The Texts:
Psalm 119:89 LAMED. For ever, O LORD, thy word is settled in heaven. (KJV)
Psalm 119:89 O LORD, your word is established in heaven forever. (GW, God’s Word translation)
Isaiah 40:8 The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever. (KJV)
Isaiah 40:8 Grass dries up, and flowers wither, but the word of our God will last forever. (GW)
The Challenge:
PixelMistakePicasso You state that:
“If you actually read the entire Bible, you will see that the Bible was corrupted, which is why it often contains contradictions. However, the central message from Jesus that he is not God is still present.”
My Response:
I am by profession a reading specialist. I was made a reading specialist because by teaching all my classes in a large high school, Southeastern High School, in Detroit, Michigan, USA, I enabled my students to improve their reading comprehension.
My classes improved so much that Southeastern High School was found to be the most improved high school in reading out of the then 22 high schools in Detroit at that time. The authorities did an investigation to try to learn how and why that happened and traced the results directly to the students in my American History classes.
To raise my students’ reading comprehension, I wrote a reading program called The Language Enrichment Program which is now available worldwide on Amazon under that title under my name. It works for readers of all ages, about age eight and above, from third grade to graduate school, for English language learners, for gifted and talented students, for students who are below grade level in reading comprehension. It helps all users to improve their inference skills.
I mention this as part of my background to let you know that I am here to help, not hinder, all readers to understand what they read, including understanding how to read the Bible more accurately.
I explained to some of you that the text of the Bible in its original languages has not been corrupted. I mentioned to you that the original Hebrew manuscripts and Greek manuscripts show very, very little difference among them when comparing the oldest to the latest extant copies.
For example, the oldest known complete Hebrew text for the book of Isaiah found among the Dead Sea Scrolls differs little from printed Hebrew texts in modern printed Hebrew Bibles of today. What differences there are to be found are given in the printed critical texts of the Hebrew Bible and the Greek Bible (LXX) and the Greek New Testament. What differences there are are very minor.
I have studied this subject in great depth since 1955 and have the personal print library to prove it. I also have a six-volume critical text of Shakespeare which shows the manuscript variations for Shakespeare’s plays and poetry. The text of the Greek New Testament is more certain than the text of Shakespeare in my judgment. There are more handwritten ancient manuscripts for the text of the Greek New Testament than there are for the much later text of Shakespeare. The sheer abundance of textual evidence for the New Testament accounts for the greater number of variations which have been found. Among those many variations, very few are significant enough to have any bearing upon translations into modern languages like English.
This being true, I trust that you will learn from what I have presented to you as fact, not mere opinion. Having learned the truth about the actual condition of the original language Bible texts, that you will retract your mistaken claims and not repeat them. Should it happen that you refuse to cease from promulgating falsehoods, you shall have proven yourself untruthful, which would unfortunately place you in a very bad position in the light of eternity according to the text of Revelation 21:8. I would wish that upon no one!
Revelation 21:8 But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.