Apologetics Session 43 - Jehovah’s Witnesses

The Four Marks of Cultic Religion and the Authority of Scripture

A lot to discuss tonight. We are going to be going through a lot of stuff. We're going to be reading a lot of the Jehovah's Witnesses' materials to get straight from the horse's mouth what has been said over the years and what they believe.

So that's good that we'll be able to do that. One of the things that I was thinking about as going through this is we've gone through quite a lot of other religions now, comparing them to the Bible, comparing them to Christianity, comparing to them what do they say about Jesus Christ.

And when I started to get into it, I was like, oh, you know, this is a little bit of a different flavor and it's not quite what we talked about with Mormonism, right? But what it comes down to is there's the same four basic things that go astray with any sort of cultic religion, which is basically the sacred texts, they are going to say they have their own version of whether they were inspired by some vision that came upon them or some new revelation that someone got in their minds and the church had been wrong for 1 ,800 years.

All of a sudden they figured the whole thing out. And what we painstakingly did months and months ago was we talked about this book, which is the scriptures translated from Hebrew and American Greek, why we trust this book, why we trust that this book is authentic, why we trust this book is from the Lord, because of the historical accuracy of it, because of the prophetic fulfillments that only God himself could have authorized, from the manuscript evidence that we spoke about in painstaking length, and from even logical evidence and external evidence of the scriptures themselves.

So this book has the testimony of the prophets and the apostles who were given by the Lord, who were inspired by the Spirit, to write all these things down. The other books that we're going to talk about today is basically some folks got together and decided something.

But we're going to hold those things, those books, up to the same scrutiny that we would the scriptures. Are they accurate? Do they fulfill prophecy? Are there predictions made? And are there fulfillments that we can put our finger on and say, oh, okay, only the Lord could have known that.

So we're going to do that today. And that's been kind of throughout, as we've studied all these different religions, what we do. All the religions we've talked about as well, they make statements about Jesus Christ, but they don't make the statements that the scriptures do about Jesus Christ.

They claim that he's somebody, and tonight the Jehovah's Witnesses will do that. They also have a, usually a prophet, or a priest, or a board, a ruling board, that the community of believers would submit to.

And in this case, this is also true, is the Watchtower Society has their ruling authorities in Brooklyn, New York. And then all, all other religions in the world teach salvation is by your merits, what you do, what you accomplish, as opposed to what Jesus Christ has done, and giving you the free gift of salvation through his shed blood, and his call on your life.

So those are the four things, and it won't be any different tonight. So let's get into Jehovah's Witnesses. First off, I know a lot of you guys know this. Do you know who the founder of Jehovah's Witnesses is?

Charles Taze Russell. Charles Taze Russell. So, he might not be the particular kind of person we would think of as a, as a religious leader, guru kind of person who would build up this new religion. He was basically a disgruntled teenager, that did not like how his church was teaching the Bible.

So what he did is he latched himself onto a group of seven-day Adventists, and, and he got into Adventism for a while, and he thought they might have a better direction. But then he started developing his own doctrinal theories, and very early on, they were using the King James Bible at the time.

So he was, this, it was not Jehovah's Witnesses yet. It was just his ideas through these Bible studies he was going to, that started with seven-day Adventism. But they would reject the Trinity. They would say the Trinity is not true.

They would let, they rejected the fact that Jesus Christ was God, that he was Michael the Archangel. So that was very early on they did that. The belief that the Holy Spirit was not a person, but some sort of a force that emanates from God, but he's a force.

They reject the idea of an eternal punishment or an eternal hell. They believe in annihilation. Now, all of these things that I've mentioned so far, we've already covered these things in this, in this class, in this apologetic series, that the Holy Spirit is certainly a person, that the Trinity is very true, and that Jesus Christ is God Almighty, and that we've, we've also covered the doctrine of eternal punishment.

Another thing they said was that the bodily resurrection of Jesus is false, that he was not bodily raised, but he was raised in spirit form only, which is incredibly interesting. I find that an extremely interesting claim, that they would deny that Jesus was bodily resurrected, which is a key to understanding that our sins were forgiven, and that, you know, that his work was vindicated by God the Father, that he was raised in the same body that he died in.

And he proved so, obviously, we know, by, you know, showing the hands and the wrists, and coming before his disciples, and saying, you know, I am not a spirit, this flesh and bone, you know, because I have flesh and bone before you.

