Why Are These Verses Missing in My Bible?

So, as we come to John chapter 8, many of you will probably notice something a little

John 8 · chapter mention

bit unusual in your Bibles.

Unless you're using the New King James or the King James, you'll notice that John 7

verse 53 to 8 verse 11 is marked in a special way.

Some Bibles put this section in square brackets, others use horizontal lines above and below.

I'm using the NIV and my Bible has the whole section in italics, almost like an extended

quotation, just like that.

Most translations will have a little note or a footnote explaining why.

So, what's going on here?

Well, before we try to answer that, let's first acknowledge that this isn't the only place

where this happens in the Bible.

Turn for a minute to Mark chapter 16.

Mark 16 · chapter mention

You'll probably notice that it's marked out in the last verses, verse 9 to 20, in the

same way.

The earliest manuscripts and some other ancient witnesses do not have verses 9 to 20, the note

in my Bible says.

Turn to Matthew 17, verse 21.

Matthew 17:21

Similar kind of thing here.

In my Bible, the numbers go 20 right to 22.

And there's just a little 21 with square brackets there.

The verse is missing.

Flip forward to Matthew 18, verse 11.

Matthew 18:11

Again, you see a similar thing.

You have verse 10 and then, in my Bible, 11's missing.

It's just the number 11 in small brackets with a little footnote.

And then right on to 12.

And you could flip forward again to a number of other verses.

We won't go to all of them.

Matthew 23, verse 14.

Matthew 23:14

Acts 8, 37.

Same thing.

The verse is missing.

It's just the number and a little footnote.

So, I don't have the exact count, but I think if my online source is correct, there's at

least 16 verses where this happens in the New Testament.

And two of them are those longer sections.

The end of Mark there, and the one here, smack dab, in the middle of John.

So, what's going on here?

Why do some English Bibles have these verses and some do not?

That's our big question for this morning.

And just a heads up, it's going to be a little bit of a different kind of sermon this morning.

The truth is, it's a long story.

The story begins a long time ago when the gospel writers and the apostles first wrote the

scriptures of the New Testament.

Hopefully, it's no surprise to you, but back in the first century when John wrote the gospel

of John, he didn't write it in English.

He wrote it in Greek.

Common Greek or Koine Greek, as it was called.

That was the language that was spoken all over the Mediterranean world in his day.

And it's good to be reminded of this every now and then.

I haven't heard it said myself, but I've heard someone else say that every now and then they

come across a sweet little old lady who will say to them,

well, if St. Peter used the King James Bible, then that's good enough for me.

Well, it may astound you to be reminded, but the first English translation of the Bible

didn't come into being until over 1,400 years after the New Testament scriptures were originally

written.

1,400 years later, before we got our first translation into English.

And I think it's at about 100 or so for French.

And I don't know about Chinese, sorry.

But when you think about it, it means that we haven't had an English translation of the Bible

for very long.

It's actually pretty close to about 500 years.

And if you think about how long a person lives these days, that's not that many generations ago.

So the story of why some English translations have these verses and some do not is indeed

a very long story.

Back in John's day when he wrote this and when Paul and Peter wrote their letters, it

was a different world.

They wrote in Greek on papyrus.

And then they sent their letters by messenger to the recipients or to the churches.

When the church received the letter, they would read it aloud to the whole church.

And then they made copies.

And they did it by hand.

And then they began passing out the copies.

And then copies were made of the copies.

And passed on and so on and so forth.

Because the movable type printing press wasn't even invented until the 1400s.

So everything had to be done by hand.

Some copyists or scribes were better than others.

Some were very accurate.

Some were not so accurate.

And so over the centuries, errors and sometimes even the intentional change or addition crept

into some of the manuscripts.

And then into the copies that were made of those manuscripts.

And then into the copies and so on and so forth down the line.

And as the Mediterranean world changed, that also had a big impact on how the text of the

New Testament was passed on from generation to generation.

There came a time when the church divided over regional lines.

In 1054 was the official separation.

