Good Evening, Gents!

I fell asleep toward the end of Casino Royale last night. I was watching some of the Truman Show & I ran into Joker talking about people changing the Bible.

This isn't anything new. People have been twisting the Bible since Jesus' time. The Bible warns us about this throughout the New Testament. I just thought I'd put that out here & share that with you (for those of you who may have been concerned), as well as some hacks that I've used in my life as a Christian to overcome this.

The first thing that I did was get acquainted with the Bible. I've read it cover to cover multiple times. And I tend to read a little almost every day. I have parts of it memorized. I actually memorize it as I go through it & as I teach it. It's hard to pull one over on you when you know something by heart.

But how can you trust that what you know is the truth? The Dead Sea Scrolls are some of the oldest manuscripts of the Bible that we have & they are remarkably close to what we have today in many translations. And there are a wide variety of translations out there, some heretical, some accurate. Some Bible translations are what they call transliterations (sorry, this is going to get technical). These are idea for idea or phrase for phrase translations. I find them to be normally inaccurate or at least of less quality than word for word translations. There are a lot of them out there. The King James Version is accurate, but it's not really easy to read. The NASB & CSB are also very reliable. I personally use the ESV.

However, I will say that from time to time I'll look to online Bibles rather than rummage around for mine. Ordinarily, I always have a Bible within reach. But sometimes, it's not & rather than get my lazy bones up to get it, I'll just look online. Even looking at an ESV translation online, I can tell you that it can sometimes be different than what I have in print (which is why it's handy to have it memorized).

The NET is also a great translation, because it actually shows you how they translated it. And this brings me to another hack. If you read the introduction to whatever Bible translation you use, it should give you specifics about who translated it & how they did it. It should give you names of the organizations, which you can research & even the names of the individuals who translated it. I have personally reached out to some of them before. If they are not going to give you that information, I wouldn't trust it. If you don't agree with how they translated it, I wouldn't trust it.

When I was young, I used the NIV. However, in the 2010s, they decided to translate it in a more gender neutral way, which alters the Bible. I don't approve of that, so I stopped using it. Rumor has it that they went back to the old way of translating it, but to be honest, I have not done any research on it, & don't trust it any more.

Another way that I test the Bible is by comparing new Bibles to ones I already have & trust. The NIV that I was given when I was baptized is a 1984 edition, probably the most solid ones they have (they kinda went downhill after that). So, I will pick up a 2025 NIV & compare it to my 1984. If it isn't verbatim, I don't trust it. I do this with every Bible I buy. Since I currently use the ESV the most, I compare new ESV's that I buy witth the one I've had for the last 8 years. (8 years isn't really a long time, you say, well, don't forget, I had a fire 8 years ago that took everything except the clothes I was wearing, so essentially my life started over 8 years ago.)

Anyway, these are just some ways that I have adopted over the years to combat the persistent threat of people changing the Bible. I hope this helps you if this is something you're concerned about. You can always reach out to me if you have questions & I'll do my best to answer them for you.

And since this post was about as long as my Saturday posts, I might as well share what I'm currently working on with you. I'm just around 5 hours in at the moment, so it probably won't be done this week. Maybe next week though.

Enjoy!