If man wrote the Bible, and there are many different versions, and man is fallible, how do we know

(A) - The Bible is what God really meant to say

and

(B) - Which Bible is the right one?

Hey, I'm actually planning on making a youtube video about this question real soon! (when I have my camcorder) In the meantime, I'll answer these questions for you.

EDIT: My YouTube video is up! Check it out and like or subscribe if you want.
http://youtu.be/QugZZYFpb5U

(A)
Many people make this reasoning: man are fallible, man wrote the Bible, therefore the Bible is fallible.

2 points against that type of reasoning:

1.You can count this type of reasoning to be a fallacy (wrong reasoning) called "ad hominen." Saying that man is fallible does not mean that EVERYTHING that man produce would end up being fallible. The same way that if a person is dumb, that does not mean EVERYTHING that he says is dumb.

2. There is an additional driving force that influences the production of the Bible is that God directs His Word to be preserved and available to Man. When the Bible is written, man was not the writer of these words, but the instruments to write the words out. "For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit." (2 Peter 1:21) The Bible has been 100% with the fulfillment of prophesies that came to past so far, with a small percentage left yet to be fulfilled, which are End Times Prophecies. To add to that, the Bible has been the only book that contains fulfilled prophesies compared to other spiritual books.

Since God is sovereign and is in control. He makes sure that His Word will be preserved. Jesus made this very claim: "For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished." (Matthew 5:18). Even with centuries of problems that would have eliminated the Bible of the face of the earth (persecution of Christians, burning Bibles, debate over an "i"), here we are, still having the Bible, with more manuscripts than the next ten most authentic historic texts combined, still the World's best seller in history, and with over 2000 languages translated and increasing. God's Word is preserved.

I made a more detailed thread post about this topic here: https://www.vizzed.com/vizzedboard/thread.php?id=12193&ppp=100&page=0#192909

(B)

There are many reasons that there are many versions of the Bible (I am planning on talking about three reasons on youtube) To prevent making this post longer than what it already is, I'll only talk about one of the bigger reasons.

The reason there are different translations is because there are different translation philosophies for different people and needs.

Here are the 3:

1. Word for Word: Focus more on translating each literal word from the original language to the exact meaning of the translated language.
2. Thought for thought: Focus more on writing the "big idea" of the verses, and write it in more similar sentence structure for easier understanding of the verse.
3. Paraphrase: The extreme version of "thought for thought." Basically using your own words to talk about what the Bible is saying.

Here's a chart showing where all these versions stand on this spectrum: (parenthesis are the graded reading level. The higher the number, the more difficult the reading level is)



They all have strengths and weakness depending on what you are using it for. Word-for-word is obviously the more accurate ones and preserves the tone and the emotion of the original text, but it risks readability. Thought-for-thought is more easier to read and easier to understand the big picture, but it risks accuracy, especially when the "big picture" is based on what the writer or the scholars think is most important, and risk losing the rich information within the text. Paraphrase is obviously more up-to-date to modern language, but it is to the point where it can be argued that it is not even the Bible anymore, because it is basically a paraphrase. (In my opinion, I think paraphrase versions are pointless and can be swayed away from the original meaning and intent of the text. They SHOULD NOT be used as Bibles for studying.)

They are all saying the same thing, but written in a different style. You can compare for yourself and you can basically see that they are different versions, not different Bibles.

Sample:
John 3:16

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish , but have everlasting life. (KJV) [word for word version]

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. (NLT) [Thought for thought version]

This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. (The Message) [Paraphrase version]

See? they are saying the same thing, just written differently based on their translation philosophy.

So all of these Bible versions are not a matter of right or wrong (I would avoid "the Message"). My suggestion when reading the Bible is to choose two versions of different philosophies to compare and understand the Bible without having it to be hard to read, or choose a preferred version for what you plan on using it for (normal reading would need understandable reading level, studying should be word-for-word). I prefer the ESV Bible, because it is a word-for-word tradition, yet it is easy enough to read. Most commonly used versions are the NIV, KJV, NKJV, NASB, RSV, NRSV, NLT, ESV. If you want to know about the type of philosophy a certain Bible is using, you can check the first few pages of the Bible, or go to websites that explain about a specific version.

I enjoy your posts. You had a really interesting and fully lucid answer.

Thanks for that. I'm going to watch your videos when I get the chance.

Alan Watts talks about "How We Got The Bible", http://youtu.be/Cw62X69hV-0

Very nice video hawkwind!How do we know the bible is what god really meant to say?simply put , if god wanted to say it he would have said it and not man. hawkwinds video talks about the selection of the canon. Although there were attempts to make a uniform Christian doctrine before the Council of Nicea, the council's canon is the one we use today. Constantine (the emperor of Rome at the time) established the council of bishops to refine the biblical scripts so the same teachings could be taught through out the empire and unit the empire. My argument is that the bishops removed gospels from other apostles. Since the gospels were formed after Jesus' death , all of the gospels should be treated equally, as the apostles were the ones that truly knew Jesus. If a politician told bishops or priests to revise the bible today and they removed even more gospels, would that mean the removed gospels aren't relevant?Play4fun says " "For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished." (Matthew 5:18). Even with centuries of problems that would have eliminated the Bible of the face of the earth (persecution of Christians, burning Bibles, debate over an "I"), here we are, still having the Bible, with more manuscripts than the next ten most authentic historic texts combined, still the World's best seller in history, and with over 2000 languages translated and increasing. God's Word is preserved. How do we know which bible is the right one?The most accurate bible should be considered the "right" one. The closer you get to the original Hebrew wording and meaning, the closer you are to the right bible. There are cultural and linguistic barriers that arise in translations. Especially in languages drastically different such as Hebrew to Greek.The Law Jesus talks about is the Torah and Talmud among other Judaic scripture.The old testament is just a condensed version of Jewish texts. There was no bible so he couldn't have been referencing the bible. Yes we still have the bible, but it has been edited and revised numerous times, so it its not entirely preserved.

