Reddit mentions of How We Got the Bible

Perhaps an example will help.

>Yet problems arise and persist in the making of books. In modern books it is not unusual to see glaring mistakes. Some of the greatest mistakes in the history of the Bible have occurred since the invention of printing. More than four hundred errors in the first edition of the King James Bible were corrected in a subsequent edition two years later. In our own time, despite all concentrated efforts to the contrary, translations such as the Revised Standard Version and the New International Version have not been exempt from the plague of misprints.
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>If in modern times errors somehow appear in printed copies of the Bible, it is not difficult to see how mistakes slipped unnoticed into the New Testament manuscripts long ago. All ancient books had to be produced by hand, and no human hand is so exact or eye so sharp as to preclude the possibility of error. So errors were made, errors were copied, and errors were mixed in with the pure text.
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>A scribe especially might try to remove any difficulty in the texts of the Gospels. If he found a statement of Jesus in one Gospel similar to a statement in another, he might modify one to make it in perfect agreement with the other. This may explain a variant found in two verses of Matthew and Luke. The King James Version of Matthew 11:19 reads, "But wisdom is justified of her children," an exact parallel of Luke 7:25. However, the more recent translations have "works" instead of "children" in agreement with our earliest manuscript authorities. We surmise that at some early date "works" was changed to "children" by a copyist to bring the phrase in harmony with Luke's Gospel. Thus we are practically certain that originally the two records of Jesus' saying were not the same. This, to be sure, is what one frequently finds in the Gospels, for in quoting Jesus, the Gospel writers often do not give his words verbatim.

How We Got the Bible by Neil R. Lightfoot, third edition pages 88-91

Another example from the same book on pages 99-100:

>Another passage of interest is found in Acts 8:37. The King James translation of this verse reads, "And Phillip said, if thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God." These words are represented as part of a conversation between Philip the Evangelist and the eunuch at the time of the eunuch's baptism. These are familiar words, stressing the importance of faith in Jesus Christ. Yet the words are not found in the American Standard Version or the Revised Standard Version. These and other recent translations, on the basis of the evidence, are compelled to omit this verse from the Book of Acts. It is true that a sixth-century uncial, some good minuscule manuscripts, and the Old Latin Version support the verse, but practically all the other manuscripts and versions stand opposed to it. Because no Greek manuscript earlier than the sixth century knows of this reading, beyond doubt it could not have formed a part of the original account of Acts.

The book I referenced covers some of the difficulties in translation and goes into the history of different ancient versions of the Bible, and causes for differences between versions. The author, at least as of the time the book was written, was the Frank Pack Distinguished Professor of New Testament at Abilene Christian University in Abilene Texas.

Sorry for the late reply, you caught me between class and teaching last night.

> I did not know that about Luther. Did he say why he removed those books?

His reasoning for removing those 7 books were that they weren't recognized by the Jews as canon (who themselves only "formalized' their Scripture sometime between the 3rd and 6th centuries. There's no scholarly consensus on when it was exactly finalized or by whom). Part of his reasoning was that they weren't (debatably in some cases) written in Hebrew but instead in Greek, thus they weren't inspired texts like the rest of the Hebrew OT. The Council of Trent, a Catholic Ecumenical Council, defined the Catholic Bible as 73 books including the 7 removed by Luther and the Reformers as deuterocanon (or "secondary canon" though still full parts of Scripture).

> Also, was there ever some sort of original historical team that established a set of books that was later refined? Do we have a timeline where that occurred, and how the Canon shaped over time and research?

Wiki does a good job summarizing the major movements in the development. And as I said above, Trent was when the finalized Catholic bible was authoritatively declared, though it was basically a formal acknowledgement of what was already standard practice in the Church for about a thousand years.

>Is this what the "Magisterium's Team" is?

The Magisterium is the teaching body of the Catholic Church and they settle matters of doctrine, including what is contained in Holy Scripture. The Magisterium is what made up the various councils throughout the ages including Trent.

>Finally, is there any specific source you recommend where I can go to find out more about the history of the Canon of the Bible?

Like I said, wiki does quite a good job giving a summary level. If you want a more academic and in depth reading I recommend Metzger's The Canon of the New Testament as was already suggested (though it tends to be on the apologetic side, it is still quite reliable) or F F Bruce's The Canon of Scripture. Niel R Lightfoot's How We Got The Bible is also quite good.

I've come across many instances where some knowledge of Greek or Hebrew would be helpful to me. As just one example that comes immediately to mind, I've come across a number of articles regarding the meaning of pais in discussions regarding whether there is some indication in the New Testament that Jesus was not condemnatory of homosexuals.

And I've also encountered quite a number of instances, sometimes regarding Genesis, but sometimes with other parts of the Old Testament where someone will contest the interpretation of a passage indicating a translation in a particular version of the Bible may not convey the original intent of the passage to modern readers or comparing an Old Testament passage to other Jewish writings. E.g,, I've seen suggestions that the word translated as "rib" in the story of Adam and Eve could refer instead to the baculum found in males of many nonhuman mammals. Since I don't know Hebrew, it is sometimes difficult for me to judge alternative translations.

I've read Neil Lightfoot''s How We Got the Bible, which discusses various early Hebrew and Greek manuscripts and addresses some discrepancies in translation and I know from personal experience that attempting a word-by-word translation from one language to another or just plugging a sentence into an online translator, such as Google Translate or Yahoo! Babelfish, though it can be helpful for rough translations in many instances, is more useful to me when I know at least a few rudiments of the language.

I'm hoping there will be people participating in /r/BibleCoverToCover who do have some understanding of Greek and Hebrew who can contribute to the discussions.

Just as a follow up, I ended up going with The New Oxford Annotated Bible with Apocrypha

It uses the New Revised Standard Version as the translation, has a lot more information than the NASB and is pretty much, from what I can gather, the standard for studying the bible in the academic setting.

One of the advantages is the extensive in-depth academic research present in the book, which comes from experts in the field from Protestant, Catholic, Jewish and atheist contributors.

This fits perfectly what I was looking for: a modern translation focused on accuracy, without personal interpretation and featuring extensive commentary.

It ended up being very difficult to sift through all the partisan opinion on the various translation, but that allows me to understand a bit better why so many people are using older versions and interpretations (Tradition, diocese regulations, etc).
However, this conversation with you pushed me to refine my search a little bit more than what I'd done a few weeks ago and I ended up stumbling upon a version that satisfies me more, so thank you :)

Edit: I also decided to add this book titled How We Got The Bible as an add-on to my reading, as a way to understand the process through which the various texts have been transmitted and preserved. I'm hoping it'll provide a bit more historical background and perhaps give me a better understanding of the history of the Bible :p