In this post, I want to talk about another observation from my time at the conference last week. It concerns the way people think about the “missing verses” (e.g., John 5.4) in modern translations. I noticed, for instance, that Dave Black often turned to readings that aren’t in translations like the ESV to illustrate his own text-critical view. Later, at the end of the conference, I had a chance to talk to a couple people who seemed surprised when I pointed out that the Byzantine text (and hence the KJV) is also missing some important clauses relative to the ESV.
The Anxiety of Missing Verses
It was a fresh reminder of just how much psychological weight “missing verses” carry for some people new to the subject. I have never, for instance, had a concerned person ask me about the added verses in the KJV. Some of that is due to historical precedent, no doubt. Because the KJV reigned for so long as the only Bible of the English speaking world, it naturally serves as the reference point.
But it also seems to be something deeper at work because, in my experience, even non-KJV Bible readers are far more concerned about missing words in the Bible than they are about added ones. Again, this was on display at the conference. Dave Black put many at ease by explaining the problem of textual criticism as one of having too much of the NT text not too little. He said something to the effect that we don’t have 97% of the text, we have 104% and the question is whether the original is above or below the line. I’ve made the same point myself and I always find people receptive to it. Too much is okay. Too little is not.
But why do we find it more reassuring to think that our Bibles might have too many uninspired words than too few inspired ones? A text like Rev. 22.18–19 certainly gives us no reason to prefer one over the other. Instead, it puts both adding and removing words on equal par. Neither is presented as more acceptable than the other; both are bad. From that text, we ought to be just as anxious about having 104% of the NT text as we are of having 97%. What gives?