There have always been honest reliable people all through history, who would have made sure that the bible was kept as it was meant to be, i know its hard to believe but honest people do exist! No Its only ever twisted and bent to fit someones life style, if their lifestyle contradicts, its true teachings they try to twist its meaning, i mean look at the spanish inquisition. Killed for just having a bible in the house burned at the stake along with the bible wrapped around their neck, just incase they read, understood and realised that what the priest was teaching didn't actually exist (in the Bible) E.G Hell fire, Trinity,Imortal soul because these teachings were and are rooted in faulse ancient Babylonian teachings, these myths were never added to the Bible, ony added to mens minds by the local priest. Do some research don't take my word for it! People only try to twist and bend something that doesn't fit their lifestyle, or something that is bound to expose their bad ways, just think about it for a moment what was so very bad about having a bible? why did the priests want it kept in latin a language that noone but the priests could read?? strange isn't it?? I know my words won't be popular but truth never is to some.

G'day Romiex69x, Thank you for your question. You are right up to a point. The Old Testament and New Testament were both largely written after the events in question. However, once agreed on as scripture, it was kept largely unchanged. I have attached sources for your reference. Regards Wikipedia Bible http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible#Important_Characteristics_of_early_Bible_texts

Personally, I have asked this many times myself. What I have been told is that the Bible is translated from the original for every new translation. (i.e The NIV wasn't translated from the KJV) This keeps degradation of the meaning down. I don't know how true that is. I do know that Various people throughout history have taken parts out that they didn't like, (example: The dead sea scrolls). So how it can be seen as perfect and whole anymore I do not know. Some say that God will not allow it to lose meaning and he constructed it with that fail-safe from day one. (through his writers of his work) I hope that helps. However, I don't trust it myself and I still wonder this same question.

