Biblical Manuscripts and Changes Made to the Bible

This is a presentation of the facts. Many believe an ancient (original) English manuscript is lying around somewhere in the Middle East. It’s slightly more complicated than this.

None of this material should offend you. You should learn this if you don’t already understand this.

This debate (and evidence presented by Wallace), in my view, demonstrates that we have sufficient evidence to trust the text of the New Testament.

Though we have the fewest manuscripts from the centuries immediately after Christ, we still have more biblical manuscripts by many, many, many times than from other authors in the ancient world.

Were the scribes perfect? No. We know they made lots of mistakes. But the NT message was propagated.

LDS scholar, Thomas Wayment, shares his understanding on scripture:

Misreading the Bible


I recently discovered Gospel Tangents YouTube channel. The host, Rick, finds terrific scholars. Ben shares very helpful insights.

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For millennia, mankind believed the earth was flat. Does the Bible support that view?

Ben Spackman says yes. We’ll talk about a biblical world view, and how we’ve come around to believe the earth is round, rather than flat. Check out our conversation…

The Book of Genesis describes the creation of the earth in 7 days. Can that be interpreted through a scientific viewpoint?

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Ben Spackman will answer that question. Check out our conversation…

Was Jonah really in the belly of a great fish for 3 days?

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I learned quite a bit about the forward-thinking Pres. McKay:

Pres. Smith was a wonderful prophet, but not a scientist. A very literal thinker.

The King James Version of the Bible (and the Book of Mormon)

Consider watching these YouTube videos on the reasons King James decided to authorize another bible at a time many other translations were available.

A five-minute summary:

Another short summary:

This is a series of detailed videos on the KJV

King James organized a committee of around 50 scholars into six separate subcommittees. They had very specific guidelines.

Usually committees and beaucracies don’t create good ideas, and certainly not masterpieces.

Who were the translators? Noted scholars, politicians, editors, adventurers, preachers, a drunk, and others were on the list. A broad composition of society.

The essence of the KJV was in fusing the two wings of the religious divide in England. The Puritans and the Anglicans.

Since many in England at the time were illiterate, the final revising committee read aloud the scriptures before approving them. All in England could hear and be inspired. Not all could read.

The text of the Bishops’ Bible would serve as the primary guide for the translators, and the familiar proper names of the biblical characters would all be retained. If the Bishops’ Bible was deemed problematic in any situation, the translators were permitted to consult other translations from a pre-approved list: the Tyndale Bible, the Coverdale Bible, Matthew’s Bible, the Great Bible, and the Geneva Bible.

Forty unbound copies of the 1602 edition of the Bishops’ Bible were specially printed so that the agreed changes of each committee could be recorded in the margins.

A video on the Bishop’s Bible:

The entire documentary is found below. The fourth and final in the series can be found at the 45-minute mark below:

This video discusses the many bibles that predated the KJV.  The interview takes place in a Christian’s library where many of these remarkable bibles are preserved.

Is the KJV the best translation? Is it the most accurate translation?

Myths: that surround the KJV

Errors can be found in the KJV. Latter-day Saints don’t believe the process was perfect. Neither do traditional Christian scholars. After all, the texts the KJV drew from — previous translations and manuscripts — had errors themselves.

The progression of Bibles:

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A young Latter-day Saint shares a few thoughts:

Applications of the KJV to the Book of Mormon. A few thougths by Hugh Nibley on what the KJV of Isaiah are doing in the Book of Mormon:

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LDS scholar Hugh Nibley wrote the following in response to a letter sent to the editor of the Church News section of the Deseret News. His response was printed in the Church News in 1961:[11]

[One of the] most devastating argument[s] against the Book of Mormon was that it actually quoted the Bible. The early critics were simply staggered by the incredible stupidity of including large sections of the Bible in a book which they insisted was specifically designed to fool the Bible-reading public. They screamed blasphemy and plagiarism at the top of their lungs, but today any biblical scholar knows that it would be extremely suspicious if a book purporting to be the product of a society of pious emigrants from Jerusalem in ancient times did not quote the Bible. No lengthy religious writing of the Hebrews could conceivably be genuine if it was not full of scriptural quotations.

