Is the Bible still being written?

I've wondered this for some time.

What if there are still prophets alive today receiving the WORD and writing it down, but doesn't get out to the people because either

A. they are being ridiculed by the sarcastic, disbelieving society in which we live

or worse

B. it's being hushed up by the TBTB. (the powers that be).

Now I realize there is little to no way of answering this question. I guess I'm just asking everyone's take on the subject and if it is theoretically possible that the Word of God is still being given?

Like, what if there is to be another flood? What if the PTB are hushing it and we have no chance to save ourselves or fight.

The heavens aren't on pause, so why is the story?

The Vatican puts a stop to all new prophets. The book is not being written now because the swindle is on. religion has killed more people, stolen more money, lied more, etc... than anything else...EVER.

reply to post by Privy_Princess


Did you read the end of Revelations? There is a curse there. What ever you add shall be added unto you, what ever you take away, that portion shall be taken away from you.

But I see how you can think its happening especially if you watch Supernatural. The show has prophets chronicaling Sam and Dean Winchesters adventures.

Well I guess it depends what religion you are speaking of. The Latter Day Saints (Mormons) still believe that there are living prophets. They have one but I don't know his name right off hand.

no ... they already selected only the texts they wanted

they took off the sex, more violent ones



truth right? yeah .,.. believe that

reply to post by rangersdad

Did you read the end of Revelations? There is a curse there. What ever you add shall be added unto you, what ever you take away, that portion shall be taken away from you

Well yes it does say that but Revelation is it's own book. It was just placed in the back of the bible because that is where it was most fitting. It's the story fo the end but wasn't written last. You should not add unto the Book of Revelations. It does not say the whole bible.

[edit on 8/18/2010 by defcon5]

Without having read a single word outside of the title, YES my friend. You are on the correct path. Not only is it still being WRITTEN, but it is being RESURRECTED. The scriptures that have faded to simply words for some time, are now coming back TO LIFE. & We are all (knowingly or unknowingly) heeding it's words, and beginning to reform, and rewrite/relive within a greater truth.





..partially what I believe at least anyways.

reply to post by Privy_Princess

Of course the Bible is still being written.

It is rewritten in every generation as fashions in belief change. It is rewritten to reflect what different Christian groups and societies think is 'right' and 'true'.

This has gone on down the ages. Here's a chart of the most popular versions.

The last couple of hundred years have seen ever more furious and comprehensive revision

It's still going on.

And it will never end.

Major Bible Revision Planned

Gender-Inclusive Bible Revision Planned

The 'Word of God' is ever-changing. Remember when He was encouraging us to sell our daughters as sex slaves? How come we never hear much about that particular Word of God any longer?

When I meet a person who tells me 'I'm a Bible-believing Christian', what I hear is 'I believe in my own prejudices.'

[edit on 18/8/10 by Astyanax]

Now having read your OP. SHHHHHHHHHHH!! It's loud, do not wish to expose. You have put forth great question though. And I believe you know the answer that I would supply you with anyways. But, if reading my original reply to this, it speaks volumes. Your question as well. Soundbombing the hell out of this planet may be the only way.


sidenote adaption: "Man will never see the light of day, but there are those that already do." -MyThoughts

[edit on 18-8-2010 by tauschen]

[edit on 18-8-2010 by tauschen]

I think the Bible has gone under revision with "new" and "improved" versions printed by various groups or individuals. These new Bibles have tried using modern English or even street talk.

As far as adding new books to the Bible, I think there would be some issues with that from Christians and the various cults of Christians.

reply to post by rangersdad


Um i hope i can clear something up for you about that cruse. Yes it is there but it is not meant for the Bible. You see the Bible is a book of books and Revelations is just 1 book so the cruse is meant for that 1 book that was made long before the Bible.

The Bible was put together in the um.....1600's and this cruse was in Revelations before that and it was meant for Revelations .


So it is possible that it can still happen but Revelations kinda tells it all up to the end. So what more could be written?

I kind of gave up trying to explain to religious freaks why religion doesnt make sense

some people are so manipulated that their brain already have answers to everything and they dont question anything

its hard

all organized religion have the same objective

I guarantee you, if God exists, he hates these organized religion, but it would take a long text to explain why ... go research, go read some studies about the universe, our history, look up at the sky ...

in my opinion, only ignorants can say their religion is right and there is no other possibility, and if you cant guarantee your religion is right, than why bother?

Originally posted by defcon5
You are correct only in that the Roman Catholic Church canonized its official version of the Bible at the Council of Trent... However the Books of the New Testament were already accepted long before the Council of Trent, dating back to at least the days of St. Irenaeus, who quotes all but six of them in his work Against Heresies in 180AD. However, even with that in mind, I am certain that the Curse/Blessing made in Revelation applies only to the Book of Revelation.

You give the impression (as I am sure you mean to do) that the canonization of the texts we now know as the New Testament was complete and final by the time Irenaeus published his fulminations. Nothing could be further from the truth.

