Omitted verse

Omitted verses

There are verses not included in many English translations of the New Testament that do exist in older English translations (primarily the King James Version).

Why do they not appear or have been relegated to footnotes in later versions?

Some scholars have generally regarded these verses as later additions to the original text. Like modern fact checkers opinions are often not based on what they know but on what they did not choose to look at or into.

There are several early manuscript but no originals.

The evidence for the scripture is not just found in the the Codex Vaticanus B and Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus C, or the Codex Sinaiticus found in 1844 which represent the earliest evidence from all available sources for the scriptures. It is also found in the thousands of fragments and referrence made by early authors who made references to the texts commonly available to them.

Codex Sinaiticus may be the oldest complete copy of the Greek New Testament, and is best known for its symbol of the Hebrew letter Alef, "א." 

Codex Vaticanus B does not include verse Matthew 17:21, but Codex Sinaiticus does include verse Matthew 17:21, but as a scribal correction. 

Origen includes the verse, and he lived in late 2nd century to mid 3rd century.

It appears that most manuscripts have been assimilated to the parallel in Mark 9:29.

Some of the verses that don't appear in some translations of the Bible manuscripts:

Matthew 17:21,

 The verse closely resembles Mark 9:29, but it is lacking in Matthew in א (original handwriting), B, θ, some Italic, Syriac, Coptic and Ethiopic manuscripts. It is, however, found in this place in some Greek mss not quite so ancient – C, D, K, L – as well as some other mss of the ancient versions. It is believed by some to have been assimilated from Mark.

Matthew 18:11,

This verse is lacking in א, B, L (original handwriting), θ, ƒ1, ƒ13, some old Italic, Syriac, Coptic and Georgian manuscripts, and such ancient sources as the Apostolic Canons, Eusebius, Jerome, and others. It is found in some other sources, not quite so ancient, such as D, K, W, X, and the Latin Vulgate. It is not found in any manuscript before the 5th century. According to Bruce Metzger, "There can be little doubt that the words [...] are spurious here, being omitted by the earliest witnesses representing several textual types... [This verse was] manifestly borrowed by copyists from Luke 19:10."

Matthew 23:14,

This verse is very similar to Mark 12:40 and Luke 20:47. This verse is lacking altogether in א,B,D,L,Z,θ, ƒ1, Ethiopic, Armenian, several Italic, and Syrian and Coptic manuscripts, and the writings of several early Church Fathers. It appears before verse 13 in K,W, and several New Testament minuscules. It appears after verse 13 in ƒ13, some Italic and Syriac and Coptic manuscripts. The fact that it is absent from the most ancient sources of multiple text types and that the sources that do contain the verse disagree about its placement, as well as the fact that it is a repetition of verses found elsewhere, show "that verse 14 is an interpolation derived from the parallel in Mark 12:40 or Luke 20:47 is clear."

Mark 7:16,

 This verse is nearly identical with verses Mark 4:9 and 4:23. This verse here is lacking in א,B,L,Δ (original handwriting), some Coptic mss. It is included in manuscripts only slightly less ancient, A,D,K,W,ƒ1,ƒ13, Italic manuscripts, the Vulgate, some other ancient versions. As it is missing in the very oldest resources and yet is identical to verses that remain, many editors seem confident in omitting its appearance here.

Mark 9:44,

Mark 9:46,

 Both verses 44 and 46 are duplicates of verse 48, which remains in the text. Verses 44 and 46 are both lacking in א,B,C,L,W,ƒ1, and some manuscripts of the ancient versions, but appear in somewhat later sources such as A,D,K,θ, some Italic manuscripts and the Vulgate. It is possible that verse 48 was repeated by a copyist as an epistrophe, for an oratorical flourish. The "United Bible Societies" 1971(UBS) text assigns this omission a confidence rating of A.

Mark 11:26,

 This verse is very similar to Matthew 6:15. This verse appeared in the Complutensian Polyglot and most Textus Receptus editions but Erasmus omitted it and noted that it was missing from 'most' Greek manuscripts. The verse is not in א,B,L,W,Δ,Ψ, some Italic, Vulgate, Syriac, and Coptic manuscripts, and the Armenian and Georgian versions. The UBS edition gave the omission of this verse a confidence rating of A.