So, it's amazing to me that they would say that. And then, the other thing that's interesting about the Jehovah's Witnesses, is they have an intense interest, even an obsession, with the return of Christ.

They're constantly talking about the kingdom on earth. When's the kingdom on earth going to be established? And that was very early on, that they really got into that. But we're going to get into all the nuances of that.

And Joe's with us tonight. Joe is somewhat of an expert on Jehovah's Witnesses. He's got a whole pile of books there. I have a whole pile of books here, or some books at least, anyway, from the Jehovah's Witnesses, and we're going to bang it around a little bit tonight.

Now, Charles Taze Russell started the Watchtower Track Society, but it was not called the Jehovah's Witnesses yet. Charles Taze Russell died in 1912, I think it was. Let me see the back of my notes here.

I think he died in 1912, or 1916. But a man who was one of his disciples, one of his followers, was named Joseph Franklin Rutherford. And he gave himself the self-imposed title of Judge. So he called himself Judge Rutherford, if you've heard that before.

And he kept on developing the doctrines of the Watchtower, and he was the one that really started really getting organized, and making it kind of a machine, and getting kind of the printing presses going, I'll say.

He really started producing a lot of literature, and he was the one that started calling it Jehovah's Witnesses later on. I have a date in here somewhere. I think it's, it looks like 1935 or 1931. He introduced the name Jehovah's Witnesses in 1931, and the term of Kingdom Hall, where they would go, you know, in 1935.

But, we'll get into this in a minute. There's a lot of predictions that happened over the years with Jehovah's Witnesses, and we will talk about those in a little bit. I have them here in my early notes, but we don't have to get into those right now.

So right now what I want to do is this. We're going to go over several of the statements that Jehovah's Witnesses say about who God is, who Jesus Christ is, and what about things about creation, things about coming judgment.

And I'm going to read to you from some of the Jehovah's Witnesses literature and books. When you hear what I say, you're going to say, we could easily turn to Philippians chapter 2, or Revelation chapter 1, and that's so clearly wrong what you just said.

But, we have these, which is the New World Translation. And I know that many of you know that there's always been a controversy over John 1, where the Scriptures say that in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

And they introduced an article was a God. They introduced an article that's not there in the manuscripts, the Greek manuscripts. So, we know about that, but the changes in their translation is much more heavy and deep than that.

And we are going to look at a lot of this. So, what I'd like you to do is, if you think you have a verse that contradicts what I'm saying, we'll read the verse from the Bible, and then we'll read the verse from here.

And if I know, I also have a Greek, two Greek interlinear texts with me tonight. So, we have some of the Greek words as well. And we'll just see what we can find out tonight. I have some specific things we want to look at, but I know in your minds, when we read some of these things, you're going to be like, oh my goodness, you know, all we have to do is read Colossians chapter 1.

It's not that big of a deal. Okay. So, from their book called Make Sure of All Things, written in 1956, they say only Jehovah is from everlasting to everlasting. Now, we wouldn't deny that Jehovah's from everlasting, but we would also say that Jesus Christ is from everlasting to everlasting as well.

And there are scriptures about that. Jesus is not one God with the Father. He is not one God with the Father. This is also from Make Sure of All Things. If you want to stop me, go ahead, but it's perfectly fine if we just keep going, because we're going to have a lot of stuff to read tonight.

Okay. Next thing. There was a time when Jehovah was alone in universal space. All life and energy and thought were contained in him alone. Now, does that sound like an accurate statement? Well, it was always the Trinity, where the Father, Son, and Spirit always existed eternally, co-eternally.

That is from Let God Be True, written in 1952. Okay. Now, in a book called Let God Be True, they say this. The obvious conclusion is that Satan is the originator of the Trinity doctrine. So, they attribute the Trinity concept to Satan.

Now, obviously, that's going to contradict all of the early church creeds, all the early church fathers, and it's going to contradict what we've studied. So, you know, we've gone through so many verses that prove that the Bible says that Jesus is God, and that he is co-equal with the Spirit and the Father.

They rewrite many of those verses, but they can't get them all. They just can't get them all. So, we're going to look at some from their version that absolutely proves that Jesus Christ is God Almighty as well, even though they would like to say their Bible doesn't, but it does.

As I said, they didn't even have a New World Translation until like 1940. The reason that they said they translated it at that time was because they said the King James language was out of date, so they needed a new, fresh translation.