Which you can kind of see the geographical boundaries on the map there.

The Roman Catholic Church on the west, headquartered out of Rome.

The Eastern Orthodox on the east, headquartered out of Constantinople.

But long before these two regions officially separated, they began to grow apart.

Long before this, in the west, the Greek language kind of faded into the background.

And Latin became the standard for the Western Europe area.

So in the 4th century, the Greek New Testament was translated into Latin.

And that was kind of the standard Bible of the west.

But then in the Eastern Church, the Greek language continued to be used.

And so they continued to make copies in Greek.

There were even some Christians down in Egypt.

And so there ended up being what's called families of manuscripts.

Based on these regional divides as the copies continued to be made.

And then there was the fall of Rome.

Much before this, there was the Dark Ages that came after that.

There was a lot of upheaval and conquest in all of those years.

And really, it was a miracle of God that the scriptures were preserved through that time.

I mean, those were days in which libraries were burned to the ground.

Entire cities were.

And thankfully, God used monks in scriptoriums at the monasteries to preserve his word.

And to continue copying so that we could have copies today.

Now, there's tons of church history from the fall of the Roman Empire all the way up to the Reformation in the early 1500s.

That factors into this story.

But we're not going to go into all that.

For this morning, it's enough to know that up until the time that the printing press was invented in the 1400s,

the Latin Vulgate, the Latin Bible, was the main Bible of the church.

And then after the fall of Rome, Latin literacy fell so badly that it was very few who were able to read the Bible.

Mainly priests or bishops who were trained.

The people were very much dependent upon church leaders to know anything of what God had revealed in the Bible.

And unfortunately, the Roman Catholic Church became so corrupt that you weren't even guaranteed to have a bishop or priest who was a Christian in your local parish.

People went after leadership positions in the church for power and for prestige.

And sadly, many of the corrupt church leaders were all too happy to keep the people in the dark.

But then, something big happened.

In the 1400s, the movable type printing press was invented.

And it led to a whole bunch of changes.

Within about 60 years of its invention, a man named Desiderius Erasmus published the first ever printed Greek New Testament.

There's a picture of what it looked like.

They even managed to get colored ink on.

And it's actually kind of nice.

So this was a big deal.

Up until this point, attempts had been made to translate the Latin Bible into German and French and even English.

But the Catholic Church was very much opposed to it.

There was one authorized translation of the Bible.

And at the time, it was the Latin Vulgate.

Don't you dare make your own translation into another language.

You may have heard about John Wycliffe.

In the 1300s, just 100 years before the printing press-ish, he had been working to translate the Bible from the Latin into English.

Not only was he met with fierce opposition, but unfortunately, his translation wasn't very good.

It was a translation of a translation of the original.

Because the New Testament was written in Greek, then translated into Latin in the 4th century.

And now here's John Wycliffe translating the translation almost a thousand years later into English.

You can imagine the problem with that.

I mean, just imagine writing a very important document, giving it to David.

David translates that into French.

And then it sits around for a thousand years.

And some guy who speaks French and German picks it up and translates it into English.

How close to the original intention of the wording do you think it's going to be?

You better believe there's going to be some major differences there.

And if you don't believe me, you can just take one of Paul's long sentences in the epistles,

punch it into Google Translate, translate it into one other language,

and then try to translate it back into English.

And you'll see.

There were some major problems with John Wycliffe's translation.

But it was a start.

So Desiderius Erasmus, after the printing press had been invented,

he published the first ever Greek New Testament.

And Martin Luther, he actually got saved by studying this New Testament

as he was studying in the Book of Romans.

William Tyndale came along.

And he created the first ever published translation of the Bible into English

in about the early 1500s.

And he made it from Erasmus' Greek New Testament.

In fact, there were a whole bunch of translations of the Bible into English

that came within about 100 years of Erasmus' first publishing,

the Greek New Testament, in 1516.

And some of these translations were kind of based off each other

and reworks and revisions.