Mark 15:28,

 This verse is similar to Luke 22:37. It does not appear here in any New Testament manuscript prior to the end of the 6th century.

Luke 17:36,

 It is possible that this verse is a repetition of Matthew 24:40. Even the King James Version had doubts about this verse, as it provided (in the original 1611 edition and still in many high-quality editions) a sidenote that said, "This 36th verse is wanting in most of the Greek copies." This verse is missing from Tyndale's version (1534) and the Geneva Bible (1557). Among major Textus Receptus editions, this verse does not appear in the editions of Erasmus (1516–1535), Aldus (1518), Colinaeus (1534), Stephanus 1st–3rd editions (1546–1550), but it did appear in the Complutensian (1514), the margins of Stephanus' 4th edition (1551), and all of Elzivir's and Beza's editions (1565–1604). In modern conservative Greek editions it is also omitted from the main text of Scrivener's Greek NT according to the Textus Receptus, and the two Majority Text editions. Verse 36 is included by very few Greek manuscripts of the Western text-type and by Old-Latin and Vulgate manuscripts.

John 5:4,

(Not only is verse 4 omitted, but also the tail end of verse 3.)

 It is considered unlikely that these words were in the original text of the Gospel. They are lacking in the "earliest and best witnesses", and several ancient Greek manuscripts that do contain them enclose them with markings indicating doubts about their authenticity, the passage contains words or expressions that appear nowhere else in John (such as the Greek words for "at a certain season [meaning occasionally]" and "stirring" and "diseases"), and the manuscripts that contain this verse differ among themselves as to the wording. The UBS text gave the omission of this verse a confidence rating of A. This verse was omitted from Edward Harwood's Greek NT (1776), marked as doubtful in Griesbach's editions (1777), and thereafter generally relegated to a footnote, enclosed in brackets, or omitted completely.

Henry Alford wrote, "The spuriousness of this controverted passage can hardly be questioned." Without the words at issue the context simply states that a swimming or bathing pool in or near Jerusalem was a gathering place for sick and crippled people, some of whom sought to get into the pool (either for physical comfort or for ritual cleansing) and it was there that Jesus performed miraculous healing. However, the words quoted above complicate this story by asserting that miraculous cures were already taking place at this pool in the absence of Jesus, owing to the unpredictable intervention of an (apparently invisible) angel. This passage in John 5 is the only mention of this pool – no such miraculous pool is mentioned in Josephus or other histories.[23] The words in question do not appear in the oldest manuscripts, and in those manuscripts that contain them they are sometimes marked as doubtful, and differ from manuscript to manuscript "with that extreme variation in the reading which so often indicates grounds for suspicion".

The italicized words do not appear at all in p66, 75, א, A (original hand), B, C (original hand), L, and some Italic, Syriac, Coptic, and Latin Vulgate manuscripts, and in quotations of the story by several early Greek Fathers. Verse 4 ("For an angel ...") appears but without the concluding words of verse 3 ("waiting for the stirring of the water ...") in A (where it says the angel "bathed in the water" rather than "descended into the water"), L, 18 (14th century), and an Egyptian manuscript. The concluding words of verse 3 but not any of verse 4 appear in D, 33 (9th century), and some Latin manuscripts. The entire italicized passage appears in C (third hand), K (also with the angel "bathed in the water"), Δ,Θ,Ψ, and numerous other manuscripts, and some Italic, Syriac, Coptic, and Armenian manuscripts, and several Latin Fathers, Some manuscripts – S,Λ,Π, and a few others – contain the words enclosed by marks of doubt. Among the manuscripts that contain this sentence-and-a-half, there are many variations and permutations.

The Revised Version (1881) omitted the italicized words from its main text, making the passage read: "... a multitude of them that were sick, blind, halt, withered. 5 And a certain man was there ...", and as a side-note, "Many ancient authorities insert, wholly or in part," and here present the italicized words exactly as they appeared in the KJV. Several modern versions similarly relegate those words to a footnote, and some others (such as Moffatt) include the words in the main text but are enclosed in brackets with an explanation in a footnote.

