Bible question.

Hey all. Not a regular to this forum, but was browsing through a few threads and just had to ask this quick question regarding the Bible.

If the Bible is the 'Word of God', how come it isn't still being added on to with newer chapters/verses?

Think about it. Did God tell man to sit down and start writing all his teachings in a book, get to a certain point, and say "OK, that's all you need to know. Go forth and prosper!" The End.

That's crazy. If these are the teachings of God, then why do they stop? Wouldn't the lessons continue, if for any other reason than to adapt to the changing times?

Any thoughts?

Interestingt thought.
The Morman religion claoms they have newer info from God.
The issue is who is going to be believed they have new word from God.

The Word of God is perfect, nothing needs to be added.
If we all follow the Word, life would be wonderful.
The 10 commandments stand today like they stood back then!
Nothing more to be said.

There IS more. There are other books not included in the bible. Many Christians don't believe you may add to because Revelations says not to add to this book - however, that was meant not to add to Revelations. Many take the bible too literally.

Why do we need more? WE changed, not God.

Originally posted by godservant
Why do we need more? WE changed, not God.

Doesn't matter how much we have changed, teachings still hold true!
We really haven't changed, just the things around us, ie Internet. Humans are still humans with the same basic needs, air, water, food, love. we still need to treat our neighbors like we would like to be treated etc.

Hi there Valkeryie:

Which texts do you consider the "Word of God"? Can you even read the texts in their original? What translations do you use?

For the Old Testament: are you using the very late and heavilly re-written Masoretic "received" pointed Text (MT) of the Hebrew (AD 780) of Leningrad?

Or maybe you prefer the SamPent (Sammaritan Pentateuch) unpointed Paleo-Samaritan-Hebrew copy text of the Torah (BC 440), which (incidentally) DOES NOT MATCH the above MT text for about 24% of the time...

Or perhaps you prefer the Hebrew Underlay (Vorlage) to the Greek Old Testament Septuaginta (LXX) from around BC 220? which (incidentally) does NOT match the other two versions of the OT for about 23% of the time?

Have you even consulted all those Dead Sea Scroll Mixed Families of the OT (from BC 350 to AD 68) that they found in 1946 to 1956 all being copied side by side as if no distinction or preference? (There is a good book out called THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS BIBLE, I suggest you read it)

What about the Aramaic Targum paraphrases of the Old Testament Prophets which "Matthew" tried to translate into his own Koine Greek---his own translations which were used to generate all those "fake fulfilments" of midrashic prophecies of "jesus as messiah" in the book of Matthew----incidentally, these are quotes from books like "Jeremiah" and "Isaiah" and "Zechariah" WHICH DO NOT MATCH the official Masoretic Text of the 9th century AD (#1 listed above)

As for the the New Testament Greek text families, which version of the MSS do you consider the Word of God?

Incidentally, NONE of these Greek Text copies of the New Testmament match each other very closerly: which copy do you prefer--the Codex Alexandrinus, Codex Bezae, Codex Ephraemi, Codex Sinaiticus (which includes extra books like, p66 etc. none of which match each other more than 65% of the time?

So much the "unchangeable" and "holy" word of God, as if it were a single book between two covers....

NEWSFLASH : It isn't either.

Hey Amedeus;

Actually I have read(more than once) these;
1.
The New Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apcrypha.
2. The Hebrew Greek Key Study Bible.
3. A Concise Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament.
4. The Lost Books of the Bible (translated from the original tongues) by Gramercy.
5. The Lost Books of the Bible and the forgotten books of Eden by LB Press.

And you?

One of my biggest problems with the bible and my family trying to push it on me is this problem here. My take is this.

Many men over the course of over 400 years wrote the bible. Not one person. All claimed that this was told to them by a man named god, whom they never saw, just heard. Over they centuries it took to write, many people believed these men were telling the truth. These men also said god would talk to many more in the future and they need but to listen.

Many centuries later, no one has added to the bible. Those who "god speaks to" are labeled insane by shrinks and "normal" folks.

