Hello RosieG. See if these links help:

Appendix of NWT:

http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/1001061203

How the Bible Came to Us

Awake 2007:

http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/102007409?q=%22How+the+Bible+Cam...

How the Bible Came to Us

Similar question here:

http://answermug.com/forum/topics/what-part-did-the-council-of-nicea-play-in-forming-the-bible-we

You so got it all wrong.  Let me know when you are done with this and I'll send more. AND MORE AND MORE

This is not some one sentence answer.

Old Testament

The Bible comes from two main sources - Old and New Testaments - written in different languages. The Old Testament was written primarily in Hebrew, with some books written in Aramaic. The following are brief snap shots of the beginning and ending of the Old Testament and the reasons for the first two translations of the Old Testament from Hebrew into Aramaic and Greek

• 1875 B.C. Abraham was called by God to the land of Canaan.
• 1450 B.C. The exodus of the Children of Israel from Egypt.

Autographs

There are no known autographs of any books of the Old Testament. Below is a list of the languages in which the Old Testament books were written.

• 1450-1400 B.C. The traditional date for Moses' writing of Genesis-Deuteronomy written in Hebrew.
• 586 B.C. Jerusalem was destroyed by the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar. The Jews were taken into captivity to Babylon. They remained in Babylon under the Medo-Persian Empire and there began to speak Aramaic.
• 555-545 B.C. The Book of Daniel Chapters. 2:4 to 7:28 were written in Aramaic.
• 425 B.C. Malachi, the last book of the Old Testament, was written in Hebrew.
• 400 B.C. Ezra Chapters. 4:8 to 6:18; and 7:12-26 were written in Aramaic.

Manuscripts

The following is a list of the oldest Hebrew manuscripts of the Old Testament that are still in existence.

• The Dead Sea Scrolls: date from 200 B.C. - 70 A.D. and contain the entire book of Isaiah and portions of every other Old Testament book but Esther.
• Geniza Fragments: portions the Old Testament in Hebrew and Aramaic, discovered in 1947 in an old synagogue in Cairo, Egypt, which date from about 400 A.D.
• Ben Asher Manuscripts: five or six generations of this family made copies of the Old Testament using the Masoretic Hebrew text, from 700-950 A.D. The following are examples of the Hebrew Masoretic text-type.
  • Aleppo Codex: contains the complete Old Testament and is dated around 950 A.D. Unfortunately over one quarter of this Codex was destroyed in anti-Jewish riots in 1947.
  • Codex Leningradensis: The complete Old Testament in Hebrew copied by the last member of the Ben Asher family in A.D. 1008.

Translations

The Old Testament was translated very early into Aramaic and Greek.

• 400 B.C. The Old Testament began to be translated into Aramaic. This translation is called the Aramaic Targums. This translation helped the Jewish people, who began to speak Aramaic from the time of their captivity in Babylon, to understand the Old Testament in the language that they commonly spoke. In the first century Palestine of Jesus' day, Aramaic was still the commonly spoken language. For example maranatha: "Our Lord has come," 1 Corinthians 16:22 is an example of an Aramaic word that is used in the New Testament.
• 250 B.C. The Old Testament was translated into Greek. This translation is known as the Septuagint. It is sometimes designated "LXX" (which is Roman numeral for "70") because it was believed that 70 to 72 translators worked to translate the Hebrew Old Testament in Greek. The Septuagint was often used by New Testament writers when they quoted from the Old Testament. The LXX was translation of the Old Testament that was used by the early Church.
  
  1. The following is a list of the oldest Greek LXX translations of the Old Testament that are still in existence.
  • Chester Beatty Papyri: Contains nine Old Testament Books in the Greek Septuagint and dates between 100-400 A.D.
  • Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus each contain almost the entire Old Testament of the Greek Septuagint and they both date around 350 A.D.

The New Testament

Autographs

45- 95 A.D. The New Testament was written in Greek. The Pauline Epistles, the Gospel of Mark, the Gospel of Luke, and the book of Acts are all dated from 45-63 A.D. The Gospel of John and the Revelation may have been written as late as 95 A.D.

Manuscripts

There are over 5,600 early Greek Manuscripts of the New Testament that are still in existence. The oldest manuscripts were written on papyrus and the later manuscripts were written on leather called parchment.

