Q: I was raised Catholic and I’m trying to get back into my faith. I’ve been reading my Bible and trying my best to understand it. It was brought to my attention that there are several missing verses and missing passages, and I don’t understand why these verses were removed. Nobody is above God — why did they take his word away? I list some examples of missing verses, but there are many more missing: Matthew 17:21, Matthew 18:11, John 5:4 and Acts 8:37. — D.A.

Answered by Fr. Edward McIlmail, LC:

Some verses in recent editions of the Bible are omitted because of improvements in scholarship.

These verses were not found in the earliest Greek manuscripts, which means they might have been added in later, at times because of a copyist’s error.

The Church has discerned that these verses, in fact, were not in the best manuscripts and thus weren’t the inspired word of God.

As for John 5:4, for example, the footnote in the New American Bible reads:

[5:4] Toward the end of the second century in the West and among the fourth-century Greek Fathers, an additional verse was known: “For [from time to time] an angel of the Lord used to come down into the pool; and the water was stirred up, so the first one to get in [after the stirring of the water] was healed of whatever disease afflicted him.” The angel was a popular explanation of the turbulence and the healing powers attributed to it. This verse is missing from all early Greek manuscripts and the earliest versions, including the original Vulgate. Its vocabulary is markedly non-Johannine.

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For footnotes on the other verses you mention, see the online New American Bible.

Whatever you do, keep studying Scripture.

Helpful resources include Father Mike Schmitz’s Bible in a Year series.