Why do so many fundamentals view the Bible as if it was the original ancient tablets and scrolls?

Question

The Bible's Old Testament was translated from the original Hebrew into English. A completely different language. Isn't it common sense that the Bible will contain errors? So why do fundamental Christians [mainly] observe the Bible as if it were the complete perfect word without no mistranslated words or mistranslated meanings. When it is obvious it has to contain errors after being translated from a language which Bible translators barely understood.

Answer 1

This is what they were taught to believe that through the influence of the holy spirit the bible was translated correctly form the original text. it is a matter of FAITH. ~M~

Answer 2

Jesus commanded us to preach the Gospel to the whole world.

Therefore, His Word must be translatable for all the world to understand. It is not by chance that God chose two languages that are both beautiful and yet very simple in their complexities and easily translatable (the Hebrew and Koine Greek) to diseminate His Word to the world.



My King James English Bible contains the exact same words as the words found in the Dead Sea scroll bible manuscripts written 2,000 years ago. No words have been changed. And why should that be surprising? If the Scriptures are truly God's Word, then this is exactly what we should expect.





GNOTHI.... you called "Fundies" bigots, I am a GAY Christian minister, so stop being a bigot yourself!



-Rev. Jim Cunningham

King James Bible Ministries

www.GayChristianSurvivors.com

Answer 3

I've wondered the same thing. One thing...I think Queen is wrong about the KJV being the oldest translation. The Catholic monks first translated it... as far as I know. I could be wrong.I would think they would have had somebody there to help them who knew both languages thoroughly. Actually, I've never understood how people came to have different languages. That still confuses me.

Another thing I think... maybe the reason they think it's "inspired" is because often you can ask God a question and open the Bible and there's the exact answer. One time...I was asking God.."God, why do I keep hearing 'Yes and No' in my head?" I then went to my bed .. put the Bible on my lap (my father's old Catholic Bible).. it automatically fell open ...which is normal... my hand fell on a page...normally... but when I looked at the sentence my finger was pointing to ....I read "The Lord does not answer 'yes' and 'no'....He only answers 'yes'. I jumped up and yelled..."THIS BOOK'S ALIVE!!!' lol After that it happened a lot. But you have to be careful not to think that each thing you open to is the answer. You can get into a lot of spiritual trouble that way.Anyway... that's what "inspired" means to me. But...I have no idea if it was God who inspired it or not. You know when people write songs and poems...sometimes they just "come to them" seemingly out of the blue. I think that's what inspiration is too. I had about 120 poems/ messages in rhyme come to me during that time...as fast as I could write them down. If you want to see a few of them...go to my 360 blogs and start at the end ..at "Last" and you'll see some of them. It was extremely exhilarating and exciting to have this happened....but now I think it might not have been such a good thing for my life. I'm just saying..."it happened". So MAYBE that's how the Bible came to be... And...MAYBE God chose willing people to interpret it. All we can do is guess about it.

Hope you're not thinking about these things constantly. Don't forget to "live" and have some fun in life. Mainly ... take care of your family...and yourself. We might never find the answers to all these spiritual questions.

Answer 4

Jesus commanded us to preach the Gospel to the whole world.

Therefore, His Word must be translatable for all the world to understand. It is not by chance that God chose two languages that are both beautiful and yet very simple in their complexities and easily translatable (the Hebrew and Koine Greek) to diseminate His Word to the world.



My King James English Bible contains the exact same words as the words found in the Dead Sea scroll bible manuscripts written 2,000 years ago. No words have been changed. And why should that be surprising? If the Scriptures are truly God's Word, then this is exactly what we should expect.

Answer 5

I am not really certain if what you are asking is right. You address your question to the Christians when it was the Christians themselves are indiscreetly trying to make the Old testament as obsolete by claiming it was changed by Jesus Christ

Many translators hired by several churches were historians paleontologists and archaeologists and scientific researchers without biased to any faith, so the translations has possibilities of some correctness and if there are errors that could be seen ( which oftentimes are always debated upon) it could be minimal. It is however in the INTERPRETATIONS of every religion where the flaw lies and many interpretations are found to be working for the interests of every denomination.

I would suggest that you study the Book well as it was translated with some cross references and guidance from authorities before you judge the book as erroneous. And don't particularize the fundamentalist in that because everyone in the religion is subject to your allegations.

Answer 6

I'll have to research the source for this, but long ago I read where the original books came from in the early Old Testament.... there was no real written down stuff back then, so it was just word of mouth and story-tales around the campfire... but to keep the 'real' message accurate as possible, especially in the 'begats', there were shapes and notches and a sort of 'letter' carved into the staff that the leader of the tribe would carry as a mark of his station....then he could, by feeling the marks in the staff, as he was telling the story, relate it pretty much the same as his predecessor did.... and he, in turn would teach the marks to the next in line.... I recall somewhere in the early books where it was important to hand down the staff to the next leader... was it Moses and Aaron?.... anyways, that's what made me understand how Genesis might have been a little mixed up, for starters... and why the 'begats' tended to be easier to recall exactly, I'd guess.....

Answer 7

The ones who disect the Bible word for word rather than reading the message contained within as a whole fall into the trap of misinterpreting in the details.



It is not possible to translate the Bible accurately, since words often contain many layers of meaning which cannot be translated with a single one for one word replacement.

Many words are also embedded within a specific cultural context, and taken outside of that would be completely misinterpreted.

Answer 8

We have a concordance and can see the original writings and look up there meaning in the original language.



