I can no longer deny what was printed on page 84 of the Authorized King James Version of the Holy Bible, that my Grandmother gave me in 1961, has been changed. It used to read, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life.” Something changed the shall to should.
There is no evidence visible to my naked eye as to how they did it. The verse, John 3:16 is still underlined in pencil. This underlining was done by the approximately 10-year-old me. I remember being taught the difference in being told something shall happen, as compared with being told that something should happen. It is a big difference. This change is a big deal.
Now this would be creepier if this change only happened to my Bible. Apparently, it has happened to many more. Everywhere I Google to find evidence what I know to be true isn’t, doesn’t work.
Some will inform me there are many translations of the Bible, as if I didn’t know that. Others remind me I may not remember what I was taught when I was ten now that I am sixty-five. I didn’t need reminding of that either.
Something has changed my Bible and that is all there is to it. All right, there is much, much more.
People’s Bibles have changed and keep changing. So too, lines in popular movies. This phenomenon is often referred to as the “Mandela Effect.”
I came by the “Mandela Effect” as did many, by wondering how anyone could falsely recall that Nelson Mandela died in prison before getting to become President of South Africa. What I was reading gave another example of large groups of people misremembering things in the same way. This was the series of popular children’s books starring the “Bernstein Bears.” I didn’t think these books were that popular, but I remembered they were quite popular with my two sons. They were not so popular with my granddaughter, but at least I had a copy of one of the books I bought new for her. I searched through her mountain of books until I found it and there it was, “The Bernstain Bears.” What? I just knew it was supposed to be the Bernstein Bears.
I then did what many people do. I went and found my Bible to look into this nonsense about the wolf lying down with the lamb. Unbelievable!
I now am astonished by how many people don’t want to even educate themselves in the least about the Mandela Effect. It is so bizarre. Many people will cease upon the flimsiest explanation as to why what is happening here just isn’t happening. It just was a matter of people misremembering in the same way you would think that would be a big mass media news story in and of its self, but it isn’t.
Could it be this is artificial intelligence working to take control of all language and all symbols? Has not the control of the mediums of communication been a prime objective of those who seek to control masses of people in the past?
The Alice, in Lewis Carroll’s, “Through The Looking Glass,” has this problem in trying to win an argument with Humpty Dumpty.
“When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in a rather scornful tone, “it means just what I chose it to mean – neither more nor less. ‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean different things.’ ‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master – that’s all.”
Struggles over who will be the master of words can take many forms. I am writing this in the English language today because I live in a culture dominated by the military-industrial complex that had a way with English. What type of English you will read depends on the outcome of battles I may have with The Good Men Project editors. They are gentle Guardians of the English language so I generally just go along.
There are struggles by oppressed classes of people to take back the power of words used to shame them, by using these words in a positive, sometimes playful manner. I am grateful that as a white, heterosexual, Protestant male, I don’t have many of these words to chose from.
A word really has arrived when it makes its way out of the “Slang” dictionaries and into the regular ones. There is likely a good deal of politics involved here. Not only the word is at stake, but so too how many of its meanings will be included.
Much holy scripture is subject to interpretation based on how languages more popular at the time the scripture is believed to have been written, are interrupted into languages that they are popularly read in today.
Some believe that nothing of truth can be communicated unless distinguished peers agree on concepts that can be translated into numbers. We call this science.
Artificial Intelligence seems to be trying to do more than just be the master of the meaning of words, symbols, and numbers. It is making the marks of communication change.
We now know robots programmed with the computer languages of artificial intelligence can imitate every known means of communication including facial expression, physical contact, voice tone and accent. Whether a robot that now whispers into your ear those words you want to hear with an accompanying gas of the right temperature to be convincing exists, I don’t know, but imagine so.
With so many technologies to mess with the authenticity of communication, it is a wonder that any real communication can go on at all. My Bible still reads, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (John 1:1). This can be interrupted to mean that God made everything there is out of words. Perhaps God is keeping these words from where artificial intelligence can’t get at them in order to form a new creation.
As for a man being only as good as his word, that still means, does a man say what he means and mean what he says. This may be more difficult with all of the advances in deceptive technologies available today. It has never been easy.
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I too distinctly remember Mandela dying in prison as I was at school at the time. I seem to be the only one I know who remembers it but one that I and my family and friends have agreed on is Forest Gump’s Life is like a box of chocolates..It now says Life WAS lie a box of chocolates and that is just crazy! Even Tom Hanks has said he never said life was like a box of chocolates so there is definitely no question that these changes are real and something is going on. I’m interested to know if… Read more »