Religion — for the most part — is a terrible, awful idea. But more specifically Christianity, and even more the credence these Christians live by: The Bible.
Why the Bible?
It is a book that has been handed to man from man with hundreds of thousands of mistakes through copy editing, emperors of the past and ulterior motives of the authors.
Christianity has evolved a lot since its origins. If we go back 2,000 years ago, Christianity was a very radical idea led by a very radical man.
This man, Jesus, taught some very unprecedented ideas, such as turn the other cheek, do unto others as you would have them do unto you and even give away all of your possessions so that you may enter into the kingdom of heaven.
But because of Jesus’ radical ideas, he was persecuted in a horrific manner and later subjected to a death of brutal suffocation between two criminals.
Even though Jesus was a radical and a criminal he is still one of the most revered persons today, and his teachings continue to be taught and read around the world.
However Jesus did not write the Bible. The Bible was written by man — fallible man at that.
The Bible was written by Jesus’ disciples (who had their own agendas) and then copied hundreds of thousands of times which lead to hundreds of thousands of mistakes, according to Bart Ehrman, professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
In his book “Misquoting Jesus” ( a textual criticism on the New Testament), he says, “one of the problems with ancient Greek texts (writings including the New Testament) is that when they were copied, no marks of punctuation were used, no distinction made between lowercase and uppercase letters, and, even more bizarre to modern readers, no spaces used to separate the words.”
Obviously this leads to great problems to future scribes when they are transcribing the texts.
Take for instance this example Ehrman uses, “the words godisnowhere could mean quite different things to a theist (God is now here) and an atheist (God is nowhere).”
Not only were there mistakes with transcription, but purposeful mistakes made by the authors to change the meaning to fit their own agenda.
Such as Constantine at the Council of Nicaea to issue the relationship between Jesus and God the father in order to better unite his kingdom.
Why do I write about the Bible? The Bible is the foundation of many Christian’s beliefs. It is a book that many Christians derive their teachings from, their ways of life and even what they teach their children.
I believe that few people understand that the Bible is not a book that was passed down from an all encompassing being to man. Rather it was written by man for man.
It is a book that has evolved during the past 2,000 years by mistakes through transcription and translation.
This book should not be such a staple in the majority of people’s lives. I even hesitate to say that the Bible should be used as an historical text.
It even has the date of the Earth wrong.
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dio 2 years ago
Poor grammar and spelling. Awful structure. Factual inaccuracies.
Why was it published?
brandeis 2 years ago
If Jesus had no part in the creation of the Bible, why do you believe a single word it said about him? Why do you even think he existed? What's the point of the entire first part of the article if your conclusion is 'Bible is false', which, by your own internal logic, it must be?
You're a fool. You could sum up this entire tired piece of garbage in 'BIBLE NOT TRUE, MORE AT 10.'
But without the more at 10.
andre86w 2 years ago
thatOUstudent... "English paper's?" Really?
0Kelvin 2 years ago
The last sentence of this article literally made me laugh out loud. What a way to wrap it up!
MckinleyBlues 2 years ago
I cannot believe that your editor would allow such a disrespectful article to be printed in our newspaper, and right next to a "dinosaurs still exist" article, at that. This article is more or less spitting in the face of every Christian on this campus, and that does not sit well with me. You might of well have just told me that my parents aren't real or everything they have taught me, like how to be a genuinely good person, is fundamentally wrong. This is an offending article, and simply bad journalism. Could this not be considered libel towards the entire Christian religion? I do consider myself a spiritual person, but I, myself, do not agree with formal Christian religions, however, I do believe that the Bible was endowed by God. You should not let guest "journalists" write such terrible articles that actually get published. And you should check the facts and citations on your "journalists" before you print an article.
-Disappointed Gaylord Student
briareus 2 years ago
What intrigues me is how the author of this piece knows that the Bible contains "hundreds of thousands of mistakes." In order to identify a "mistake," one must have access to the correct version. In that case, why doesn't the author make a fortune by publishing the one, true version of the Bible? He could even update it by adding a Book of Gibbons.
kcreasey 2 years ago
From the way this was written, it looks like it's an intentionally trolling article. Therefore I pay it no mind. There's always a "Religion sucks/Atheism sucks" at least once a month in this section of the OU Daily.
TheAntiTrevorClark 2 years ago
WHAT? YOU'RE SAYING THE BIBLE ISN'T 100% ACCURATE AND YOU USE LOGIC AND EVIDENCE TO BACK UP YOUR ASSERTION?
uhh.. I... erm... you..YOU'RE WRONG BECAUSE YOU MADE GRAMMATICAL ERRORS!
phew. Glad that's out of the way. Now I can go back to believing my 2000+ year-old mistranslation of a mistranslation of ancient middle eastern mythology.
mythman 2 years ago
briareus,
You don't need to have the original, but two copies of it. If the two differ, at least one of the two copies must be mistaken. We don't know which one is mistaken, but we do know there were mistakes.
