The Missing Bible Verses

What does it mean, “When the water is stirred or troubled or disturbed?”

Is it like someone goes down periodically with a giant spoon and stirs the water in this huge pool?

And why would he need to get into the pool ahead of someone else?

Is it like someone shouted, “The last one in is a rotten egg?”

Of course not but the belief that an angel would come and stir up the waters and the first one in would have been lost after centuries or would be meaningless in another culture.

So, someone decided to add it in for the purposes of explanation.

So, is it completely proper to leave it in the Scripture without a notation that it was added at a later time? No.

Is it completely proper to leave it out of the Scripture? Yes, but without some kind of notation verse 7 would certainly be confusing.

Is it improper to place it in the Scriptures as a bracketed text with a footnote that it was added at a later time for the purpose of explanation?

When John wrote the Gospel of John the belief about the pool of Bethesda being a place of healing would have been general knowledge. The belief that at certain times and angel of God would descend and stir the waters of the pool and if you were the first one in you would be cured would have been common knowledge!

Centuries later and in foreign countries this was NOT common knowledge.

Some scribe along the way must have thought this information needed to be added for future generations. When you are copying onto a scroll that is 10 feet long it is difficult to make a footnote so they must have just decided to add it in.

I use many of the different translations.

Let me show you some of the Bibles Pastor Karenlee and I use.

Of course the translations used by the Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Mormons have been intentionally mistranslated in order to support their false belief systems.

If you know someone who has particular difficulty reading there is a translation

I recently discovered called the NIRV which uses a simplified vocabulary and shorter sentences and is based on the NIV or the ERV which was originally translated for the deaf because sign language uses a limited vocabulary.

Now, believe me, I grew up hearing and reading the KJV and when it is read in context I can understand most of it.

So, believe me when I put this up on the projection don’t think for a moment that

I am mocking the KJV but the differences in the meaning of words over the centuries is huge.

Just try to imagine an unchurched person with a limited education trying to make sense of this:

John 5:5-8 KJV

“And a certain man was there, which had an infirmity thirty and eight years. When Jesus saw him LIE, and knew that he had been now a long time in that CASE, He saith unto him, ‘Wilt thou be made whole?’

“The IMPOTENT man answered Him, ‘Sir, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool: but while I am coming, another steppeth down before me.’ Jesus saith unto him, ‘Rise, take up thy BED, and walk.’”