in my culture where you would not know. This is not just culture, but also the content must have a context to go with in order for people to understand.

Here's an example. If I told a group of people to "go for it." What do I mean? Without the context, it could mean anything. Some people might be thinking about starting a business, some people might want to go into an affair, some people might not want to do their homework...all of them would think that my statement is towards them without know what I am actually saying it for. One needs to know the context of the author to know what and who it is intending it for.

"And how about the passages from Leviticus 20, should we follow them? Should we put all those people to death, or is it only the people of Israel that have to obey those words from god?"

Here are 3 paths you can approach Old Testament Laws:
1. The law is separated into three categories: Moral, civil, and ceremonial. (Only follow the moral laws, because the civil and ceremonial laws apply to that culture at that time period)
2. Follow all of the Mosaic Laws except for the laws the New Testament repeals. (We live under the new covenant)
3. None of the OT laws apply. We only follow the laws the New Testament gives. (same as 2)

If you follow any these paths, you would end up at about the same conclusion, which I can easily tell you after rereading Leviticus 20, no we don't follow it. Because it is for them at that time at that culture in that period. These paths can also be applied on the argument about food laws. They do not apply anymore, especially in the new testament, when it wrote in Acts 11: "Do not call anything impure that God has made clean."

Which leads me to this, do you know why these laws were established at that time? At that time, there were many pagan practices. To show the world the uniqueness of God's chosen people, these acts were against those pagan practices. Since they are not deemed pagan practices anymore, those laws do not apply anymore. However, I do not take them out either, because there are principles that can be taken from these verses. Christians should not take things out from the Bible. These verses may not apply now, but there is something learned about them. There are principles and we still read the whole thing.

Zamiel: Don't worry, my arguments for authenticity has not come yet.

nope. How could you believe something written by guys on drugs hundreds of years ago? It is bad enough a fair amount of the bible wasn't written until decades, if not centuries, after the "events" happened, but the bible has been through so many rewrites and translations that it most likely isn't even close to the original, if late writings.

No, wrong bobbynibbles. The bible was written by the eyewitnesses of the events who actually lived when the supernatural occurrences happened.

How are you certain they lived during the events? I don't think anything in the bible is an authoritative word of god for the fact that everything written is testimonials of people who have not witnessed any supernatural events except possibly Jesus. The bible was also written after jesus has died. Who was here to witness Noah? Or Adam and Eve? Or God creating the world in 7 days? None of us and no one who wrote the bible

Somethings can be real but I don't think people should mistake testimonial for authoritative word of God because they are not coming from his mouth.

One thing I do find interesting about these quotes though is just the other day I found a quote talking about how god sets up kings and deposes them or something. This makes since in terms of Hitler. Hitler rose to power and killed off the Jews, maybe this was a sign from God himself since Jews dont believe in Jesus? They didn't accept his death or him as authentic so they suffered for it themselves

Did anyone enjoy the meaning behind the film: BOOK OF ELI? i dont want to say too much incase someone plans to watch it but the book does have reference to this thread ¬_¬

Good, people finally start to respond to this post so I can finally post my backing on the the issue on the authenticity of the Bible.

In order to test authenticity and integrity of a historic document, historians check 3 things about them.

1. How many manuscripts?
2. How early are the manuscripts compared to the original copy?
3. How consistent are the manuscripts?

Let's look at these individually.
1. How many manuscripts?

If we look at think of ancient documents that we have now that we believe to be authentic, we think about works like the Iliad by Homer, works of philosophers like Aristotle and Plato, and historians from classic Greece and Rome. Let compare with the manuscripts between the most authentic documents compared to the New Testament.

Title Number of Manuscripts
New Testament: Over 24,000
Homer (Iliad): 643
Demosthenes: 200
Plato (Tetralogies): 7
Caesar: 10
Thucydides (History): 8
Herodotus (History): 8
Aristotle: 49
Euripides: 9

If we compare, the most authentic documents combined other than the New Testament has about 934 manuscripts, which is about 0.0389 of the total New Testament manuscripts.

2. How early are the manuscripts compared to the original copy?

Another evidence that shows that the copies are reliable copies is when we compare how far apart the copy is to the original.

Work (Original/ Earliest Copy/ Time Difference)
New Testament: (40-100 A.D./ 130 A.D./ 30 ~ 100yrs)
Homer (Iliad): (900 B.C./ 400 B.C./ 500 yrs)
Demosthenes: (383-322 B.C./ 1100 A.D./ 1,300 yrs)
Plato (Tetralogies): (427-347 B.C./ 900 A.D./ 1,200 yrs)
Caesar: (100-44 B.C./ 900 A.D./ 1,000 yrs)
Thucydides (History): (460-400 B.C./ 900 A.D./ 1,300 yrs)
Herodotus (History): (480-425 B.C./ 900 A.D./ 1,300 yrs)
Aristotle: (384-322 B.C./ 1100 A.D./ 1,400 yrs)
Euripides: (480-406 B.C./ 1100 A.D./ 1,500 yrs)

The Iliad is being read by many today, even in classrooms, because it is a Greek classic. Yet, the earliest copy of the Iliad is 500 yrs apart from the time was written, and we believe in our copies. If we look at the New Testament with various books in it, the earliest copy is at most 100 yrs apart from the original copy.

3. How consistent are the manuscripts?

There are times when we may not have a complete manuscript, or maybe there was damage to them due to wars, natural disasters, etc. This is another reason why multiple manuscripts is important. You can check errors of copies through comparison of manuscripts. Many people claim that people can make mistake in terms of copying, and there could be variations between copies. There is a study called Textual Criticism where scholars would study the manuscripts to find out about the original text.

Here is an example of what Textual Criticism does:

Manuscript 1: For unto us, a Savor was born.
Manuscript 2: For unto s, a Savior was born.
Manuscript 3: For unto us, a Savior was brn.
Manuscript 4: Fo unto us, a Savior was born.
Manuscript 5: For unto us, Savior was born.
Manuscript 6: For unt us, a Savior was born.
Manuscript 7: For unto us, a Savior ws born.

We have these manuscript copies of the original, and even though we don't have the original, and even though there are some variations within these copies, we know that the original copy states: "For unto us, a Savior was born."

With this many copies, it is not hard to know what the original good. By record, there are about 150,000 variations between manuscripts. However, 99% of those variations have no huge significance, like losing a letter, or flipping the order of words, like Christ Jesus and Jesus Christ, (and those of you who know Greek, change in order can be for practical reasons.) The remaining variations does not even change the meaning of the text itself.

Overall, the Bible is as authentic as any classic or historic document. And the versions Bibles that you see in the bookstore, church, or even in a hotel room, they are as authentic as the original, because each version is translated from the manuscripts itself. These manuscripts are displayed in public in museums all around.

I only touched on the topic of authenticity, but not authority yet.