The question now becomes, if people who hear gods voice today are insane, what keeps those from centuries ago from being insane? In other words, why believe some guys from over 1000 years ago that you have never seen or heard on TV or radio (credability) who wrote a book claiming it was god who told them what to write, but not believe someone that wanted to add to it today who you may actually be able to see or hear on TV or radio that could help you determine their credability?

I have many other issues with the bible, but this is one thought that has plagued me for some time.

There are a LOT of gospels. The four that are contained in the Bible were selected by Constantine in order to get Christianity stablized and off to a good start. Actually, there were five gospels included in the first Bible: Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and Mary Magdaline. Her gospel is probably the most true to Christ's actual teachings but Constantine removed it at the suggestion of some of his advisors. If you are going to start a religion you need to base it on the strongest foundation possible. A gospel written by a women would have been subject of too much debate and critisism. So he substituted Thomas instead. It was many years later, the Christian church removed Thomas' gospel for reasons I won't go into here.

Bottom line, there is a LOT of information Christ gave us that Christians do not use.

I don't know where to start. ImAlreadyPsycho writes that none of the authors of the Bible never saw God. I believe in Exodus 33:11 we read that God spoke to Moses face-to-face. Also, 400 years???!!! Where'd you get that? Try several thousand.

Back to the original idea, though. I think FiberOptik's on to something. Supposing that God exists, why would he stop speaking to prophets?
Is the Bible perfect? (Not in it's presently translated form(s), otherwise there wouldn't be thousands of sects of Christianity)
Have we reached the point where we no longer need God? (Yeah, right.)
Is God dead? (Preposterous.)
Does God no longer care? (See above)

Then, the only explanation I have is that God does still talk to prophets today. Somewhere in the New Testament (I forget where) it reads: "One faith, One God, One Church."
The problem then is finding who/where that prophet is.

The Bible is not perfect. A lot has been lost in the translation, particularly right after the 12 apostles were killed and christianity was 'adapted' for the greeks. They warped or removed a lot of the doctrine to make it more fitting to their lifestyle.

As for new scripture, I believe we are entiltled to and do recieve new revalation.

In relation to the Mormons, they do have another testament of Christ. It is an ancient record of the inhabitants of the Americas before, during, and after the time of christ. The Book of Mormon.

Check it our if you're curious, it's a fascinating read.

The Bible is a guide post that leads to a point predetermined to be the culmination of man's evelution under God's desire. God wishes us to formulate a self based free choice, love and desire for him. therefore he gave it only as a bases for which we are to acheive this goal.

God does not use the Bible to act as an every day wake up do this then
go back to sleep set of instructions. Therefore it does not change you are left under that great gift of choice to break out of the automiton based existance and use your free will to decide what you wish to do in order to meet his goals as layed out in the Bible. God wants children not robot toys to join him in whats soon to become our level of existance as fortold in mathew, mark, revalations and other very well know books of direct word of God.

hey Valkerye

You seem to have to deal with translations: all those so-called "study books" you listed are all in English with the exception of the Lexicon of the OT

l. The New Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocrypha.
2. The Hebrew Greek Key Study Bible.
3. A Concise Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament.
4. The Lost Books of the Bible (translated from the original tongues) by Gramercy.
5. The Lost Books of the Bible and the forgotten books of Eden by LB Press.

Have you taken the time to make any kind of careful study of original language texts, or make any notes at all from the criticus apparatus of editions of these texts both the Hebrew and Greek versions--especially to note ALL of their their differences?

If you have done so, then how on earth could you say that "the Word of God is perfect" when what you are dealing with is literally hundreds of contradictory manuscripts? You have not even provided a list of what books you consider "inspired"? Many of main 4th and 5th century manuscripts ("witnesses" or "authorities") list books such as THE SHEPHERD OF HERMAS and I CLEMENT as canonical (i.e. part of the Bible).

So even all THE LISTS of books (let alone their contents) contain vast contradictions...

So what do you mean, exactly?

Unfortuantely being born in Canada, the only languages I know are English, Norwegian none of the books were written in these languages so no I can only go by the translations. But at least I have read more than the King James version.

[edit on 30-9-2004 by valkeryie]

Hi again Valkeryie:

Then can you explain what you mean when you said, "The Word of God is Perfect, nothing needs to be added" because you have not explained what you mean exactly by the "Word of God", since there are so many conflicting collections of books which different groups call the "Bible..."