A couple of them were still based off of the Latin Vulgate,

out of kind of that respect for tradition in the Catholic Church.

But the best of them were direct translations from the Hebrew Old Testament text

that they had access to,

and from Erasmus' Greek New Testament.

Later, this was revised by Erasmus a number of times,

and then by a guy named Stephanas.

And after that revision, the King James Bible translation

was largely based off of Erasmus' Greek New Testament.

Now, before we talk about the major problem with Erasmus' Greek New Testament,

let's first talk about the amazing blessing and gift of God

that this was to the people of this day.

For the first time after 1,400 years,

English speakers like you and me,

though they spoke a little bit different version of English,

they could read the Word of God,

the very words of God,

in their own language.

And I'll just mention here that for this message,

I'm relying significantly on Daniel Wallace for a lot of this information.

Daniel Wallace is one of the best Greek scholars alive today.

He's a senior research professor of the New Testament

at Dallas Theological Seminary.

He's the director of the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts.

He's traveled all over the world

and photographed ancient manuscripts of the New Testament with his team.

And he's, of course, he's been published all kinds of times

and has served as a consultant for, I think, four major Bible translations,

including the NIV, the ESV, the New King James.

Very helpful source.

In his words, William Tyndale's,

that first English translation of the Bible,

was a superb translation.

Back then they spoke in what's called Middle English,

and Tyndale was a highly educated man.

He had studied Greek and Hebrew.

He had a bachelor's and a master's degree from Oxford.

He studied at Cambridge.

He became fluent in six or seven languages.

And he had a fantastic grasp of the English language of his day.

Within 30 years of Tyndale's translation,

there was another Bible that came to be printed,

known as the Geneva Bible.

It was translated in Geneva, of course,

and it was the first English Bible translation done by a committee.

And it, too, was translated from Erasmus' Greek New Testament

and from the Hebrew Scriptures rather than just from Latin.

So finally, we come to the 1600s.

King James is on the throne of England.

And while the Geneva Bible is the popular translation,

which many people had in their homes,

the Bishop's Bible was what was being used in the churches.

The Bishop's Bible was kind of based off of Tyndale's translation,

though it had a whole bunch of different revisions at various points.

One of the past monarchs decided that the Bishop's Bible

should be the standard translation in England.

And so it was used in the churches,

but it had never really caught on because the people didn't like it.

The people liked the Geneva Bible translation better.

But King James, he didn't like the Geneva Bible translation.

And probably it wasn't so much because of the translation itself,

but because of the notes that were packaged in it.

Back then they used to put notes in the margins,

just like we do today with our modern-day study Bibles.

And the Geneva Bible's commentary was very Calvinistic.

Not only that, but the Reformers were very inclined

to highlight examples of justified civil disobedience.

It kind of fit with the whole flavor of the Reformation.

And King James did not like that in particular.

So King James summoned all the religious leaders of England

and he got them together to do some religious business.

They had a conference.

And they made a resolution at that conference.

The resolution was that

a translation be made of the whole Bible

as consonant as can be to the original Hebrew and Greek,

and this to be set out and printed without any marginal notes

and only to be used in all churches of England

in time of divine service.

Actually, this resolution was made by somebody at the conference,

but most of the church leaders didn't like the idea.

They kind of preferred the Geneva Bible.

But King James loved the idea.

In fact, he was so enthusiastic about this new project

that he himself took on a leading role in crafting the rules

for who the translators should be,

how they should organize.

He saw to it that they had everything that they need to do the work.

He assigned six panels of scholars to do the work for the King James,

three for the Old Testament,

two for the New Testament,

one for the Apocrypha,

and altogether there were 47 men

who worked together

on the King James translation of the Bible.

And the scholars looked at all the English translations

that had been done to date,

as well as the Latin Vulgate,

and specifically in the New Testament,

they again looked at that New Testament done in Greek

that Erasmus had done back in 1516.

Even though they weren't supposed to,

funny thing,

the translators of the King James Bible

ended up going with the wording of the Geneva Bible a fair bit,

but it was a good translation.

