Atheist Forum

Hi all,
It's my first thread!
*does a happy dance*

Now onto business. Can anybody tell me why there are around 20 different versions of the bible? I've tried searching for information on this myself, but I'm not having much luck.

Is the New Testament the version that most people follow and quote from? How about the New International?

oh confusion, so many different versions of the same piece of fiction.

I was indoctrinated into Catholocism at a young age, but can barely recall which version I studied for my holy communion.

This is worse than upgrading from one version of windows to the next.

Cheers,
J

(apologies for the somewhat fragmented thought processes being displayed in my post, I'm feeling... fragtitious today)

I asked this question at a Christian Union evening once. Apparently there are the original Hebrew and Greek scriptures. These were then translated into English. Then a load of people over time disagreed with the translations and started creating their own. So not only is the Bible internally contradictory, it has been chopped and changed according to whatever the translator thought was good.

I use the King James Version for most quoting. It is widely used and has certain passages that the later versions do not.

Say what? NIV is a translation where the translator takes the sentence and interprets into the best interpretation. NASB takes the sentence and finds the best English word to fit the Hebrew or Greek word. NASB basically leaves the reader up to the responsibility to research the sentence in the Greek or Hebrew if it doesn't sound grammatically correct. I read the NASB and study the Greek/Hebrew. You are right though, you have to be careful when purchasing a Bible, research its Translators to ensure accuracy. There is always problems in translation but this is why it is your responsibility to research thoroughly when reading the text. Most Biblical translations fall into one of these two categories or have a blend of both. Remember, it is your responsibility to study and learn.

Well...no, it isn't. If you want to convince people that your God exists then the onus and burden of proof falls on you, not me. But that's beside the point of my thread, thankyou both for your feedback about the different versions of the bible. I'm still a little confused about why there needs to be 20 different versions of a book that apparently espouses "truth", but there ya go - I'll have to look into it a little more.