• 125 A.D. The New Testament manuscript which dates most closely to the original autograph was copied around 125 A.D, within 35 years of the original. It is designated "p 52" and contains a small portion of John 18. (The "p" stands for papyrus.)
• 200 A.D. Bodmer p 66 a papyrus manuscript which contains a large part of the Gospel of John.
• 200 A.D. Chester Beatty Biblical papyrus p 46 contains the Pauline Epistles and Hebrews.
• 225 A.D. Bodmer Papyrus p 75 contains the Gospels of Luke and John.
• 250-300 A.D. Chester Beatty Biblical papyrus p 45 contains portions of the four Gospels and Acts.
• 350 A.D. Codex Sinaiticus contains the entire New Testament and almost the entire Old Testament in Greek. It was discovered by a German scholar Tisendorf in 1856 at an Orthodox monastery at Mt. Sinai.
• 350 A.D. Codex Vaticanus: {B} is an almost complete New Testament. It was cataloged as being in the Vatican Library since 1475.

Translations

Early translations of the New Testament can give important insight into the underlying Greek manuscripts from which they were translated.

• 180 A.D. Early translations of the New Testament from Greek into Latin, Syriac, and Coptic versions began about 180 A.D.
• 195 A.D. The name of the first translation of the Old and New Testaments into Latin was termed Old Latin, both Testaments having been translated from the Greek. Parts of the Old Latin were found in quotes by the church father Tertullian, who lived around 160-220 A.D. in north Africa and wrote treatises on theology.
• 300 A.D. The Old Syriac was a translation of the New Testament from the Greek into Syriac.
• 300 A.D. The Coptic Versions: Coptic was spoken in four dialects in Egypt. The Bible was translated into each of these four dialects.
• 380 A.D. The Latin Vulgate was translated by St. Jerome. He translated into Latin the Old Testament from the Hebrew and the New Testament from Greek. The Latin Vulgate became the Bible of the Western Church until the Protestant Reformation in the 1500's. It continues to be the authoritative translation of the Roman Catholic Church to this day. The Protestant Reformation saw an increase in translations of the Bible into the common languages of the people.
• Other early translations of the Bible were in Armenian, Georgian, and Ethiopic, Slavic, and Gothic.
• 1380 A.D. The first English translation of the Bible was by John Wycliffe. He translated the Bible into English from the Latin Vulgate. This was a translation from a translation and not a translation from the original Hebrew and Greek. Wycliffe was forced to translate from the Latin Vulgate because he did not know Hebrew or Greek.

The Advent of Printing

Printing greatly aided the transmission of the biblical texts.

• 1456 A.D. Gutenberg produced the first printed Bible in Latin. Printing revolutionized the way books were made. From now on books could be published in great numbers and at a lower cost.
• 1514 A.D. The Greek New Testament was printed for the first time by Erasmus. He based his Greek New Testament from only five Greek manuscripts, the oldest of which dated only as far back as the twelfth century. With minor revisions, Erasmus' Greek New Testament came to be known as the Textus Receptus or the "received texts."
• 1522 A. D. Polyglot Bible was published. The Old Testament was in Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, and Latin and the New Testament in Latin and Greek. Erasmus used the Polyglot to revise later editions of his New Testament. Tyndale made use of the Polyglot in his translation on the Old Testament into English which he did not complete because he was martyred in 1534.
• 1611 A.D. The King James Version into English from the original Hebrew and Greek. The King James translators of the New Testament used the Textus Receptus as the basis for their translations.
• 1968 A.D. The United Bible Societies 4th Edition of the Greek New Testament. This Greek New Testament made use of the oldest Greek manuscripts which date from 175 A.D. This was the Greek New Testament text from which the NASV and the NIV were translated.
• 1971 A.D. The New American Standard Version (NASV) was published. It makes use of the wealth of much older Hebrew and Greek manuscripts now available that weren't available at the time of the translation of the KJV. Its wording and sentence structure closely follow the Greek in more of a word for word style.
• 1983 A.D. The New International Version (NIV) was published. It also made use of the oldest manuscript evidence. It is more of a "thought-for-thought" translation and reads more easily than the NASV.
  • As an example of the contrast between word-for-word and thought-for-thought translations, notice below the translation of the Greek word "hagios-holy" 
    NASV Hebrews 9:25. "...the high priest enters the holy place year by year with blood not his own."
    NIV Hebrews 9:25. "...the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood that is not his own."
  • The NIV supplies "understood" information about the Day of Atonement, namely that the high priest's duties took place in the compartment of the temple known specifically as the Most Holy Place. Note that the NASV simply says "holy place" reflecting the more literal translation of "hagios."

