The Bible wasn't written in English. It was written in Hebrew, a little Aramaic, and Greek, over hundreds of years. The original pages are all lost. What we have are handwritten copies, and the copies don't always match. Every English Bible is a team's best guess at turning those copies into English. That's why this site shows you the original words.
No original Bible manuscript survives. We have thousands of later handwritten copies with many differences, a few of which change famous verses. Translators then choose between possible meanings. None of this proves the Bible true or false by itself, but it means "the Bible says…" always really means "this translation of this copy says…"
BibleGateway is just a website that hosts many translations. The real issue is that any single translation is an interpretation, and some popular versions are loose paraphrases. The fix is to compare several translations and check the original wording. This site's built-in Bible lets you do that: tap any verse reference (like Isaiah 7:14) to see the Hebrew or Greek, each word's dictionary meaning, and three English versions side by side. Or open the full Bible reader.
From original to your Bible
The languages
- Hebrew: almost all of the Old Testament. Written right-to-left, originally without vowels; the vowel marks you see in the pop-ups were added by later scribes (the Masoretes).
- Aramaic: a few chapters of Daniel and Ezra.
- Greek: the whole New Testament, in the everyday Greek of the Roman world. Jesus most likely spoke Aramaic, so even his words reach us already translated.
The Hebrew on this site is the Westminster Leningrad Codex, based on the oldest complete Hebrew Bible (about 1008 CE). The Greek is the Byzantine text, the form found in most later manuscripts and close to what the KJV translators used.
Verses that changed as they were copied
Scribes made mistakes, and sometimes "improved" the text. Here are famous examples you can check right now. Tap each one and compare the KJV with the BSB.
1 John 5:7
The KJV's clearest Trinity verse ("the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one") isn't in early Greek manuscripts. Modern Bibles drop it.
Mark 16:9–20
The resurrection appearances in Mark are missing from the two oldest complete New Testaments (4th century). Mark likely ended at 16:8.
John 7:53–8:11
"Let him who is without sin cast the first stone." Missing from many early manuscripts; earliest Greek copy containing it is from the 400s.1
Mark 7:19
"Thus all foods are clean" (BSB) vs. "purging all meats" (KJV): it depends on one Greek letter.
Textual scholars, including many evangelicals, point out that we have far more manuscripts of the New Testament than of any other ancient book, so most changes can be spotted and corrected, and most variants are spelling or word-order differences. Catholic and many Protestant churches still accept passages like John 8 as scripture.1 Critics reply that the large number of copies also means a large number of differences, and that some changes, like 1 John 5:7, were doctrinally motivated.
Translation is interpretation
Translators constantly choose between possible meanings. These choices aren't neutral, and they often line up with what the translators already believed.
| Verse | Original word | The choice |
|---|---|---|
| Isaiah 7:14 | עַלְמָה almah | "Young woman" (Hebrew meaning) or "virgin" (as in the Greek translation Matthew used)? |
| Psalm 22:16 | כָּאֲרִי ka'ari | "Like a lion" (standard Hebrew) or "pierced" (Greek translation, KJV)? |
| Genesis 1:6 | רָקִיעַ raqia | "Firmament" (solid), "expanse" (softer), or "vault/dome"? See Bible cosmology. |
| Genesis 1:1 | בְּרֵאשִׁית bereshit | "In the beginning God created" or "When God began to create"? |
| Romans 10:4 | τέλος telos | Christ is the "end" of the law, or its "goal"? |
| Acts 22:9 | ἤκουσαν | They "heard not" the voice (KJV) or "could not understand" it (BSB)? See Paul vs. Jesus. |
How to read an ancient text fairly (hermeneutics)
Hermeneutics just means "how to interpret." Before deciding what a verse means, ask:
- Who wrote it, and to whom? A promise to exiles in Babylon wasn't written to you.
- When? What was happening then?
- What kind of writing is it? Poetry, law, history, prophecy, a letter, a vision? (Psalms are poems; Revelation is a vision.)
- What did the words mean then? Check the original word and other places it's used.
- What do the surrounding verses say? Read the whole chapter, not one line.
Drawing the meaning out of the text from its language and setting. Example: "the circle of the earth" in Isaiah 40:22 meant a flat disc or horizon.
Putting your own ideas into it. Example: "Isaiah knew the Earth is a sphere."
Facts about the Bible vs. beliefs about the Bible
| Facts (anyone can check) | Beliefs (held by faith) |
|---|---|
| It was written in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek by many authors over centuries. | Its authors were inspired by God. |
| No originals survive; copies differ in places. | God preserved the essential message. |
| Some passages, like 1 John 5:7 in the KJV, aren't in early manuscripts. | The Bible is without error (inerrancy). |
| Its picture of the cosmos matches other ancient Near Eastern cultures. | It contains knowledge only God could have known. |
This site tries to keep those two columns separate. Facts can be checked. Beliefs can be held, but they shouldn't be presented as facts.
Sources
- Jimmy Akin (Catholic apologist), "The Woman Caught in Adultery": missing from many early manuscripts; earliest Greek copy containing it is Codex Bezae (400s); accepted as canonical by the Catholic Church. Also: BibleHub, Why is John 7:53 missing in some texts?
- Bible texts in the pop-ups: Westminster Leningrad Codex (public domain) with Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible morphology (CC BY 4.0); Robinson–Pierpont Byzantine Textform 2013 (public domain); BSB, KJV and YLT (public domain), via the scrollmapper bible_databases project; Strong's dictionaries (Open Scriptures, CC-BY-SA).
- Marked for a second source: the Leningrad Codex date (c. 1008), the Aramaic sections of Daniel and Ezra, and the absence of Mark 16:9–20 from Codex Sinaiticus and Vaticanus are standard facts of textual scholarship; individual citations still to be added.