But even more surprising

is how closely the King James translation,

when it was done,

resembled William Tyndale's translation from 80 years earlier.

One analysis had that the wording was actually 90% the same

as what William Tyndale had done

in the first English translation ever made.

So when all was said and done,

the English-speaking churches,

they had a new version of the Bible,

and not only a new one,

but they had an excellent translation of God's Word

in their own language.

William Tyndale, back in his day,

he was just a little bit more concerned

with being faithful to the Greek and Hebrew wording

and word order,

so his translation was a little less easy to read.

It was a little less pleasing to the English ears.

But King James,

in his translation,

they placed a little bit more emphasis

on bringing the meaning through

in a way that sounded good

to the English speaker,

a way that was memorable and understandable.

Understandable.

And even today,

the King James Bible still stands out

as an elegant and beautiful translation

for those who are willing to put in the work

to learn some older words and grammar.

What a gift it was to the English speakers of that day,

and even to many who still use it,

even up to today.

But there is one significant weakness

or shortcoming,

not just of the King James translation,

but actually of all the English translations

made around that time.

It was that they relied exclusively

on the published editions

of this Greek New Testament

done by Erasmus.

That was the best that they had available

in their day, many of them.

And as I mentioned earlier,

there was a problem,

there was a weakness,

a shortcoming with his New Testament

published back in 1516.

Desiderius Erasmus,

when he published this,

and he actually admitted this,

it was a rush job.

The printing press had been invented,

and now it was,

who's going to be the first

to publish the Greek New Testament?

And unfortunately,

due to this rush,

it ended up coming out

in the first edition

with a whole bunch of typos and errors.

But the bigger issue

is that Erasmus'

Greek New Testament

was put together

from a grand total

of only eight manuscripts,

eight Greek manuscripts.

There's only seven on this list.

The eighth isn't on there,

but he used eight.

And the best manuscript

Erasmus had

was a manuscript copy

of the New Testament

that had been made

in the 11th century,

still a thousand years

from the time

that the New Testament

was originally written.

Not only that,

but Erasmus didn't even realize

that the 11th century one

was his best manuscript.

He used it the least,

and instead drew more

from some of the manuscripts

that had been copied

much closer

to his own time of publishing.

In general,

the closer to the time

of writing

the manuscript was copied,

the more accurate

the copy is likely to be.

It's not the only factor

that affects the accuracy,

but it's a general principle.

So these 12th to 15th century

manuscripts

that he used

to publish his

Greek New Testament

had all the copyist

and scribal errors,

and in some cases,

additions,

which had accumulated

in them

over the past

1,000 to 1,400 years.

In addition to that,

all but one of these manuscripts

came from the same family,

regional family

of manuscripts.

And that in itself

is not a bad thing.

It's just that it was

all he had

in his day

to use.

And out of all

of these eight manuscripts,

only one of them

had the book

of Revelation

in it.

And it was a copy

of an earlier manuscript

on which

some archbishop

back in the 1600s

named Andreas

had decided

he was going to make

all sorts of notes

and comments.

He wrote kind of a commentary

and some textual notes

all over it.

And all of that

commentary and notes

had been copied

forward for

hundreds of years.

And this was the copy

that Erasmus had

for Revelation.

And unfortunately,

in most of the previous ones,

it was easy to tell

what the commentary

and what the actual text

of the New Testament was.

But in this particular one,

the person who had copied it

actually wrote the commentary

in between the lines of text

of the Greek New Testament.

So this was the best

that Erasmus had.

And some of those

notes or comments

just above the words

accidentally ended up

getting into

his New Testament.

But what was even worse

than that

was that

his copy of Revelation,

the manuscript,

was missing the last page.

They had codexes

that were very much like

books that we have today.

You know how the last page

sometimes falls out?

Well, Erasmus,

he was missing the last page.

And so he didn't have

the last six verses

of Revelation.

So being the clever guy

that he was,

he cheated a little bit

on that.

And he actually

opened up his Latin Bible.