The Integrity of the Manuscript Evidence

As with any ancient book transmitted through a number of handwritten manuscripts, the question naturally arises as to how confident can we be that we have anything resembling the autograph. Let us now look at what evidences we have for the integrity of the New Testament manuscripts. Let us look at the number of manuscripts and how close they date to the autographs of the Bible as compared with other ancient writings of similar age.

1. Tacitus, the Roman historian, wrote his Annals of Imperial Rome in about A.D. 116. Only one manuscript of his work remains. It was copied about 850 A.D.
2. Josephus, a Jewish historian, wrote The Jewish War shortly after 70 A.D. There are nine manuscripts in Greek which date from 1000-1200 A.D. and one Latin translation from around 400 A.D.
3. Homer's Iliad was written around 800 B.C. It was as important to ancient Greeks as the Bible was to the Hebrews. There are over 650 manuscripts remaining but they date from 200 to 300 A.D. which is over a thousand years after the Iliad was written.
4. The Old Testament autographs were written 1450 - 400 B. C.
   1. The Dead Sea Scrolls date between 200 B.C. to 70 A. D and date within 300 years from when the last book of the Old Testament was written.
   2. Two almost complete Greek LXX translations of the Old Testament date about 350 A. D.
   3. The oldest complete Hebrew Old Testament dates about 950 A. D.
   4. Genesis-Deuteronomy were written over 1200 years before the Dead Sea Scrolls.

      Codex Vaticanus is an almost complete Greek translation of the Old Testament dating around 350 A.D. The Aleppo Codex is the oldest complete Old Testament manuscript in Hebrew and was copied around 950 A.D. The Dead Sea Scrolls date from within 200-300 years from the last book of the Old Testament. However since the five books of Moses were written about 1450- 1400 B.C. the Dead Sea Scrolls still come almost 1200 years after the first books of the Old Testament were written.

5. The New Testament autographs were written between 45-95 A. D.
   1. There are 5,664 Greek manuscripts some dating as early as 125 A. D. and an complete New Testament that dates from 350 A. D.
   2. 8,000 to 10,000 Latin Vulgate manuscripts.
   3. 8,000 manuscripts in Ethiopic, Coptic, Slavic, Syriac, and Armenian.
   4. In addition, the complete New Testament could be reproduced from the quotes that were made from it by the early church fathers in their letters and sermons.

Authorship and dating of the New Testament books

Skeptics and liberal Christian scholars both seek to date the New Testament books as late first century or early second century writings. They contend that these books were not written by eyewitnesses but rather by second or third hand sources. This allowed for the development of what they view as myths concerning Jesus. For example, they would deny that Jesus actually foretold the destruction of Jerusalem. Rather they would contend that later Christian writers "put these words into his mouth."

1. Many of the New Testament books claim to be written by eyewitnesses.
   1. The Gospel of John claims to be written by the disciple of the Lord. Recent archeological research has confirmed both the existence of the Pool of Bethesda and that it had five porticoes as described in John 5:2. This correct reference to an incidental detail lends credibility to the claim that the Gospel of John was written by John who as an eyewitness knew Jerusalem before it was destroyed in 70 A. D.
   2. Paul signed his epistles with his own hand. He was writing to churches who knew him. These churches were able to authenticate that these epistles had come from his hands (Galatians 6:11). Clement an associate of Paul's wrote to the Corinthian Church in 97 A. D. urging them to heed the epistle that Paul had sent them.
2. The following facts strongly suggest that both the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts were written prior to 65 A.D. This lends credibility to the author's (Luke) claim to be an eyewitness to Paul's missionary journeys. This would date Mark prior to 65 A.D. and the Pauline epistles between 49-63 A.D.
   1. Acts records the beginning history of the church with persecutions and martyrdoms being mentioned repeatedly. Three men; Peter, Paul, and James the brother of Jesus all play leading roles throughout the book. They were all martyred by 67 A.D., but their martyrdoms are not recorded in Acts.
   2. The church in Jerusalem played a central role in the Book of Acts, but the destruction of the city in 70 A.D. was not mentioned. The Jewish historian Josephus cited the siege and destruction of Jerusalem as befalling the Jews because of their unjust killing of James the brother of Jesus.
   3. The Book of Acts ends with Paul in Rome under house arrest in 62 A.D. In 64 A.D., Nero blamed and persecuted the Christians for the fire that burned down the city of Rome. Paul himself was martyred by 65 A.D. in Rome. Again, neither the terrible persecution of the Christians in Rome nor Paul's martyrdom are mentioned.
      