Gen 1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

1:1בְּרֵאשִׁית בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים אֵת הַשָּׁמַיִם וְאֵת הָאָֽרֶץ׃



ראשית re'shiyth - 1) first, beginning, best, chief



a) beginning



b) first



c) chief



d) choice part



אלהים 'elohiym



1) (plural)



a) rulers, judges



b) divine ones



c) angels



d) gods



2) (plural intensive - singular meaning)



a) god, goddess



b) godlike one



c) works or special possessions of God



d) the (true) God



e) God



That is just a sample but we can do that for every verse in the scriptures. Many who study the bible use a concordence to see what the words meant in the oringinal writings.

Answer 9

How do you think the translators managed to translate the Bible if they "barely understood" the original language? That doesn't make sense!



Have you ever studied the history of the Majority Text? It was carefully preserved for generations by Christians, who methodically copied and distributed it and did it as accurately as possible. They were so accurate, in fact, that the documents comprising the Majority Text agree very well with one another. There aren't really any doctrinal errors, just things like typos and misspellings and minor differences. This is the text from which the King James version was translated, and the men who worked on that project were scholars who were intimately familiar with the original Bible languages. They checked and rechecked their work, to the point of being neurotic about it. Thus the English King James version is a very accurate and reliable Bible. Sure, Bibles will have errors in them. But the KJV doesn't have doctrinal errors. Just typos and print errors. I can't speak for all other Christians but this is why I and the folks at my church trust our Bibles. Because we can.

Answer 10

True, and even so no one has the access the the original languages being spoken, one can only attempt.



Its just ignorance and arrogance that make some of them think that way. Some really have been only raised thinking and knowing that's all there is and others just don't want to know or look even further. Their happy to what their apologists and "spokespeople" say about everything.

Answer 11

If the Bible were a purely human invention, then yes, it would be expected to contain errors. But the Bible was not only divinely inspired, but divinely edited and translated as time went on and it was translated into the various languages. As the Bible was being copied over the millennia, poor copies were discarded. The originals were well-used and wore out, and more copies had to be made to replace them. Unfortunately, there are several "new" versions of Scripture that were made at the beginning of the 20th century that were based on the bad copies that were discarded. (They had actually been hidden away in an ancient library for centuries.) Those copies, because no one ever used them, remained intact for centuries, so they were "older" than the correct versions, but they were not "better", because they were still bad copies.

This is why I prefer to use the KJV, which is the oldest currently used English version that is based on the good copies of the Received Text.

Answer 12

Fundamentalism is born out of fear and insecurity and these people tend to hold onto the worlds of their Preachers tighter than the Catholics would, they read the Bible literally with little or no spirituality and apply it to modern politics, which is why they screw up in their support of certain Christian leaders. They tend to see the world in their minds like star wars for souls, good vs evil, two sides to every argument, my way and the wrong way.

Answer 13

That is the truth, really, I now your point I see it before! But the answer is God exist. And when somebody wrote 100000 people fall dead and I have a old writing and that says 100009, that means not that the message of the holy scriptures are not true anymore

Answer 14

I think you need to make a distinction between the Bible having errors per se and translation errors in English language Bibles.



Though I agree that the typical approach of Fundamentalist Christians to the Bible is unreasonable. I think it is rooted in a shallow theology. [How many thumbs down will I earn for that statement?] They tend to approach Scripture on only one or two levels, and don't know how to fathom its depths.

Answer 15

For real! The New Testament is not the original texts either thanks to the Roman Empire.



They refuse to research the history of their faith. They only believe what they have been taught. I think it is out of the fear of going to "hell." I feel sorry for them.



Peace!

Answer 16

It's logical to me. I'm sure a lot was lost in translation and misconception.

OMG, someone here thinks the flood was limited to Mesopotamia, when every culture has a legend of the same flood, even our Native American Indians. hmmm

Misconceptions surely abound even in this day and age if available information.

Answer 17

A couple of reasons. One is the dead sea scrolls. We now have almost the whole book of Isaiah from over two thousand years ago and it is virtually the exact same book of Isaiah we have today.

Also, scribes were very good at what they did and took it seriously.



Mainly, if God wanted to have people write down words concerning him and preserve it, well, He is God and it wasn't even as hard as creating a tree.

Answer 18

they think that the people that took all them books out of the bible were influenced by god, but they are dumb, the book of enoch is one of the most influential books I've read

Answer 19

Christian Fundamentalist is a complete contradiction in terms!!



CHRISTIAN – A follower or believer in Jesus.



FUNDAMENTALIST One who believes the Bible is literally true and must be followed exactly.



Therefore they are followers of the bible and not Jesus making them non Christians!!!



But worse is to follow it also makes them ideologists.



IDEOLOGY An idea that is false or held for the wrong reasons but is believed with such conviction as to be irrefutable.



So Christians have a loving and forgiving god and fundamentalist - well - Just are not Christians!!!!

Answer 20

Because like all fundamentalist religious freaks, they carry religion too far and interpret it too literally.

Answer 21

Hahaha...



Have you met the ones who think the Bible was written in English?



They'll kill off some of your brain cells with their very presence.

Answer 22

Yes the bible is a frankenstein of scripture.



Functionally an android, but not a human.



Modern bible=fail

Answer 23

the fundies have a literal view and they never bother to think

many also like to twist anything to promote their bigotry

Answer 24

why indeed,.,yes,.,good question , , ,and why , having read the bloody carnage in it,.,.,do they continue the murderous rampages it has caused over so many years!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Answer 25

they don't know any better. that's what the preacher tells them.

Answer 26

the bible is a lie, its just a book that onley the weak care about. translated.from a lier

Answer 27

Better question would be why do you care? Why does it bother you?