…to quote another writer of Christianity Today [magazine],[12] “passages lifted bodily from the King James Version,” and that it quotes, not only from the Old Testament, but also the New Testament as well.

As to the “passages lifted bodily from the King James Version,” we first ask, “How else does one quote scripture if not bodily?” And why should anyone quoting the Bible to American readers of 1830 not follow the only version of the Bible known to them?

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Actually the Bible passages quoted in the Book of Mormon often differ from the King James Version, but where the latter is correct there is every reason why it should be followed. When Jesus and the Apostles and, for that matter, the Angel Gabriel quote the scriptures in the New Testament, do they recite from some mysterious Urtext? Do they quote the prophets of old in the ultimate original? Do they give their own inspired translations?

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No, they do not. They quote the Septuagint, a Greek version of the Old Testament prepared in the third century B.C. Why so? Because that happened to be the received standard version of the Bible accepted by the readers of the Greek New Testament. When “holy men of God” quote the scriptures it is always in the received standard version of the people they are addressing.

We do not claim the King James Version or the Septuagint to be the original scriptures—in fact, nobody on earth today knows where the original scriptures are or what they say. Inspired men have in every age have been content to accept the received version of the people among whom they labored, with the Spirit giving correction where correction was necessary.

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Since the Book of Mormon is a translation, “with all its faults,” into English for English-speaking people whose fathers for generations had known no other scriptures but the standard English Bible, it would be both pointless and confusing to present the scriptures to them in any other form, so far as their teachings were correct.

What is thought to be a very serious charge against the Book of Mormon today is that it, a book written down long before New Testament times and on the other side of the world, actually quotes the New Testament! True, it is the same Savior speaking in both, and the same Holy Ghost, and so we can expect the same doctrines in the same language.

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But what about the “Faith, Hope and Charity” passage in Moroni 7:45? Its resemblance to 1 Corinthians 13:] is undeniable. This particular passage, recently singled out for attack in Christianity Today, is actually one of those things that turn out to be a striking vindication of the Book of Mormon. For the whole passage, which scholars have labeled “the Hymn to Charity,” was shown early in this century by a number of first-rate investigators working independently (A. Harnack, J. Weiss, R. Reizenstein) to have originated not with Paul at all, but to go back to some older but unknown source: Paul is merely quoting from the record.

Now it so happens that other Book of Mormon writers were also peculiarly fond of quoting from the record. Captain Moroni, for example, reminds his people of an old tradition about the two garments of Joseph, telling them a detailed story which I have found only in [th’ Alabi of Persia,] a thousand-year-old commentary on the Old Testament, a work still untranslated and quite unknown to the world of Joseph Smith. So I find it not a refutation but a confirmation of the authenticity of the Book of Mormon when Paul and Moroni both quote from a once well-known but now lost Hebrew writing.

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Now as to [the] question, “Why did Joseph Smith, a nineteenth century American farm boy, translate the Book of Mormon into seventeenth century King James English instead of into contemporary language?”

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The first thing to note is that the “contemporary language” of the country-people of New England 130 years ago was not so far from King James English. Even the New England writers of later generations, like Webster, Melville, and Emerson, lapse into its stately periods and “thees and thous” in their loftier passages.

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Furthermore, the Book of Mormon is full of scripture, and for the world of Joseph Smith’s day, the King James Version was the Scripture, as we have noted; large sections of the Book of Mormon, therefore, had to be in the language of the King James Version—and what of the rest of it? That is scripture, too.

