Ask · Scripture & How We Got It
Why are some verses missing in newer Bibles?
The short answer
Some verses are absent, bracketed, or footnoted in newer Bibles because those Bibles are translated from the oldest Greek manuscripts, such as Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus, which do not contain certain phrases found in later manuscripts. Nothing is being hidden: modern editions print notes showing exactly where the manuscripts differ.
The fuller answer
The difference is about which Greek manuscripts a translation follows. For centuries English Bibles rested on later medieval manuscripts. In the nineteenth century, far older copies came to scholarly attention, chiefly Codex Sinaiticus, a fourth century manuscript now held largely by the British Library, and Codex Vaticanus, held by the Vatican Library. Where those early witnesses lack a phrase, many modern teams conclude the phrase entered the text during later copying. Some older printings also lack any note at these places, which is why the change can feel sudden to a reader who has only ever used one edition in a lifetime of church.
The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever.”
Isaiah 40:8 (BSB)
Bruce Metzger, the Princeton textual scholar named here as modern scholarship and secondary to the manuscripts themselves, explained the discipline plainly: compare all the evidence, prefer readings that best explain how the others arose, and show the reader the variants. That is why newer Bibles use footnotes, brackets, or a moved verse rather than silence. The reader can see the evidence and judge, which is the opposite of a secret removal. Older Bibles are not thereby worthless either, since the disputed phrases form a tiny fraction of their text, and their rendering of the undisputed majority remains serviceable and often beloved.
For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.
1 Peter 1:23 (BSB)
Two reassurances matter. First, the number of affected verses is small beside the whole Bible, and no major Christian teaching rests on a disputed phrase alone. Second, Scripture cannot be broken, as Jesus said, and the abundance of manuscripts lets scholars detect additions precisely because the wider text is so well preserved. A footnote signals care about the original text, not doubt about God's enduring word.
If he called them gods to whom the word of God came—and the Scripture cannot be broken—
John 10:35 (BSB)
If a verse you love carries a footnote in your Bible, do not panic and do not hide the note from others. Read the note, check how other translations handle the place, and notice how much of the Bible carries no such question at all. The verses most treasured for the faith, on the resurrection, on salvation, on God's character, rest on manuscript evidence of the strongest kind. Textual honesty about a small number of passages is part of how the church has guarded the text, and it leaves the foundation of Christian belief exactly where it was.
Sources
- Berean Standard Bible (BSB)
- Metzger and Ehrman, The Text of the New Testament (2005)
- Bruce M. Metzger, The Canon of the New Testament (1997)
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