This content explores the historical development of the Bible, detailing how it has been transmitted through centuries of copying, translation, and intentional alterations, leading to variations between ancient texts and modern versions.
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hello there guys and welcome back to
another installment of Trey explains the
Bible it's been a while hasn't it today
I've got a video for you guys I've been
cooking up I will discuss ten and
probably more reported intentional
changes that have been made to the Bible
over the centuries and what they exactly
mean in the context of history I will
also be giving you guys a quick
discussion of how the Bible came to us
in its modern form let me be clear
before we start my job isn't to tell you
what these mean to your particular faith
or lack of faith I'm not here to
disprove Christianity or Judaism my job
is to just give you guys the facts in
research of biblical scholars and
scientists so without further ado let's
get into it
a few basics about the Bible that you
don't commonly hear about the Bible is
perhaps one of the most important texts
in history composed of the Old and New
Testament it serves as the primary holy
book for all of Christianity the Hebrew
Bible which is composed primarily of
what is the Old Testament to Christians
serves as one of the primary holy texts
for the Jews both old and New Testaments
also serve a lesser role in Islam the
world's second largest religion about
four billion people worldwide look to
the Bible as authentic Word of God the
words and verses in these texts have
been translated into pretty much every
known language surviving today and the
statements and teachings in the Bible
affect the judgments of billions what
Moses or what Jesus reportedly said
thousands of years ago very much remain
significant to a large portion of
humanity from Texas congressman to
Ugandan priests it is no stretch of the
imagination that the words in the Bible
can be a matter of life or death to some
across the globe
therefore it seems that getting the
words sayings and statements given in
the Bible as accurate as possible is
very much important when I was a kid in
my nondenominational Southern Church yes
I was brought up Christian I was taught
the doctrine of biblical inerrancy or
the belief that the Bible is without
error or Fault in all of its teachings I
was taught that the Bible was the
unchanged and preserved Word of God in
essence it means that the books for
and words of the Bible haven't been
changed or altered since they were
written down around 2,000 years ago for
the New Testament texts such as the
Gospels or even older for the Old
Testament book such as Genesis I always
assumed because nobody told me otherwise
that we had some old physical copies of
the Bible written by Moses or Jesus's
disciples or someone of biblical
importance in modern English mind you
lying around somewhere that all our
modern copies are completely without
change or alteration when compared to
these ancient original texts the holy
book has remained constant since the
beginning of time every word every comma
every period has remained the same with
the help of God himself it was only much
later that I learned that in truth what
I was taught in church was somewhat
misleading if not wholly inaccurate in
the actual history of the Bible itself
isn't far more complicated few
Christians besides those that go to
seminary school even get a chance to
learn about the histories and
intricacies surrounding the ancient
texts that make up the most important
book in human history for instance
because I'm stupid I guess
it took me till my teens to learn that
the Bible was originally not written in
English duh I'm not alone though many a
US Congressmen have made the same
mistake the original New Testament was
written in Greek which was then
translated into Latin by the Vulgate and
or into English by the Tyndale Bible or
King James Bible by later Christian
scribes in the Middle Ages and later
this is made even more curious when one
acknowledges that Jesus's sayings would
have been spoken in Aramaic the common
language in Judea at that time not Greek
which means our modern Bible is at best
a translation of a translation and in
some circumstances a translation of a
translation of a translation of what
Jesus originally would have said from
the air may to Greek to Latin or English
I digress what if I told you that our
modern Bible has been changed and that
the Bible of two thousand years ago is
different than the Bible that survives
today would you believe me well you
don't have to because this is no secret
even Christian and Jewish scholars will
acknowledge this fact again something
you don't typically learn and
Church is that unlike in my childhood
dream there is not some thousands of
years old master copy of the Bible under
lock and key in the Vatican or Library
of Congress in truth the Bible and the
books that contains today the Gospel of
Matthew or Exodus are based on copies
upon copies upon copies of more ancient
texts until you get to the now lost
quote-unquote originals it may be best
to illustrate this concept by example
this is a clear oversimplification of
the truth by the way it's not really a
simple linear path of descent but you
get the idea the Bible you might find
placed in a dirty motel nightstand is a
Gideon's Bible named after a Christian
organization that tries to distribute as
many copies of this Bible as possible
across the world now these Bibles are
often in the ESV or English standard