And then he wrote

in Greek

the words he thought

they would have used

to basically translate

back from the Latin

into Greek

for the last six verses

of Revelation.

Of course,

he had to complete

his translation.

It's kind of a clever move.

But when he finally

did find some manuscripts

of Revelation

that had those verses,

uh-oh,

they aren't quite the same.

And already people

have been translating

off the one

he had cheated on

and making copies of that

and distributing it.

Turn for a moment

to Revelation 22,

Revelation 22:19

verse 19.

Revelation 22,

Revelation 22:19

verse 19.

It says,

If anyone takes away

from the words

of the book

of this prophecy,

God shall take away

his part

from the tree of life,

from the holy city,

and from the things

which are written

in this book.

Now,

if you're reading

the King James,

you'll notice

that it says,

God shall take away

his part

from the book of life.

The difference

is owing in part

to Erasmus'

back translation

from the Latin Vulgate,

because the Latin Vulgate

says the book of life

instead of the tree of life.

But even today,

with all the manuscripts

of the New Testament

that we have,

we do not have

a single one

that says

book of life

in it

that was copied

prior to the time

of Erasmus'

Greek New Testament.

They all say

tree of life.

And probably,

as some have noted,

why

the word book

ended up in there

is because in Latin,

the word for book

and the word for tree

looks very similar.

Ligno versus libro.

It's just two letters

difference.

Probably some Latin

copyist had just

made a mistake

somewhere back

in the centuries

before,

and it was carried

forward all the way

through to the

15th century.

And unfortunately,

this error

made it all the way

into the King James

version of the Bible,

and even today,

it still hasn't

been corrected

out of a respect

for tradition.

In fact,

even in 1982,

when the New King James

version was published,

they had the opportunity

to correct this,

and they were advised

to by some

that they consulted

with,

and they chose

not to.

They chose to base

their New Testament

off of that same

Greek text

that Erasmus did

out of respect

for tradition.

So,

here's why this is

such a shortcoming.

Erasmus had only

eight Greek manuscripts,

and all

except one

from a single family

of manuscripts,

but today,

we have over

5,000 plus

manuscripts.

The exact count

is hard to get,

so I picked

a very conservative

number.

Some would say

closer to 6,000.

And these are

in New Testament,

they're in libraries,

they're in music,

museums,

they're in personal

collections,

all over the world.

And we have several

online catalogs

of these manuscripts.

It's quite something.

You can actually

go online,

and for free,

you can view

the parchment,

the papyrus,

high-resolution

photographs that

have been taken

of the actual

manuscripts,

which they've found.

It's amazing.

Now,

not all of these

5,000 contain

the entire

New Testament.

Some are fragments

and pieces,

but according to

one source,

the average

size of a New

Testament manuscript

is 450 pages.

So it's

quite significant.

They used

fairly big letters,

all copied

by hand.

Not only do we

have a huge number,

but we also have

manuscripts from

all of the different

families of

manuscripts.

And beyond that,

we have over

10,000 manuscripts

of the New Testament

translated into

other languages,

Latin,

Coptic,

Syriac,

Armenian,

and even more.

We also have

copies of the

writings of the

church fathers

today,

who quoted

from their

copies of

the ancient

Greek New

Testament.

So we can

check and see

does it match

up.

And most

importantly,

we have many

manuscripts today

which date

back way

closer to

the time that

the New Testament

was originally

written.

An earlier

date of copy

and an earlier

manuscript means

that it is

closer to the

original source

which means

that generally

there's way

less chance

for error.

We have a

dozen manuscript

fragments

dating all the

way back

to the

second century.

That's within

a hundred years

of the time

that the

apostles and

the gospel

writers wrote.

Now those

are fragments,

most of them,

not the whole

New Testament.

In the third

century,

64 manuscripts.

From the

fourth century,

about 48

manuscripts.

And if you

just take those

300 years

together,

we have about

125 manuscripts

and in those

125 manuscripts

the whole New

Testament is

found represented

multiple times.