We have over 20,000 manuscripts of the New Testament, and no two are alike. To make "hundreds of thousands of mistakes" between them, they need only average 5-10 mistakes per manuscript. That's incredibly plausible.
OkieWXman 2 years ago
Here's some food for thought...
Can anyone imagine what kind of backlash and uproar this article would invoke if it was written about the Quran and the prophet Muhammad?
OkieWXman 2 years ago
Dear Chris Gibbons,
Would it be such a stretch to educate yourself (from more than one source) on a subject before regurgitating your opinions?
I know this is an "opinion" piece, but PLEASE try to include some factual accuracy in your articles.
ethios4 2 years ago
I was able to speak briefly with Bart Ehrman after his talk at OU a few years ago. I asked him specifically if any of the errors he talks about in the bible affect fundamental meanings or Christian doctrine and he said they did not, with just a couple of minor exceptions. I also asked him if he recommended a good bible that accounted for the errors he talked about and he said all modern bibles account for these errors.
So these transcription errors are not nearly as much of a problem as the haters would like them to be. Seems some people let their anti-Christian dogma get in the way of their understanding of the subject.
LauraGibbs 2 years ago
Not only is Bart Ehrman's book written in paragraphs without grammatical errors, it is - more importantly - a scholarly and extremely informative piece of writing, very useful and well-intentioned, and provocative in the best sense of the word. Which is to say, it is unlike this confused, inflammatory and very poorly written opinion piece in every way.
LauraGibbs 2 years ago
It's too bad that Bart Ehrman's excellent book (one of many) has been so superficially and partially represented here in your opinion piece. "A textual criticism on the New Testament"...? You might start by looking up the meaning of "textual criticism," since it is not the same as "criticism" in the sense that you seem to understand it (a critique, denunciation, etc.). To call something "a textual criticism on the New Testament" does not make any sense, although it is true that the topic of Ehrman's book is the scholarly tradition of textual criticism, which you can read about here at Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Textual_...
Also, as I recall, you wrote the recent opinion piece about the need for higher standards in the classroom - is that right? I would suggest that this opinion piece exemplifies the need for higher standards at the OU Daily itself. For example: "The Bible is the foundation of many CHRISTIAN'S (sic) beliefs. It is a book that many Christians derive their teachings from, THERE (sic) ways of life and even what they teach their children."
Although, hmmmmm, maybe this was arch-irony on your part, putting textual errors into the article so that we could experience fallibility here for ourselves...?
But seriously, does anybody proofread the Daily anymore? Do the same errors that appear in the online edition appear in the print edition also? It's pretty hard trying to uphold writing standards in the classroom when even the campus newspaper cannot manage to set a decent example.
As for the demise of the paragraph, I don't know what to say... Does the print edition of the paper have paragraphs? Or does the content appear in Twitter-sized bursts like what we see here in the online edition? Twitter-sized bursts are good for tweets, but they are not a way to make a real argument.
Mesocyclone 2 years ago
I won't harp on the fact that had this article, merely a sorry excuse of a platform for attacking religious faith, been published about any other religion than Christianity, it would have been instantly labeled as hate speech and bigotry.
Grammar mistakes in your article notwithstanding, I am compelled to correct you on the following: "But because of Jesus' radical ideas, he was persecuted in a horrific manner and later subjected to a death of brutal suffocation between two criminals." The proper term describing Jesus' death is "crucifixion", and while he did ultimately die of asphyxiation after hanging in torment on the cross for several hours, I would respectfully request you use the appropriate term, "crucifixion", when describing Jesus' death. He was not merely "subjected to a death of brutal suffocation", he was mercilessly beaten, had a sharp crown of thorns forced on his head, forced to carry a heavy wooden cross while being beaten continuously along the long route to his execution, and finally, crucified by having long nails driven into his hands and feet. Only after all of this suffering and torment did he finally die of asphyxiation.
Yes it is true that the Bible is transcribed by men, and because of that, the transcriptions and translations are not perfect, especially the modern English translations. Many Christians, including Catholics, do not treat the entire Bible as the "literal" word of God. Many translations of the Bible, such as the Book of Genesis, are properly interpreted metaphorically rather than literally. For example, I don't believe that God actually created the world in seven 24-hr human days, and nor do a lot of Christians. The text of the Bible was written in a way that the people of the time could best understand and relate to it. The Bible is understood to be the "Divinely inspired" word of God - not every word of it can be taken literally, but it doesn't negate the essential meaning behind it. There are some aspects that we do take more literally than others. For instance, we do believe the flood happened (every religious culture acknowledges a great flood), and the exodus is a historical event, and yes, we do take the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus literally. But there are other aspects of the Christian faith as well. Catholics in particular derive their faith not only from the Bible, but from various revelations of God and miracles not found in the Bible. The Bible is not a perfect document, but it is an essential revelation of God to humanity, and it is principally through the Bible that we understand the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. It takes true faith indeed to be able to trust that God that can work through imperfect people and imperfect documents and translators to fulfill His ultimate plan for us. Food for thought.