version published in 2001 they have been
rendered into modern English to best
suit a 21st century audience the ESV is
itself a translation of the Revised
Standard Version of 1952 which is itself
a revision of the American Standard
Version of 1901 which is a translation
of the English revised version of the
late 1800s which is finally a revision
of the King James Version published in
1611 the King James Version of the Bible
is the granddaddy to pretty much all
later English translations staying with
me so far so you might be noticing that
there is a huge gap between 1611 and 33
AD when Jesus supposedly died where
exactly did the King James Bible come
from well the King James used several
sources for its translation for the Old
Testament it used a translation into
English of the Greek Masoretic text or
MT primarily copied edited and
distributed by a group of Jews known as
the Meza rights between the 7th and 10th
centuries ad the oldest surviving copy
of one of these texts dated to around
the ninth century but then again the 7th
and 10th centuries are seven to ten
hundred years away from Jesus where did
these come from
well these measure attic texts are themselves
themselves
copies based off of a now lost older
text in an older one still until we
finally reach the ridge
original Old Testament of the Bible
which has been lost to time a similar
thing can be done with the New Testament
where copies of copies of copies some
lost some surviving can trace us back to
the text written shortly after the time
of Jesus in any case well you begin to
find is that the foundations of our
modern Bibles aren't truth based off of
only a few lines of these copies of the
originals and when you zoom out there's
an entire web of different cousin Bible
lines working parallel to the ones our
modern Bibles have used like the MT line
or the Vulgate line that can be mapped
out like a family tree all of them being
able to trace back to the original texts
created thousands of years ago for
instance we have the Vulgate a latin
version of the Bible used in Catholic
churches which shares a common origin
text with MT but contains unmistakable
differences archaeology has been of
crucial importance to biblical
scholarship for hundreds of years
archaeologists have been uncovering
older versions of the Bible buried in
ancient houses or in caves dated all the
way back to the 1st century AD in BC for
instance we have the Codex van Atticus
or be written in Greek sometime around
the 300s ad and kept in the Vatican
library since at least the 15th century
it is one of the oldest copies of the
Bible in its recognizable form Codex
Sinaiticus written around 330 to 360 AD
is held today in the British Library in
London we have fragmentary documents of
Aquila of sign opes translation the
bible written in the 2nd century even
older copies of individual books as
opposed to complete bibles can be found
even further back papyrus 66 discovered
in egypt and dated to around 200 ad as a
near-complete codex of the Gospel of
John the famous Dead Sea Scrolls a
collection of ancient manuscripts
provide us some of the oldest and
extensive copies of the Old Testament
although all these documents and
manuscripts are mere copies of originals
they nonetheless are valuable to us
scholars have uncovered literally
hundreds of different copies of texts
from the Bible and what they have
discovered about these texts is that
when compared with one another say
papyrus 75 with
codex sinaiticus or the MT with the Dead
Sea Scrolls the text generally read the
same if not near exactly in most places
but in others they vary it can be
different in minor and even major ways
how do we know the Bible has been
changed these areas of alteration or
changed between biblical copies are
called textual variants Wikipedia has an
entire page dedicated to catalog in the
work of biblical scholars and
identifying these points of variation
almost every text we discover there
appears to be dozens of differences when
it is compared with others these changes
likely occur during copies of older
versions of the text tracing back to the
originals a monk or scribed would
manually and painstakingly copy by hand
every word from one document to a newer
parchment four texts as long as the
Bible this could take weeks if not
months if not a year of dedication this
was the world of publishing books prior
to the printing press some changes made
by scribes are accidental or a simple
use of a different word to convey the
same idea a clear example of this is the
New Testament book of Hebrews according
to most manuscripts chapter 1 verse 3
reads like this Christ bears all things
by the word of his power
however in codex phonetic us the
original scribe wrote a slightly
different verse with a verb that sounded
similar in Greek Christ manifests all
things by the word of his power a minor
difference but a change nonetheless a
second scribe centuries later would read
this verse and the newer replicated
manuscript and decide to change the word
manifests back to the more common
reading bears straight up erasing the
word on the document and writing the new
one in the blank space even later a
third scribe would read the exact same
verse on the manuscript notice the
alteration main place predecessor and
erased bears and change it back to
manifests the scribe then proceeded to
put a note written in Greek in the
margin calling the altering scribe an
idiot for changing the verse saying fool
and knave leave the old reading don't
change it or as a different translation
puts it I kid you not
you look like a cuckoo you can still see
