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Stephen Nampogo wrote:

Hi, guys —

I was totally confused here when I was reading the Good News Bible. I found out that there were many Scriptures that were missing.

  • Isn't the Good News Bible a Catholic translation or have we started experiencing people removing texts from the Scriptures and from the Word of Our Lord?

These are missing verses I have noted so far during my readings:

Hope I will be able to hear from you soon.

Stephen

  { Is the Good News Bible a Catholic translation or have some removed texts from the Scriptures? }

Eric replied:

Dear Stephen,

I can't rule out that we have used the Good News translation sometime but it seems unlikely to me. In general, it's not a good translation to use for study. It's fine if you want the gist (or at least, a certain gist) of the passage but it is not accurate enough for making doctrinal points.

  • Can you provide a citation where we used it?
  • That being said, have you read the footnotes?

The passages you mentioned are present in the footnotes of the Good News translation, and the footnotes explain why they are not in the main text. You see, the manuscripts — that is, the official or received copies of the Greek originals — do not agree on all points. Passages are omitted in some manuscripts and present in others, due to copyists' errors over the years.

There is a whole area of academic scholarship called textual criticism that tries to make sense of the divergence of manuscripts. The fact is, while we can make educated guesses, no one knows for certain whether a passage that exists in one manuscript, and not in others, was dropped by a copyist or added by a copyist. Good scholars disagree, so different translations take different approaches in presenting their translations and usually footnote their decisions, as the Good News has here.

It is not a conspiracy to eliminate the words of Scripture but an attempt to accurately reflect the best scholarship we have.

Eric

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