Presumably something that is "Perfect" is something that is a "Complete Unity" that has an internal consistency, like for example, a perfect diamond, etc. but and the conflicting morass of jumbled manuscripts that go to make up what some people call the "bible" is not a unity at all, let alone something perfect.

Presumably you would have been able to sense some of this if you have taken a closer look at your English text commentaries?

I'm still waiting for your answer....what do you consider "the bible" and why on earth would you claim it is perfect?

Originally posted by Amadeus
Hi again Valkeryie:

Then can you explain what you mean when you said, "The Word of God is Perfect, nothing needs to be added" because you have not explained what you mean exactly by the "Word of God", since there are so many conflicting collections of books which different groups call the "Bible..."

Presumably something that is "Perfect" is something that is a "Complete Unity" that has an internal consistency, like for example, a perfect diamond, etc. but and the conflicting morass of jumbled manuscripts that go to make up what some people call the "bible" is not a unity at all, let alone something perfect.

Presumably you would have been able to sense some of this if you have taken a closer look at your English text commentaries?

I'm still waiting for your answer....what do you consider "the bible" and why on earth would you claim it is perfect?

I hate people like this they just ask BUT What if... but What if... Then why this ... Why this. Why this... What if this ... Then why this .. then why this ... well if that then explain this to me... Why in the Dictionary are there words that have definitions that have words that if you go look up that word in that definition it refers back to the other word making an endless cycle to a word that noone really can put into words. Why is the wind not visable by man but fire sees it and moves around it when it comes. ??? Is fire living it dances as if it were.

Originally posted by bet555

Originally posted by Amadeus
Hi again Valkeryie:

Then can you explain what you mean when you said, "The Word of God is Perfect, nothing needs to be added" because you have not explained what you mean exactly by the "Word of God", since there are so many conflicting collections of books which different groups call the "Bible..."

Presumably something that is "Perfect" is something that is a "Complete Unity" that has an internal consistency, like for example, a perfect diamond, etc. but and the conflicting morass of jumbled manuscripts that go to make up what some people call the "bible" is not a unity at all, let alone something perfect.

Presumably you would have been able to sense some of this if you have taken a closer look at your English text commentaries?

I'm still waiting for your answer....what do you consider "the bible" and why on earth would you claim it is perfect?

I hate people like this they just ask BUT What if... but What if... Then why this ... Why this. Why this... What if this ... Then why this .. then why this ... well if that then explain this to me... Why in the Dictionary are there words that have definitions that have words that if you go look up that word in that definition it refers back to the other word making an endless cycle to a word that noone really can put into words. Why is the wind not visable by man but fire sees it and moves around it when it comes. ??? Is fire living it dances as if it were.

BET555


While I agree there is a point when questions may be to excessive maybe we should tolerate those that are of in such a matter of great importance for God said that all that have an ear let him hear and blessed are those who hear the word and keep it and share it......how can we share it if we dont discuss it in a Q and A forum of inlightenment

Excellent question Fiberoptik!!!

Gal 3:24 & 25
Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.
But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster.


Heb. 6:1
Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection; not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God,

2Thess
7 And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels,
8 In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ:
9 Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power;
10 When he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe (because our testimony among you was believed) in that day.

The bible clearly states that no prophets shall come after jesus, untill the end time.

I think that god does not want us to know everything. he gives us the bible as an educatory tool and then he throws us into the world so he can observe our actions and reactions

the earth and all thats in it exist exclusively for the entertainment of the creator

The Bible has been added to and has been changed. There were countless revisions and these are still taking place.
Pick up a King James edition and compare it to a new revised edition. You'll be suprised at how much has changed.

But as for making major additions to the Bible such as new gospels or new books? There are many different sects of Christianity and Judaism that have their doctrinal roots in the Bible. They don't all agree with each other yet they all base their beliefs in the Bible. If something major was added, you can guarantee that there would be major schisms between the different parts of these religions. A lot of them therefore have their own literature that they use as an addition - rather like everyone having a Bible, but each individual sect having a separate and different bunch of pages tacked on that is unique to themselves.