this note in the margin to this day and
one of the oldest copies of the Bible
and that was just one word it
illustrates that not only did copying
errors and changes exist but they might
have been abundant in the Bible's early
days when there were less qualified
scribes to identify such errors another
example of a scribe a mistake can be
seen in Luke chapter 12 verse 8 and 9
which typically reads whoever confesses
me before humans the Son of Man will
confess before the angels of God but
whoever denies me well before humans
will deny before the angels of God
however in our oldest papyrus manuscript
of this passage all of verse 9 is left
off as biblical scholar Barr Erman says
it is not difficult to see how the
mistake was made the scribe copied the
words before the angels of God in verse
8 and when his I returned to the page he
picked up the same words in verse 9 and
assumed those were the words just copied
and so he proceeded to copy verse 10
leaving out verse 9 altogether you can
find hundreds of similar errors and
mistakes like these throughout the text
that survived to us today but other
changes as we will discuss in a second
appear to have not been mere mistakes
but intentional and motivated
alterations to the text in some versions
verses words or entire passages have
been added subtracted or changed beyond
recognition scholars both Christian
Jewish and Gnostic and atheist often
agree and recognize the evidence for
such intentional changes there are also
other examples where the Greek text has
said one thing but later translators
rendering the text into a different
language have simply made their own
versions and what the text should say to
solve perceived contradictions other
additions are just that wholly new
additions that weren't part of the text
at all I will spend the rest of this
video featuring a few of these reported
changes in the histories and context
associated with them goliaths height the
battle between the young King David in
the giant Philistine Goliath and the Old
Testament book of Samuel is well known
and perhaps needs no introduction the
encounter is often depicted in cartoons
and children's books a tiny boy up against
against
the giant has described in the English
Bible Houston churches today in 1st
Samuel Chapter 17 verse 4 reads a length
of this a champion named Goliath who was
from Gath came out of the Philistine
camp his height was six cubits and a
span this height would by modern
estimates be a little less than 10 feet
tall towering over the tallest recorded
man ever Robert when lo as stated before
this height originates in the Masoretic
text or MT written around the late 1st
millennium ad however all the oldest
copies of this book in verse such as the
SEPA gen and notably the Dead Sea
Scrolls from the 1st century BC render
Goliath height as a much shorter four
cubits and a span or six feet nine
inches a more historically plausible and
realistic height when compared to the
other reading this shorter Goliath is
also confirmed by other historical non
biblical texts such as the writings of
the historian Josephus in the 1st
century AD it seems like the older four
cubits and a span reading was the
original text of Samuel as opposed to
the 6 cubits in the span reading
Christian scholar and professor J Daniel
Hays agrees with this assessment and
argues for reducing the last height in
modern Bibles the motivation for this
change seems likely to have been that of
a tall tale literally in this case later
scribes perhaps wanting to make David's
achievement of slain a formidable
opponent even more impressive just as a
fisherman is prone to exaggerate the
length of his catch and retellings of
his story over time Goliath went from an
abnormally but yet plausible hiked to
monster out of Mythology in legend
number 9 gospel titles and authors the
titles and authors given in the Gospels
of the New Testament read in most Bibles
in large bold texts the Gospel of Mark
the Gospel of Luke the Gospel of Matthew
and the Gospel John we as readers are
led to assume in some Bibles outright
state that these books were written by
Jesus's disciples indirect eyewitnesses
to the events they described Matthew
being written by well Jesus disciple
Matthew the former tax collector John
written by John son of Zebedee and in
the case of Mark a man connected with
Peter and
Luke named after a traveling companion
mentioned by Paul in Colossians
however this couldn't be further from
the truth as confirmed by early
manuscripts of the documents themselves
originally these Gospels were untitled
and did not name any sort of author they
were written anonymously in the authors
whoever they might have been never
groped their names nor did they write in
the first person or insert themselves
into the narratives this was no secret
or even something that interested early
Christians it was likely assumed at the
time that these texts were not written
by the disciples or by anyone who had
significance in Jesus's life it's
actually quite obvious that the
disciples hadn't written these texts
when one notes that they were written in
Greek by educated Greek speakers likely
outside of Israel maybe from Greece Asia
Minor figure Egypt literacy and the
ancient world was rare by a modern
estimates at the best of times antiquity
only about 10% or so of the population
was able to read and most of these were
concentrated in urban areas like cities
and not in the type of areas where
Jesus's disciples might have been from
keep in mind most of them were fishermen
and hard laborers in the countryside by