It's amazing.

Not only that,

but with the

technology that we

have today,

we're able to

analyze these

manuscripts in

ways that were

never possible

before.

We have

different types

of imaging

today that

can help

better read

old and

faded text

on parchment.

We have

computers that

are able to

catalog every

manuscript that

we have and

we can program

to sift through

them all and

try to help us

narrow down the

most likely

original reading

of the New

Testament scriptures

in those places

where there are

some variations.

We can pull up

images of

manuscripts, a

manuscript that's

in Germany, a

manuscript that's

in England, and

pull them up on

the screen side

by side and

compare, something

that they couldn't

do in Erasmus' or

Stephanus' day.

So because of

this, we have the

ability to narrow

things down even

better and be even

more confident that

the Greek New

Testament we have

today contains

accurately the

words that the

apostles originally

wrote.

And what that

means is that the

best of our

modern-day English

translations, they're

actually more

accurate than the

early English

translations ever

could be.

I don't know about

you, but I find

that reassuring.

I find that

encouraging.

Back to John 7

John 7:53

verse 53.

The reason this

passage is

specially marked

out like this is

because there's a

very high degree of

confidence that it

was not part of the

original gospel of

John, but that it

was added later.

According to D.A.

Carson, a very

respected Bible

scholar, the

medieval Greek

manuscripts, they

have these verses,

but if you go back

before that to the

earlier manuscripts,

it's absent from

virtually all of

them across all

families of

manuscripts.

These verses are

missing from the

earliest translations

of the gospel into

Syriac, Coptic,

Latin, and

Armenian.

All of the early

church fathers omit

this section

completely.

From their

commentaries on

the gospel of

John, and the

early church fathers

were not known for

being brief.

They loved to

comment at length

on every verse

of the Bible, but

they just passed

right from verse 52

of chapter 7 to

verse 12 of chapter

8 as if it wasn't

even there in their

commentaries on

John's gospel.

In fact, the

earliest citation or

quote from this

passage by a church

father that we know

of isn't until the

10th century.

And then on top of

that, there are also

a number of later

manuscripts that

have this section

in John marked in a

special way to show

that they're not

confident of its

authenticity.

As the note in my

Bible says, there are

a few manuscripts that

have these same

verses in different

places.

Some of them in

Luke in a couple

different spots.

Some of them in

John 7 in a couple

different spots.

At least one of

them at the end of

the Gospel of John.

All of these

indicating that they

weren't sure if that

was part of the

original, probably

because they had two

different copies, one

that had it and one

that did not.

And this is the same

kind of thing that's

basically going on in

all of these verses

that we looked at at

the start, that we

talked about at the

start.

Somewhere along the

way, a scribe or

copious made an error,

usually unintentional,

though sometimes

intentionally to

correct or to

adjust the text to

what he thought it

should say, or to

add something that

he thought should be

in there.

And by the time it

got to Erasmus' day,

these verses and

the others we looked

at were all part of

the eight manuscripts

that he drew from.

And so they're in the

King James Bible today,

and in many of your

translations as well,

whether they're in

brackets or in

italics.

But since 1611,

we've discovered and

collected and analyzed

thousands of

manuscripts, and the

earliest of them just

do not have these

verses in them.

Here's some pictures

of Papyrus 66,

P66.

This has almost the

complete gospel of

John in it, and

amazingly, it dates to

about 200 AD.

It's amazing.

It sure looks brittle

in the picture there.

There's another picture

of the page.

Straight on.

This right here is the

page that this is on,

and right about that

little dot right there,

that's where the whole

section of 753 to 8,

verse 11 is, and it's

not in this manuscript

at all.

It just keeps on going,

as if it never was there.

So the evidence is

pretty overwhelming that

this excerpt was added

later, and wasn't part of

what John wrote under the

inspiration of the Holy

Spirit.

However, it's probably

here for a reason.

Just because John didn't

write it himself doesn't

mean that it never

happened.