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One can think of lots of arguments for using King James English in the Book of Mormon, but the clearest comes out of very recent experience. In the past decade, as you know, certain ancient nonbiblical texts, discovered near the Dead Sea, have been translated by modern, up-to-date American readers. I open at random a contemporary Protestant scholar’s modern translation of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and what do I read? “For thine is the battle, and by the strength of thy hand their corpses were scattered without burial. Goliath the Hittite, a mighty man of valor, thou didst deliver into the hand of thy servant David.”[13]

Obviously the man who wrote this knew the Bible, and we must not forget that ancient scribes were consciously archaic in their writing, so that most of the scriptures were probably in old-fashioned language the day they were written down. To efface that solemn antique style by the latest up-to-date usage is to translate falsely.

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At any rate, Professor Burrows, in 1955 (not 1835!), falls naturally and without apology into the language of the King James Bible. Or take a modern Jewish scholar who purposely avoids archaisms in his translation of the Scrolls for modern American readers: “All things are inscribed before Thee in a recording script, for every moment of time, for the infinite cycles of years, in their several appointed times. No single thing is hidden, naught missing from Thy presence.”[14] Professor Gaster, too, falls under the spell of our religious idiom. [A more recent example of the same phenomenon in the twenty-first century is discussed here.]

By frankly using that idiom, the Book of Mormon avoids the necessity of having to be redone into “modern English” every thirty or forty years. If the plates were being translated for the first time today, it would still be King James English!”

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From FAIR Mormon on the topic of the use of the KJV by other scholars in their translations of the Dead Sea Scrolls:

“Even academic translators sometimes copy a previous translation if it serves the purpose of their translation. For example, the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS) provided previously unknown texts for many Biblical writings. However, in some translations of the DSS, approximately 90% is simply copied from the KJV.

Surely we are not expected to believe that the DSS translators dropped back into King James idiom and just happened to come up with a nearly identical text! They, in fact, unabashedly copied the KJV, except where the DSS texts were substantially different from already known Hebrew manuscripts.

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Why was this done? Because, the purpose of the DSS translation is to highlight the differences between the newly discovered manuscripts and those to which scholars already had access. Thus, in areas where the DSS manuscripts agree with the Biblical texts that were already known, the KJV translation is used to indicate this.

This is not to argue that there may not be a better way to render the text than the KJV—but, it would be counterproductive for the DSS committee spent a lot of time improving on the KJV translation. A reader without access to the original manuscripts could then never be sure if a difference between the DSS translation and the King James (or any other) translation represented a true difference in the DSS text, or simply the choice of the DSS translators to improve existing translations.

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The situation with the Book of Mormon is likely analogous. For example, it is possible that most of the text to which the Nephites had access would not have differed significantly from the Hebrew texts used in later Bible translations. The differences in wording between the KJV and the Book of Mormon highlight the areas in which there were theologically significant differences between the Nephite versions and the Masoretic text, from which the Bible was translated.

Other areas can be assumed to be essentially the same. If one wants an improved or clearer translation of a passage that is identical in the Book of Mormon and the KJV, one has only to go to the original manuscripts available to all scholars. Basing the text on the KJV focuses the reader on the important clarifications, as opposed to doing a new translation from scratch, and distracting the reader with many differences that might be due simply to translator preference.

Since there is no such thing as a “perfect” translation, this allows the reader to easily identify genuine differences between the Isaiah texts of the Old World and the Nephites.”

THE ISAIAH PASSAGES IN THE BOOK OF MORMON A NON ALIGNED TEXT

The above title (and link) refers to a 2001 Master’s thesis. This thesis reviews the Isaiah variants found in these four texts: the Masoretic Text (MT), the Septuagint (LXX), the Qumran (Q) or Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS), and the Book of Mormon
MT, LXX, Q, and BoM Isaiah.

Nearly 80 pages of tables demonstrate the differences in Isaiah verses between the four versions.

This link shares the research done by John Tvedtnes: Isaiah Variants in the Book of Mormon.

History of the King James Bible

This Christian scholar has valuable insight.  I especially appreciated his discussion of the earliest documents.  Like any book or scroll that is opened repeatedly, they wear down.  They eventually are replaced by copies that are identical (or very, very, very close).