      Conclusion: These books, Luke-Acts, were written while Luke was an eyewitness to many of the events, and had opportunity to research portions that he was not an eyewitness to.

My version is slightly less accurate than Sharonna's, but is shorter and somewhat simpler.

It is impossible to know the number of people involved in writing the original texts because they were lost. Current canon has descended from copies of the lost texts. Also, we don't know the numbers of translators involved from 300BC to the present day in each new version.

We do know that the early patriarchs first passed their stories through oral tradition from long before the invention of writing. The "Jews," as the early Aramaic tribes, had the use of Middle Cuneiform. However this form of writing, being pressed into clay with a wedged stick and then kiln fired, was too cumbersome and hence used only for tallies of stocks and royal proclamations. Thus there were no Old Testament recordings of religious writings by the Aramaic tribes before the slavery of one tribe in Egypt. Moses was educated with the young pharaonic prince and hence learned an abbreviated version of hieroglyphic writing which later evolved into our modern alphabet. This enabled him to write the Ten Commandments (and other versions) which were kept in the Arc of the Covenant. Later, when the Torah was written on papyrus scrolls, these were also kept in the Arc. When scrolls were lost, they had to be copied from other versions or re-written from memory, leading to numerous versions. These were collated into one accepted version by Jewish scholars of the Old Testament books and Kabbalah in around the Second Century BC.

Oxford scholars such as Riches, Davies, McDonald, and Sanders conclude that the canon of the Hebrew Bible (Torah) was fixed by about the 3rd century BC, or possibly a little later.

The above shows the interrelationship between various significant ancient manuscripts of the Old Testament, according to the Encyclopedia Biblica (1903).  LXX here denotes the original translation from the Hebrew into Greek.

The scriptures were first translated into ancient Greek between about 280–130 BC and are thought to have been commissioned by Ptolemy Philadelphus of Alexandria. The texts were called the Septuagint, or "Seventy," from the supposed number of translators involved. This translation remains the basis of the Old Testament in the Eastern Orthodox Church.

The New Testament is a collection of Christian works written at different times in the C1st, in ancient Greek, by various writers, who were early Jewish disciples of Jesus. All the works that eventually became incorporated into the New Testament are believed to have been written no later than around 150 AD. Later, some disputed books such as the Book of Revelation and the Minor Catholic Epistles were added into canons in which they were originally absent, while other works, such as 1 Clement, the Shepherd of Hermas, and the Diatessaron, were excluded from the New Testament. The Old Testament canon is not completely uniform among all major Christian groups but the New Testament has been almost universally recognized within Christianity since the text was finalised in late antiquity.

From shortly after the conversion to Christianity of the ancient world by the Romans, Bible translations in Latin were the only prescribed text throughout the Western part of the former Roman Empire until the Reformation. To this day, the Latin is used by the Roman Catholic Church (for the Latin Rite,) along with translations from Latin into local modern languages.

In 1603, a translation of the Bible into English was commissioned by King James and completed in 1611. This is still the standard text used by most sects of English-speaking Protestants.

More recent versions of the Bible do not differ significantly. Except perhaps the one produced by the Jehovah's Witnesses, which is a new translation directly from the Koine (Alexandrian form of ancient) Greek, which purports to be more authentic, but which is in fact modified according to the fundamentalist theology of its founding patriarchs.

My husband is Jewish and learned to speak, read and write Hebrew as a child. We compared the Torah with the King James Bibe and found some words did not translate the original meaning accurately.

For instance, when God moves across the face of the sea in “Genesis”, the original word for “sea” actually means “primordial soup.” This poetic term could describe the roiling of all the elements of the universe before the formation of the earth. In this way, some aspects of the Bible could be regarded as metaphorical rather than literal.

