Anyone who immediately dismisses the Bible because of errors reveals their massive ignorance and/or dishonest intent.
I honestly do not think that I have ever met anyone who has done this. But you still need to explain why so many highly educated people who have spent a lifetime studying and teaching the Bible find so many errors in it.
There are literally thousands of source manuscripts written and copied across Africa and Eurasia over hundreds and hundreds of years. These sources were written in Greek, Hebrew, Coptic, Syriac, Aramaic, Ethiopic, Arabic, Latin, etc,etc. Yet the common denominator amongst all these sources is a maximum 5% variation of content and this 5% variation never touches anything but very minor controversies.
I have never been impressed by this statistic, it is quite widespread on the Net, but it is never satisfactorily outlined. What exactly do you mean by this 5% figure?
You should try comparing the genealogies in the Books of Genesis and Exodus in the Samaritan Pentateuch, The Septuagint Codex Alexandricus, and the Masoretic Text, and then get back to me. (Example of ‘harmony’: lifespan of Kohath in MT and SP 133 years, LXX 130 years. Amram in MT 137 years SP LXX 136 years (incidently the LXX(Vatanicus gives Amram’s lifespan as 132 years).
I have been looking at biblical chronology in three different Bible texts, here are the genealogies of Genesis 5.
The first figure is the age at which the ‘begat’ their first child, second column is their remaining years of life, and third column is total lifespan. Stats taken from
Jeremey Hughes The Secrets of the Times: Myth and History in Biblical Chronology JSOT 66 Sheffield 1990.
Text MT LXX SP
Adam 130 + 800 = 930 130 + 800 = 930 230 + 700 = 930
Seth 105 + 807 = 912 105 + 807 = 912 205 + 707 = 912
Enoch 90 + 815 = 905 90 + 815 = 905 190 + 715 = 905
Kenan 70 + 840 = 910 70 + 840 = 910 170 + 740 = 910
Mahalalel 65 + 830 = 895 65 + 830 = 895 165 + 895 = 895
Jared 162 + 800 = 962 62 + 785 = 847 162 + 800 = 962
Enoch 65 + 300 = 365 65 + 300 = 365 165 + 200 = 365
Methuselah 187 + 782 = 969 67 + 653 = 720 167 + 802 = 969
Lamech 182 + 595 = 777 53 + 600 = 653 188 + 565 = 753
There is far more than a 5% variation between these texts and the variation rate would be extremely high when you consider that the dating of all biblical events would also be different, for example for the same genealogies above the MT has the age of the world at 1651 years, the LXX has the world at 1307 years, and the SP has the world 2207 years old. Biblical chronologies are a disaster if you take them out of context.
The early texts are constantly in conflict with the ages of not only how old these guys were when they died, but also when they fathered their first child. If you want any more examples from these texts, let me know and I will post them.
You have 12 frickin manuscripts for the entire works of Herodotus yet everything he says is gospel truth.
All 12 far older than any Bible, and all 100% in agreement with each other, no 5% here.
But you are using this as a figure of speech aren’t you? Any one that has even a basic knowledge of Herodotus’ knows there are errors in his work, I will assume you are saying this for dramatic effect.
The Bible is accurate, its just that the powers that be do not like what it says.
Accurate in what regard?
Biblical translation is very difficult and it requires the brightest minds to objectively research word meanings. Yet, some people would have you believe that difficulty equals "unknowability", they want to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
But when some of these ‘brightest minds’, such as Martin Noth, Roland de Vaux, or Robert Carroll show errors in the text you wont believe them?
Likewise in Biblical translation the solid majority of sources are indeed copies of originals. When the various dead languages (greek, coptic, syriac, aramaic, ethiopic, etc.etc.);
Hold on there WT, I think you have made a slight error, you have listed Greek as a dead language, I take it this was an oversight?
written in different locations at different times (ancient) end up saying the same thing (5% variation maximum) then guess what ?
But none of these were written independent of the other texts, and they were selected for their ‘harmony’. It isn’t as if the books of the Bible were written in isolation and they were suddenly brought together and they some how magically matched up, the Chronicler, for example, clearly sat with Samuel and Kings in front of him and revised them, or mutilated them if you want to be completely honest.
That is what the originals said and for anyone to say otherwise defies logic and intelligence.
It actually makes more sense for the originals to be a total mess and the consequent books to be attempt to remove errors and difficulties, if the originals were perfect then there would have been no need for people, such as the Chronicler, the Priestly author, the Elohist or the Deuteronomist to edit, revise and splice the texts together.
The fact that the copy sources were produced in different places and in various dead languages at completely different times/years, all from preceding copies, and those copies from preceding copies until it was first copied from the original, and yet the content of ALL these sources contain a maximum 5% variation MEANS the Bible is accurate.
But which version is ACCURATE, the one that is 3% different from what, what are these texts varying FROM! The variation is UNKNOWN as there are no originals, the originals COULD be 50% different from the extant texts for all anyone knows, and the 5% MAY (though I really don’t believe this) only exist between extant docs.
No other conclusion can be made unless the facts of this post are ignored.
Not at all, we don’t need to ignore any of these FACTS, although you might have to explain clearly what the 5% variation actually means in this context.
Once again, powers that be just don't like what the Bible says so they attack via this dogmatic issue of translation difficulty equals unknowability nonsense.
Truth is WT, the translation of the texts is the least of the Bible’s problems. Archaeology, science and history have, especially in the last 100 years blown Bible accuracy 100% (not 5%)
Source of information : Dr. Gene Scott
Is this the only source you ever read WT?
I don't say this as an insult, I am just interested in how widely you study this stuff.
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