Broader history of the entire bible.  This guy is always fun.

LDS Scriptures: Bible and Book of Mormon

Wonderful lecture about the truth in both scriptures.   Samuel points out some issues found with Protestant and Catholic interpretations of the Bible.

The Book of Mormon provides much clarity in how to build a church.

The Book of Mormon reappropriated the Bible, in the view of this speaker.

reappropriate:

1  Employ or adapt (something) for a use different from its original purpose.

‘the twelve stadiums would be reappropriated for housing’
  1. 1.1 Adopt (a derogatory term) for use with a positive or neutral connotation.
    ‘they reappropriated and embraced the insult’
  2. 1.2 Reallocate (money or assets) originally devoted to a different purpose.
    ‘the council has control of the money and can reappropriate it if the need arises’
    2Reclaim or recover (something) for one’s own use.
    ‘he did not reapproproate copyright when the revised version was published’

Bible “Criticisms” and Who Wrote it?

Is the Bible perfect?  Written with God’s breath?

Or did human prophets and editors write and in some cases rewrite the Bible?

Latter-day Saints believe what is true: the latter.  Scholars have manuscripts and can use historical methods to understand the development of and changes to the biblical scriptures.

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Gotta give lots of credit to those over at LDS Perspective Podcasts.  They’ve lined up many wonderful LDS scholars on this and other topics.

The first podcast below — with Ben Spackman — says the following:

“It would be more helpful to approach the Bible as if it were a library that contained books of many different genre instead of being all the

same type of writing. No Christian would presume to label all scripture as parable. Likewise all scripture should not be labeled as history. The Bible contains books of satire, law codes, poetry, parables, myth, conquest narratives, and prophetic revelation among other things.”

Episode 45: Misunderstanding the Bible – Benjamin Spackman

You won’t think of Job the same way after this podcast:

Episode 52: The (Im)patient Job – Michael Austin

An analogy Julie likes to use is that to her, Mark is the stake president in California who lets a homeless family sleep in the cultural hall because he’s not much of a rule-follower kind of a guy; whereas Matthew and Luke work for CES in Salt Lake and wear a suit and would never dream of breaking a rule.

Episode 61: Mark’s Human Portrait of Jesus – Julie M. Smith

In this episode, Dr. Barlow discusses factors in the nineteenth century that changed how scholars interpreted the Bible, including the introduction of historical criticism.

Episode 69: Introduction to Higher Biblical Criticism – Philip Barlow

Who really wrote the first 5 book of the Old Testament, including Genesis?  Moses?  Or a group of editors?

Episode 70: The Documentary Hypothesis – Cory Crawford

In this episode, Ben discusses what many scholars believe the priestly scribes were writing about in the book of Genesis.

Episode 71: Genesis 1 – Benjamin Spackman

James L. Kugel is an orthodox Jew and biblical scholar who became somewhat legendary for revisiting ancient paradigms. When he taught at Harvard, one of Kugel’s students said the professor began a course by offering a disclaimer to the class: “If you come from a religious tradition upholding the literal truth of the Bible, you could find this course disturbing.”

Kugel tells the MIPodcast that isn’t exactly the case—there’s much more to the story. This episode is about religious faith and critical biblical scholarship.

How early Christians interpreted the Bible, with Peter Martens:

Martin Tanner discusses papyrus, the NT manuscripts, and the resurrection below:

https://interpreterfoundation.org/interpreter-radio-show-march-31-2019/

Can Imperfect Scriptures Lead us to God?

Prophets are fallible, flawed, though chosen by God. They’re talented, good, wise, and inspired. But very human.

They grow up in a culture. They share perspectives and biases, as they’ve experienced in their lives. They give accounts of past history, as they understand it.

Some have used hyperbole and even exaggerated. Big surprise?  Nope! They’re human. 

Part I:

Part II: