National Pastor Survey Results

The Question

         “What caused the 28 participating pastors in our survey to misremember 12 familiar Bible passages at such extremely high levels and in the same way to each other.

Survey Stats

• Survey system: Google Forms (quiz-style export with per-question score fields)
• Respondents: 31 total
  
  • 30 answered “Yes” to “Are you a pastor, deacon or minister”
  • 1 answered “No”
• Questions were fill in the blank memory questions with 3 multiple choice answers. Two possible wrong answers and one correct answer
• Completion:
  
  • 28 completed all 34 items
  • 2 completed 33 items
  • 1 answered only 2 items (partial/dropout)
• Scoring:
  Each item recorded as correct/incorrect via the form’s quiz key.
• What was measured: not just “wrong answers,” but whether wrong answers cluster (many people choosing the same wrong phrasing).

CLICK HERE to see original spreadsheet, hashmark, data base information, images, full survey results with graphs.

The faulty model

For years, “Supernatural Bible change” discussions have relied on subjective examples: Someone provides a “fill in the blank” memory quiz question, and the participant invariably gets it wrong the exact same way as everyone else.  This can be repeated with approximately 10 to 15 familiar passages with virtually anyone that knows their Bible almost without exception. The Christian Bible change community has observed this consistent reaction for 9 years now.

But once the participant learns that they are incorrect, instead of being shocked, they somehow manage to reframe it as trivial by saying something like, “Oh yeah—now I remember.” So not only do the majority of people get a significant number of familiar passages wrong when they shouldn’t, they also display an irrational indifference to what amounts to a catastrophic memory failure.

Many of these passages are so familiar, that the inability to remember them correctly seems like something more akin to early onset dementia than forgetting where you left your keys. The response from most people should be utter astonishment, not a cavalier reframing to run of the mill misremembering.

We find this inability to acknowledge the obvious to be more of a phenomenon than the phenomenon itself. 
Jesus describes this egregious lack of discernment in Mark 8:18; “Having eyes, do you not see? And having ears, do you not hear?

This “fill in the blanks and hope for the best” approach is therefore generally unproductive because every mismatch can be waved off as normal memory error.

 Our debate Model

That is why we are presenting a groundbreaking evidence-based approach to this very polarized topic. Our model will help to establish a completely objective basis for debate on this topic. The premise is simple:

SBCO International has conducted two surveys that seek to measure the level of unified misremembering of Bible scriptures that is clearly taking place in our world today.  We have completed an international survey and a national pastors survey. Our surveys show consistent unified misremembering across various demographics that often reach levels as high as 90%. 

CLICK HERE to see full results of both of our surveys.

The reader doesn’t have to take our word for it, because this observation can be repeated by anyone using our 20-question online Bible Quiz at www.alteredbible.com. The reader can use that simple resource to get whatever sample size they need to make their own conclusions. The reader can also easily use Google Forms as I did to create a more robust survey and collect data themselves.  Once the reader sees the same kind of unified misremembering themselves, they will be forced to make a decision.  Are you going to answer the question that this ministry is bringing to the body of Christ or not.

Average amount of misremembering

Unified misremembering

It is also significant to note, that in addition to unusually high rates of misremembering, our data clearly shows that everyone is also misremembering the same way. And misremembering and misremembering the same way are two entirely different things. There has to be a cause for this unusually high rate that is also highly correlated. So what’s the cause?

The Question

         “What caused the 28 participating pastors in our survey to misremember 12 familiar Bible passages at such extremely high levels and in the same way to each other.

If the church cannot provide a rational explanation for this unified misremembering, then they will be forced to admit that they have no objection to our testimony. Once all objections are removed from our testimony, we can then engage in a respectful discussion regarding the 26 underlying theological reasons why the Bible can be changing without their being any controversy. It is at this point that all of our various forms of evidence can be examined with an open mind. 

CLICK HERE to see 26 theological reasons why the Bible can be changing.

Summary of the responses from pastors in our survey

Key:

·        “29/31” means 29 out of 31 chose the same wrong answer. “Correct: 1/31” means 1 out of 31 chose the correct answer

·        “(KJV)” The KJV designation after a chapter and verse reference indicates that this is a change that either only takes place in the KJV Bible and not in other versions, or what is remembered by everyone is only the KJV version that no longer exists. The old English phrasing that is remembered by so many would only typically appear in the KJV version.  For this reason, the unified misremembering of a KJV only rendering could not be caused by version confusion because it would have never appeared in any other version.