For example, two works treated as canonical by Irenaeus--he called them 'scripture'--did not make it into the Bible. They are the First Epistle of Clement (written around 95AD, the same time as the Gospel of John) and the Book of the Shepherd of Hermas.

So Irenaeus's canon isn't the same as yours.

There are also books Irenaeus didn't mention, but were regarded by other early Christians, such as Eusebius and Athanasius, as scripture: the Didache, the Seven Letters of Ignatius of Antioch, and so on.

So Irenaeus's canon wasn't the definitive early Christian canon either.

Indeed, there was no such definitive canon:

According to one list, compiled at Rome c. AD 200 (the Muratorian Canon), the NT consists of the 4 gospels; Acts; 13 letters of Paul (Hebrews is not included); 3 of the 7 General Epistles (1-2 John and Jude); and also the Apocalypse of Peter. Source

The Apocalypse of Peter, please note, not that of John--and numerous other differences.

The earliest (but still not definitive) list of books corresponding to the present New Testament was given by Athanasius, the most powerful figure in the church of his day, in 367AD. It didn't stop the arguments.

The situation with the Old Testament is even worse. As late as AD400, St. Jerome was still quarrelling with the Pope about which books should go in and which should be left out.

Here is the Damasine List, which spells out the official canon of the Western Church in 381AD. See how many books you recognize.

You further seek to draw a veil across the truth when you imply that the books that do form the New Testament canon existed in their present forms at the time of Irenaeus. They most certainly did not; he was arguing mostly from the oral tradition. The books in the form we know them were compiled from various fragments, additions and translations over centuries. Dating of the Gospels

The following quote is mere mystagogic fantasy:

The Seventy weeks ended shortly after the death of Christ around 30AD, and before the destruction of Israel in 70AD. Following swiftly on the end of the Seventy Weeks was the end of the Age of the Jews, and the beginning of the Age of Gentiles or Church Age.

Even Christian sources admit that the Gospel of John was written in 85-90AD, after the fall of Jerusalem in 70AD. The Epistles of Jude and the three Epistles of John are dated around 90AD by these same Christian scholars.

Other, less obviously biased scholars give much later dates; as late as 120AD for the Gospel of John.

In any case, these books did not attain their 'canonical' forms until centuries later. This is shown by comparing source texts from different periods and locations--for example, the Dead Sea Scrolls, among the earliest original texts, show substantial differences from texts hitherto accepted as canonical. And the Scrolls contain only Old Testament books! You'd think that these, at least, would have been properly finalized by the time they came to be canonized, but no:

While some of the Qumran biblical manuscripts are nearly identical to the Masoretic, or traditional, Hebrew text of the Old Testament, some manuscripts of the books of Exodus and Samuel found in Cave Four exhibit dramatic differences in both language and content. In their astonishing range of textual variants, the Qumran biblical discoveries have prompted scholars to reconsider the once-accepted theories of the development of the modern biblical text from only three manuscript families: of the Masoretic text, of the Hebrew original of the Septuagint, and of the Samaritan Pentateuch. It is now becoming increasingly clear that the Old Testament scripture was extremely fluid until its canonization around A.D. 100.

--The Oxford Companion to Archaeology, quoted here

For anyone interested in the subject and not blinded by faith, here is an interesting and readable article about how the Biblical canon came to be assembled: The Formation of the New Testament Canon

And for those who want all the details, here is an exhaustive survey: The Development of the Canon of the New Testament

[edit on 8/19/2010 by defcon5]

The question here should not be whether the bible is still being written but rather how was the present one written? I made a trend recently about this: "How was the Bible written" Sorry dont know how to link yet.

People are often taken by the word inspiration without having to consider that the "word" was first given as oral before being written hundreds or thousands of years later. People often think that God gave the message to the "prophets" in the vicinity of a printing press.

Why would God only be interested in updating the bible when he should rather be unifying the different groups of religion? If the bible is still being written, is this done in aramaic, hebrew, greek or english? What of arabic , chines, russian and hindu?

The world seriously have a big problem in their hand. If God is only interested in updationg the bible among the tes of other religious books, then it means only christianity is the true religion but this appears by a long shot not to be the truth. Asking such a question as in the op to me seems fall under religious supremacy.

Originally posted by defcon5
The early Church and Church Fathers had pretty much chosen an accepted cannon of the Bible, mainly the Gospels.

How early? During the first fifty years or so, there were no Gospels and no New Testament canon. Christian scriptures consisted of the Old Testament only.

Writings like Irenaeus show us that there was already consensuses on many of the books.

'Consensus' in the plural? Certainly. Different churches in different parts of the Christian world followed different doctrines and used different texts.

As I have shown, there was not even near-consensus as late as four centuries after Christ, Irenaeus or no Irenaeus. From 400AD or so onward there was increasing consensus, but this ended in the Renaissance, which was triggered by a revival of interest in old Classical texts and artworks, pagan as well as Christian--as well as, of course, the Reformation.

The whole point of Against Heresies was to stop the influx of Gnostic teachings into the Christian religion, and to do so Irenaeus was using accepted books that the first church fathers considered to be divinely inspired works.