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."Modern versions: Either sidelined to a footnote (e.g., ESV, RV, RSV, NRSV, NIV, Hodges & Farstad Majority Text) or omitted altogether (e.g., Moffatt, Goodspeed, Schonfield, Robinson & Pierpont Majority Text).Reason: The earliest Greek manuscript (Ea/E2) of the New Testament to include this verse dates from the late 6th or early 7th century[26][27] and it is only found in Western witnesses to the text with many minor variations.[28] The majority of Greek manuscripts copied after 600 AD and the majority of translations made after 600 AD do not include the verse.[29][30][31][32] The tradition of the confession was current in the time of Irenaeus[33] as it is cited by him (c. 180) and Cyprian (c. 250).

This verse appears in E (specifically, a portion from a codex consisting of Acts, dated to the 6th century, once owned by Archbishop William Laud and therefore called the Codex Laudianus, sometimes designated E2 or Ea) and several cursives dating after the 9th century (showing many variants), "manuscripts of good character, but quite inadequate to prove the authenticity of the verse," according to F.H.A. Scrivener.

This verse was not found in the Syriac Peshitta, with the result that a printed edition of the Peshitta inserted the verse translated into Syriac by the editors.

It is similarly missing from p45, 74, א, A,B,C,P,Ψ, and a multitude of other codices and cursives. Its omission has a UBS confidence rating of A. 

However, as Kurt Aland noted, "The external evidence [for the inclusion of this verse] is so weak that the Nestle apparatus cited only the support for insertion and not for the original omission... The voice which speaks in Acts 8:37 is from a later age, with an interest in the detailed justification of the [Ethiopian] treasurerer's desire for baptism."

It was omitted in the Complutensian edition, and included in Erasmus's editions only because he found it as a late note in the margin of a secondary manuscript and, from Erasmus, it found its way into other Textus Receptus editions and then the KJV. As Scrivener said, "We cannot safely question the spuriousness of this verse, which all the critical editors condemn."

"For although in the Acts of the Apostles the eunuch is described as at once baptized by Philip, because "he believed with his whole heart," this is not a fair parallel. For he was a Jew, and as he came from the temple of the Lord he was reading the prophet Isaiah," (Cyprian) and is found in the Old Latin (2nd/3rd century) and the Vulgate (380–400). In his notes Erasmus says that he took this reading from the margin of manuscript 4ap (15th century) and incorporated it into the Textus Receptus. 

J. A. Alexander (1857) suggested that this verse, though genuine, was omitted by many scribes, "as unfriendly to the practice of delaying baptism, which had become common, if not prevalent, before the end of the 3rd century."

Acts 13:42 "And when the Jews were gone out of the synagogue, the Gentiles besought that these words might be preached to them the next Sabbath."

Modern versions (RV): "And as they went out, they besought that these words might be spoken to them the next sabbath."

 The KJV passage, with its explicit mention of Gentiles interested in the events of the next Sabbath, is a sort of proof text for those denominations that adhere to Seventh Day worship. For example, Benjamin G. Wilkinson, in his 1930 book, Our Authorized Bible Vindicated, says "The Authorized Version pictures to us the congregation, composed of Jews and Gentiles. By this distinction it reveals that a number of the Gentiles were present... All this is lost in the Revised Version by failing to mention the Jews and the Gentiles. [...] Does not this affect fundamental doctrine?"[76] However, the RV's text is that of the earliest and most esteemed manuscripts – p74, א,A,B,C,D, and many others, including the Vulgate and other ancient versions; the appearance of the words for Jews and for Gentiles (ethna) occurs in Codices Ψ and P (both 9th century) and a number of later manuscripts. A possible reason for the rewriting of this verse is that the original is awkward and ambiguous—the Greek text says "they went out [...] they requested", without any further identification; it is not clear who the two "they" are, whether they are the same or different groups. Bishops Westcott and Hort describe the original (RV) reading as "the obscure and improbable language of the text as it stands."[77] Even before the KJV, the Wycliffe version (1380) and the Douay-Rheims version (1582) had renderings that resembled the original (Revised Version) text. The ambiguity of the original reading has motivated some modern interpretations to attempt to identify "they"—e.g., the Good News Bible, the New American Standard, the NIV, and the New RSV, have Paul and Barnabas going out and 'the people' inviting them to repeat or expand on their preaching.

Acts 15:34, "And he said, Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks. 6And he trembling and astonished said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? And the Lord said unto him, Arise, and go into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do."

