Serious question about Biblical writings and how they were discovered?

Question:a friend of mine is in college and taking a course that requires her to study the origin of the biblical writings. It had me thinking ~~ how did the Apostles write down all these facts that we see now in the Bible?? Who discovered these writings and interpreted them?? Is it possible that "man" put their own words in the letters?? I hate to question my faith; but, from an analytical standpoint, how were the WRITINGS found??????????

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: a friend of mine is in college and taking a course that requires her to study the origin of the biblical writings. It had me thinking ~~ how did the Apostles write down all these facts that we see now in the Bible?? Who discovered these writings and interpreted them?? Is it possible that "man" put their own words in the letters?? I hate to question my faith; but, from an analytical standpoint, how were the WRITINGS found??????????

The books of the Bible weren't really "discovered" exactly, rather the originals were copied and recopied by the church from the time of their creation. Historians and archaeologists have found ancient manuscripts such as the Dead Sea Scrolls and a papyrus fragment of the Gospel of John that dates back to 125 AD but the way we know what was written in the Bible is not by these ancient manuscripts, but by the copies that have been made of them throughout the years. Think of it this way, even if the original copy of the Declaration of Independence, the one under glass at the national archives, were somehow destroyed, more than enough copies exist so that we'd still know the text of the document.

It is also important to note that the early church also transcribed many Roman historical texts and we rely on those copies and the copies made from those copies to learn about the lives of ancient Romans. Therefore, to say that modern copies of the Bible cannot be relied upon calls into question many of the secular primary source documents which were copied down by the same people. So while there is no proof that church officials did not edit the books of the Bible, there is no evidence that they did either meaning that to assume that they did is a faulty assumption.

When reading the Gospel of John, one noticed in the last chapter the quote "This is the disciple which testifieth of these things, and wrote these things: and we know that his testimony is true." (John 21:24) This lends credence to the idea that this Gospel was written by John himself. It stands to reason that as John got older, he realized that it would be important for him to write down the events of Christ's life and ministry. As a Jew, he knew the importance of Scripture and in a more pragmatic sense, he would want to preserve what happened for future generations as the eye witnesses to Jesus's life were dying off. Much like a WWII veteran telling hist story, John knew a time would soon come when there wouldn't be anyone left alive who was there and actually saw what happened directly. It would also make sense to think that many of the other apostles would feel the same way and want to write down what they experienced when they were with Christ.

The earliest physical manuscript of the New Testament was that scrap of the Gospel of John I mentioned earlier that dated to 125 AD. Of course, this does not mean that was when the original was written. It could have been written much earlier and have been lost. But it does mean that the original could not have been written later than that date. I think one big mistake people make when criticizing the authenticity of the Bible is to assume that since we don't have manuscripts that date back to the first century for a lot of the Bible that means that the Bible was not written until hundreds of years later. All this means is that the fragile papyrus material the originals were written on has long since disintegrated. They didn't have the preservation techniques we do today and they probably weren't too worried about damage to an original copy as long as they had backup copies to go by.

Parchment, Tablets, all in Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic. The Church kept all the writings to tell about Jesus and to recall the Law.

there is a documentary on google video made by an ex-theologian called "who wrote the bible", check it out

Some of the old testament scrolls have been found by the Dead Sea.

Other documents have been found in other places including the Vatican.

I found some interesting web sites for you.

Questioning your faith can be difficult, but sometimes it is unavoidable. Some truths tend to be self-evident.

No one truly knows anything. It's all in faith, which is sort of the beauty of religion. So if it's going to take scientific or historical evidence for you to believe in the Bible, you're not going to find it. Believe me, I've looked.

If you ask 10 different Christians, you're likely to get 10 different answers. As I'm writing, I'm sure differing interpretations are trickling in.

Again, my belief is that we, for whatever purpose, have been given the privledge of reason, logic, and intellect. Put them to use and see where it guides you.

How did the Apostles write down all these facts that we see now in the Bible?

Well, to begin with, they probably were not written down by the actual apostles but by followers of the apostles. Neither of the two gospels that have the names of apostles- Matthew and John- are definitely linked to or even claimed to be authored by those men- it's just tradition.
It's believed that the earliest Gospel is Mark, which was written about a generation after the death of Jesus (or about 65-80 BCE- there's a lot of debate over whether it was written before or after the fall of Jerusalem). John is probably the latest at around 100. They would have been written on papyrus and in Greek and constantly recopied by hand.

Who discovered these writings and interpreted them?

They were never really "lost". The originals would have been copied and recopied by different communities. In fact there were originally far MORE writings than these- there are gospels attributed to Thomas, Peter, Judas, Mary Magdalene, and others. As for translation, they'd have been translated from Greek into Latin, and from Latin they were ultimately translated into many different languages.

Is it possible that "man" put their own words in the letters?

Of course. As a matter of fact the earliest person known to have written about Christ was St. Paul (who was not an apostle and only saw Jesus once- that in a vision) and he definitely brought some of his own favors to the party that were sharply different from (and disliked by) other early Christians including St. Peter and St. James (the brother of Jesus). Paul also never mentioned the virgin birth of Jesus or much of anything else about his life, implying these things may have been added later.
Mark originally did not contain the resurrection; it was added later. The Gospels all differ in how they record
1- the incidents surrounding Jesus's birth (Mark and John do not mention them at all, Matthew says there were three magi who came to worship him, and Luke says it was shepherds)
2- Jesus's last words and the details of his death
3- the order the apostles were chosen
4- the Resurrection- the oldest known copies of Mark, the oldest known Gospel, stop at the verse we label Mark 16:8- they do not mention the resurrection.
I hate to question my faith; but, from an analytical standpoint, how were the WRITINGS found??????????