Okvfx 2 years ago
More prime examples of the ground breaking journalism happening over at OU!
Given at one point half a decade ago OU journalism/comm students were shoe-ins for internships and new outside hires. However due to the gritty investigative reporting from students such as this they are now the greatest source of inner office forwards.
While some would attack this article I commend it because cat videos get old after awhile.
thatOUstudent 2 years ago
I think this article is worse than some of the English paper's I've written. Why did it make it into the daily?
JenamoR4 2 years ago
Although the writer's grammar and argument strength is lacking, I feel no need to attack him based on these principles. The fact is religion is not fact. It is equally as unintelligent to comment on his OPINION column pointing out weaknesses in his argument stating that he has no strong evidence for the fallacies he states are in the bible, when one has no strong evidence for complete truth in the bible. He makes intelligent points that are at least researched. Unless he is a student of classical languages he had to research the fact that in ancient Latin or Greek there is no punctuation and no spaces between words. He also found and read a book to support his ideas, I'm assuming it does because I have not read the aforementioned book. Also I appreciate people articulating their beliefs via this outlet, but one has to admire the author's courage to write about a controversial topic in his school's newspaper which is more than I would have done. Bravo in stepping up to the plate and taking a chance Chris. (I personally enjoyed the age of the earth comment)
Ducky 2 years ago
Mr. Gibbons,
Even without any consideration for the actual argument being made, this is one of the most poorly written articles I have read in the Daily. It is garbage. It is incredible that something like this was actually presented in the Daily. Actually, it is embarassing.
"Why do I write about the Bible? The Bible is the foundation of many Christian’s beliefs. It is a book that many Christians derive their teachings from, their ways of life and even what they teach their children.
I believe that few people understand that the Bible is not a book that was passed down from an all encompassing being to man. Rather it was written by man for man."
Mr. Gibbons, what is your point? Nothing you could possibly say is going to change the minds of the hundreds of millions of people on this planet that believe the Bible is, to some degree, a revelation from God. There isn't a single coherent argument in this piece that would compel any religious person to reevaluate their beliefs. Furthermore, it is so sophomoric and poorly structured that the only thing any reasonable peron would ask themselves after reading it is "why do they let these %*#@ers write articles at OU?".
This is nothing more than an attempt to get people worked up. There is nothing informative or thought-provoking in this. It is sad to see the Daily used for nothing more than insulting as big a segment of the population as possible for no other purpose than for some pompous jerk to feel like part of an enlightened minority.
How about informing the public about important, relevant, timely issues and focusing less on troling for emotional reactions?
Please, at least for a while, no more articles about homosexuality, abortion, or God.
D
Ari 2 years ago
Lee Strobel makes an excellent point asking the question, "Who was Jesus?" What enraged the religious teachers at the time was not that Jesus was super good or that his teachings were anything different from their book of law. He simply claimed that he was God incarnate. The sin of blasphemy was the charge laid against him that led to his eventual death. Jesus never broke a law that he didn't enrich with his teaching. He said he came as a fulfillment to the law. Law finds meaning or application in the exercise of it and Jesus' life was aimed to show that love is the ultimate true law. He healed a man on the Sabbath, and when accused of working asked if it was not alright to do good on a day of forced rest.
Jellay 2 years ago
For all of you who doubt the trustworthiness of the bible. Take a look at a REAL article done with actual research.
http://alwaysbeready.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=99&Itemid=43
LauraGibbs 2 years ago
What makes Bart Ehrman's work so interesting (not just in Misquoting Jesus, but in his other books too) is that he comes from the apologetics background represented by Jellay's "Always Be Ready" website (Ehrman got his undergraduate training at Moody Bible Institute). Later, though, he embraced the broader tradition of textual criticism (as outlined in Misquoting Jesus). The science of textual criticism is not bound by the faith-based apologetic tradition. While apologetics does play an important role in many people's lives, it does not have a lot to offer to folks like myself who are interested in the textual history of the Bible and its cultural significance, rather than as a touchstone for my own beliefs. That's why I was so disappointed by this opinion piece. Ehrman's books are well worth reading, but it's hard to imagine that anybody would feel inspired to go read Ehrman after reading this sloppy and inflammatory representation of his work.