So there you are leading a Bible study and someone asks, "Hey, why did you skip verse 4?" Now hopefully, you already knew that the King James had verse 4, but your modern version doesn't have it, because you studied ahead of time.

But just the same, how would you answer the question in a way that causes your church members to have more (not less) trust in their Bibles?

Greek scholar and Bible translator Bill Mounce gives a a simple outline on the subject. He explains the process of textual criticism and why some versions have verses that others do not. It's excellent. And he closes with this :"You can trust your Bible!"

That post caused Peter Mead at the excellent blog "Biblical Preaching" to write this post entitled Help People Trust Their Bibles.

These kinds of questions may intrigue us, but usually shouldn’t find their way into the pulpit! However, if people in the pew are looking at their Bible and asking a textual critical question, then we need to offer help. Just a few brief thoughts in light of Bill’s good post:

1. Textual criticism can be explained relatively simply. People probably don’t need to know about every textual family, how to pronounce homeoteleuton, or the full rationale behind lectio difficilor potior.

2. Textual criticism can be explained with grace. This area of study can really stir up the tension, especially between adherents to different textual families. Such tensions won’t help if shown from the pulpit. Be gracious to people who disagree with you on Majority Text vs Critical Text issues. Often you’d be fighting an unseen opponent anyway since people in the same church often tend to use the same version of the Bible (and most of these without any real understanding of text critical issues underlying the options)!

3. Textual criticism should be explained at the right time. Just because you’re enjoying a textual critical excursion in your personal study, or even in your sermon preparation, doesn’t mean the people are needing a dose of it. But when a verse is missing and they are wondering, or when you’re going through Mark or John and you get to the square bracket sections, then is probably a good time to offer some explanation.

4. Textual critical explanations should build trust in our English Bibles. This has to be paramount. What have you gained if you’ve showed off your knowledge, perhaps won a debate against an opponent not present, but undermined the confidence of every listener in their English Bible?

I commented and asked Peter what in light of his advice what his answer to a church member would look like. I have had to do this many times as a pastor, but I asked because I was looking to improve. I took very seriously his charge to help people trust their Bibles.

Here's his follow-up post. Go read it. He did a great job responding to my request!

The first thing I do when someone asks why their Bible (or mine) doesn't have a verse, is point out that it hasn't been removed completely. I tell them to look at the bottom of the page for a footnote. It's usually there. That seems to reassure people a little. At least it's not totally gone. Then the next thing I do is explain that it may not be that the verse was "removed" but actually added later, which is why it is not contained in the body of the modern versions. (But still in the footnote.) I will say quickly that the modern translation is actually based on older manuscripts than the King James. (It's not good to keep people in suspense when answering questions like these!) Then I go through an explanation along the lines of what Mounce wrote. (But his is way better than mine.)

I'm happy to take time to detour from my planned message and answer this question when someone asks it because I think that building trust in the Bible is critically important, and I'd hate for someone to walk away from a message or Bible Study of mine with more doubt than when they came in!

What do you think?

Below I have an included Mounce's excellent explanation. I highly recommend it.



I would recommend saving this somewhere. You might even print it and put it in the back of your Bible for easy reference!

This is the basic question of the Greek text, and the technical name for it is “text criticism.” (I am going to stick with the Greek Testament, not the Hebrew.) Here is the basic reconstruction.

1. The writers wrote their gospels and epistles and sent them to their churches.

2. These documents were copied so they could be shared. In the process of copying, changes were introduced. (By the way, this is not academic conjecture; we have these different manuscripts and can see the differences for themselves.)

Some changes were accidental but others appeared to be intentional, but not always for nefarious reasons. It is often to add an explanation, or substitute an easier word to understand, or to harmonize the gospels, etc.

In John 5:4, most believe that a scribe (the person doing the copying) thought it was puzzling why the man would lie there for 38 years. Perhaps he knew a tradition that said the angel periodically came down to stir up the waters and the first person in was healed, and so he added in the verse. (Others would argue that for some reason the verse was dropped off.)

3. As time progressed (and as we can tell from archaeology), biblical manuscripts were collected in five different geographical areas. Since the center of the church was in Rome, this area had the greatest number of copies.

4. Erasmus (1500s) created a Greek text based on two manuscripts from the 12th century (Matthew through Jude) and another 12th century manuscript for all but the last 6 verses of Revelation. He went from the Latin back into Greek to get those last 6. His work became the basis of the King James translation.

5. 150 years ago we started digging up new manuscripts that were in fact must older (by centuries). They came from a different geographical area than the majority of the texts we currently had, and they were different in places. For example, they did not have John 5:4.

And so the science of textual criticism was born, which is the science of determining which of the different “readings” is most likely original.

The general preference is to see scribes as adding verses, not removing them. For that reason, and others, most feel that John 5:4 was added after the fact; there is no good reason why it would have been omitted.

But God in his sovereign love made sure that the differences among the manuscripts would not hinder our faith.

* About 5% of the Greek text is in question
* No major doctrine is brought into question by that 5%.

You can trust your Bible!