Quote Originally Posted by bitpicker View Post
all scripture has been rewritten and modified beyond recognition.
Not so sure! Remember the Qumran scrolls (at work, so can't check it up..) But essentially they were several thousand years old Torah scrolls that were found hidden away in a cave in an inaccessible mountainous area. When they were investigated, they found, if I recall correctly, that there were only a few letters that were different to the Hebrew "Torah" today! To Jews, it was a fantastic sign of the holiness of their Torah.

In the New Testament, I think they removed the "apocrypha" books and found some signs that a section had been added to one of the testaments during the Middle Ages. But that was about it! Apart from that, the the gospels were written 50-100 years after the death of Jesus, approximately. To some degree they are supported by a totally independent Roman history writer that was a contemporary of Jesus, but not a Jew. He wrote about it simply because it was major news in the area at the time. His name was Josefus.