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JD Abshire
Supporter
That is a great question, only The Lord and editors know for sure. I understand from WIKIPEDIA that Bruce Metzger, a contributing editor felt the verse in question was borrowed from Luke 19:10 and didn't belong in Matthew 18:11? There are many deletions and omissions in the NIV and in my opinion there are several instances where the NIV clouds or redefines the true meaning of scripture. Here's a link to the WIKI article showing the NIV omissions. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Bible_verses_not_included_in_modern_translations#Matthew_18:11 For a list of discrepancies, check this out. http://www.biblebelievers.com/williams_d1.html
Chris H
Supporter
Matthew 18:11 is absent from The Greek New Testaments (USB5 and NA28) produced consulting and analysing all the available manuscripts... "There can be little doubt that the words [of v.11] are spurious here, being absent from the earliest witnesses representing several textual types (Alexandrian, Egyptian, Antiochan), and manifestly borrowed by copyists from Lk 19.10. The reason for the interpolation was apparently to provide a connection between ver. 10 and verses 12-14." A Textual Commentary On The Greek New Testament; Bruce Metzger; p.36 Remember that verse numbering was added to the manuscripts late (see Wikipedia articles on this). These late manuscripts were the basis for the KJV. However since then, earlier manuscripts such as the Codex Siniaticus have been discovered that have greatly improved our confidence in what the original texts contained. This means that most modern English translations such as the ESV and the NIV do not contain the added verse that is Matthew 18:11, and there are other corrections that make the NIV and the ESV significantly more accurate than the KJV. That being said, even the KJV with its reliance on late manuscripts has a high degree of accuracy and most errors do not even register in terms of affecting words. However this is one of the few instances where a whole verse has been seen to be a late addition and removed from more modern translations and from editions of the Greek text.
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