In the original Koine Greek, in the New Testament, the word used to describe Mary means a maiden or young woman, but it does not denote or connote a virgin.

I am not sure how many other variations in meanings of words there are in the translations, but just these two are enough to suggest significant differences in things like creation and immaculate conception. They show the evidence that human interpretation of ideas can shift religious reasoning in ways that impact on attitudes to morality.

If I am not mistaken, I believe that the Hebrew only means maiden but the Greek means an actual virgin and a maiden is not always a virgin but a virgin is always a maiden.

(Matthew 1:23) “Look! The virgin will become pregnant and will give birth to a son, and they will name him Im·manʹu·el,” which means, when translated, “With Us Is God.”
(Isaiah 7:14) Therefore, Jehovah himself will give you a sign: Look! The young woman will become pregnant and will give birth to a son, and she will name him Im·manʹu·el.

Yep, I double checked. Sorry for my inaccuracy on the Greek. Your point is excellent because it shows exactly where and when the change in meaning occurred.

Thank you hartfire. I respect the humility! I wasn't trying to offend and you were not offended. Many seem to get offended when I comment.

Ok,

If my memory serves me correctly and with the support from the other post. I was taught it took 400 years to canonize the Old Testament and 200 years to canonize the New Testament. Untold numbers were involved in writing each testament.

Many rewrites since then. Seems God spoke slowly.

Thank you for this research Sharonna:)

  We should never ever translate one word and come up with what God meant. We look at the ENTIRE Bible and compare scripture with scripture. God meant VIRGIN when we compare everything in the Bible. The Bible says  "This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit."Matthew 1:18 Jesus Father was God. Jesus is God's Son, God in the flesh, God Almighty!

We should never ever translate one word and come up with what God meant. We look at the ENTIRE Bible and compare scripture with scripture. God meant VIRGIN when we compare everything in the Bible. The Bible says  "This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit."Matthew 1:18 Jesus Father was God. Jesus is God's Son, God in the flesh, God Almighty!

Thank you my friend for the very helpful links. I will do so tex. Happy Friday! :) Once again you came to my rescue! ((hugs))

Wow! Thank you for your thoughtful, helpful and information-filled reply hartfire. I appreciate it very much. Happy Friday m'dear!  :)

  There is no excuse for bad manners  my friend. I apologize for all the folks who have shown bad manners when  chatting with you.. Your posts are always very helpful and thoughtful. I"M THE ONE ASKING THE QUESTION my friend so I get to choose what is helpful and what isn't.  My two cents' worth tex! :)

Read the replies that are helpful to me Sharonna. Do you  see the difference between theirs and yours? Your first sentence completely negates everything else you wrote.  I didn't read any of it. I stopped after you scolded me which is how you started.. You can't help yourself can you?

Do a little research Carazaa. Perhaps check the footnote of Bibles that have them?

[The Hebrew word bethu·lahʹ signifies a woman who has never been united to a man in marriage and has never had sexual intercourse. (Ge 24:16; De 32:25; Jg 21:12; 1Ki 1:2; Es 2:2, 3, 17; La 1:18; 2:21)

...

Messianic Prophecy. Although the Hebrew word bethu·lahʹ means “virgin,” another term (ʽal·mahʹ) appears at Isaiah 7:14: “Look! The maiden [ha·ʽal·mahʹ] herself will actually become pregnant, and she is giving birth to a son, and she will certainly call his name Immanuel.” The word ʽal·mahʹ means “maiden” and can apply to a nonvirgin or a virgin. It is applied to “the maiden” Rebekah before marriage when she was also called “a virgin” (bethu·lahʹ). (Ge 24:16, 43) Under divine inspiration, Matthew employed the Greek word par·theʹnos (virgin) when showing that Isaiah 7:14 found final fulfillment in connection with the virgin birth of Jesus, the Messiah. Both Matthew and Luke state clearly that Jesus’ mother Mary was then a virgin who became pregnant through the operation of God’s holy spirit.—Mt 1:18-25; Lu 1:26-35.]

Why are you okay  with changing what God said to what you think he meant? Almah means maiden but can be a virgin. Bethulah always means a virgin.

The Spanish caballo always means a horse but can be a stallion. 