Wait till we start reading it. You'll be very interested. So, they have a problem with the word Elohim, right? We talked about the word Elohim in the Old Testament. Elohim is plural for what? It's a plural form of El, like El Shaddai, El Elyon.

Clearly, it says Elohim created the world, and then when the Lord said, we shall make man in our image, or man has become like us, knowing good and evil. Those words, that word Elohim is plural in the Old Testament.

It's like, well, how can God say he's one God, but yet plural? And even in the Great Shema, we have the word Elohim embedded in the Great Shema. So, how can we say, then, that Elohim doesn't mean that there's a plurality of the Godhead, that there's a plurality of God?

Well, they say that Elohim is plural for the majesty of God, meaning he's majestic in many ways. It does not mean that he is a mysterious trinity. So, that comes from a book called the New Heavens and the New Earth.

So, they just conveniently, you know, they didn't deny that the word means plural, but they denied that it actually stands for plural of a noun of the object that it's modifying, that it's referring to his majesty, not to his person itself.

So, that's the kind of stuff we're going to run into as we go forward. Now, what does Jehovah's Witnesses say about Jesus Christ? We already said that they believe he's Michael the archangel. They believe that Jehovah made the universe through him.

On earth, he was a man who lived a perfect life after dying on a stake and not a cross. And I'm not sure why they really drive that point home, but they say he died on a stake. And the pictures that they would show in this book here of Jesus, it would not be with his arms spread out, as we know the Romans did, and as we know the scriptures say many, many, many times.

They have him upright on one stake like this. I don't understand why they did that. I did not look hard into that, but for some reason, that is what they believe. I don't know,.

Joe, if you know why they say that. I think they're just looking for other differences, but what I read was the Persians actually invented the crucifixion, that it was on a stake,.

And the Romans added the crossbar. Oh, I have heard that too, yeah. And why they think that.

It wasn't... But it's the same word, starops. Okay. Which means, it means the same thing,.

With or without the crossbar. Okay, yeah. I don't know why they make such a big deal out of that. Is that literally tree, starops? Does that mean tree? I don't know. We know in a couple places in the New Testament it says, you know, cursed is he who dies on a tree, right?

Yeah. And of course, the cross is made out of, you know, a tree. But for some reason, they do not like the idea of a.

Cross. It means, I think it means a stake with or without the crossbar, and it's just historical.

Yeah, so that's one of, that's one interesting thing. You know, I mean, that's not a, that's not a deal breaker in one way or another, but it's very interesting that they claim that. They believe that his body, after dying, was destroyed.

That it was, it ceased to exist. That it was annihilated, and that his spirit was actually what he was raised as. I'm not sure why they would say that, but, you know, if you think about that, and as the words we read before, so let's turn to Luke.

I'm going to turn in the New World Translation and read from this. If someone could read from, so I think you could start, Mike, are you there? Luke chapter 24. So Jesus is appearing to his disciples after he's been resurrected.

If you could read 24 verses 37, I'll say through 39, that should be good enough.

Oh, maybe, maybe through 40. 37, 40. Yeah. Okay, but they were startled and frightened and thought they saw a spirit, and he said to them, why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts?

See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have. And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet, and while they still disbelieved for joy and were marveling, he said to them, have you anything here to eat?

They gave him a piece.

Of broiled fish and took it and ate it for them. Okay, so the key is here that Jesus is proving to them it is still the same person who died on the cross three days earlier, and that he has a physical resurrected body, and he's physically before them, and he's also physically enjoying food with them.

So here's what the New World Translation says, but because they were terrified and had become frightened, they were imagining that they beheld a spirit. So he, that's right there, that's what it says.

So he said to them, why are you troubled, and why is it that doubts come into your hearts? See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Feel me and see me, because a spirit does not have flesh and bones just as you have behold that I have.

And as he said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. So they did not change that section. So why in the world they would say that Jesus did not raise in the physical form that he did is beyond me.

I don't understand why they would press that point or why they would go there, but it's clearly very easily proven false. What do they think about Lazarus then? He didn't raise from the dead? I didn't read anything about that.

I mean, I certainly could, you know, we could read the New World Translation. That takes quite a few bodies that he raised up. Obviously, Jairus's daughter, they were all physically raised from dead. But they also, they do believe for some reason, that if you die yourself and you're a good Jehovah's Witnesses, your body, your soul is going to go to sleep.

