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 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)[35] 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 15:34,

Acts 24:7,

Acts 28:29,

Romans 16:24.