By David W. Daniels
A friend tells you about a new Bible version you have never seen before. You know God doesn't want any words taken away, so you are wary.

But you don't keep a bunch of "test verses" tucked away in your mind. Is this new Bible missing anything? If you have a copy of Look What's Missing, you can easily check it for your friend.

I'll show you how with a translation so new it's not even finished yet. It's only got Matthew and Mark. Are you ready?

Turn to the "short list" of missing verses starting at page 137 of Look What's Missing. You can use this list to test any version. But we are going to test a new version called the Conservapedia Bible Project (CBP), that can be found at www.conservapedia.com.

What is Missing from the CBP Bible?

Right away, you see that Matthew 17:21 is in brackets [ ]. So is Matthew 18:11. The footnote says, "The provenance of this verse is disputed."

That's a fancy way of saying the author doesn't believe it belongs, but put it there anyway so you can feel happy about using his book. So it's there, but it's not really "scripture" to the author. Get it?

You find as you continue checking verses in Matthew and Mark that the other scriptures are in the text, even if they are reworded a lot.

But then we come to the last section, Mark 16:9-20. Is it in brackets? No. Is it in italics? No. Is it separated by a bar or indented with a note? No. Then is it in the footnotes? Not even that. It's just missing.

After 16:8 we find a small raised "a" that leads us to a footnote, saying, "Passages after this point are not found in the oldest manuscripts." Now wait a minute! That's a bold-faced lie. Out of 620 Greek manuscripts that contain Mark's Gospel, only the horribly corrupt, error-filled Sinaiticus and Vaticanus are missing these important verses.

That's less than 1/3 of 1% of all Greek manuscripts and they are not the oldest manuscripts.¹ So the translator completely removed those 12 verses —based on a lie.

Are the missing words important?

We have only found three selections, totaling 14 verses, missing from these two books of the CBP. But you can see the pattern. There will most likely be a lot more missing words, phrases and verses as the project continues.

You have only checked the CBP against the short list. Look What's Missing contains over 250 verses you can use to check any Bible version. I have only shown you a few of the verses in Matthew and Mark.

But are those missing words really important? Do you think it's important when 12 verses remove everything that happened to Jesus after His burial? Do you think it's important if one missing word makes Jesus look like a liar? Do you think it's important when one missing word ("God") removes the doctrine of the Incarnation (God becoming a man) in a verse? Do you think it's important if the only verse countering infant baptism is removed?

Look What's Missing will show you where some or all of the modern Bible versions remove words, phrases and verses that deal with these questions.

 Don't let your friend settle for a Bible that's missing something. If that's what he has, he needs a new one.

¹ See Answers to Your Bible Version Questions(2003), pp. 117-119. Available from Chick Publications.