All the bad people are going to be annihilated, okay? But those who are Jehovah's Witnesses are going to, and there is a physical resurrection into the kingdom, and you are going to live forever on earth in the kingdom.

So they do believe in a physical resurrection, but for some reason they do not believe that Jesus was physically resurrected. And that's, that's a puzzle, that's puzzling to me. And Michael, they believe, is again, that none other than the only begotten Son of God, now Jesus Christ.

In the Old Testament, he was Michael the archangel. In the New Testament, he's Jesus Christ, and that comes from a book called New Heavens and New Earth. So those are some of the things about, they say about God and about Jesus Christ.

The New World Translation and the Problem of Bias

Now, what do they say about the scriptures? What do they say about the documents that we hold dear, the New and the Old Testament? What do they say about it? Well, I'm going to read from this right now.

I'm going to read to you how highly they think of supposedly the Word of God. Now, what I'm reading from you is called, From Paradise Lost to Paradise Regained, okay?

Not John Milton though.

It's, and I said before, I don't know if you guys were here when I was talking about it, but this is basically a simplistic summary of all the scriptures. So at times they're going to quote the scriptures, but they're also going to interweave their own teachings within it, okay?

So this is, it says this. It's supposed to be going out to about 55 other countries so that they can understand the Bible. Really, it's understanding the indoctrination of the Jehovah's Witnesses. So it says this in the introduction.

Why do we ask you these questions? It's because the Bible has been put into more different languages than any other book in the world. Likely, it has been put into the language that you speak. Many copies of the Bible have been written or printed.

Man has printed more copies of the Bible than any other book that man has ever written. Do you know why that is so? It is because the Bible is God's book, and it tells us the good things that God wants us to know.

The Bible is the only book on earth that tells us how man's first paradise was lost, and how paradise will be brought back to this earth, and how you may live in it forever in happiness. We want you to know the Bible tells us about God and about the good thing He wants to give us if we please Him.

Then, when you read the Bible itself, you will understand more easily what it says. Do not feel ashamed if you have never seen a Bible or ever read it. So this is almost like an evangelical sort of thing, like where they're trying to reach out to those who have never heard about the Bible, and have never heard about, you know, God's plan of salvation or redemption or how the world was created.

So they're going to summarize all this, and they're trying to reach out to those who really don't know anything about the Bible. So in that sense, it's like, you know, we should really be convicted of our heart that these folks put this much effort into trying to reach people with their message.

It's like, do we put as much effort in on our end? You know, they've written so much literature, and they put so much work in going door to door, thinking they're earning things, thinking that they're working towards salvation.

And we have the free gift of God, but we know that all those who don't accept Jesus Christ are going to have an end which is much more real and much more, I'll say, sad than what they believe. They believe if a person dies without knowing about Jehovah God, that they're going to be annihilated.

We know that the Bible talks about eternal damnation, and that those who reject God and sin against his eternal holiness are going to be cast in the lake of fire. So we should have more impetus. We should have more motivation.

And because God has loved us so much, we should have more in our hearts to share with anyone. So in some senses, this is very convicting.

Yeah. You may be pointing toward this eventually, but Revelation 22, 18 and 19, a couple of the last verses of the Bible, talk about changing the word of God to serve your.

Purposes. Yeah. And that's what they're doing. Yeah. Yeah. And that's any warning for anybody who would monkey with the word of God. God takes his word very seriously. So we're going to read now about how they came up with the New World Translation.

So they say the Bible is very important. Let's follow the Bible. Well, the New World Translation was produced by the New World Translation Committee in 1947. This committee is said to have been comprised by unnamed members of a multinational background.

So they didn't want to publicize who actually was on this committee. Some of the members were identified later, however. Referring to the identified members, the evangelical minister Walter Ralston Martin said, the New World Bible Translation Committee had no translators with recognized degrees in Greek, Hebrew, exegesis, or translation.

None of these men even had a university education, except for Franz. This is Frederick Franz, who left school after two years, never completing an undergraduate degree. Frederick Franz had stated that he was familiar not only with Hebrew, but with Greek, Latin, Spanish, Portuguese, German, and French for the purpose of biblical translation.

So what you have here in 1947 is a committee of people who wanted the Bible to say what they wanted it to say, and they were not honest translators. They were not fluent in Greek, and Hebrew, and Aramaic.

So what they did is if they had verses that were troublesome to them, they would phrase it in a way that would make it more palatable for their doctrines, and we're going to see a lot of examples of that.

