Have Modern Bible Translations Removed Verses from Scripture?

This question opens the subject of textual criticism. So I'll try to answer that as briefly as I can, but if you really want a detailed discussion, I have a book called God's Infallible Word. So the question is, what is the original text of scripture? Now, I highly respect the King James version. It's been the most widely used uh translation over the centuries in the English language, although today uh there are other translations that have become more popular, but historically it has served us well and it has communicated the gospel.

And most of us that are older were raised on the King James version. But to be honest, the King James version is in English. So it's a translation of an Old Testament Hebrew text, a New Testament Greek text. So it's not original. So the question is, you can't just take the King James version and compare it to someone else, some other translation. You have to say, what does the original text say? And that's where textual criticism comes in. So with the Old Testament, the Old Testament manuscripts were handcopied. So this is long before printing. Each uh text of the Bible or a book of the Bible had to be copied by hand.

So the printing press did not come into being until the 1400s, the late 1400s in Western civilization. So up until that time, each portion of the Bible had to be handcopied. Well, to answer very briefly, the Old Testament Hebrew text was uh copied and of course, you know, a a scroll might last a few hundred years. It gets worn out, has to be copied over and over and over. So, there are no originals. There are no ones even close to the originals. This is true of all ancient books. Most even the ancient books that we have like of Caesar's writings or Plato's writings, you're talking about manuscripts are a thousand years later than what those manuscripts originally were were written when they were written.

So, but with the Old Testament text, we have relatively few ancient manuscripts, but they were produced by scribes who are professionally trained, who took their time, who took fanatical care because they believed it was the word of God. And they would do things like if you took a section of a scroll or if you took what is a book form called a codeex, took a page, they would count every single letter on that page and mark the number. So when they made a copy, they would do the same thing. And if it was off by one letter, they knew somewhere we made a mistake. And so that's the kind of thing they would do.

Uh so even though we don't have a whole lot of those, we there's a very high degree of um what you might say confidence. And that was dramatically vindicated by the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in the 1940s. here you had it hidden in a cave manuscripts that are 1,000 years older than what we had. So up until then the most ancient Hebrew manuscripts like a thousand years old and these were 2,000. And so they compared them to see okay what would a thousand years of copying think of all the errors that would creep in a thousand years. How many copies you'd have to go over and over and over?

And they found almost none. the variations they found were mostly stylistic or spelling or were already known from other copies. So basically uh almost perfect. They found a complete scroll of Isaiah and it was basically identical to the one we already had. So for the Old Testament, this doesn't really come up that much. The New Testament, on the other hand, there over 5,000 Greek manuscripts, not of the whole Bible, but of different or the whole New Testament, but of different portions. So you can imagine and a lot of these are done privately or individually not with professional scribes or at least not with a fanatical care.

Also one example when they wanted to massproduce Bibles. Think about how you would try to massproduce. Well they would have someone reading from the ancient manuscript and they would maybe have 20 scribes all hearing it all copying. So that way you get 20 copies at one time. But so think of this and and you yourself if you would try to write try to copy a book, you're not going to do that, but copy a few pages by hand and try to do it fairly fast. What you're going to find out is you're going to misspell a word. Um, there are errors from the h from the eye where you see it like you're copying.

You look at that, but by the time you transfer it to your copy, you've forgot one word or use this they're you use a similar word but it's actually a different spelling or a different word. Likewise, if somebody's reading it and you're copying it down, they're errors of the ear. You hear something different. So there can be errors of the eye. There can be errors of the ear. There can be errors of the hand where you accidentally omit a word. So you're writing it down but you skip a word or you double up a word. You you accidentally write it twice or you misspell it.

So just think of all that. Um and and so when you have all these ancient manuscripts, let's say you have several hundred copies of the Gospel of John. Well, you can easily compare them and they're probably all going to have errors, but they're not going to all be errors in the same place. So, you can try to cancel out errors. So, here here is here's a 100 copies and this has a this copy has a different spelling than the other 99. That's pretty obvious that's wrong spelling. Or this omits a word or you can probably just see there's a missing word here. Um, and then you look at another copy and there's the word.

So most of the errors 99% of the errors are going to cancel out but it takes careful study com compiling all these manuscripts researching them understanding how errors are made going back and and so it's a very tedious process of many generations many scholars so that's called textual criticism now what you find and then what happened then when the King James was translated it was translated from medieval manuscripts Since that time, more ancient manuscripts have been discovered that were hidden in the desert than desert monasteries where the the um climate enabled these manuscripts to be preserved. Some were hidden in jars or hidden in libraries and because of the climate they were preserved for generations or because they weren't used.

