WHO WROTE THE BIBLE?

God promised to preserve His words. He never said what language. God can accomplish His preservation in any language He so chooses. I believe He chose to preserve His completed word in English through the King James Bible.

Many of the False Gospels writings like the Gospel of Thomas, actually there were other 20 false gospels, 8 False Acts, 4 False epistles and 7 false Apocalypses. They were never accepted by anyone as canonical since they teach Mariolatry, salvation by the legal observances, legendary accounts of the apostles, etc.. These writings are called Pseudepigrapha.

If God is behind the preservation, yes He can.

Jeremiah 36:32 Then took Jeremiah another roll, and gave it to Baruch the scribe, the son of Neriah; who wrote therein from the mouth of Jeremiah all the words of the book which Jehoiakim king of Judah had burned in the fire: and there were added besides unto them many like words.

The “originals” were destroyed. God had Jeremiah make a copy and add to the originals many like words. Do we have the originals today?

Let’s not put more emphasis on the originals than God does. If God thought we needed the originals, then He would have preserved them for us. They have been destroyed.

The problem is that we no longer produced the "original text", we just need to accept by faith that there was once an "original text" and the promise of preservation is kept in English KJB.

But, for 1500 years, the Bible contained the Canon which included the apocryphal books'. Martin Luther decided to drop these 7 books from the Bible, he also wanted to drop the 'Epistle of Straw'. James Letter in the New Testament..

After 1500 years, what authority did Martin have to decide which books should stay in the Bible. Doesn't the Bible itself warn about changing the Bible?

Revelation 22:19, And if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his part from the tree of life and from the holy city, which are written in this book.

John, I understand what you are saying. I view such instances from a different perspective. I see non-canonical writings quoted in the inspired Scriptures and given the inspired seal of truth, but I do not gather from that, that the non-canonical writing is inspired by the Holy Spirit, for instance:

"One of themselves, even a prophet of their own, said, The Cretians are alway liars, evil beasts, slow bellies. This witness is true. Wherefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith;" (Titus 1:12-13, KJV)

Paul certainly did not mean to say that Epimenides the poet considered by the Cretians a prophet, was himself inspired by the Holy Spirit. But Paul by inspiration did state that what Epimenides wrote was true.

A translation by man, even the LXX is not inspired as can be seen in Isaiah 7:14. The verse, literally, word for word, by Formal Equivalence translation can be correctly rendered:

"Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, a young woman shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Imman′u-el." (Isa 7:14, RSV)

The Hebrew for "young woman" is in Strong's Dictionary defined: "‛almâh, al-maw', Feminine of H5958; a lass (as veiled or private)" and in the KJV is found 7 times: twice as 'maid', twice as 'virgin', twice as 'virgins' and once as 'damsels'.

The Septuagint renders the verse in a Dynamic Equivalence style translation as:

"Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; behold, a virgin shall conceive in the womb, and shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Emmanuel." (Isa 7:14, LXXE)

Matthew quotes from the Septuagint and gives approval of the LXX Dynamic Equivalence translation accuracy:

"Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; behold, a virgin shall conceive in the womb, and shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Emmanuel." (Isa 7:14, LXXE)

I do not understand Matthew to be saying the LXX is inspired by the Holy Spirit, but the LXX gives the true meaning of the Hebrew. There are times the LXX errs as compared with the KJV translation of the Hebrew:

"And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me[Yahweh] whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn." (Zech 12:10, KJV)

"And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and compassion: and they shall look upon me, because they have mocked me, and they shall make lamentation for him, as for a beloved friend, and they shall grieve intensely, as for a firstborn son." (Zech 12:10, LXXE)

Don't get me wrong, for modern translations I do use the RSV, NRSV, NEB and REB; but the KJV, along with the RV, is my primary study Bible and the more I study, the higher my view of the scholarship and integrity of the KJV translators and I prefer it in many passages.

It seems that you are promoting a verbal plenary inspiration of Scripture, such that God dictated it verbatim. This view does not hold up under careful examination.

Martin Luther had no such authority; he had opinions. You have opinions. Neither carries more authority than the other.

You are correct in one aspect, Martin Luther had no authority to change the Bible. Yet he did. He eliminated 7 books from the Old Testament because he didn't agree with some of their teachings. These books had been in the Bible for over 1200 years. So, how could he do that?

God wrote the Bible when He told prophets what to write. The possibility exists that people can do back and change the texts. We have so many versions and translations of the Bible now and some appear to be heavily corrupted.

There’s good evidence that the majority of the Bible is true and accurate. I’m not a KJV-onlyist or anything, but it’s solid and consistent as far as I can tell. Despite the somewhat archaic language, it’s a good Bible to build a foundation of scriptural knowledge on.

Huh? "Appear"? or: Most ARE heavily corrupted - just sayin' 'cuz of ALL the satanic
Division That Abounds, eh?