So we don't need to

assume based on this that,

you know, somebody just

completely fabricated a

story and stuck it in,

that it's completely

fictitious.

Something like this

probably did happen at

some time in Jesus'

ministry.

Even as we read it,

we'll notice that most

of it is something that

very much fits with the

kind of situations Jesus

found himself in, and the

kind of things that Jesus

said and did.

The teachers of the law,

it says in verse 3,

and the Pharisees brought

in a woman caught in

adultery.

They made her stand before

the group and said to

Jesus, teacher, this woman

was caught in the act of

adultery.

In the law, Moses commanded

us to stone such women.

Now what do you say?

They were using this

question as a trap in

order to have a basis for

accusing him.

Well, if we look at the

other places in the

Gospels, that sounds

pretty characteristic of

the religious leaders.

They were often trying to

trip Jesus up with all

kinds of things.

At one point in this

account, Jesus bends down

and starts writing on the

ground with his finger.

And there's been all

kinds of speculation as to

what exactly he wrote.

Some people are pretty

sure that they know.

It's kind of a strange

thing, isn't it?

Just in the middle of all

this, start writing on the

ground.

We aren't told what he

wrote or why, but it's not

totally out of characteristic

for Jesus.

I mean, he has done some

strange things.

Among them is spitting in the

mud and then smearing it

into a man's eyes.

That's how he healed one of the

blind people that he healed.

And, you know, last time I

got sand or dirt in my eye, it

was a very unpleasant

experience.

Jesus does some strange

things sometimes, so this

isn't totally out of

characteristic for him.

Jesus also tells the men that

are gathered there, I love

what he says to them.

He says,

whichever of you is without

sin, cast the first stone.

A very wise answer, a very

clever way of reminding them

that every single one of you

is also guilty of breaking

God's holy law.

All of you are in need of God's

mercy, just as this woman is.

And this too happened all the

time.

Jesus had that perfect wisdom

and was able to answer his

opponents every time.

At the end of this account,

they all leave, of course,

one by one.

Nobody throws a stone.

Jesus tells the woman that

he does not condemn her.

She receives mercy.

And we're reminded from other

places in the scripture that

this is the kind of thing Jesus

did.

He said to the paralytic man who

was lowered on the mat,

your sins are forgiven.

He had the authority to

forgive people of their sins

on the spot.

He says,

I do not condemn you to this

woman.

We're also reminded of John

John 3:17

chapter 3 verse 17,

where it says,

For God did not send his son

into the world to condemn

the world, but to save the

world through him.

I do not condemn you.

But Jesus also doesn't condone

her sin.

I'm reminded of the guy at the

pool of Siloam, whom Jesus

healed and found later at the

temple.

He said,

Stop sinning, or something

worse may happen to you.

In a similar way, Jesus tells

the woman,

Go now and leave your life of

sin.

He shows mercy, but he also

takes sin seriously.

He commands her not to do it

anymore.

Be done with doing the things

that you know are wrong.

So as far as the content of this

section, I think we can treat it

as historical, just as we would

any other literature from the

time, even if we acknowledge

that it wasn't written by John,

or that it was later added in

by someone else.

Finally, what should we take

from all this?

It's been a different sort of

sermon, I know, but I want to

give some practical help as we

think about Bible translations.

This is not the kind of sermon

we're going to do very often,

but we'll refer back to this if

we need to in future times when

we come to similar passages.

First of all, I think we should

thank God that after 1400 years

of having no Bible translation in

our own language, we should thank

God that by his grace and mercy,

he gave us his word in the

language that we speak.

And we should thank God that he

preserved all those manuscripts

over that long period of time

and allowed us to find them and

collect them so that we can be

confident that we do have his

words.

We do.

Second, I think it's important

that we humbly admit that no

translation of the Bible is

perfect.

What the prophets and the

apostles wrote was in another

language, and that alone is

inspired by God.

That is the thing that was

breathed out by God when they

first wrote.

And every translation of the

Bible, since, has weaknesses.

It's imperfect.