So here's the problem though. Challenging mistranslations in the new, or the NWT, New World Translation, has its place, and we're going to talk about tonight, but often it's just going to lead to arguments that don't produce fruit, unfortunately.

We all know about John 1. We talked about that before, right? That John 1, they insert an article that's not there in the original text. I don't think you'd ever be able to convince a Jehovah's Witness that they're in error on that.

I have a couple of things that I'd like to go through now, as far as the translation, and show you how biased their translation is. We're going to look at the iambs of John first. We don't have to turn there right now, but I'm just going to read several of the iambs of the Gospel of John.

We know Jesus said, I am the bread of life, and their version would say the same thing, I am the bread of life. John 8 .12 says, therefore Jesus spoke to them again saying, I am the light of the world.

Again, their version is going to say, I am the light of the world. John 9 .5, as long as I am in the world, I am the world's light. So I am, I am. John 10 .7, Jesus said to them, most truly I say to you, I am the door of the sheep.

Again, I am. John 10 .9, I am the door, whoever enters through me will be saved, and he will go in and out in a fine fashion. Now there's many, many other times where it says I am in John, but there's one verse in particular that they do not like that says, I am.

The Greek phrase translated, I am, every single time I read it and many, many more times is egoimi in the Greek. Well, the verse they don't like is this, John 8 .58. Can someone turn there and read that?

Before Abraham was, I am. Well, you guys know which verse I'm talking about. I'm going to, well, maybe Joe could read it in a New World Translation. Do you have a New World Translation there, Joe? I do have it open.

Let's read you, have you read it second. Okay. So John, are you getting there? Okay, we'll have John read. You say 58. 8 .58. Said to them, truly, truly I say to you, before Abraham was, I am. So that's the pointing back to Exodus 3 .14.

The great I am Jehovah, Yahweh. So Joe, what do you have there? In the 1986 edition,.

Jesus said to them, most truly I say to you, before Abraham came into existence, I have been.

That's a little more palatable than saying I am, because I am points back to the great revelation of Jehovah, being the great I am, the all-existent one, the eternally existent one. And if Jesus is saying in this verse that he is the eternally existent one, and by the way, he is saying that because he says before Abraham was, I am.

And their whole problem is that Jesus is claiming, you know, deity and messiahship, and they do not like what he's talking about in John chapter 8. What do they do, what do they say about Abraham rejoicing in seeing his day?

Well, they're going to read, they're going to, they're not going to cut out. First, I have not seen like big chunks cut out or anything like that. And most of the time, because they think Jesus is a special being, they will allow a lot of things to be said about him.

And they won't have a lot of trouble with that, because they'll say, well, that's because he's special, he's Michael the archangel. And all things were created through him, except him, because he was created by God the Father.

So we're going to read verses about that in a second. But, you know, if you are talking to a Jehovah's Witness, you could ask them, okay, all of these other times in the book of John, we have ego me translated I am.

Why is this verse translated different? You know, that might be interesting. You know, you can see where you go with that. There's other, there's two other verses that are very interesting. There's a lot of stuff that's extremely interesting.

It's all interesting, right? Let's turn to Titus chapter 2, verse 13. And if somebody could also turn, so Jim, could you turn to Titus chapter 2, verse 13? And Ryan, do you have the scriptures in front of you too?

Could you turn to 2 Peter chapter 1, verse 1? So, okay, waiting for, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ. Could you read that slower again, just a little bit?

Yep, rewind.

Waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.

It says our great God and Savior Jesus Christ. So, the subject of that sentence is Jesus Christ and great God and Savior modified His name. They don't like that. They don't like that even a little bit.

So, what the New World Translation says is this, we wait for the happy hope and glorious manifestation of the great God and of the Savior of us, Jesus Christ. So, they insert, again, an article that's not there.

But we're going to have a little bit of trouble with this because, okay, wait a second. It's interesting in both these cases. So, the context in Titus chapter 2 indicates that only one person is in view, and that's Jesus Christ.

They're looking for the great coming and the appearing of Jesus Christ. The sentence continues in the verse 14 with only one person, Jesus Christ. He gave Himself to purify for Himself a people. So, this language is reminiscent of the redemptive work of Jehovah turning back to Isaiah in the Psalms and whatnot.

But here it's speaking of Jesus Christ and the context of Him before and after that sentence is Jesus Christ. There's no really no reason to insert a gratuitous unnatural reference to the Father in the middle of this passage.