Example: You would never see “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away” in the NIV or NAS or any modern version.

Chapter and verse references that do not have the KJV indication indicates that the rendering provided as “Actual” appears that way in the KJV and all modern versions either identically or with only minor variations. We call these universal passages. (See description below) Because the renderings of universal passages are the same across all versions, they could not be sighted as the source of the confusion. In other words, how could the pastors be confused by versions if all the survey questions are the same in every version?

Understanding the four (4) different types of universal changes

Each survey answer below will be labeled with a “Universal Type” (UT) of either 1, 2, 3 or 4.  Example: The rendering for Genesis 8:11 is (UT#1) because the KJV and all modern versions are essentially identical.

     1.     The rendering has changed from what we all remember and it is identical across the KJV and all modern versions virtually without exception.

     2.     All of the modern versions have changed from what we all remember and they are the same but the King James version has also changed from what we all remember but it is still different than the modern versions.

      3.     The modern versions have all changed from what we remember but there are slight variations in the wording while the King James version has also changed but it’s different from the modern ones. 

      4.     All versions have changed from what we all remember. The KJV and some of the modern versions are the same while the rest of the modern versions are different from the KJV and the other modern versions. 

      CLICK HERE to see examples of the four (4) different types of changes

   Pastor Survey Results Summary

Top of Form

Bottom of Form

In order to validate the authenticity of our survey we offer the following corroborating data

     1)  We will provide receipts and screenshots showing the survey instrument and raw export data to support the survey’s authenticity. There was no need to go to the added expense of using a third-party survey firm with an audit trail because anyone can easily duplicate our results using our free online 20-question Bible quiz at www.alteredbible.com. You can run a similar quiz yourself with your own respondents and compare your results to ours.

     2)  We have a 3^rd party, peer reviewed study that produced almost identical results to our National Pastor Survey. The existence of this peer reviewed study makes it much harder for the unconvinced to attempt to claim that our data is fraudulent or inaccurate. The peer reviewed study’s final averaged probability was approximately 10^14. This means the magnitude and coherency of the misremembering in their study is almost identical to ours. CLICK HERE to see peer reviewed study findings.

     3)  There are two studies that indicate that the average amount of misremembering is approximately 25% while our studies show misremembering rates as high as 93.5%  CLICK HERE to see studies

     4)  In addition to our National Pastor’s survey, we conducted a 2^nd international survey with different respondents and different demographics. This 2^nd survey produced unified misremembering results that were almost identical to the National pastor survey. This helps to corroborate the National pastor survey results and also shows that this is happening worldwide across all demographics. And because the rates of misremembering are so similar between the two groups, it dispels the idea that our testimony can be explained by confusion because of biblical illiteracy. If that was true, the levels of misremembering would be much lower among content experts and it wasn’t.  CLICK HERE to see both surveys

All we are requesting is that you answer the question or tell us why you won’t. Please choose one of the 3 responses to our request.

The Question

         “What caused the 28 participating pastors in our survey to misremember 12 familiar Bible passages at such extremely high levels and in the same way to each other.

Response options  (Answer the question or don’t answer the question)

     1)  Answer the question – Provide a rational explanation for the unified misremembering

     2)  Admit that you do not have a rational explanation

     3)  Claim fraud – In order to reject our data, you would have to claim that its fraudulent because anyone can easily repeat our survey result using our online quiz. 
However, if someone claims fraud, but is unwilling to prove it by simply getting 5 people to take the online quiz and record the results themselves, then they are clearly not interested in the truth.  NOTE: You only need 5 people to confirm our results are accurate because the probability of only 5 people misremembering 5
Bible passages the same way is approximately 10¹⁹  CLICK HERE to see probability calculation

     4)  Don’t answer the question or ignore the question by changing the subject

The unified misremembering doesn’t prove the Bible is supernaturally changing, it proves that people aren’t just randomly misremembering and there has to be a cause.

So what’s the cause?

It’s not version confusion… because all of the questions in our survey were carefully chosen to ensure that they were either KJV only or universal which means that they were the same in every version. So if every question in our survey is rendered the same way across every version, how could the pastors have been confused by different versions?