How credible can the bible be- this should be your question... since it has been rewritten numerous times, and usually the writter would delete and add stories and myths based on his personal opinion? -these two statements show that you have already formed an opinion, which is not the way to find out information. There is stacks of proof of the reliability of the bible. let's look at the Old Testament first: 1)the historical reliability of the Bible is phenomenal. There is not room to go through every instance of it but look at this extract from the site: christiananswers.net Over the years there have been many criticisms leveled against the Bible concerning its historical reliability. These criticisms are usually based on a lack of evidence from outside sources to confirm the Biblical record. Since the Bible is a religious book, many scholars take the position that it is biased and cannot be trusted unless we have corroborating evidence from extra-Biblical sources. In other words, the Bible is guilty until proven innocent, and a lack of outside evidence places the Biblical account in doubt. This standard is far different from that applied to other ancient documents, even though many, if not most, have a religious element. They are considered to be accurate, unless there is evidence to show that they are not. Although it is not possible to verify every incident in the Bible, the discoveries of archaeology since the mid 1800s have demonstrated the reliability and plausibility of the Bible narrative. Here are some examples. The discovery of the Ebla archive in northern Syria in the 1970s has shown the Biblical writings concerning the Patriarchs to be viable. Documents written on clay tablets from around 2300 B.C. demonstrate that personal and place names in the Patriarchal accounts are genuine. The name "Canaan" was in use in Ebla, a name critics once said was not used at that time and was used incorrectly in the early chapters of the Bible. The word "tehom" ("the deep") in Genesis 1:2 was said to be a late word demonstrating the late writing of the creation story. "Tehom" was part of the vocabulary at Ebla, in use some 800 years before Moses. Ancient customs reflected in the stories of the Patriarchs have also been found in clay tablets from Nuzi and Mari. The Hittites were once thought to be a Biblical legend, until their capital and records were discovered at Bogazkoy, Turkey. Many thought the Biblical references to Solomon's wealth were greatly exaggerated. Recovered records from the past show that wealth in antiquity was concentrated with the king and Solomon's prosperity was entirely feasible. It was once claimed there was no Assyrian king named Sargon as recorded in Isaiah 20:1, because this name was not known in any other record. Then, Sargon's palace was discovered in Khorsabad, Iraq. The very event mentioned in Isaiah 20, his capture of Ashdod, was recorded on the palace walls. What is more, fragments of a stela memorializing the victory were found at Ashdod itself. Another king who was in doubt was Belshazzar, king of Babylon, named in Daniel 5. The last king of Babylon was Nabonidus according to recorded history. Tablets were found showing that Belshazzar was Nabonidus' son who served as coregent in Babylon. Thus, Belshazzar could offer to make Daniel "third highest ruler in the kingdom" (Dan. 5:16) for reading the handwriting on the wall, the highest available position. Here we see the "eye-witness" nature of the Biblical record, as is so often brought out by the discoveries of archaeology. http://www.christiananswers.net/q-abr/abr-a008.html There are more examples on: http://www.christiananswers.net/archaeology/home.html So, if the bible is historically the most reliable document of all ancient documents, why should it be inaccurate on matters of faith? Then let us consider textual accuracy:Here is a really good article: Meticulous Care in the Transmission of the Bible A common misunderstanding of the Bible by both Christians and non-Christians alike is the mistaken notion that the Bible is a translation upon a translation upon a translation, leading some to believe that the end result is so garbled it hardly represents the original. This couldn't be farther from the truth. Translations such as the King James version are derived from extant copies of old manuscripts such as the Greek Textus Receptus (Received Text) and the Hebrew Masoretic text, and are not translations of a text that had itself been translated from another interpretation. Often, the differences between Bibles with different translations lie only in how the scholars interpreted a word or sentence from the original language of the text source (Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek). (Of course this doesn't mean that all translations are equal! Some are clearly better than others and convey wording closer to the original language. Most scholars I respect recommend the King James over all other versions - it is the standard that all modern translations are always compared to). So how reliable are the manuscripts that all these Bibles are translated from? The evidence is overwhelming and seldom disputed. Manuscripts prepared from different individuals spread over various parts of the Middle East and Mediterranean region agree remarkably with each other. Also, the manuscripts agree with the Septuagint, which was translated to Greek from Hebrew possibly as far back as the 3rd century BC. The Dead Sea scrolls discovered in 1947 also provided a profound testimony to the reliability of the centuries of transmission of the Bible text, as every Old Testament book found was virtually word for word with today's Bible! (the few differences were "obvious slips of the pen or variations in spelling"1). The scribes who were in charge of the Old Testament text dedicated their lives to preserving the text's accuracy when they made copies. The great lengths the scribes went to guarantee the reliability of the copies is illustrated by the fact that they would count every letter and every word, and record in the margins such things as the middle letter and word of the Torah. If a single error was found, the copy was immediately destroyed. As a software engineer, I can personally vouch that the scribe's method of protecting the text is more rigorous than the common checksuming methods used today to protect software programs from corruption2. The New Testament manuscript evidence is even more impressive, with 24,000 known copies, 5,366 which are complete, and some that date as early as the second and third centuries. This manuscript authority greatly surpasses all other writings of antiquity, as illustrated in the following table3: Work When Written Earliest Copy Time Span No. of copies New Testament A.D. 40-100 A.D. 125 25 yrs 24,000 Homer (Iliad) 900 B.C. 400 B.C 500 yrs 643 Sophocles 496-406 B.C A.D. 1000 1,400 yrs 193 Aristotle 384-322 B.C. A.D. 1100 1,400 yrs 49 Caesar (Gallic Wars) 100-44 B.C. A.D. 900 1000 yrs 10 As can be seen from the table, Homer's Iliad, the most renowned book of ancient Greece, is a very distant second to the New Testament in manuscript support, with only 643 copies. Of these copies, there are 764 disputed lines, compared to only 40 lines in the New Testament4. The New Testament even fares better than the 37 plays written by William Shakespeare in the 17th century. Every play contains various gaps in the printed text, forcing scholars in many cases to "fill in the blanks". With the 24,000 copies