And as a matter of fact, the word isn't there. So, why do they do it? They do it because they do not want that verse to say, our great God and Savior Jesus Christ. Well, 2 Peter 1 .1 is even more interesting, I think.

So, Ryan, could you read 2 Peter 1 .1? And then, Joe, I'll have you read 2 Peter 1 .1 out of the New World Translation.

Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who have obtained the faith of equal standing with ours by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ.

Very similar, our God and Savior Jesus Christ. So, Joe, could you read 2 Peter 1 .1 out of the.

New World Translation? Yes, Simon Peter, a slave and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who have obtained a faith held in equal privilege with ours by the righteousness of our God and.

The, in brackets, Savior Jesus Christ. So, he's trying, again, to separate God and Savior, the God and Savior. But here's an interesting twist on this. Joe, could you read verse 11 of 2 Peter? So, 2 Peter 1 .11.

In fact, thus, there will be richly supplied to you the entrance into the everlasting kingdom.

Of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Oh, so that verse says, Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The verse is identical. The Greek is identical except for one change, kurios and theos. In verse 1, it says theos.

So, to our great God and Savior Jesus Christ. But they insert a bonus word. The Greek is identical except kurios is used in verse 11. But in that one, they do not insert, as you heard Joe read, they say Lord and Savior, not Lord and the Savior.

So, why do they insert that special word into one verse and not into another verse, which is the exact same translation? So, you get the concept that there's many biases and many sneaky little things that they've done, but it's so dishonest and is so incredibly biased and not according to good translational practices.

Now, let's point to a couple more, but we're going to get to a lot of stuff here. Acts 20 .28. Cameron, do you have that? Could you turn to that? Acts 20 .28. We're going to give Joe a workout here because he's got the New World Translation.

So, we'll have Joe read this. Yes, Acts 20 .28. Yes, okay. Now, what you don't see in that verse is the name Jesus Christ. You also will not see the name Jesus Christ before or after that. The context of Acts 20 .28 is God Almighty, but it says God Almighty purchased the church with his own blood.

Well, we know whose blood was shed, and if it's own blood and that verse is saying it was God Almighty who shed his own blood, the Job's witnesses have a problem. So, let's see.

How they get around it. Joe, could you read the same thing? Sure. Verse 28. Pay attention to yourselves and to all the flock among which the Holy Spirit has appointed you overseers to shepherd the congregation of God which he purchased with the blood of his own Son.

And Son's in brackets and.

Holy Spirit is not in caps. Right, but Son is not in the text. Son is an inserted word again, just as they are prone to do, and they actually have a little note. It was in both my versions of the New Testament that says, well, this is just like Luke chapter 13, verse 2 and 4, where they say that there's also kind of a reason to insert this extra word.

Oh, I'm sorry, I'm thinking of something else. But in this particular case, they point to some obscure translations of the Bible, the Lexham English Bible and the complete Jewish Bible, that actually do insert this word as well in their translations.

I don't know why those two translations do, but it's not in the text. They insert it because they have a bias, because they cannot accept that if they left that verse alone as it was, it would testify that God Almighty purchased the church.

And these brackets disappear in later editions. Oh, it does? You have a pretty.

New version though, right? No, this is an older one. It was, well, 86. Yeah, and these two versions.

I have, but these are older than yours even, so. Well, I got 90s, I got 2011. So you're saying in the older version, or the newer versions, they remove the brackets to give a resemblance that it's really real and it's really there, but it's not.

It's a word again that they inserted. Now, yeah, so we'll go through a couple more of these. The Holy Spirit is interesting. Let's not focus on the Holy Spirit so much, but they say he's a force, right?

I'm just going to have Joe read John chapter 14, verses 16 and 17. You guys can read along with your version. It won't take long before you figure out where the problems are. We're not going to go into the problems, but I just want you to know what they say John 14 through 16, 16 and 17 reads like.

So John 14, 16 and 17. It says, And I will request the Father, and he will give you another helper to be with you forever, the Spirit of the truth, which the world cannot receive, because it neither beholds it nor knows it.

You know it because it remains with you and is in you. Okay, what's the.

Key difference there? It is him, not it. The Bible says him, and the reason the Bible says him, and I did look up the Greek on this, the word, I guess we are going to get into a little bit. The pronoun that's again modifying the subject back is a neuter pronoun.