Okay,
So I had a conversation with a customer yesterday, who didn’t believe in the bible because it had been translated so many times.
The only time an official copy of the bible was translated from language to language to language was before Europeans could read Greek or Hebrew. They translated a manuscript in Latin to whatever language they were using.
Now, when people translate, they take the original Greek, the original Hebrew, and translate it to the written language of those who would receive the gospel.
It has not been translated from Greek to French to Italian to Syro-Phonecian.
It’s the same with any other manuscript. Say you were going to translate Gawain and the Green Knight (an excellent language is by J. R.R. Tolkien). He took the manuscript, and translated it into modern English. I have that book on my shelf. I also have the bible (three of them, actually), but each one was translated from the original text. With the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, we know that the changes from copying the Hebrew and Greek over time is differnent by .1%, such as a difference in “That your joy may be complete” to say “That our joy may be complete,”
What does Jesus say about The Law? and “It is easier for Heaven and earth to pass away than the least jot nor little disappear from the Law,”
The Law is more real, more true, than the air we breathe, the blood we bleed. God’s Word does not change. You can translate it. But the result is the skill of the translator. Short of the “New World,” version of the Jehovah Witnesses, or the addition of the Book of Mormon by the Mormons, the bible is reliable. Don’t get your information about anything contained in the bible from Time magazine. Go to the bible. Go to God’s Word. But know that you will not have a spiritual understanding of it apart from the Person of Jesus Christ. Unless the Holy Spirit opens your mind to understand it, it will not make sense to you.
A reason might be to uncover whether the bible is true or reliable or not. You can read the story of Lee Strobel in “The Case for Christ”, “The Case for the Bible” You can try to find out yourself. You will either dismiss it, or you will find that there is something special about this book.
If you want to know if God/Jesus are real. Pray something like,”God, if you’re real, show yourself to me,”
For “He is not far from any of us,”
Trem