“The fact is that the Bible has not been rewritten. Take the New Testament, for
example. The disciples of Jesus wrote the New Testament in Greek and though we
do not have the original documents, we do have around 6,000 copies of the Greek
manuscripts that were made very close to the time of the originals. These
various manuscripts, or copies, agree with each other to almost 100 percent
accuracy.”
……………………
I don’t know where you get your statistics, but I know there are very few existing NT manuscripts copied within 150 years of the originals.
We have found over the years that Mark 16:9-19 (including the drinking of poison and snakebite); John 7:53-8:11; 1 Tim. 3:16 (‘God’ replaced “He who”); 1 John 5:7; etc. as found in
KJV are missing in these earliest MSS and most modern NT texts.
Furthermore, even when the Greek text seems certain, there are various interpretations by various translators which lead to opposing translations in English Bibles.
For example, at Acts 20:28 the Greek text is mostly certain (the only exception being the balance of manuscript evidence between “Lord” and “God”). And yet, even a number of Trinitarian translators (and the USB
Textual Commentary) have decided that Acts 20:28 should be rendered “…to shepherd the church of God [or ‘the Lord’- e.g.,
NEB] that he obtained with the blood
of his own son.”
Or, Phil. 2:6, “He
always [
huparchon] had the
nature [morphe] of God, but he did not think that by force he should try to
remain [
harpagmos] equal with God” -
Good News Bible.
A study of the Greek word
huparchon reveals that it is
never used in the NT for ‘always.’ Instead, although normally translated as “existing,” or “was,” etc., it literally means “under a beginning.” And a personal examination of all uses in the NT show that it never means ‘always,’ but normally is shown by context to mean something temporary.
A study of the NT Greek word
morphe shows that it means the
external form or shape of something (not ‘nature‘ or ‘essence’).
A study of the word
harpagmos shows that it refers to ‘
taking something
by force.’ In no honest way can it be rendered ‘remain,’ ‘retain,’ or ‘grasp,’ etc.
There are
numerous differences to be found in the translations of the many English Bibles available today. If we truly care about the truth of God’s word, the best we can do is compare today’s Bibles with the best NT Greek texts.
