MISSING AND ADDED VERSES (PART I)

Someone shared this on one of our social media handles:

VERY CRITICAL ALERT!!! Hello beloved saints, I’m sure you know that New international version (NIV) was published by Zondervan but is now OWNED by Harper Collins, who also publishes the Satanic Bible and The Joy of Gay Sex. The NIV and English Standard Version (ESV) has now removed 64,575 words from the Bible including Jehovah, Calvary, Holy Ghost and omnipotent to name but a few… The NIV and ESV have also now removed 45 complete verses. Most of us have the Bible on our devices and phones especially “OLIVE TREE BIBLE STUDY APP.” Try and find these scriptures in NIV and ESV on your computer, phone or device right now if you are in doubt: Matthew 17:21, 18:11, 23:14; Mark 7:16, 9:44, 9:46; Luke 17:36, 23:17; John 5:4; Acts 8:37. …you will not believe your eyes. Refuse to be blinded by Satan, and do not act like you just don’t care. Let’s not forget what the Lord Jesus said in John 10:10 (King James Version). THE SOLUTION: If you must use the NIV and ESV, BUY and KEEP AN EARLIER VERSION OF the BIBLE. A Hard Copy cannot be updated. All these changes occur when they ask you to update the app. On your phone or laptop etc. Buy and KEEP EARLIER VERSIONS AND STORE THEM. There is a crusade geared towards altering the Bible as we know it; NIV, ESV, and many more versions are affected.

RESPONSE: Let me handle this bit of the post in a very simple manner if you want a comprehensive answer to the question of variations in modern Bible versions. There is an expert view that will be shared with Donors on Telegram App (+256-775-822833) and if you are interested, please contact the number. But for now, let me say this.

Rhetorical Questions

If you have ever been in a church service where the preacher preaches in English and he has a translator who channels his English message into another vernacular; would you (the audience) know that the Translator has ADDED or SUBTRACTED from the original content of the English speaker? The obvious answer would be, that the only audience that can perceive the ADDITIONS and SUBTRACTIONS by the translator is the audience conversant with both languages.

Let me ask again; can someone who doesn’t know an authentic Dollar Bill, tell its counterfeit? (ATAMMANYI SENTE NAMU, AYINZA OKUMANYA ENFU?). Personally, I have always answered this question with a NO. How can you tell that it is a counterfeit if you have no clue of the original bill? Before we conclude that there are missing words, verses, and passages, do we know which language was the Bible written?

What is the Bible?

I think it is important we begin by briefly answering the question; ‘what is the Bible?’ The term Bible comes from a Greek word; ‘Biblos’ which means a Library. The Bible, therefore, is a Library of 66 books with different Genres (Narrative, Wisdom, Poetry, Prophecy, Biographies, Epistles and Apocalypse) but all hanging on the same string (Storyline). The Bible, therefore, is a literature piece made up of different books. This Library, however, isn’t one like the community or university library in which professionally the section of economics is entirely dealing with a different problem with different solutions but in the Bible-Library, all sections have independent approaches but to the same Problem and advocate for the same solution.

How we got our Bible

The Bible, unlike the Quran, did not fall from heaven. The Bible instead is a product of a team made up of God and Man. God delivered the content and man became the secretary and documented what God said. The Bible, therefore, is God’s word in man’s fashion and style. For that matter, what is inerrant (without mistake) about the Bible is not all words in it but rather its message. That is what is called ‘Scripture’.

God is the author of his word and man is the secretary and transmitter of God’s word (2Peter 1:21; 1Corinthians 12:3, 2Timothy 3:16). Here is how the Bible further confirms this, _Then Jeremiah called Baruch the son of Neriah: and Baruch wrote from the mouth of Jeremiah all the words of the LORD, which he had spoken unto him, upon a roll of a book. (Jer 36:4 KJV)._ we have God as the Origin of the word, then Jeremiah and Baruch as Transmitters and Recorders of the word of God.

The first means by which we got our Bible, therefore, was through Oral Transmission where the recorder works like the modern tape recorder. God spoke to men and men recorded what he said and their recording materials were: rocks, doorposts, sheepskins, Papyruses and eventually to scrolls, and this is what we know today as ‘Manuscripts’ that formulate the Old & New Testament.

In the New Testament, the disciples recorded all that they could remember about their experience with Jesus Christ (1John 1:1-3, Luke 1:1-3). That is what we have as the Gospels (actually Biographies according to me). When a Church in the New Testament received a letter from the apostle Paul in the mid-first century, the believers there would have read it aloud in their gatherings, and then devoted followers who recognized the value of Paul’s words would have produced handwritten copies of the letter to pass around to a wider audience. By the end of the first century, Paul’s letters were being copied as a collection. That is what we know as the Epistles today.

In Which Language?

God as the source of his word, spoke the native language of those he spoke to and through. Since in the Old Testament he spoke largely to the Habirus, he spoke Hebrew the Language of Judah (Nehemiah 13:24). When it came to the Greco-Roman world of the New Testament he spoke in Greek. The Bible you are holding right now in paper and on phone has its original text in Hebrew, Aramaic (Old Testament) and Greek (New Testament). The Aramaic sections of the Old Testament are found in Daniel 2:4-7:28, Ezra 4:8-6:18; 7:12-26; and one verse in (Jeremiah 10:11).

These are what the experts call the ‘Source Languages’ (SL). All other languages that the Bible is into (English inclusive) are vernaculars and translations and these are known as Receptor Languages (RL) or as the English professor brother Peter Sserubidde terms it ‘Target Language’ (TL). The English versions (and all other languages) are mere translations doing a job equivalent to that of the Sunday Service translator.

God bless you I invoke TRUTH, WISDOM, and FAITH (2Tim 2:7)

Priest TIM WHITE (+256-775 822833 for further inquiries)

iTiS Well of Worship Fellowship (John 4:24)

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