all accounts peasants the ability to
read is one thing in the ancient world
it was another to be able to write and
compose a literary work few people in
the 1st and 2nd centuries would have
been able to produce something like the
Gospels the few there were would have
been from eastern cities of the Roman
Empire like Alexandria most scholars
agree that none of the Gospels were
written by eyewitnesses and more likely
to have been written by urban Christians
who were recording oral and written
traditions sayings and stories about
Jesus in his life passed down in
compiling them in a unified text the
Gospels themselves are not apologetic
about this the Gospel of Matthew is
written completely in the third-person
using they to refer to the disciples and
never we the tax collector turned
disciple Matthew was never referred to
as me but instead just him there is zero
indication in the actual text that we
are supposed to be lent to believed this
man also wrote what we are currently
reading same thing with Luke and Mark
the author of the Gospel of John clearly
makes a distinction between himself and
his informant an unnamed disciple whom
Jesus loves
who was the source of the stories and
traditions he is writing down at the end
of the gospel the end of the Gospel of
John reads like this Peter turned and
saw the disciple whom Jesus loved was
following them this is the disciple who
has testified to these things and has
written them we know that his testimony
is true Jesus did many other things as
well if every one of them were written
down I suppose that even the whole world
would not have room for the books that
would be written the anonymous author is
simply stating he gathered this
information for this text from an
eyewitness of Jesus and that he had not
met Jesus himself the author dictated
the gospel from this individual however
they might have been it was only
traditions made decades after the
construction that tried to tie names to
these untitled and anonymous texts in
the names just stuck even though there
is no factual or textual basis for them
in the texts themselves explicitly argue
against it to early Christians it didn't
matter to them who the authors of these
texts were however later Christians
wanted to bring more authenticity to the
documents by making their authors direct
eyewitnesses to the events they
described they would essentially take
names that were mentioned in the New
Testament and say yeah that guy wrote
this with no corroborating evidence the
tradition in our modern Bibles of
providing names and authors to the
Gospels is just not accurate to the
original text I will continue to refer
to these as Mark Luke etcetera for the
sake of brevity number eight women
omitted it may be a surprise to learn
that one of the major divisions in early
Christianity was that of the role of
women in the church we know from
historical records in Christian writings
that certain sects believed women should
have a large involvement in the church
while other sects were more sexist often
limiting women's rights and capabilities
within the confines of religion for
instance preventing women to read or
teach scribes belonging to these two
sects clashed sometimes over the
translations of certain verses for
example in Romans 16 Paul lists several
names and greetings to fellow Christians
of the day and verse 7 he writes salute
Andronicus and Junia my kinsmen and my
fellow prisoners who are of note among
the Apostles who also were in Christ
for me Paul names Andronicus a male name
and Junia a female name suggesting
they're husband and wife to one another
as for most among the Apostles it is
notable as it outright states women can
become apostles and notably church
leaders this would support the pro-women
sects some later translators who ever
rendered jr. as Junius a masculine name
anand ronica snow longer as her husband
but as a traveling companion just two
bros supporting the sexist sex ooh try
saying that a lot of times this is
strange as although jr. was a very
common name for a woman back in those
days there is absolutely no evidence in
the ancient world for the name as Junius
for a dude's name it is very clear Paul
was referring to a woman in this text
and acknowledging her as an apostle but
still to this day some Bibles continue
to her to Junya as a man rather than a
woman some other manuscripts have tried
to circumvent this possible pro-women
leanings in other ways
rendering salute Andronicus and Junia my
kinsmen and my fellow prisoners who are
of note among the Apostles who also were
in Christ before me as salute Andronicus
and Junia my relatives and also greet my
fellow prisoners who are foremost among
the Apostles in this version a woman is
again no longer an apostle but merely a
relative of Paul changing the whole
meaning of the text there are dozens of
other minor changes just like these that
seemed to have been made to reduce the
role of women in the early Christian
church prominent women become in some
versions the wives of prominent men
instances where the wife was named
before the husband were reversed and
others priscilla and aquila two Aquila
and Priscilla Minor and petty changes
many of these may be they reflect of
movement by scribes to reduce or
increase the role of women in the early
church and illustrate a textual battle
of sorts and we can still see this in
the early copies of the Bible that
survived to us today
number seven forgiveness on the cross
the Gospel of Luke recounts Jesus's
crucifixion in Jerusalem and when they
came to the place that is called the
