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 A Study of John 5.4

Have you ever read John 5.1-9?  I’m sure that most of us have, and I want to share something that I didn’t notice many of the times I read those verses.  It wasn’t until I started to take the words of the Scriptures very seriously that I noticed something that was very troubling.  However, after some time looking into the “trouble” of John 5.1-9, I’m no longer worried about what’s there, or what isn’t.

After I became a Christian, I decided I would read through the Bible at least once a year.   So, I bought a one-year Bible and got started.  I found one that had both the NIV and KJV side by side, and I read both versions’ renditions of the daily readings.  One day while doing this, I noticed something scandalous about the NIV.  They had taken a verse out of the Bible!  At first I thought I made a mistake, so I read both of the versions again, very carefully.  The KJV read John 5.1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7…However, when I looked at the NIV, surely enough, it read John 5.1, 2, 3…5 – verse 4 was missing!

Needless to say, I was pretty upset.  Who has the right to go through and randomly remove verses from English translations of the Bible?  The answer, of course, is no one.  No one has the right to tamper with God’s word, and the Bible clearly warns all of the consequences for doing so (Deuteronomy 4.2, 12.32, Proverbs 30.6, Revelation 22.18).

It turns out that the NIV isn’t the only translation without verse 4.  The ESV, RSV, NRSV, CEV, NLT and the NET do not have this verse; the NASB and NCV put it in brackets.  What was going on?  Why were there changes being made to English translations of the Bible?

The answer is quite simple: we’re learning.  The first thing to remember is an English translation is just that – a translation from Greek manuscripts into English.  In the 1800s, many Greek manuscripts were found that gave greater insight into how certain passages should be translated.  John 5.1-9 was one of those passages.  The more information we gather about ancient copies of the Bible, the better we are able to give accurate English translations.  What evidence is there to remove John 5.4?  Good question.

Ancient scribes were also very worried about keeping the Bible from being changed.  They took great care to accurately make copies of the books in the Bible.  About two dozen of the ancient manuscripts have notes (a marking in the manuscript) by John 5.4 to show they believed it was altered from its original form.  Additionally, the last four Greek words in the verse are used nowhere else in John’s writings.  Finally, and most importantly, John 5.4 is not in the earliest manuscript copies of the Gospel of John.  When all this evidence is examined, the conclusion is that someone added John 5.4 to the text.  So, in removing it from English translations, we are not tampering with God’s word, but we are actually making our translations more accurate.

It’s also important to note the change of focus that occurs when John 5.4 is removed.  People throughout time have been superstitious and invented many fantastic tales and stories about healing.  The information contained in John 5.4 of an angel stirring waters and granting healing to people was likely one of those superstitions.  One scholar has said, “It’s likely that John knew of the belief of the waters at Bethesda, but chose to leave it out for a specific reason.  Perhaps he does not wish to endorse that an angel was stirring the water.  By excluding the popular belief about the angel, John focuses his readers on the real healer who was indeed present – Jesus.”  Not only does removing verse 4 make an English translation more accurate, but it also puts the focus where it ought to be – on Jesus Christ.  Now, I like that!

Who changed my Bible?  No one did.  The modern English versions we have are very accurate and very good translations of the Greek text of the New Testament.  We now know, without a doubt, 99.9% of the words that were written in the original documents of the New Testament.  That .01% we don’t know for certain is made of unimportant words like “the” or “a”.  We can have great confidence in the reliability of our translations.  If someone asks for an example demonstrating this fact, you can point them to John 5.4…or at least to where it used to be.