(Re: How do we know [in so many words], that the Bible hasn't been tampered with?)
For all that matters, it has stayed essentially the same. Everything that Jehovah wants conveyed to mankind has been and will be conveyed. He always sees His purposes through - that's even tied up in the meaning of His name, which is, "He Causes to Become." Jah has promised that those who honest-heartedly seek His truth CAN find it (John 8:32; Acts 17:26-28); and that His words "ARE TRUTH". (John 17:17) I looked at this again yesterday... Translators have used a pool of some-6000 manuscripts and fragments of the Hebrew Scriptures and a pool of over 13,000 for the Christian-Greek Scriptures, from different parts of the world - for comparison, for accuracy in translation. Comparison can make spurious things show up. Also, keep in mind that the texts in general, in the modern literal translations, are basically the same - without much difference; and a scholarly Bible will note any known significant differences. Most of those relatively few differences are just with spelling or grammar. Only about 1/10,000 of the text of the Bible is seriously debated. The various literal translations are about the same. As an exercise to see this, go look at an 8-Translation of the Christian-Greek Scriptures, paying attention particularly to the translations that are LITERAL. You will basically see differences in WORDING - though much of it is the same - but you can see that the meaning is usually the same.......Even more crucial is this though: God purposely intended for the whole canon of His Holy Scriptures to be intertwined and intra-harmonious. The "contradictions" some claim are there which would contest that are actually not contradictions, upon further examination, in whole scriptural context - the differences dissolve away. HOWEVER, because the Bible was created to be intentionally intra-harmonious, ANY SCRIBAL ERROR or translation error - whether unintended or an intentional tampering (so as to try to promote an actually anti-scriptural, false religious idea [such as hell fire] SHOWS ITSELF UP TO BE SPURIOUS, against other Scriptures, and OUT of harmony with the rest of known whole-scriptural truth. It would be LIKE A WOODTICK that shows up on a person. It might have dug itself in - but its clearly NOT part of the person's own body. So, in the relatively VERY few instances where either error or intentional tampering has occurred, IT IS OBVIOUS. Just to be thorough as translators though, the most scholarly Bibles will still include many of these differences in footnotes - or with "disclaimers", if you will, on them. As probably the most voluminous example, there are spurious "short" and "long" endings" to the gospel of Mark. That the "long" one is not authentically part of the Bible - not in harmony with the rest of the Scriptures - can be seen in that it encourages "believers" to handle poisonous snakes as a test of faith - and that would be in true contradiction to many Scriptures, including what Jesus quoted, "You must NOT put Jehovah your God to the test." (Matthew 4:7; Deuteronomy 6:16) Would Satan continue to try to move dubious persons to try to tamper with the word of God? Of course he would. He has only a short time left to do as much damage and cause as much loss to God, Christ, true worshipers of God, and humanity as possible, before Armageddon Day soon strikes. MIs-representation of God's words can do a lot of damage, as this world has seen - from all of the harm worked by FALSE religions (especially counterfeit "Christianity") who do this as a matter of practice. So, that is why PEOPLE NEED TO STAY ON GUARD, SPIRITUALLY. People need to learn - what the Bible DOES and DOES NOT say. God's words DO have a built-in safety mechanism against tampering - and that is the use of whole-scriptural context, in light of that the Bible can both interpret itself, and show up any error/tampering as being in contradiction to other verses and/or whole-scriptural principles and truth. People need to be familiar with God's words. They mean life. (John 17:3; Matthew 4:4) However, we can be confident that, "the saying of Jehovah endures forever." (1Peter 1:25)
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