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Why is Acts
8:37 omitted in the ISV?
I believe that Acts 8:37
would be better to be included in the written text rather than placed as a
footnote.
Verse 37 is present only in a few late MSS (for
example: E 36 323 453 945 1739 1891), with minor variations, but that's
only fraction of the extant MSS of the book of Acts. But verse
37
is lacking in
P45,
74
א
A B C 33 614 vg and syp,h,
and the evidence seems rather clear that verse 37 was not a part of the
original text of the book of Acts. The variant demonstrates how some
believers in the early church viewed our faith, but our translation
follows NA27
in omitting verse 37, which is the basic pattern followed by most other
modern translations.
The verse is included in
our older versions, Luther’s Bible, etc, and is certainly not against other
teachings that the Bible contains.
We don't
question the truth that the verse contains! We question whether the book
of Acts originally contained the verse! These aren't the same things. You
are correct that the verse is "not against" biblical truth. We're
concerned about whether the verse was there to begin with when Luke wrote
it! That's why it's in a footnote. The COT's view of footnotes is that
they are legitimate alternate readings for the text. So when you read the
ISV aloud, feel free to add verse 37 to your reading. If you teach a Bible
study on the passage, though, be sure you tell your students that there is
some question about whether or not verse 37 was in the original writing by
Luke. No serious student of Scripture questions the truth contained in the
verse, only whether the verse was in the original composition by Luke.
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