The King James is elegant 17th

century English, and it was

beautifully done in its time.

But its Greek manuscript basis is

weak.

And so it contains some of those

scribal additions and changes that

were accumulated over the years,

and that tradition sought to keep

going.

That, and if you want to use the

King James, then there's a good

number of English words that have

since changed meaning that you'll

have to look up or understand why

they use it differently back then

than we do today.

The NIV is a great, simple,

readable, modern-day English

translation.

It's one that I like to use for

most of my reading.

But it has its weaknesses too.

It omits crucial conjunctions.

It neuters participles in the

epistles, all to make the

sentences simpler and easier to

read.

Those conjunctions, those

participles contain important

information to help us see the

logical flow of what Paul or

Peter is saying.

It makes interpretive decisions in

places where the wording of the

original is ambiguous.

Some of those decisions may be

correct.

Some of them probably aren't.

The recent NIV revision also flirts

needlessly, I think, with modern-day

political correctness when it tries to

be gender neutral.

And in some places, it's fine.

Brothers and sisters, of course

they're not meaning to exclude

women when they write that.

But in at least a place or two that

I've seen, it's a big boo-boo.

The New American Standard Bible,

another fantastic word-for-word

translation of the Bible.

If you want to do a word-for-word

study, that's one of your best bets.

You will have to wrestle with some

words that have fallen out of usage in

modern-day English and some really

long, grammatically complex sentences

in the epistles.

It's not always easy to read, but it

contributes significantly to

understanding the original words.

The ESV is another solid Bible

translation.

It aims to be somewhat word-for-word

and yet stay close to the old

Revised Standard Version.

So you'll also have to put up with

some strange word order and some

19th century English at times.

But if you love the style and the

wording of the King James Version,

but you want a translation that

takes the latest New Testament

manuscript evidence into account,

the ESV is probably the translation

for you.

Whatever translation of the Bible you

choose to read in or study in or

memorize, I encourage you to make

sure you know its weaknesses.

You probably already know why you like

it, but do you know its weaknesses?

Do you know which other translations

of the Bible might be able to help

supplement those weaknesses?

You can read God's Word in more than

one translation.

And if you're studying, I would

recommend it.

It's one of the best ways to do it.

Finally, let's not forget about

context either.

Which translation will be most

understandable to the people that you

are trying to minister to?

Whether you're teaching children or

sharing a verse with an unbelieving

friend, if you're talking to a young

person here in Davidson who's scarcely

been in church, it's probably not going

to be all that helpful to quote from

some passages in the King James.

A passage in Job comes to mind,

And the Lord said unto Satan,

Whence comest thou?

Then Satan answered the Lord and said,

From going to and fro in the earth and

from walking up and down in it.

You're going to get some strange looks

if you do that.

And not only will you have to translate

what you just said into today's English,

but then you'll have to explain what it

means.

So context is so important.

What will be most helpful to the people

that you're sharing with?

If you have any questions,

or if you're looking for help

on figuring out Bible translation stuff,

I'd be happy to chat anytime.

And I just encourage you to let me know.

And I'd be happy to sit down.

It's been a bit of a different sermon,

but I hope that it's been helpful to you.

And I think it's important that we do

talk about this kind of thing

every once in a while.

I hope that you appreciate in a new way

what God has done over centuries

to bring his word into your very hands.

It's easy to take this for granted.

People in past generations

have put in thousands of hours

of study, of scholarly work,

so that you could read it for yourself

in the language that you know best.

So I want to encourage you this morning

to read it.

And let's thank God together

for the gift of his word in our hands

2,000 years later.

Father in heaven, we thank you

that you have done this,

that you have preserved your word for us.

We know that there's still languages today

that do not have your words

translated into them yet.

And we pray and ask that you would

start a work and bring it to those people.

But we thank you so much

that you have given it to us.

And we ask that you'd help us

not to take this for granted.

We ask that you would help us

to see the riches and treasures

we have in your very words,

in our own language,

in our hands.

In Jesus' name, amen.