Expert: J.M.J. West - 10/15/2008

Question
I would like to know where the original hand-written Bible scriptures are now. From where do all these translations come from? Would you be able to recommend a book that is word-for-word in the original languages? And lastly, I was told that what is thought of as fish in the multiplication of the fish story, in the original texts or in Aramaic the word is indeed fish, but it refers to a common edible plant of the time.

Thank you.

Answer
Gina, thanks for your questions.

<<I would like to know where the original hand-written Bible scriptures are now.  >>.

The original hand-written texts, or "autographs", have not survived the wearing of time, but we have thousands of copies which have survived, and they all agree in 99+% of what they say (more below)

(The following is an edit from a handout I designed for my RCIA classes).

Q: Where did we get the Scriptures?

Old Testament (OT):  The Old Testament was composed by a number of authors over the course of a great span of time.   Periodically they were added to, when God sent a new prophet, the legitimacy of whom was made manifest by signs.  They were read by the priests at the temple and revered as holy.  Not all Jews had the same canon.

Deuterocanonicals:  There are seven books (Judith, Tobit, Wisdom, Baruch, 1 & 2 Maccabees and Sirach) and portions of Esther and Daniel, which exist in the Catholic and Orthodox bibles, but not the Protestant bibles.  Most of these are believed to have been penned between 500BC and 200BC.  Whether or not a Hebrew Original exists is debatable.

A Council of Jewish Rabbis in 90 AD at Jamnia sought to settle their canon.  They tossed out these books, along with the Christian Scriptures and writings, because they were the writings in use by this new sect.

The Christians used those books because they were in the Septuagint (LXX), the Greek version of the OT, which the apostles themselves used and quoted from (More than 2/3rds of the NT quotes of OT books are from the Septuagint.  (e.g. The author of Hebrews (11:35) cites 2 Maccabees 7:1, 7-9))

These books were included in every official listing of the Canon of scripture.
1.   Council of Rome in 382
2.   Council of Hippo in 393
3.   Council of Carthage in 397
4.   In 405 Pope Innocent I reaffirmed the canon in a letter to Bishop Exuperius of Toulouse.
5.   Council of Carthage II in 419
6.   II Nicaea (787), which approved the results of the 419 Council of Carthage
7.   Florence (1442),
8.   Trent (1546),
9.   Vatican I (1870), and
10.   Vatican II (1965).

The Reformers of the 16th Century, especially Martin Luther, sought to throw out these books as un-scriptural, based upon their own authority.  They also sought to throw out NT books like James and Revelation, but had less luck there.  

The New Testament:  The 27 Books you’re familiar with, written in part by the apostles and those they worked with.  Some of them were accepted almost immediately, others only after some discussion.  Other books were claimed to be scripture by some and had to be prayerfully discerned

The Canon of Scripture:  It is necessary to have an infallible list of books that are scripture.  If we don’t know what books belong, then we may be missing key texts or, worse yet, we may have erroneous books teaching falsehood.

Jesus gave us a Church, an authoritative body, which in turn authored the scriptures and produced the Canon under the guidance of God.

Both Scripture and its Canon is part of a larger encompassing whole called TRADITION...

"How do we know the bible hasn’t been tampered with?  The [New Testament Gospels] are the most historically reliable texts from antiquity we have.

"We have over 5000 individual manuscripts in different languages from different regions all agreeing on about 99+% of what they say - the varying % dealing with minor word choice or order. All of them were penned within 20-150 years of each other, and the originals we have record of existing less than 50 years after the events they witness to.

"The next best attested classical manuscript we have is Homer's Iliad. We have 650 extant copies that date from the third century AD onward, nearly a millennia away from when homer would have spun his tale; they agree in about 80% of the detail from there

"The New Testament has not only more surviving manuscripts than any other work of antiquity, but they agree to such a degree that we can say that they are 99.5% pure. If the New Testament writings are not trustworthy, then neither is the Iliad, nor anything by Livy, or Cicero, or Plato, or Aristotle...and we should thus disband all classics departments at all colleges for teaching historically unreliable matters!"

<<From where do all these translations come from?>>

Translations come from individuals whose primary language isn't Hebrew or Greek.  They often try to render as best a translation as possible, but some will start from faulty theology and translate accordingly.

<<Would you be able to recommend a book that is word-for-word in the original languages? >>

For the New Testament, I recommend this book:
http://tinyurl.com/3slrbr  (<--, Truncated Amazon Link)

<<And lastly, I was told that what is thought of as fish in the multiplication of the fish story, in the original texts or in Aramaic the word is indeed fish, but it refers to a common edible plant of the time.>>

I've never read this or heard this.

I hope that helps.  Feel free to ask any follow up questions you might have.

Peace of Christ,

-J.M.J. West