Perhaps you should establish, why you think this important. Please give your reasoning, for questioning the accepted Canon of Holy Scripture.

That is incorrect. It is from about 200 BC that the Hebrew Tanakh was translated into the Greek Septuagint (LXX). And that is when all those apocryphal books were added. The Hellenistic Jews were not as meticulous about what went into the corrupted LXX. But long before that the Catholic scholar Jerome had already identified all the apocryphal books and wanted to exclude them. But the pope at the time prevailed and seven books were added to the OT as though they were Scripture. So when Martin Luther came along, he was only following the lead of Jerome. Luther himself was unsure about certain NT books, but they remained in his German translation (since he was following the other Reformers).

I’m thinking of translations into English from the earliest known manuscripts. Sometimes it’s impossible to translate something accurately if a word doesn’t exist for the the translated word. Often times they have to add to the original texts to explain the word using many words. That’s just a limitation of translations. That’s the appearance of corruption I was thinking of.

A verbal dictation of the scriptures is certainly one method God used to compose the scriptures. We can one such example in the book of Jeremiah. Also, the creation account, where there were no eye witnesses, either had God dictate the events of this account, or inspire his words verbatim to a scribe.

Jeremiah 36:2 (KJV 1900)
2 Take thee a roll of a book, and write therein all the words that I have spoken unto thee against Israel, and against Judah, and against all the nations, from the day I spake unto thee, from the days of Josiah, even unto this day.

Either way, we know that every word came from the mouth of God, this is why it's called the word of God.

Psalm 12:6 (KJV 1900)
6 The words of the Lord are pure words:
As silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times.

2 Timothy 3:16 (KJV 1900)
16 All scripture is given by inspiration of God (God breathed), and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:

It is not the original parchments that God promised to preserve from this generation forever, it was the words written on them.

Psalm 12:6–7 (KJV 1900)
6 The words of the Lord are pure words:
As silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times.
7 Thou shalt keep them (the words), O Lord,
Thou shalt preserve them (the words) from this generation for ever.

In other words, no matter how many times the scriptures had to be re-written in order to preserve God's original words, we can be sure that God was the one preserving his word pure and he continues to do so. The text we now have in our possession (the Received text and the Masoretic text) are completely preserved by God, as per His word.

What is not promised to be preserved is any other word besides. I have looked into various Bibles and compared them against the original text, and I have found that the KJV is by far the most faithful to the original word of God in its translation. That being said, anyone who has compared the KJV against the original text will find the same problem contained in every other translation. That is that it contains errors as well. I have learned that God has permitted such errors in every translation in order to conceal truth from those not willing to dig for it (like compare it against the original). Such neglect results in the misunderstanding of passages which contain great doctrinal teachings.

I would like to provide just one example of many:

Matthew 28:1 (KJV 1900)
In the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre.

If you look at the original text, you will see that the word translated as "sabbath" is actually plural. This may have not made sense to the translators at the time, so they decided to translate it as a singular word instead. Then, as the continued with this verse, the came across the exact same Greek word again (sabbatōn) which is once again, plural. Well, you can see how this just doesn't seem to make sense to translate it as God had wrote it, so they decided to translate a plural word as "day of the week" which is singular. But they couldn't translate it as "days of the week" because, again, it just doesn't make sense.

And so, I hope you can see that our logic in this passage has superseded what God wrote in his original text. But what happens if we translate it according to the way it was written? Well, it would read like this:


Matthew 28:1 (KJV 1900)
In the end of the SABBATHS, as it began to dawn toward the first of SABBATHS, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre.

God has hidden a very important doctrinal truth here. One that has confused those who hold to a 7th day sabbath and those who hold to the Sunday worship day because BOTH sides have a valid argument. God's laws are everlasting.

Psalm 119:152–153 (KJV 1900)
152 Concerning thy testimonies, I have known of old. That thou hast founded them for ever.
153 Consider mine affliction, and deliver me: For I do not forget thy law.

God commanded that we were to observe the Sabbath, and during the Old Testament, God established the Sabbah to be on the 7th day of the week. Every single Sabbath. But during Jesus' earthly ministry, he began to do some strange things on the Sabbath day, he began to violate it, or so it seemed.

Luke 6:1–5 (KJV 1900)
And it came to pass on the second sabbath after the first, that he went through the corn fields; and his disciples plucked the ears of corn, and did eat, rubbing them in their hands. 2 And certain of the Pharisees said unto them, Why do ye that which is not lawful to do on the sabbath days? 3 And Jesus answering them said, Have ye not read so much as this, what David did, when himself was an hungred, and they which were with him; 4 How he went into the house of God, and did take and eat the shewbread, and gave also to them that were with him; which it is not lawful to eat but for the priests alone? 5 And he said unto them, That the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath.

