Why was Act 8:37 deleted from the New world traslation?

anangelnoh

I was hoping to get answers as to why Act 8:37 was deleted from the New World Translation Bible.

cofty

It's missing from a lot of translations.

It is not in any of the oldest manuscripts.

Welcome to the forum

A few later mss (E 36 323 453 945 1739 1891 pc) add, with minor variations, 8:37 “He said to him, ‘If you believe with your whole heart, you may.’ He replied, ‘I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.’” Verse 37 is lacking in {Ì45,74 א A B C 33 614 vg syp,h co}. It is clearly not a part of the original text of Acts. The variant is significant in showing how some in the early church viewed a confession of faith. The present translation follows NA27 in omitting the verse number, a procedure also followed by a number of other modern translations.

The New World Translation Reference Bible has a similar note. Also, check the textual commentaries on the Greek text by Bruce M. Metzger and Philip W. Comfort.

I hope this helps.

The Searcher

Welcome anangelnoh.

Look forward to hearing how you got here.

Greybeard

Yet they keep the name Jehovah in the Greek Scriptures and it is not found in any of the oldest manuscripts. If they were so lead by GOD with Holy Spirit then why did Fred Franz make this mistake in the first place? By removing these scriptures, you remove a very valid point Jesus was making about judging others.

disfellowshipped1

Why was Acts 8:37 deleted from the NWT?

Phizzy

Using the argument that something is not in the oldest manuscripts sounds good, until you realize that those manuscripts date from the 3rd century A.D at the earliest. They are copies of copies of copies.

Nobody knows what was in the true original, autograph copies.

What if the later copyist had a better source than the latest copies we have ?