I was thinking how can something that was re-written many times be considered "the truth" or the word of God. Also I was curious if there was an official number out there.
Well, there is the difference between the Old Testament and the New Testament. The Hebrew text (or OT) is more meticulous with fewer original copies and the Septuagint (or NT) has many copies. I am uncertain how they came about... I find it interesting though...concerning Philosophy...I read an article several years ago and still find it interesting. Manuscript evidence for superior New Testament reliability|Accuracy of the New Testament | Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry . I'd also take into consideration that many of the "copies" are actually translations into another language not a degradation of the original.
There is no official number because, for starters, no one knows for sure who even wrote the books. The bible isn't even one book. It's a collection of books from different time periods. Some were trashed, some burned, some edited. This only discredits its validity further. The Romans eventually put together what we call the Bible. In fact, some books have been found to be forged by nobodies.
The Israelites copied their manuscripts quite a bit, riddled with errors. There's even one theory which suggests that most of the gospels are just copies of the same manuscript.
If you don't count the new english ones, but go just to King James, it is around 3 major times. It went from Hebrew to Greek to Latin to English as far as I know. If you want a legit straight from hebrew translation of the Old Testament get the Tanakh by the Jewish Publication Society. It has the hebrew right next to it on each page and you read it backwards also lol, like as in from right to left, the back of the book to the front. I wish they'd do it with the New Testament. I'd recommend "The Second Coming of Christ" by Paramhansa Yogananda for a legitimate commentary on the New Testament, it is 2 volumes on the 4 Gospels, so it is very in depth.
Yeah. There's a really good documentary on this which aired on the history channel (if I remember the name I will post it). It follows the Israelites and tells how Priests kept the scrolls and how some were destroyed during battles and others were copied many times over. No one can ever say for certain who wrote any of these books because obviously there's no evidence (so never let anyone tell you otherwise). Don't read any Christian work on this subject, I find they're extremely biased and usually try to hide the flimsiness of it all (my mom has a Christian book on this). They usually just say "and this is why the canon is the true word of God."