 The passage in question is omitted from virtually all modern versions (including both Majority Text editions), frequently without even a footnote. The reason for its omission is, as Bruce M. Metzger puts it, "So far as is known, no Greek witness reads these words at this place; they have been taken from [Acts] 26:14 and 22:10, and are found here in codices of the Vulgate. [...] The spurious passage came into the Textus Receptus when Erasmus translated it from the Latin Vulgate and inserted it in his first edition of the Greek New Testament (Basel, 1516).[74] The 18th century Bible scholar, Johann David Michaelis, wrote (c. 1749), "[This] long passage [...] has been found in not a single Greek manuscript, not even in those which have been lately [c. 1785] collated by Matthai. It is likewise wanting in the Complutensian edition; but it was inserted by Erasmus [translating it from the Latin Vulgate], and upon his authority it has been adopted by the other editors of the Greek Testament...This passage then, which later editors have copied from Erasmus, and which is contained in our common editions, is not only spurious, but was not even taken from a Greek manuscript."[75] The passage does not appear in the Complutensian Polyglot (1516) and noted as doubtful in Wettstein's 1763 London edition, and since then it scarcely appeared in the main text and sometimes not even as a footnote in editions of the Greek New Testament and modern translations.

Acts 23:9 "Let us not fight against God.

Modern versions (RV): (omitted without a note)

This phrase, which also appears in Acts 5:39, does not appear in the earliest and best resources – p74, א,A,B,C (original hand) ,E,Ψ, Latin, Syriac, and others – and does not appear until H,L, and P (all 9th century). As the original verse ended with a question, it is suspected that this phrase was taken from 5:39 to serve as an answer. Even before the KJV, it was omitted in the Wycliffe and Douay-Rheims versions. It was omitted from editions of the Greek New Testament at least as far back as 1729, in Daniel Mace's edition.

Acts 24:7,

Acts 28:29,

Romans 16:24

.

Textus Receptus

The term "Textus Receptus" was first used to refer to the edition of the Greek New Testament published by the Elzevirs in 1633.

The preface to this edition, written by Daniel Heinsius, includes the Latin phrase "Textum ergo habes, nunc ab omnibus receptum: in quo nihil immutatum aut corruptum damus". Because of this, the 1633 edition became known as the "Textus Receptus" or the Received Text. It consists of the established Byzantine text-type and is also called the Majority Text because it represents the vast majority of the 5,800 plus Greek manuscripts of at least the New Testament.

The Textus Receptus was defended by John William Burgon who the opinion that the Codex Alexandrinus and Codex Ephraemi were older than the Sinaiticus, the Vaticanus, and also that the Peshitta translation into Syriac He believed that the Textus Receptus was to be preferred to the Alexandrian Text, it still required to be corrected in certain readings against the manuscript tradition of the Byzantine text.

Many believe that God must ensure a preserved transmission of the correct revealed text but every reader, because of the finite nature of language, is translating mere words into understanding. All biblical scholarship is eating of the tree of knowledge if the Holy Spirit is not present with the reader.

Christ sent his disciples out in at least groups of two and stated in Matthew 18:20 "For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them." which suggest that we should have the conversation with others while also seeking the Holy Spirit and no merely be a respecter of persons who say they know or have done the scholarly work.

Textus Receptus type manuscripts and versions have existed as the majority of texts for almost 2000 years.

Peshitta (150 A.D.) was based on the Textus Receptus type manuscripts

Papyrus 66 used Textus Receptus type manuscripts

The Italic Church in the Northern Italy (157 A.D.) used Textus Receptus type manuscripts

The Gallic Church of Southern France (177 A.D.) used Textus Receptus type manuscripts

The Celtic Church used Textus Receptus type manuscripts

The Waldensians used Textus Receptus type manuscripts

The Gothic Version of the 4th or 5th century used Textus Receptus type manuscripts

Curetonian Syriac is basically a Textus Receptus type manuscript

Vetus Itala is from Textus Receptus type manuscripts

Codex Washingtonianus of Matthew used Textus Receptus type manuscripts

Codex Alexandrinus in the Gospels used Textus Receptus type manuscripts

• The vast majority of extant New Testament Greek manuscripts are Textus Receptus type manuscripts (99% of them)

Westcott and Hort published The New Testament in the Original Greek in 1881 in which they rejected what they considered to be the dated and inadequate Textus Receptus. Their text is based mainly on Codex Vaticanus in the Gospels.