WHY WERE VERSES TAKEN OUT OF THE KING JAMES BIBLE?

In a recent post titled “How old was Saul when he became king? (I Samuel 13:1),” I discussed the case of words being lost accidentally from a verse in the Old Testament. Now I would like to mention some whole verses omitted from the King James Version of the New Testament by almost all modern translations because they were almost certainly not meant to be present in the Bible in the first place.

Those who swear by KJV as the only “authorized” Bible are naturally incensed when they hear of this happening. As one person says in his blog: “The Bible is the most powerful book in human existence and therefore, only those who are intent on diminishing its powers would ever want to change it.” I would have to wholeheartedly agree with that author, but he is ignoring the real question involved. The issue is which versions best represent what the Bible actually says, not what the King James Bible happens to say.

And to determine that issue we must go back to the Greek original on which all translations are based. And here we run into an inescapable fact – of the thousands of available handwritten copies, or manuscripts, there are numerous discrepancies between them. Most are very minor and are obvious “typos” that can be readily recognized. But a few are so major that they involve whole verses.

So how do we determine which of these many manuscripts to rely on? The approach taken by the scholars who compiled the Greek text upon which the KJV relied was to go with the “Majority Text.” In other words, they considered all the available manuscripts at the time and felt that the majority should rule. There is one glaring problem with such an approach. Since what we possess at best are copies of copies of copies of the original documents by the NT authors, errors will inevitably creep in as scribe after scribe perpetuates the errors of previous scribes as well as adding errors of their own.

Realizing that to be true as well as possessing additional NT manuscripts that were not even available in the 1600's, the modern approach is to look for the earliest manuscript evidence since it is much more likely to represent the words of the original authors than copies made hundreds of years later, no matter how many of the latter happen to be available. In other words, they go for quality rather than mere quantity.

In addition to this “external evidence,” textual scholars look at the “internal evidence.” In other words, in comparing the differences from one manuscript to another they ask the logical question, “Is it more likely that a scribe would have purposely or accidentally changed the wording in A to that in B, or vice versa?” To some extent, this process is subjective, but when both the internal and external evidence agree in the same direction, one can be reasonably certain of the results. And this process is driven by an honest attempt to recapture, where there is any doubt, the wording of the original inspired authors. It is certainly not driven by an attempt of liberal critics to remove doctrinal statements that they wish to deny, as many ardent defenders of KJV insist.

Below is a list of the sixteen whole verses found in the KJV but missing in almost all modern translations, with some comments from the scholarly literature attached, leaning especially on the writings of textual expert Bruce Metzger made on behalf of the United Bible Society.

1. Matthew 17:21: "Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting."

In this case, this statement is already in Mark 9:29 and was probably added to harmonize with that account, a common practice among scribes. It is not present in some manuscripts, and there would have been no reason to delete it if it had been originally present.

2. Matthew 18:11: "For the Son of man is come to save that which was lost."

This wording is missing from the earliest manuscripts from diverse geographical regions. Its probable source was from Luke 19:10 and no doubt was added by a scribe in order to prepare better for the following words in verses 12-14.

3. Matthew 23:14: "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows' houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation."

Two telltale signs that this verse was an addition from either Mark 12:40 or Luke 20:47 are (a) its absence from the earliest manuscripts of the Alexandrian, Western and Caesarean textual families and (b) the fact that when it does appear here, sometimes it appears before and sometimes after verse 13.

4. Mark 7:16: "If any man have ears to hear, let him hear."

This verse is missing in the early Alexandrian family of manuscripts. In any case, its presence or absence certainly has no effect on any doctrinal teaching.

5. Mark 9:44: "Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched."

6. Mark 9:46: "Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched."

This phrase is already found in Mark 9:48 and appears to have been inserted in both these other places for added emphasis. Both verses are lacking in the earliest manuscripts.

7. Mark 11:26: "But if ye do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses."

This is certainly the meaning implied in the previous verse even without being explicitly stated. It appears to have come from Matthew 6:15 and is absentin all of the major text types.

8. Mark 15:28: "And the scripture was fulfilled, which saith, And he was numbered with the transgressors."

Just two of the factors working against this addition as being authentic are (a) It is not present in the earliest manuscripts and there is no reason why it should have been deleted there if it were present originally and (b) Mark almost never quoted directly from the Old Testament.

9. Luke 17:36: "Two men shall be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left."

Evidence is somewhat mixed as to whether this was original or not. In any case, it is just a slight variation on Matthew 24:40.

Note that in all the above cases, the information in the omitted verses is readily available in other parallel passages. Critics of new translations should keep that in mind when accusing critical liberal scholars of perverting the text. If that were their purpose, why in the world wouldn't they also eliminate all those other NT passages in which the “offending” words appear?