of the New Testament, we can be sure that nothing has been lost. It is also very impressive to note that scholars can recreate all but 11 verses of the New Testament by simply piecing together quotations by the early church fathers of the second and third centuries! The scholar F.F. Bruce, in The Books and the Parchments sums it up well: There is no body of ancient literature in the world which enjoys such a wealth of good textual attestation as the New Testament. http://www.bibleevidences.com/transmission.htm ================== The reliability of the New Testament is even better than that of the Old. Objective scholarship upholds the New Testament Gospels bear internal marks of historical integrity Text of New Testament is firmly established Since it is from the New Testament that we gain our primary knowledge of Jesus, it is fitting to ask whether this literature is sound and historically accurate. Critics often describe the Gospels as pious legend, having no historical competence, and designed only for propaganda purposes. But while it is acknowledged that the Gospels are not biography in the strict sense according to 20th century definitions,[1] the following facts give immense weight to the historical accuracy of the New Testament. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- OBJECTIVE SCHOLARSHIP UPHOLDS THE NEW TESTAMENT Archaeologists studying ancient civilizations by uncovering ruins and examining artifacts, are with increasing success confirming the accuracy of the Biblical texts. Sir William Ramsey's vindication of Luke's writings is a classic example.[2] The findings of archaeology have in fact reversed the opinions of a number of former skeptics. Among these is the scholar Dr. William F. Albright, who writes: "The excessive skepticism shown toward the Bible [by certain schools of thought] has been progressively discredited. Discovery after discovery has established the accuracy of numerous details."[3] Recent archaeological discoveries include both the Pool of Bethesda (John 5:1f) and "The Pavement" (John 19:13). Their existence was doubted just a few decades ago. Confirmation of the accuracy of the setting of Jacob's well has also been found (John 4).[4] Such findings have caused many scholars to reverse earlier skeptical opinions on the historicity of the Fourth Gospel. Its author has demonstrated an obvious intimate knowledge of the Jerusalem of Jesus' time, just as we would expect from the Apostle John. Such detail would not have been accessible to a writer of a later generation, since Jerusalem was demolished under Titus' Roman army in 70 A.D. Also, the recent recovery of a Roman census similar to the one in Luke 2:1f, and the historical confirmation of his "synchronism"[5] in Luke 3:1f, underscores the care Luke took in writing his Gospel (Luke 1:1-4). [Read more about archaeological discoveries that confirm the Bible's accuracy.] Critics of Luke's Gospel often retreat into non-verifiable and subjective opinions, but they have not overthrown Luke's historical confirmations.[6] By extension, the other two "Synoptic"[7] Gospels of Matthew and Mark, painting essentially similar portraits of Jesus' ministry, are also trustworthy accounts of his life. Additionally, outside the Bible, Jesus is also mentioned by his near-contemporaries. Extra-Biblical and secular writers (many hostile) point to Jesus' existence, including the Roman writings of Tacitus, Seutonius, Thallus and Pliny, and the Jewish writings of Josephus and the Talmud. Gary Habermas has cited a total of 39 ancient extra-Biblical sources, including 17 non-Christian, that witness from outside the New Testament to over 100 details of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection.[8] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- THE GOSPELS BEAR INTERNAL MARKS OF HISTORICAL INTEGRITY There are also characteristics within the texts themselves which mark the four Gospels as sober history and neither legend nor fictional propaganda. Consider that the Gospel writers set the leading disciples in very poor light (Matthew 14:30, Mark 9:33f, Luke 22:54f). Notice as well that they included hard words by Jesus, which in fact repelled many hearers (Matthew 21:28f, Luke 9:23f, John 8:39f). One distinction of the four Gospels is that their famed treasure of good news lies not nakedly on the surface, but hidden behind both challenge (Mark 8:34f, John 12:25f)[9] and threat (Matthew 25:31f). Such characteristics would have been counter-productive to propagandists. Their presence in the Gospels demonstrates the willingness of the evangelists to tell the truth, however embarrassing or inconvenient. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- THE TEXT OF THE NEW TESTAMENT IS FIRMLY ESTABLISHED Some express concern that the Bible may have been altered down through the centuries. It is to this matter that Textual Critics address themselves. They have discovered entire manuscripts and parts of others, one portion dating to the beginning of the 2nd Century. The New Testament has far better textual support than do the works of Plato, Aristotle, Herodotus, or Tacitus,[10] whose contents no one seriously questions. In addition, the New Testament documents have always been both public, and widely-disseminated. Thus it would be impossible for any party to have materially changed their contents, just as the Declaration of Independence, for example, as a public document, could not have been privately altered without raising notice and creating public furor. Sir Frederic Kenyon, former Director of the British Museum, comments: "The interval between the dates of the original composition and the earliest extant evidence [i.e. our oldest manuscripts] becomes so small as to be negligible, and the last foundation for any doubt that the scriptures have come down to us substantially as they were written has now been removed."[11] In conclusion, it is not necessary that the New Testament be treated with "kid gloves" and backed up by special pleading. Simply allow it to be subject to the very same historical-critical standards that Classical historians apply to secular literature. When equal treatment is permitted its course, the Gospels fully pass the test. http://www.christiananswers.net/q-eden/edn-t007.html I hope this answers some of your questions.

I agree with keithold, and will add as a note, that the bible versions have become perverted in the last 25 years, not the previous 400 years. Since the Bible has been in print, there have been 2 main texts. Vaticanus, the Catholic translation, and the Textus Receptus, from which came the King James 1611 version (my preferred), which today is still the same as it was in 1611. The New World Translation (which is taken from the Vaticanus, and edited, along with the meanings of the greek and hebrew words), the Gay Bible (which emphasizes the "okayness" of being a Christian and remaining gay), and now the Western Bible (which is sold with actual sections of Scripture cut out because they don't believe that those parts are necessary any longer) are all PERversions of the Bible, and have indeed been based on an individual's personal opinion.

Unless you plan to study theology, don't sweat the details. Learn the major themes and stories, learn their merit, and practice them. The truths are readily apparent to those with an open heart. To those not ready to believe, the flaws will never be resolved. Better to focus on the whole of the message and find their value for your life.