This is a case of history being written by the victors. The distinction between 'Gnostic' and 'canonical' Christianity didn't exist before Irenaeus; he created, or at any rate formalized it. In those days Christianity was a heterodox basket of beliefs; the Valentians (the kind of Gnostics Irenaeus was mainly on about) were simply Christians, and by no means the only sect whose beliefs were what we now call 'gnostic.'

Gibbon, in the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, gives a wide-ranging and highly entertaining account of the different doctrines of Christianity that existed in early times; these have been given the blanket name of 'heresy' by victors in the doctrinal struggle, but once upon a time they were regarded as valid forms of Christianity by their adherents and pagans alike.

The Council of Trent is a red herring, of no significance to this discussion. It happened 1,600 years after the death of Jesus, and 1,200 years after the basic Biblical canon had been established. Nobody was trying to sneak the Gospel of Thomas or the First Epistle of Paul into the Bible. I believe Luther wanted to cut a few chapters out, though.

(The First Epistle of Clement... and the Book of the Shepherd of Hermas) are now considered to be Pseudepigraphal texts. There is nothing preventing you from reading them, they are simply not considered on-par with the texts of the accepted New Testament. They are not banned, or shunned books, they are actually considered good books for a Christian to read.

However, they are not the 'Word of God', as the books in the canon are claimed to be. But Irenaeus thought they were. So what happened? Did God change His mind? Or was Irenaeus wrong about their divine origin?

And if he was wrong about those two books, who's to say he wasn't wrong about the rest?

Originally posted by Astyanax
So Irenaeus's canon isn't the same as yours.

It was extremely similar (only off by 6 books)

There are 27 books in the New Testament. That's a very big 'only'.

And the Gospels (which are the most important part) are exactly the same. There has been no change, doubt, or argument about the Gospels since the days of John the Apostle:

The record of history is that, by the end of the first century, those four Gospels were established as the only inspired accounts of the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. It was not a decision left to the whim of Constantine or a later authority figure but arose from an apostle who had been an eyewitness of the life and teachings of Jesus Christ.

Untrue, I'm afraid. The four-gospel canon wasn't fixed until Irenaeus. Some of his arguments are not, shall we say, altogether convincing--there are four winds, he tells us, and four corners of the Earth, therefore there must be four gospels!

Justin Martyr, Papias and other pre-Irenaeans refer to fewer than four Gospels. Some sects had more than four. And what happened to the Gospel According to the Hebrews, the very first Gospel of all? More information

The other letters are really nowhere near as important as the Gospels themselves.

That's not what the early Christians thought. The epistles of Paul were the first books of the New Testament to be written and collected.

The New Testament could simply be cut down to the Four Gospels, and the message of the Bible would really not change in the least.

Provable thesis or statement of faith?

An atheist website... is not the source I would use when trying to discuss the legitimacy of the books of the Bible. A source which has a bone to grind with the Church to begin with, and is nothing more then an competing faith in its own right.

Fiddlesticks. The question is not about provenance and faith. If it were, all your arguments are rendered invalid by the same token, because all your sources are Christian. The question is whether or not the scholarship can be trusted.

Richard Carrier, whose essay I linked to, is a well-known historian and public figure with a reputation to protect. He may be a polemical atheist, but no hint of scholarly wrongdoing has ever been laid at his door.

My earlier post contains citations from a number of sources, Christian as well as lay. The criterion in all cases was reliability, not doctrinal bias.

And what about your external source, the one I quote above? It looks like a secular site at first glance, doesn't it? You have to be really suspicious, like me, and click several links before you find that it is really a 'Christian' web site run by some Californian outfit calling itself the Church of God.

At least infidels.org you know right up front just what it is about.

If you plan to continue this discussion with me, defcon5, please stick to the facts and argue in good faith. I don't mean Lutheran good faith--'a lie told for God is a glorious lie!--but the kind non-Christians and Christians alike recognize.

If you can't do that, please don't bother. I wish to have respect for my interlocutors.

Originally posted by pro-all


The world seriously have a big problem in their hand. If God is only interested in updationg the bible among the tes of other religious books, then it means only christianity is the true religion but this appears by a long shot not to be the truth. [B]Asking such a question as in the op to me seems fall under religious supremacy.[/B]

I see where you are coming from, but it seems as though you've missed the nature of my post.

I do not wish to declare religious supremacy anymore than the next person. Even though the act of being a follower of any religion does lend itself to the need to feel "more correct" than the next group, I've never embraced that line of thought. I think by doing that, we are doing ourselves a disservice, as it goes against mostly all of the respective doctrines. We should be coming together as faithhaving people, not being torn apart.

So the true nature of the post would be to ask yourself, is "my particular religious doctrine" being continuously added to, unbeknownst to me and my fellow people? If so, why?

If the bible is intended to have consequence upon us, be it favorable or otherwise, then one might guess that not only is humanity still writing the bible, but we are part of it's continuing history.