Originally posted by: mordantmonkey
How can people put so much faith in an ancient text that has been translated and revised so many times? I mean even jesus' own words have been reworded, edit, or eliminated from the bible.
There are several reasons. One is that there is evidence that there has actually been very little tampering with the written words. There are some [incomplete] Dead-Sea scrolls of the gospel accounts (I think it was Mark) that are within little more than 100 years of the time of writing, which does not allow much time for adulteration of the original material. Yet these show that the material remained largely unchanged until the time of the more complete codices, scrolls, and other source materials used for translation.
Also the Hebrew Scribes had rigorous methods for preserving the Old Testament. Each page had a know word and character count that had to be maintained (for the best of the scribes). Comparisons of the oldest known texts with newer (still 1500 - 2000 years old) texts also show surprisingly little changes.
Does it make more sense for god to use the language of man to communicate his intent, when that medium can be manipulated or abused, or for god to communicate on a higher more divine level?
I would like to point out that communication implies that a message is sent in a format in which it can be understood by the recipient, which would limit God's means of sending his intentions to mankind.
In the end, my personal study has led me to believe that the bible is, at the very least, in much the same condition as it was at the time of its writing. Of course, there are only a handful of translations based on the original material. Many are modern revisions of the King James, which is itself an Old-English translation of a Latin Translation (Vulgate) of a Modern Greek translation (Septuagint) of Hebrew and Aramaic original writings. I can understand being concerned with the quality of the translation in many cases.
As for whether it is actually the "Word of God", one would first have to determine whether
a) There IS a God
b) That he actually gives a damn about Mankind
c) That the bible actually IS His Word and not that of the authors
d) That he actually meant everything he wrote
That's a lot of effort that most people are not willing to put forth, and therefore only have a very loosely held system of beliefs that is often incompatible with what is actually in the bible (read the Divorce statement by mordantmonkey)
