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Exodus Chapters and Verses: My Bible is Missing That!

As the study of Exodus is underway, there have been many questions regarding the differences in verse citations with respect to various Bible translations. Most of these inquiries have been concerning the New American Bible, The Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (from which Jeff teaches) and the Douay-Rheims. While searching for an explanation, I came across an answer to this exact question on a site for Bible software (although I’m a big fan of Accordance). As this answer is well written and to the point, I thought I would share it with you. It is from the Laridian Bible Software website. For our purpose, Adventures in Exodus: Called to Freedom, the chapters involved are: 7, 8, and 22.

“The numbering scheme for verses in the English Bible was first used in the Geneva Bible in the year 1560. This pattern was followed in subsequent English translations including the King James Version, published first in 1611. In the years since these Bibles were translated, many additional manuscripts have been found which predate those used by the translators of the Geneva and King James Bibles. Because of their age, these older manuscripts are believed by many scholars to more accurately represent the original documents. In many cases, however, they do not include all the verses that are in the more recent manuscripts.

Translations such as the New International Version, Revised Standard Version (and other newer translations) take advantage of these more recently discovered manuscripts and therefore do not include all of the verses found in the King James Version. Rather than reinventing a numbering scheme for the whole Bible, the translators decided to use the same verse numbers as the King James Version but leave the missing verses blank. The result of this is that several verses in these newer translations appear to be missing.

The missing verses are:

Matthew 17:21; 18:11; 23:14

Mark 7:16; 9:44,46; 11:26; 15:28

Luke 17:36; 23:17

John 5:4

Acts 8:37; 15:34; 24:7; 28:29

Romans 16:24

For the Revised Standard Version, in addition to the above list, there are other missing verses and points of interest:

Matthew 12:47; 21:44

Luke 22:43,44

The order of Exodus 22 in printed form is 1, 4, 2, 3, 5.

James 1:7,8 was combined in verse 7 leaving 8 blank. 3 John 14 was split into 14 and 15.

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