We can know what he meant by comparing it with everything else and it is pretty clear what he meant when we continue reading and God says that "before they came together she became pregnant through the Holy Spirit"

1- English copies of the scriptures in question are called "The Bible" or "The Holy Bible" on the front cover, but you won’t find that "name" in the text between the covers. The text doesn't tell you that what you have in your hand is the Bible. The Bible does not name itself, identify itself or refer to itself. It has no proper name. The Bible (Greek biblia) literally means "the Books" so in reality it's a book called The Book.

2- What constitutes the Bible was decided by groups of men. It is believed that the Jewish scripture was an open canon from about 400 BCE. That means books could be added to it and removed from it by men. What should constitute the Torah was decided first, followed by decision around 200 BCE on what books should form the Prophets, while it was probably about 200 years AFTER Jesus that the part of the Jewish scripture referred to as the Writings was finalised. The Jewish scripture became known by the three Hebrew letters, Ta-Na-Kha (the letter Ta for the Torah, or Law, the Na for Nevi’im, or Prophets and Kha for the Ketuvim, or Writings) So scripture to Jesus and his disciples at that time was most probably the 24 or so books that formed the first two parts of the Ta-Na-Kha, the Torah or Law and the Prophets. Jesus mentions them in Matthew 5:17 where he says “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets" For the first 100 years the early CHRISTIANS used as their Bible whatever parts of the OT that had been canonised - most probably the Torah and the Prophets.

3- The so called New Testament took shape during the last years of the fourth century after Jesus. Most of its 27 books are the letters written by Paul. It also includes the four Gospels chosen from the many that were available at the time. Apparently it was Irenaeus of Lyons, c. 185 who insisted that there must be four gospels in the Bible, neither more nor less, because the earth had four corners. However, there were still disputes over the inclusion of certain books, in particular Hebrews, James, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, and Revelation. This collection was officially approved in 393 in the west. It was the fifth century when the eastern churches accepted the NT however some still had reservations about the inclusion of Revelations.

4- We have thus ended up with 84-book Eastern Orthodox Bibles, 81-book Ethiopian Bibles, 73-book Catholic Bibles 66-book Protestant Bibles and, if the scriptures Jesus taught from was also a Bible then, there was a Bible with far fewer books than the Protestant Bibles. Even if we decide upon the Protestant Bibles, written by about 40 authors from different centuries,.to be the true Holy Bible we're faced with so many different versions all claiming to be The Bible. So having walked into a Bible store which one do we buy as The Bible?

5- You might say there was only one Jesus, the Christ, so can't we call what he used as The Bible? Good point, but being a Jew who preached in synagogues, Jesus used the Jewish scriptures as his Bible, as mentioned above. The NT did NOT form part of the scripture of Jesus, James or any disciple, nor the scripture of Paul or any of the supposed authors of the Gospels. It’s btw very ironical that Christians have taken the NT, which was unknown to Jesus, as their main scripture and have called the scripture of Jesus, the Old Testament.

Gee CLURT thank you so much for a very thoughtful, helpful, useful and information-filled answer to my question. You spent a great deal of time and were very thorough! Happy Friday to you m'dear!   :)

Thank you for your kind comments, Rosie. I'm glad I made the effort. Happy Friday to you too. 

a very good question........I always heard that a part of this answer would be the Council of Trent, in the 4th century......where a bunch of 'holy men'  got together and decided which books stayed, and which were tossed.

pretty STUPID I think.....

if the bible is the inspired word of God, which I think it is, altho' I can't STAND 'organized' religion, it does have SO many inconsistencies and contradictions.......that it  had to have been 'messed with' down thru history.

and then there's the catholic version, too...who the hell decided on that?

and the books of Thomas and Mary of Magdela? why does the almighty catholic church NOT accept those?

oh well.......I respect the bible, and then I don't....but ONLY because so many men have fiddled with it over the centuries.

as a final note, while I am NOT an Atheist, I DO respect the 'homework' they do on the many inconsistencies in the bible..........so ya gotta at least give them credit for that!!!!!!!

PS: I NEVER capitalize 'catholic' 'cuz I don't think it deserves that capital 'c'!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hello ben1011. You seem sincere. What do you think of fulfilled prophecies like the one about the timing of the Messiah?

http://answermug.com/forum/topics/are-you-familiar-with-the-prophecy-about-the-timing-of-the