They were just left. They were forgotten. whereas other copies were destroyed or by use or replaced by modern more modern versions. So if you had an old tattered manuscript, you copied it out and then you would destroy the the other one so you'd have a better copy. And so uh in recent the last couple hundred years, scholars have found some of these manuscripts that they didn't have before. So then they compare them. Well, they found some differences. And so that's what what you have is textual criticism. The modern critical scholars believe they've developed a text that they think is more accurate than the text underlying the King James version.

Now that's from a technical perspective. Really there's no doctrine that changes. 99% of the text is not disputed and most of the disputes are very small because some Greek words are very similar. So is this word yours or ours? Just like in English, it it can be easy to make a change because it's only one letter different. Well, the same thing in Greek, it's just one letter different. So there are many places where the overall meaning is not in dispute, but is it singular or plural? Is it your your or mine or or yours or ours? You know, is it this or that? Is it the or without thee?

Uh so even the even the 1% of changes most of them are inconsequential doesn't really matter. Obviously we want the best possible um reading but is it going to affect the overall meaning? Very unlikely. And even if it would slightly affect meaning when you compare all the other passage of scripture you clarify the me. Okay. So, um, the issue becomes when you find certain phrases or verses that are omitted from what you're familiar with, you say, "Wait a minute." So, it's not a malicious effort or a conspiracy. Uh, but let me just But there are some you would can say there's the the King James tend to have more um phrases than some others.

And here's some of the reasons why. You can you can actually see this happening. But sometimes it appears uh and by the way uh let me back up and say so on the one hand you have the traditional text that the King James use which is supported by the vast majority of the manuscripts from more recent times. But then you have the scholarly text, the critical text which most modern translations use. It's based on a minority of older manuscripts. So there's a philosophical agreement. Should you go with what the majority of the manuscripts say or should you go with what the oldest manuscripts say? And my argument is really you should not wholesale choose one or the other.

You should take an eclectic approach or individualized approach. Consider each on its own merits. So for example, the scholars will say the ending of Mark 16 is missing. But I would say for various reasons, even if it was originally left unfinished, it was later finished by Mark or another inspired author and it has every right to be there. John chapter 8, the woman caught in adultery. Same thing. It's interesting that in it's in some some manuscripts have it one place in John, some manuscripts have it another place in John, some manuscripts have it in Luke. And a lot of scholars think, you know, originally it was an independently written thing inspired but put in that present location.

So that explains the difference. So it's not that it shouldn't be in the Bible. It's just that we're not sure the proper place. But most scholars are happy to include it because it's such a nice story that it sounds original. A lot of scholars don't like Mark 16 because they don't understand the doctrine. I would argue both of those are legitimate, inspired. And by the way, by the time the uh the vast majority of the councils or even before the councils, the early writers accepted these said these books are scripture, those parts were already included in those manuscripts that they were looking at. The one verse of any verse in the whole Bible that I would say has the most likely not to have originally been there is 1 John 5:7, which I've explained that in another episode is what the evidence is for that.

uh but in principle we shouldn't object to the idea that some things could have been added or taken away. The question is when we have something very familiar or the question is when we have it seems like the new translation take away more and and I think the reason for that is the later manuscripts. So think of a scribe let's say he has several manuscripts that he's using to copy. Well one has this word and another has that word. Well, a lot of times the scri the copist would just put in both words. I don't know which one is original. They're very similar. They mean much the same.

So, I'll just put them both in. Or let's say um he's familiar with a passage in one gospel or one epistle of Paul that has a parallel another. And so, as he's writing, either unconsciously he remembers what he's memorized and he goes ahead and adds the phrase that's actually from another place or deliberately says, "Wait a minute. this must be an error. The scribe, the previous scribe must have missed this because I know that phrase belongs there. So, I'm going to put it back in and he doesn't know that it's actually from another place. And so, that's how the later scribes it would tend to cause the manuscript to grow rather than shrink.

Um, and then also sometimes there were notes. There are a few places that seemed like a scribe had said this means such and such and a scribe just copied it in the text. Um, some things may have been a matter of tradition or liturgy. It's interesting the Lord's Prayer, the ending, for thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever. Amen. Is not in the oldest manuscripts. But actually, that same phrase almost identically is in 1 Chronicles 29, the Jewish prayer. So, a lot of scholars think, well, the early Christians had the Lord's Prayer, but they wanted to end their own prayer. There's nothing wrong with doing that by quoting these majestic words from the Old Testament.