It’s not modernizations or variants… because we also confirmed that every single question in our survey is identical in every modern version to the source text from which it was derived. Example: Every Authorized KJV Bible renders Isaiah 11:6 “The wolf will dwell with the lamb.” And if you go back and look at the 1611 Cambridge KJV, all 5 revisions and the 1769 Oxford edition they also say “The wolf will dwell with the lamb.” That means that the pastors were not confused by modernizations, or variants. If that claim were correct, the current version would show changes compared to earlier versions, and it doesn’t. CLICK HERE for examples

It’s not misprints. The misprints hypothesis is a “Hail Mary” fantasy. I’ve never seen a Bible that has a misprinted Isaiah 11:6 where it says, “The lion will lay down with the Lamb.” If misprints were causing the confusion they’d have to be everywhere. This is not a discussion about misquotes from pop culture, we’re talking  about misprinted Bibles. And we’re not pointing to a Bible with a printing error of one or two passages. We’re talking about Bibles that would have to be filled with printing errors from cover to cover. They don’t seem to exist at all, and they certainly don’t exist in any quantities that would have any significant impact on our long-term memory. I’ve been doing this for 9 years and I’ve never seen a misprinted version of the passages that appear in my survey.  

•       Job 1:21, Luke 6:49, Genesis 3:19, Mark 5:27, Luke 5:24, Genesis 7:9, Isaiah 11:6, John 1:41, Matthew 7:1, Hebrews 6:1, John 12:24, Genesis 8:11

It’s not publisher variations…because we confirmed that the questions in our survey are rendered the say way across all publishers that we could find. CLICK HERE for images

It’s not misquotes from pop culture… because this far-fetched fantasy is impossible to support if you just stop and think about it for two seconds.

• So what if you come across a misquote? Don’t you know your Bible?
• If you saw somebody on Facebook saying, “There is no God,” would you suddenly become an atheist? 
• If the source of unified misremembering was actually misquotes from pop culture, then everyone would be misremembering differently, not the same way.
• Can’t you recognize a misspelled word when you see it? Then why wouldn’t you recognize a misquote and reject it? The truth is, you could see and hear a misquote 1,000 times a day for 10 years, and it still wouldn’t change your memory of Scriptures you’ve memorized for decades. And if you are honest about this, you would have to admit that you can’t remember the last time you ever saw or heard a misquote. This argument is a lie. Explain why the occasional and infrequent exposure to misquotes would somehow have a greater influence than the pastor’s consistent and long-term exposure to the correct renderings. The average aggregate exposure of a pastor to the correct renderings is somewhere in the neighborhood of 3 hours a day, 7 days a week for decades.
• Ironically, anyone making this claim has to include themselves in the list of people that have been ruthlessly brainwashed by these alleged misquotes. If this is your answer for the observable repeatable measurable phenomenon of worldwide unified misremembering of the Bible, then you have to include yourselves in the list of people who are operating with what amounts to mid-level dementia. So the same people that claim that we’re just confused because we’re biblically illiterate, are the same people that are forced to admit that they themselves are biblically illiterate.
• Our survey didn’t show one pastor misremembering one passage. Our survey showed upwards of twenty eight pastors misremembering twelve passages. The pastors in our survey showed a very high rate of unified misremembering for all of the passages below not just one. Can you produce any evidence that misquotes exist for all of these passages on all of the major social media platforms and that they appear often enough and prominently enough and on an ongoing basis, to somehow justify the idea that they could be overcoming all of the pastor’s continual exposure to the correct renderings.
  
  • Job 1:21, Luke 6:49, Genesis 3:19, Mark 5:27, Luke 5:24, Genesis 7:9, Isaiah 11:6, John 1:41, Matthew 7:1, Hebrews 6:1, John 12:24, Genesis 8:11

I think it’s becoming obvious that this can’t possibly be the explanation for what we are clearly documenting. The idea that the entire world including content experts is bamboozled by misquotes on social media, songs, children’s books, tapestries, prayer journals and movies is a fantasy. If naturalistic explanations like confusion from versions, modernizations, variants, misprints or misquotes from pop culture are all eliminated, then our testimony deserves to be considered rather than dismissed.