Do Christians really believe the Bible is the actual word of God?

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Most Christians haven't read all the way through the bible and don't intend to. They're quite happy with their cherry picked verses or whatever is preached to them week after week at church. If Christians actually believed the bible was the actual word of God, I think more of them would make a sincere effort to actually read it. I mean wouldn't you?...Show more

The Bible was originally written in Hebrew, I think, I could be wrong. But the Translation from Hebrew to other languages, can cause changes in how it is interpreted. One word in Hebrew can mean many different things. So those who interpret any phrase, can possibly get it wrong. Sometimes, what is written, does not make sense. such as " God said Let there be light" before the sun was put in place. How was this then? Well, during the creation of the Universe, things were chaotic, crashing into each other and burning. This caused a lot of bright light in the space, as this happened. So, THERE was light, before the Sun was placed. Like a giant fireworks display, if one was to see it. Gensis says Plants were put on Earth before the Sun was put in place. How was this to help the plants grow? We have to think of God's DAY as being many years long, and not just 24 hours long. And at the very END of the DAY the plants were placed on Earth, it was the evening, and then mere house later, the NEXT DAY of God was began, which was placing the Sun. This means, the Sun was there only hours after the plants. Plants, evening of Day, Sun Morning of next Day. A day could have been millions of years long, but what is important, is that the time between the End of one Day and the Beginning of the next, is only hours. Just as a Year on Earth is 365 days long, but the end of the year, December 31, is only hours away from January, of the next year....Show more

First, you recognize that a God of love and order would see to it that
this generation of humans will have what is needed for salvation. It was actually prophesied that the people who
will come out of the Great Tribulation with salvation will be a great crowd, or a great multitude, which no one
will be able to number coming out of all tribes and nations. Revelation 7:9-15
Then, you look for who is actually doing what would be needed to fulfill that prophecy, a united
congregation who individually and collectively is seeing to it that God's word and Kingdom message is
being distributed and taught all over the world, in all possible languages. Also, that the very best
and earliest manuscripts are used to ensure that what is being taught is what the first century Christians were
taught. You then might want to look at http://www.jw.org
The reason why he used a book and is not imprinting his word in our minds goes back to the idea that he is
giving us a choice. If, say, what Jesus was said to have done in the gospels was what he actually did,
and they killed him anyway, then apparently more is needed to get salvation than knowledge and supernatural
signs. Faith, a repentant attitude, and a willingness to be obedient to God is needed. And he will not force us....Show more

Three answers:
Some Christians believe the Bible is :
1) the actual word of God or
2) God breathed (God made them write the bible by putting words in the minds of the writer) or
3) Written by men that were inspired by God (God inspired the writer to write about Him or the writer was inspired by the acts of God and his disciples/prophets/kings etc)

Then, of course, you get people who combine the above 3 (this is more common)

"the bible has changed so much from it's original writings throughout history, rewritten, ..."

The translations of the Bible are all from the same ancient texts, so there is no actual problem with translating from a translation that was translated from another translation. The translations are from one language to another (duh, but I have a point) - some things cannot be translated with the precision required and things get lost in a translation ... so they do another translation that picks up on a bit of what was lost, and then there is the other translations that pick up various other things.
Eg: A literal translation of "Die son is skerp" is "The sun is sharp"
The sun does not have a cutting edge, so what the bleedin 'ell does that mean?
A semi literal / figurative translation is "The sun is bright"
Ok, so the sun is bright, so what?
A figurative translation is "The sun is so bright that it hurts my eyes"
In this case, the figurative picks up on what is lost in translation 1 and 2. A combination of 1 and 2 leads to the expression of the original language. Similarly, this happens with biblical translations (except there are a few half dozen and not just 3)
Secondly, language morphs. We cannot just rely on a translation from 1650. We won't all understand the subtleties of that expression. Eg - Silly: but back way when, it meant happy, blissful, lucky or blessed. From there it came to mean innocent, or deserving of compassion, only later mutating this sense of naive childishness into a more critical, mocking term, signifying ignorance, feeble-mindedness, and foolish behaviour - the meaning we know today. So if you had to read about "Silly mother Mary" today, you would think she's stupid ... but not so, she was "Blessed mother Mary". So we need to translate the original texts to conform to modern language usage ... this is not like translating from the first English translation into modern English ... this is taking the original Greek, Hebrew, etc and translating it into modern English.

"stories removed, books added and deleted."

Yes stories were removed. This happened before the Bible was even canon ... and then from the first canon in 170AD it changed more and more. They removed books they thought were not as authoritative for ones that were. By 397AD we had what resembles modern canon. These decisions were made by various councils and determined by a few factors such as 1) Was the author an apostle or have a close connection with an apostle? 2) Is the book being accepted by the body of Christ at large? 3) Did the book contain consistency of doctrine and orthodox teaching? 4) Did the book bear evidence of high moral and spiritual values that would reflect a work of the Holy Spirit?

Then you got the Reformation. This involved a deeper look at the biblical cannon and the truths contained in some books. While the books that were removed by the Protestant reformation are not obsolete (they used o still be in the bible but right at the back), they simply contained "errors" or were not truly "Spirit inspired" or some other reason (I suggest you research this if you want to know more, I won't bore you with the details). Those books and stories still have their value, but are felt to not embody what was actual truth (be it spiritual truth or factual truth).

You will actually find that books are removed, rather than added. However, you get weird people wanting to add books like the "Gospel according to Thomas" ... which is ... ahhhhhhh ... look it up and read it, you will see what I mean.

You ask " If it's truly the word from a supernatural being why wasn't it done perfect the first time?"

I found an explication from someone who does think it is the perfect word of God:
"Again, it is crucial to remember that the church did not determine the canon. No early church council decided on the canon. It was God, and God alone, who determined which books belonged in the Bible. It was simply a matter of God’s imparting to His followers what He had already decided. The human process of collecting the books of the Bible was flawed, but God, in His sovereignty, and despite our ignorance and stubbornness, brought the early church to the recognition of the books He had inspired."

Personally, I find this hard to swallow but it is understandable. I am more on the side of group 3 thought mixed with a tiny bit of group 2 thought (from the top of my text wall).


Personal opinion here: Your BA is BS...Show more

I'll be answering all your questions from my perspective.

Is the bible the word of God? Yes it is.

Why wasn't it done perfect the 1st time? From my view on. Their we many events occurring time after time. This mean that many events had to be added.

Why has it been changed so many times? Well as you know there are some Christians out there who are constantly changing the bible to fit a more scientific notion when the God is clearly far from it. Many people are changing the bible to fit others views and liking. Some are doing so to deceive the Christians who are following it....Show more