Well, it ends up being in the familiar version of the Lord's Prayer. So, when a scribe a hundred years later or 200 years later is writing it down, he says, "Well, I know the Lord's Prayer, we got to put this ending in there." Uh, so regardless of whether you agree with that particular thing or not, you see the point gradually can slightly grow. Is that a problem? Well, from a scholarly point of view, you want the original text. But from a practical point of view, if a scribe copied something here that was in another place, does that affect doctrine? No. It's already the Bible. Or if a scribe uh, you know, puts two similar words together, does that really make a difference?

No. And so in most cases, even though it may have a few extra verses, we can decide whether we think those verses are in the original text or not, but it doesn't affect doctrine. It doesn't affect teaching. It doesn't affect preaching. It doesn't affect our faith. We just have to realize what's going on here. I'll give you one good example. In Acts 10:48, this is not even disputed, but the King James translates, this is the uh Cornelius's household getting baptized. Peter commanded them to be baptized in the name of the Lord. So that was the text they had. Well, the critical text universally says in the name of Jesus Christ.

And it's so certain it there's not even a note saying they're disputed passages or they're different. Every scholar agrees that is the original text. Well, here's a case where actually apostolic doctrine is is made more clear or strengthened by understanding that was the original text. So, you have these complicated scenarios. Um, but to summarize without being uh too much more wordy, uh, oh, I'll give you another good example. Acts chapter 9:es 5-6 is the um the conversion of Paul. And so those verses are omitted in the critical text and it's where where um he asks what am I supposed to do and the Lord says it's hard for you to kick against the ox goats.

You say that's horrible that that's taken out. Well actually Paul told his testimony three times in Acts Acts 9, Acts 22 and Acts 26. So those other statements are either in Acts 22 or Acts 26. So it the scholars feel like well acts records three different versions you know just for the sake of brevity or it's he does they don't repeat the whole thing every time but ancient scribes will come to acts nine say wait a minute we know Paul said this and so they put it in there was actually it was another part of acts so does that affect our faith does that affect our teaching absolutely not it's already in the bible somewhere else but that could but then you could say well other translations are taking out verses from the King James.

Well, yes, but they're already in other places. So, I don't want to minimize this or trivialize this. I think it's requires careful study, but just to say other translations are taking out things of the word of God, that's that's pretty much not true. First of all, they're not intentionally doing anything. They're trying to go back to the original text. Second of all, in the vast majority of cases, it's minimal that doesn't affect the meaning. Third, in the vast majority of cases that you notice there's a whole verse or a whole phrase left out. Generally, it's somewhere else in the Bible already. So, it's not like it's a theological problem.

It's just a matter of where does it actually belong and what does the original text actually say here. So in summary, I don't think we should be afraid of textual criticism. First of all, there really is no doctrine that's affected. There really it doesn't affect preaching or teaching. Uh the vast majority of differences are inconsequential, just slight word changes which don't affect the overall meaning. Uh those that you would notice uh phrases, if they're omitted in one place, they're probably already in another place. uh so that you know you can still preach and teach what you want just you might just have to go to another place to verify it.

Uh and I do recommend that preachers uh today be sensitive to these issues. And so if there is a text that uh has not is not in some places that you make sure you use other texts to support your argument. the major passages of dispute. I've already expressed my feeling that I do believe we should ex we should continue to accept Mark 16, John 8. I don't think we need to worry about 1 John 5:7. U because we can explain it fine, but I don't think we should use it at all because if there's any verse that I don't think belongs anywhere, I think that has the strongest case.

So overall, um I don't think we should be afraid of the other translations. I do recommend that we use a translation like the King James and New King James to show the traditional text and then another translation like the New International Version to show the current critical text. And I would also say the best um translation will have notes to show you uh what uh is is present or what the scholars think is absent. So for like the New King James keeps the traditional text but it'll have a note saying you know that scholars think this verse was not original or it the NIV will have a note saying uh while scholars don't think this verse was here some manuscripts do have this phrase.

So you can pretty much recapture whatever you want to recapture and you can be your own judge of how it affects the meaning. But overall, I think a judicious use of both types of transl translations can be helpful. I don't think it attacks our faith. I don't think it's a conspiracy theory. Um, I think that we can have confidence that our Bible is the word of God.