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I was caught off guard by the student, who had been caught off guard by the Muslim. I don’t doubt that there are other things I could have done. I could have started this thread in the Apologetics forum. The story in the OP, after all, sprung from that ground. I chose not to for a reason: I...

How would you help someone … The common internet forum brawl response (as depicted in a Western): A too common internet discussion forum deadly response (as depicted in a Western): An under the radar internet discussion forum response to the common internet forum responses (as depicted in...

Internet discussion forums -> commentary hell.

I didn’t ask him to trust me. We worked through it together. I also didn’t ask him to trust commentaries. I asked him to consider what they said and evaluate it critically.

Thanks for your commentary. You make some valid points.

One of the things I discovered when I began teaching is that many of my students didn’t know how to properly use commentaries. They would speak endlessly themselves - often with great conviction, confidence, and ignorance - about the Bible but shut down the idea of reading a commentary - the...

That was the case with the student I was trying to help. I was eventually able to persuade him to look at some.* The problem was his attitude toward them in general - “Just the words of men”, not inspired. * I asked him a question about the Bible. When he started to answer, I stopped him and...

That’s a good way to help the student. How would you get him past his reluctance to read and consider it?

“Each believer grows stronger as he points his brother to the Lord.” - Charles Spurgeon

* I don’t think this will fly but I’m gonna have to try it sometime and remove all doubt. *

I was just looking at how John 5:4 is handled in the Jerusalem Bible. It contains verse 4 but places asterisks at the beginning and end of the verse. The JB has a bevy of notes throughout but doesn’t have a note on verse 4. (That surprises me.) I suppose the reader is supposed to see the...

No problem. You mentioned something in passing that hadn’t occurred to me when I wrote the OP. I appreciate that. We’ve got it covered from multiple angles now. I’m laughing at the fact that when you Googled the verse it sent you to this thread! I wouldn’t have thought that would happen. If it...

The link I posted in the OP contains the verse. I was posting it though to document the translations it is missing in. It hadn’t occurred to me until I read your comment that perhaps I needed to post it to document the translations that do include it. One person who responded is just a trouble...

I like that. It’s another one of the ways that I helped the student.

The problem that needed to be solved was the student’s sudden doubt - brought on by a Muslim who knew, to some extent, more about the Bible than the student did - about the reliability of the Bible. That’s one of the ways that I helped the student. (I haven’t seen him for almost twenty years...

Are you KJVO? Would you consider leading him to English translations published prior to KJV?

Thanks for your input. That’s essentially what the student I’ve been speaking about said. Besides (or in addition to) recommending that he not read the footnotes, what would you do to help him?

I think most people probably do see the verse number skipping from 3 to 5 (in some translations, including NIV) and realize there is an issue with the verse. It is an odd thing for the translators to do. I agree. I primarily use NASB95. It retains the verse numbering (no skipping from 3 to 5)...

The conversation took place sometime around 2004 or 2005. I recall that the student either read or showed the Muslim the passage in NIV (maybe he did both, I’m not sure anymore about that) and the Muslim replied that the Bible has been corrupted. Verse 4, which doesn’t exist in the NIV, was the...