skull they crucified Him there along
with criminals on his right and another
on his left and Jesus said Father
forgive them for they don't know what
they are doing
Jesus's Prayer Father forgive them for
they don't know what they are doing is
often seen as an illustration of Jesus's
compassion and kindness towards those
who are killing him
displaying forgiveness where most would
seek vengeance it's a very nice quote
and personally one of my favorites
however this line curiously is missing
and some of the older manuscripts of
Luke the earliest Greek copy papyrus P
75 dated to about 200 AD as well as a
few other later texts completely lacks
the prayer of forgiveness reading like
this when they came to the place called
the skull they crucified Him there along
with the criminals on his right the
other on his left they divided up his
clothes by casting Lots the people stood
watching and the rulers even sneered at
him but the prayer exists in other
copies such as the codex Sinaiticus
so this raises the question was the
prayer originally in the gospel and then
removed in some versions or was it not
originally in the gospel and then added
later in some versions scholars are
divided on this the motivation
surrounding the alteration of this verse
appear very clear in the prayer Jesus
would be formally wiping away the blame
for those crucifying him namely the
Romans and Jews anti-semitism was
prevalent in certain sects of
Christianity and there were some groups
who blamed and persecuted the Jewish
people for crucifying Jesus these groups
might have found it in their best
interest to omit the line to justify
their actions others suggest adding the
line would allow the gospel to gain
water acceptance in a Roman audience and
under Roman government who might be
pleased with being explicitly absolved
of Jesus's execution to this day we
still don't know and perhaps we'll never
know which verse came first and why was
the prayer forgiveness originally there
or not all we know is that one of the
variants is not the original
the text has been altered at some point
is our modern version wrong or are the
older versions incorrect we don't know
number six the Johanna in kama the
Trinity or the Christian Godhead is a
central doctrine in most sects of
Christianity today which states God is
one but also three distinct beings at
the same time the Father the Son and the
Holy Spirit or Holy Ghost the concept is
so commonplace in the religion now that
some believers never learned that there
was once in fact much heated and even
violent and even deadly debate between
Christians that believed in the Trinity
and those that did not if one reads
carefully the doctrine is never
explicitly stated in the New Testament
and was thus not solidified in the Canon
nor believed by all Christians for
centuries one of the few verses in the
New Testament that operates state the
doctrine of the Trinity appears in
chapter 5 verse 7 and 8 of the First
Epistle of John reading in the King
James Bible as there are three that bear
record in heaven the father the word in
the Holy Ghost and these three are one
and there are three that bear witness in
earth the spirit in the water in the
blood and these three agree in one that
particular statement for there are three
that bear record in heaven the father
the word and the Holy Ghost in these
three are one has come under question by
modern biblical scholars it does not
appear in any of our oldest manuscripts
of this text all of these instead read
like this for there are three that
testify the spirit and the water and the
blood and the three are in agreement or
there are three witnesses bearers the
spirit and the water in the blood even
early Christians have believed in the
Trinity such as clement of alexandria
when quoting this particular verse did
not include the extra words the father
the word in the Holy Ghost the extra
words have been given the name the
Johanna and comma by modern scholars and
is overwhelmingly understood to be an
addition to the original version of
Hurst John first appearing in the Latin
Vulgate after the ninth century and in
Greek manuscripts in the fifteenth
century in all older manuscripts the
comma is completely absent the comma
seems to have originated as a marginal
note in some Latin manual
during the Middle Ages similar to the
one we see in the Codex phonetic Asst
that one scribe calling the other an
idiot however over time the marginal
note was either accidentally or
intentionally incorporated into the
actual text of the Vulgate these altered
text the Vulgate were then translated
back into Greek which then served as the
basis for the English King James
versions it is now widely recognized
that the johanan comma one of the only
examples where the Trinity is explicitly
stated in the Bible was not a part of
the original text of first John and
since the late 1800s have perhaps
correctly been omitted in future
versions of the Bible check what your
Bible says and see if it has kept the
johanan comma or removed it okay so this
video is long enough already so I think
I might split it into two parts stay
tuned for the last six changes to the
Bible in our next episode and make sure
you check out this stuff for yourself
open up your Bible and read it because
there's some pretty cool stuff in there
alright thank you for watching trail
explainer and hope to see you next time
I will probably do a dinosaur one in
between this in the next part so stay
tuned hopefully I get it out pretty soon
bye oh for the longest time
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