1 Changing Text

Some people believe that over the centuries, the Bible text has been altered to suit the ideologies of the editors. In fact, there are only a very small number of textual alterations that modern philologists and critics consider intentional changes; most are simply errors in spelling or copying. Bart D. Ehrman (a New Testament textual critic) says:

“It would be a mistake. . .to assume that the only changes being made were by copyists with a personal stake in the wording of the text. In fact, most of the changes found in our early Christian manuscripts have nothing to do with theology or ideology. Far and and away the [sic] most changes are the result of mistakes, pure and simple—slips of the pen, accidental omissions, inadvertent additions, misspelled words, blunders of one sort or another.”

Aside from the removal of a number of books in the 16th Century, the Bible is essentially the same now as it was in the 2nd century.

文本的變遷

有人認為在經過幾個世紀的變遷，圣經的文本內容已經遭到修改，為了符合編者的意識形態。事實上，現代語言學家和評論家認為只有極少一部分文本內容被有意修改；其他大部分的錯誤是由于拼寫或復寫時出現了錯誤。巴特·D·葉爾曼說：“圣經中所有被改動的地方都是因為抄寫者個人對文本的理解產生出入而修改的，這種想法是不對的。事實上，從我們早期的基督教手稿中發現大多數錯誤與理論或意識形態沒有什么關系。可以肯定的是（原文如此）大多數都是單純的錯誤——一時的筆誤，無意的增減，單詞拼錯以及各種類似的錯誤。”

除了在16世紀時被刻意移除過幾章之外，圣經從本質上來看與二世紀時是一樣的。