Updated American Standard Version
Giving Bible readers what God said not what translators think God meant
In both the Hebrew Old Testament Scriptures and the Greek New Testament, copyists have exercised great care in copying their manuscripts. However, we would be remiss if we did not say that some copyists were inexperienced or took certain liberties with the text that they were copying.
When you open your Bible today, can you be confident that the words you are reading are, in fact, the very corresponding English words that were written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Peter, Paul, James, and Jude nearly 2,000 years ago? Confident, you say? Just how confident are you? Are you confident because of what you know or what you hear?
Sir William Ramsay, an atheist and the son of atheists, tried to disprove the Bible. He was a wealthy person who had graduated from the prestigious University of Oxford. Like Albright, Ramsay studied under the famous liberal German historical school in the mid-nineteenth century.
For the conservative Evangelical Christian, one of their foundational doctrines is “The Bible alone, and the Bible in its entirety, is the Word of God written and is therefore inerrant in the autographs.”
In creating men and women, God had something different in mind than He did for the other creatures. The latter are spoken of as having been created “according to their kinds” (Gen 1:25). Humans, however, are described as being made in the image and likeness of God (1:26–27).
There is a widespread belief among both professional scholars and laymen that the Bible now used by Christians is significantly altered from the historical documents upon which it was based. This, they say, is because of the Church’s agenda to make Jesus a divine figure. What is the truth?
Skeptics believe that to think skeptically makes the world a more moral place. Is this true? What is Skepticism? It is having a skeptical attitude about everything; doubt as to the truth of something. It is the belief that certain knowledge is impossible.
Paul was the author of fourteen letters within the Greek New Testament.[1] Paul’s earliest letters were 1 Thessalonians (50 C.E.), 2 Thessalonians (51 C.E.), Galatians (50-52 C.E.), 1&2 Corinthians (55 C.E.), Romans (56 C.E.), Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Philemon (60-61 C.E.), Hebrews (61 C.E.), 1 Timothy, and Titus (61-64 C.E.). 2 Timothy was penned last, about 65 C.E. This means that the apostle Peter could have been aware of at least thirteen out of fourteen Pauline letters at the time of his penning 2 Peter in 64 C.E., in which he writes,