     10. John 5:4: "For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water: whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had."

This is the first example we have run across in which information is included which is not already found in the New Testament elsewhere.

There is a fourfold reason for accepting this verse as a rather late addition to the text: (a) It is missing from the earliest and best Greek manuscripts as well as some copies of the Latin Vulgate, (b) In over twenty of the manuscripts in which it does appear, it is marked with asterisks to indicate that the words are dubious, (c) It contains a number of words and phrases that do not appear anywhere else in John's writings, and (d) When it does appear in manuscripts, there is a wealth of disagreement concerning the actual wording.

      11. Acts 8:37: "And Philip said, If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God."

Here we have the first of several later additions to the text of Acts found only in one major textual family called the Western Text, which had a tendency to add explanatory notes to help where it was felt that the standing text might be misunderstood. The vast number of these glosses consist of individual words or phrases. But only in those listed here is an entire verse involved.

In this case, it was obviously added so that no one would get the mistaken idea that the Ethiopian eunuch was baptized without first making a confession of faith. Another indication that it is an addition is that Luke rarely uses the designation “Jesus Christ” elsewhere.

      12. Acts 15:34: "Notwithstanding it pleased Silas to abide there still."

The late nature of this wording is indicated by the fact that manuscripts which do contain it are not in agreement as to the actual wording. Also, it is a typical explanatory note put in to explain why Silas is at Antioch in verse 40.

      13. Acts 24:7: "But the chief captain Lysias came upon us, and with great violence took him away out of our hands,"

Fitzmyer explains that this is a historically impossible addition. To include them”would be to make the Jews claim jurisdictional competence over Paul.” there are only a limited number of late documents that include this passage.

      14. Acts 28:29: "And when he had said these words, the Jews departed, and had great reasoning among themselves."

Metzger feels that this later addition was made by someone who felt that it helped make the transition between the verses directly before and after it. F.F. Bruce states that it “is a Western and Byzantine reading which finds no place in the best authorities for the text.”

      15. Romans 16:24: "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen."

This typical benediction is not present in either the earliest or most trustworthy manuscripts. And when it does appear, its exact position in the text is uncertain and varies from manuscript to manuscript.

      16. I John 5:7: "For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one."

This final example is the one that has received the most attention since it actually does involve a major doctrine of the church, that of the Trinity. Mormons will cite it for their reason not to trust the Bible at all since it was in the hands of the Roman Catholic Church for so long that they probably changed it to suit their purposes. But you are certainly not justified in making such a sweeping statement based on one admittedly suspicious example, especially since we have New Testament manuscripts predating the official Catholic Church with which to examine and compare with later versions.

All Bible scholars today are in agreement, and have been for decades, that this verse is a much later addition to the text. Metzger is quite firm when he states, “That these words are spurious and have no right to stand in the New Testament is certain in the light of the following considerations.”

It turns out that the only four manuscripts containing these words are Greek translations of a very late version of the Latin Vulgate. And in two of these cases, the passage is only written in the margin in modern handwriting. It is not found in any ancient manuscript in any language or quoted by any early Christian writers. It is quite obvious that the reason for its inclusion was to bolster up the doctrine of the Trinity even though that concept can be implied in scores of authentic Scripture passages.

I won't vouch for the following account, which very well may be legendary, but it is told of the Greek scholar Erasmus who was preparing the standard Greek text of the NT upon which the King James Bible would later be based. Erasmus was following Jerome's lead by going back to the original Greek manuscripts rather than relying on the later Latin translation. When he came to this verse, which was in the then current edition of the Vulgate, he could not find any ancient Greek manuscripts to back it up. He informed the Pope that he was not going to include that verse in his Greek edition unless he could see some manuscript proof for it. A little while later, he was presented with the manuscript he had asked for, and the ink on it was still wet! At least it makes a good story, whether or not it is historical.

For the other cases above, it should be pointed out that the additions to the original text by succeeding generations of copyists need not have been done purposely. The evidence from the Greek manuscripts shows that often scribes wrote explanatory comments in the margins. Thus, when subsequent scribes copied from that manuscript, they were not quite sure whether the marginal comments were (a) from the previous scribe and should be ignored or (b) had been first accidentally left out of the text itself and then squeezed into the margin. If he felt it was the latter case, then it obviously needed to be restored back to its appropriate place. This latter scenario provides a good explanation of why dubious wording is sometimes placed in one spot and sometimes inserted elsewhere in the text.

In conclusion, my advice to the blogger whom I mentioned at the start is that I only wish his obvious devotion to the Word was matched by his knowledge of it.