smotpoker86 : ...I don't think the Council of Nicea was the council that established the canon...They dealt more on the doctrine of Christology--on the topic of Jesus being divine--to counter the unbiblical teachings of Arianism. This was important because the teachings that Arius distort the beliefs of Christianity and many can be confused and this is crucial in terms of their souls. It was a primary issue in Christian theology. Also, which gospels are you referring to, for these 4 are the ones that were handwritten and recorded, while the If you are talking about the Gnostic gospels, they were not even written by the apostles and were contradictory to the rest of scripture. Historically, they were fraud documents.

"How do we know which bible is the right one?The most accurate bible should be considered the "right" one. The closer you get to the original Hebrew wording and meaning, the closer you are to the right bible."

In some sense, that's true. That is why I emphasize the use of word-for-word translations rather than thought-for-thought because the value of accuracy rather than readability. We, however, can't say that the thought-for-thought versions are wrong, because they were translated from the manuscripts as well, but were written in a way that is more readable for the audience. I highly would avoid the paraphrase versions. (Some of my friends and I would call The Message as the "pretend-to-be Bible", and even the book itself said that it is a paraphrase) These different translations are for different purposes but they all were translated from the original manuscripts.

"The Law Jesus talks about is the Torah and Talmud among other Judaic scripture.The old testament is just a condensed version of Jewish texts. There was no bible so he couldn't have been referencing the bible."

Old Testament scripture was referred to as the Law. Jesus was talking about God-inspired scripture. Also, the revisions you are referring to are basically changing different synonyms, grammar, or modern words, but not the meaning, the main thought, or the sentence itself. They were revised so that modern day people can read it.

"There are cultural and linguistic barriers that arise in translations."

This is where Biblical interpretation comes in. On areas that we can't translate onto paper, we must analyze through understanding the background, time, culture, history, etc etc. 

play4fun : You are correct when you say the Council of Nicea didn't establish the canon, just did a bit more research and that biblical canon wasn't established until the council of Trent in the 1600's. Regardless of my error, I stand by my opinion that men and not gods decide how the bible is portrayed. Yes I was mostly refereeing to the Gnostic gospels. Again, they were chosen by man not be gods word. As you say the men who wrote them were not chosen to be " the instruments to write the words" they were just average men.Can you elaborate on how they would decide which men were "instruments" and which were making up fairy tales? Also, can you explain how god chooses which men are his instruments?

smotpoker86 : First, people do not choose what books are God's Word. They just need to recognize them. God is sovereign and in control and He will preserve His word to make Him known to Mankind. We also know that God's Word does not change (Luke 21:33). It's not that God choose specific people with distinguished qualifications to be "worthy" to be God's instruments. He chooses people with different backgrounds for His purposes.

For one thing, the majority of the books in the New Testament is written by Apostles. Jesus gave that authority to them as apostles. That is why Jesus promised the presence of the Holy Spirit after Jesus ascended to heaven. (John 14:26; 16:13) And the church is established under Apostle's teachings (Acts 2:42; Ephesians 2:20). Other than the eleven disciples (Absent Judas who betrayed) who were with Jesus throughout His ministry, a number of others were selected as apostles by Jesus (Paul) or through the recognition of the 11. Paul's words are recognized by Apostle Peter that are scripture and are inspired by God (2 Peter 3:15-16). Just by this characteristic alone takes over the majority of the books. The only ones remaining that are not written by apostles are Hebrews, Acts, James, Jude, Gospel of Luke, and the Gospel of Mark (If I recall). Mark and Luke can be counted as authentic because Mark's writing is from Peter's words, who is an apostle. Luke and Acts were written by Luke as a historic recording of Jesus and the events of the early church. It is approved by Apostle Paul when He quoted the Gospel of Luke as scripture. The only apostles that wrote the book are Peter, Paul, Matthew, and John. No one else wrote anything. As for the remaining books, they were affirmed because of the consistency with the teachings of the rest of scripture and the close relation to Jesus and the apostles, which takes up the remaining books that are not written by Apostles. 

Another characteristic of canon is that they were widely distributed to the Christian community and were openly read to the church. Most of Paul's letters were written to a specific church, but within them, there was a command to send these letters to the rest of the churches. The books that are outside of the canon sprout from singular areas (usually when a specific heretical teaching appears) and they were never approved as orthodox teaching except for those who were misguided.

Overall, these books are undisputed as canonical. This is important too, because if you can't recognize which books are considered the Word of God, you don't have a foundation in the faith and would be lost to false teachings and believe in a false God and a false Jesus. 

Now referring to the Gnostic gospels, they meet none of these characteristics. They are historically fraud documents. Some have the name of an apostle in the title of the books, but the books are dated in the 2nd -3rd century. Now unless these people are exceptional people who somehow lived more than 100 years old, these were not first hand accounts by the people they claimed to be. In fact, the content in these gospels are completely contradictory to what the rest of the OT and NT talks about. They are not even close to being canonical. The only people who would make a big deal about these books are those who do not understand standard of authenticity in historical text or do not understand the teachings of Christianity.

Recommended sources:
http://www.gotquestions.org/canonicity-scriptural.html
http://www.gotquestions.org/canon-Bible.html
http://www.gotquestions.org/canon-of-scripture.html