Scripture Amplifications and ChangesIn the book "Let There Be Light" by Rocco Errico there are 7 keys to understanding the Bible, one of which is amplification by the author. Here are some excerpts from the book: "Amplification
is
the
final key that helps us unlock Scripture. What do I mean by the term
amplification? I chose amplification because in our culture
exaggeration carries
a negative implication. We find it very difficult to accept the notion
that
exaggeration exists in the sacred book we call the Bible. In the Near
Eastern
culture, Semites amplify an event and picturesquely color a situation.
This is
totally acceptable and agreeable to Eastern listeners. Many passages of
the
Bible contain exaggerated speech and story amplification. Biblical
authors like
to amplify so that they may glorify an idea or event. The seeming
contradictions
we find in various verses of the Bible come from the author's
amplification,
especially concerning numbers and locations. As mentioned earlier,
Eastern
people do not care for exactness or literal accuracy. To them it makes
no
difference whether there were two hundred or five hundred people
present, or,
for that matter, even a thousand people. Here are some examples of
exaggeration: "...their
camels were without number, as the sand by the seashore in multitude." (JG 7:9 ) One writer says that the walls of the cities of Canaan "were fenced up to heaven." (Deut 1:28) So, was Jesus' miracles an exaggeration? Was Jesus' supposed virgin birth and resurrection the writers means to amplify the believed god-nature of this son-of-man that they revered? Now that we know this bad habit that Arabic people have, it is only logical that when reading the Bible we focus only on the moral teachings and ignore the amplifications. Following are excerpts from the book "Misquoting Jesus; The story behind who changed the Bible and why" by Bart Ehrman who heads the department of religious studies at the University of North Carolina. pg 10; "Not only do we not have the originals [of scripture], we do not have the first copies of the originals. We don't even have copies of the copies of the originals, or copies of the copies of the copies of the originals. What we have are copies made later - much later. In most instances, they are copies made many centuries later. And these copies all differ from one another, in many thousands of places. As we will see later in this book, these copies differ from one another in so many places that we don't even know how many differences there are. Possibly it is easiest to put it into comparative terms: there are more differences among our manuscripts than there are words in the New Testament." pg 13; "It is a radical shift from reading the Bible as an inerrant blueprint for our faith, life, and future to seeing it as a very human book, with very human points of view, many of which differ from one another. Occasionally I see a bumper sticker that reads: "God said it, I believe it, and that settles it." My response is always, What if God didn't say it? What if the book you take as giving you God's words instead contains human words? What if we have to figure out how to live and what to believe on our own, without setting up the Bible as a false idol - or as an oracle that gives us a direct line of communication with the Almighty? There are clear reasons for thinking that, in fact, the Bible is not this kind of inerrant guide to our lives: among other things, as I've been pointing out, in many places we don't even know what the original words of the Bible actually were." pg 52; "The third century church father Origen, for example once registered the following complaint about the copies of the gospels at his disposal: "The differences among the manuscripts have become great, either through the negligence of some copyists or through the perverse audacity of others; they either neglect to check over what they have transcribed, or, in the process of checking, they make additions or deletions as they please." Origen was not the only one to notice the problem. His pagan opponent Celsus had, as well, some seventy years earlier. In his attack on Christianity and its literature, Celsus had maligned the Christian copyists for their transgressive copying practices: "Some believers, as though from a drinking bout, go so far as to oppose themselves and alter the original text of the gospel three or four or several times over, and they change its character to enable them to deny difficulties in face of criticism." (Against Celsus 2.27)" pg 155: "We know of a number of Christian groups from the second and third centuries that had an "adoptionistic" view of Christ. This view is called adoptionist because its adherents maintained that Jesus was not divine but a full flesh-and-blood human being whom God had "adopted" to be his son, usually at his baptism. J. J. Wettstein examined the Codex Alexandrinus, now in the British Library, and determined that in 1 Timothy 3:16, where most later manuscripts speak of Christ as "God made manifest in the flesh", this early manuscript spoke instead of Christ "who was made manifest in the flesh". The change is very slight in Greek - it is the difference between a theta and an omicron, which look very much alike. A later scribe had altered the original reading, so that it no longer read "who" but "God" (made manifest in the flesh). In other words, this later corrector changed the text in such a way as to stress Christ's divinity. It is striking to realize that the same correction occurred in four of our other early manuscripts of 1 Timothy, all of which have had correctors change the text in the same way, so that it now explicitly calls Jesus "God". This became the text of the vast majority of later Byzantine (medieval) manuscripts - and then became the text of most of the early English translations. This would be an example of an anti-adoptionistic change, a textual alteration made to counter a claim that Jesus was fully human but not himself divine." pg 165; "In one of our oldest Greek manuscripts, as well as in several Latin witnesses, we are told: "And taking bread, giving thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, "This is my body. But behold, the hand of the one who betrays me is with me at the table." (Luke 22:19-21) In most of our manuscripts, however, there is an addition to the text, an addition that will sound familiar to many readers of the English Bible, since it has made its way into most modern translations. Here, after Jesus says "This is my body", he continues with the words "which has been given for you; do this in remembrance of me; and the cup likewise after supper, saying 'this cup is the new covenant in my blood which is shed for you." The verses, as familiar as they are, do not reflect Luke's own understanding of the death of Jesus. For it is a striking portrayal of Jesus' death - this may sound strange at first - that he never, anywhere else, indicates that the death itself is what brings salvation from sin. Nowhere in Luke's entire two-volume work (Luke and Acts) is Jesus' death said to be "for you". In fact, on the two occasions in which Luke's source (Mark) indicates that it was by Jesus' death that salvation came (Mark 10:45, 15:39), Luke changed the wording of the text (or eliminated it). Luke, in other words, has a different understanding of the way in which Jesus' death leads to salvation than does Mark (and Paul, and other early Christian writers). It is easy to see Luke's own distinctive view by considering what he has to say in the book of Acts, where the apostles give a number of speeches in order to convert others to the faith. In none of these speeches, though, do the apostles indicate that Jesus' death brings atonement for sins (e.g., in chapters 3,4,13). It is not that Jesus' death is unimportant. It is extremely important for Luke - but not as an atonement. Instead, Jesus' death is what makes people realize their guilt before God (since he died even though he was innocent). Once people realize their guilt, they turn to God in repentance, and then he forgives their sins." Arch-Deacon Wilberforce: |