The Pharisees were teachers of the law and they were right (in this instance). God commanded that everyone prepare their food the day before the sabbath, yet here is Christ and his disciples doing it on the sabbath day. And while this was certainly a 7th day sabbath still, the language God chose here is extremely curious. He said, "on the second sabbath after the first". Christs actions were teaching us that God was about to make a change, not in his law of observing the Sabbath, but rather in the day it would be observed. This is what all of Christ's healings pointed to on the sabbath. It meant that the sabbath would no longer be as day of physical rest, but it would be a day of much spiritual work (like preaching the gospel so that people could become spiritually healed, meaning saved).

The phrase, "the second sabbath after the first" points to the change God would make that is hid in the language of Matthew 28:1 (among other verses). It teaches us that the era of 7th day sabbaths (plural) came to and end ("In the END of the SABBATHS"). And that a new era of sabbaths would now begin the very next day (as it began to dawn toward the first of SABBATHS). This is what God is pointing us to by saying, "the second sabbath (Sunday) after the first sabbath (Saturday/7th day).

It is correct that the Sabbath was always to be observed, but God is the one who dictates when the sabbaths would be. This is what he means by "the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath". And it is also correct that Sunday, the first day of the week, was when Christ arose from the grave which began the first of Sabbaths to continue to be observed. I apologize for the long reply.

My reasoning is simple, the poster stated that people determined what Scripture should be included in the Bible, the Old and New Testament. I as a simple question, who were these people that made such a determination of what belonged in the Bible and what didn't. Simple straightforward question. After all, the Bible just didn't fall out of the sky. Someone determined what books belonged in the Bible. So who made the determination? It's a very legitimate question.

@John146 , another example we can find is in the translation of Genesis 2:7.

Genesis 2:7 (KJV)
And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

Once again, the translators decided to take a plural word and translate it as singular. As a general rule, if God intends for a word to be singular or plural, we should not take it upon ourselves (unless we have ample biblical justification) to change a plural word to a singular word and vice versa. We learn this here:

Galatians 3:16 (KJV 1900)
Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ.

The only time I have seen ample biblical (not logical) justification was when it came to translating the word "Elohim" which is a plural word, but the scriptures make it abundantly clear that Elohim is ONE God.

Deuteronomy 6:4 (KJV 1900)
Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God (Elohim) is one Lord:

Now, in Genesis 2:7, the translators translated the plural Hebrew word for "lives" as a singular word "life". They did this quite frequently actually. The verse should read:

Genesis 2:7 (KJV)
And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of LIVES;

But this (like Matthew 28:1) doesn't make a lot of sense. At least not until you search it out further and relaize that not only does God use this phrase with human beings, but also with animals (even just one animal).

Genesis 7:15 (KJV)
And they went in unto Noah into the ark, two and two of all flesh, wherein is the breath of LIVES (not "life"). (here, multiple animals are in view).

Exodus 22:4 (KJV)
If the theft be certainly found in his hand alive (or, HAVING LIVES), whether it be ox, OR ass, OR sheep; he shall restore double. (single animal is in view here, but same word "lives")

So, the words “lives” has nothing to do with a quantity of animals or people in a particular context, but it has everything to do with the one who gives the life. It has everything to do with God.

Psalm 36:9 (KJV)
For with thee (meaning with God) For with thee is the fountain of LIVES (not life): in thy light shall we see light.

So, the word “lives” describes who God is, the same way that the word “GOD” itself (Elohim) is a plural word describing one God in three deities.

1 Samuel 17:36 (KJV)
Thy servant slew both the lion and the bear: and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be as one of them, seeing he hath defied the armies of the living God.

Just like all the verses I listed above are incorrectly translated as singular words when they are in fact plural, the phrase in 1 Samuel 17:36, "the living God", is also translated incorrectly. It should read, "...the armies of the God of LIVES). It is only when we take the time to correct the translations, that we begin to notice an abundance of spiritual truth come forth. And it seems like God allowed these errors for 2 reasons that I could see (there may be more). The first is so that we don't place our trust in something that isn't inspired by God, like any translation, but only in the preserved Word of God. And the second, is because God tells us that he conceals words in order that his people would search them out. And knowing that translations done by imperfect people would naturally contain errors such as these, was a perfect way for God to accomplish that and lead us back to his original writings to confirm or correct any word.

Proverbs 25:2 (KJV 1900)
It is the glory of God to conceal a THING (dabar): But the honour of kings is to search out a MATTER (dabbar).

The word "thing" and "matter" are the exact same Hebrew words most commonly translated as "WORD".

Proverbs 25:2 (KJV 1900)
It is the glory of God to conceal a WORD: But the honour of kings is to search out a WORD.

Dictation... the style of the writer isn't in the writing...


You mean inspiration, but fully guided?

You NEVER ask a direct question you are ALWAYS seeking to lead people to a conclusion which you think is correct

In this case you are trying to establish that it was the Catholic church which decided what was scripture. Therefore you think the Catholic church gave us the bible ... it's a myth. There was no pope in Rome or anywhere else when Peter wrote his letters.