The Battle for the Bible's Truth: Genesis 6, Jesus, and the Second Century Plot to Deny the Messiah

What if the most common modern interpretations of some of the Bible’s most debated passages were deliberately crafted—not by early Christians, but by those who opposed them?In The Battle for the Bible’s Truth, Douglas Van Dorn uncovers a forgotten second-century campaign that reshaped how key Old Testament texts were read—and how they are still read today.Genesis 6:1–4, Deuteronomy 32:8, Psalm 82, and related passages once carried a clear supernatural meaning shared by Jews and the earliest Christians alike: heavenly “sons of God,” a divine council, and a coming divine Son who would inherit the nations. These texts were foundational to early Christian claims that Jesus is the unique Son of God, the second divine figure who stands in the council, judges the lesser “gods,” and receives the worship of angels.Then, in the decades after the temple’s destruction (70 AD) and the Bar Kokhba revolt (135 AD), rabbinic authorities made targeted changes—altering wording, reinterpreting long-established meanings, and even introducing new traditions—to neutralize these very passages. The goal? To sever the scriptural links early Christians used to proclaim Jesus as Messiah and God incarnate.The result: interpretations that desupernaturalized the Bible at precisely the points where it pointed most clearly to Christ. These novel readings—later adopted by much of the church—were not ancient Christian tradition. They were anti-Christian countermeasures.In Part I, Van Dorn presents the accessible overview: the targeted texts, the pattern of changes, the rabbinic motives, and the New Testament payoff—especially Jesus’ own use of Psalm 82 in John 10 to defend His divine Sonship. In Part II, he provides the detailed historical and textual evidence, drawing from the Dead Sea Scrolls, Septuagint, Masoretic Text, early Church Fathers, and rabbinic sources.This is not just another book on Genesis 6 or the divine council. It is a call to recover the original, supernatural reading of Scripture—a reading that once fueled mass Jewish conversions to Christ and that still reveals the glory of Jesus as the Son of God who inherits the nations.For Christians seeking to understand the Bible’s supernatural worldview, for those wrestling with why Jewish people rarely embrace the New Testament today, and for anyone who wants to see how history’s most important battle over Scripture continues to shape our faith—this book is essential reading.“Your Rabbis have absolutely expunged many passages out of the Septuagint version… Still, I will argue with you even from those received passages which you still allow.” — Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 71 Read more