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Wisdom-Trek / Creating a Legacy
Welcome to Day 876 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.
I am Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom
Is My Bible Accurate? - Wisdom Wednesday


Thank you for joining us for our five days per week wisdom and legacy building podcast. Today is Day 876 of our Trek, and it is Wisdom Wednesday.

The past several months on Wednesday we have been focusing on interpreting current events through a Biblical Worldview. To establish a Biblical worldview, it is important that you also have a proper understanding of God’s word. Especially in our western cultures, we do not fully understand the Scriptures from the mindset and culture of the authors. In order to help us all have a better understanding of some of the more obscure passages in God’s word, we are investing Wisdom Wednesday reviewing a series of essays from one of today’s most prominent Hebrew Scholars Dr. Micheal S. Heiser. He has compiled these essays into a book titled I Dare You Not to Bore Me with the Bible.

We are broadcasting from our studio at The Big House in Marietta, Ohio. We hear a lot about “fake news” today, and it is getting to the point where it is difficult to trust any major media outlet. Certainly, the internet is also awash with all sorts of theories and opinions, many of which have little or no basis in truth.

While I believe that God’s word is inspired in its original revelation, throughout the ages there are some subtle nuances in the various translations that do affect our understanding of certain passages. None of these differences impact the major doctrines or the overriding message of salvation through Jesus Christ. As I gain a better understanding of the Bible in the language and culture in which it was written, it helps me to gain a better understanding of how God is building up His kingdom throughout the world today. In today’s essay from Dr. Heiser, we want to look at Deuteronomy 32:8-9 where God divided up the human race of the world at that time…
Is My Bible Accurate?
After the great flood, everyone had one language. Humanity congregated in the region of Babylonia (“the land of Shinar”) and started building a tower that would reach into the heavens as told to us in Genesis 11:1-9.  God stopped the project by transforming the single language into many—dispersing humanity over the earth and creating the 70 nations and regions listed in Genesis 10 from the decedents of Noah. Genesis11:7-9 tells of this scattering of people, "Come, let’s go down and confuse the people with different languages. Then they won’t be able to understand each other. In that way, the Lord scattered them all over the world, and they stopped building the city.  That is why the city was called Babel, because that is where the Lord confused the people with different languages. In this way, he scattered them all over the world."

Most people think it ends there, but there’s more. The story picks up again in Deuteronomy 32:8-9, and the story changes, depending on what Bible version you use. Here is the reading from the New Living Translation.

When the Most High assigned lands to the nations,
when he divided up the human race,
he established the boundaries of the peoples
according to the number in his heavenly court.[a]

For the people of Israel belong to the Lord;
Jacob is his special possession.

In the Dead Sea Scrolls, it reads the number of the sons of God, and Greek version, which reads the number of the angels of God; Masoretic Text reads the number of the sons of Israel. The difference is due to these ancient manuscript disagreements, which have major theological ramifications.


· Is It Accurate?
Many English Bibles have “sons of Israel” or something similar because the translation is based on the traditional Hebrew t...