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Originally posted by Frowning Budah
Well put. My problem with this is, was JC quoted accurately? After all the actual writing of the Bible wasn't done at the time JC was around. Secondly, through all the various translations and editing is the Bible of today been corrupted to the point it is no longer resembles the original? I know theologians that believe God has intervened in the process to keep the Word holy.
Personally, I take the Bible as nothing more than an historical text.
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There is much study and debate on the real words and acts of Jesus...and there is no easy answer. Many scholars have tackeled the issue-Dominic Crossen, Robert Funk, and Paula Fredriksen being some of the well known ones....i respect all for their scholarship, though i caution any reader to be aware that none has it "just right."
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the bible has been translated and converted and re-translated so many times
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I think that this is getting blown fairly out of proportion. The texts used today have not be translated countless times....most good bibles are direct translations from the available manuscripts... For the New Testament they are usually 250-100 years old...for the Greek manuscripts, we can assume they stayed in Greek during that period of transmission. Syraic, Coptic, Aramaic, and other texts are used as a double check on accuracy.
For the Old Testament...this is somewhat fairer of a point. Many texts spent a great deal of time in oral form before being written. Today's english versions are based off of the most authoritative Hebrew copies known, giving weight to the Masoretical interpetations, but not being bound by them.
Better yet...linky...
http://www.ncccusa.org/newbtu/reader.html
That's the translators note to the reader from the NSRV...the version i reccomend to anyone interested in seriously studying the text. The main point is that we *do* know, with a fair amount of certainty, what the texts mean and what they should read. I don't think that gives any one reading, fundamentalism or liberalism or whatever, an automatic advantage....but its not a fair criticism of any of these readings to say that the text is without reliability.