The copies

Witness

Matthew jumps a verse. The prayer stops. Two strokes decide God or He.

Walk the copies. KJV often keeps the longer reading. BSB follows the older books. When a post says theft, we show you the page. A missing verse is often still in Mark. This is not a decoder ring for villains.

The gaps

A line sits in the KJV and not in the oldest copy. It is often still in Mark or Luke.

01Fasting02Lost03Widows04Ears05Worm06Forgive07Numbered08Fire09Field10Barabbas11Angel12I believe13Goads14Silas15Grace

The joins

An Amen was added. A hard stop was kept. Sweat like blood is argued. A woman the church would not lose.

01Amen02Ending03Sweat04Woman

The words

The copies disagree on God or He, on blood, on three that testify, and on God or Son.

01Comma02Blood03God or He04Son of God05God or Son

The gaps · 11 of 15 · The stirring

An angel at the water

The man already says the water stirs. A later hand named the angel.

King James (1611)
For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water: whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had.
Berean Standard Bible
Not in the BSB main text. John 5:3 ends with the sick beside the pool; 5:5 begins with the man who had been ill thirty-eight years.

The seam

  1. 01The sick beside the pool

    John 5:3

    The sick are blind, lame, and paralyzed, and they are waiting. The oldest copies go from that crowd to the man who had been ill thirty-eight years.

  2. 02The angel, in later books

    John 5:4

    A later hand names the stirring: an angel, a season, a race to the water. The papyri do not have the note. It reads like a margin that stood up.

  3. 03The man already said it

    John 5:7

    When the water is stirred, I have no one to put me in. The story already contains the stirring. Jesus answers with a word, not with an angel.

In these copies

  • A, C, K, majority
  • KJV, WEB

Not in these copies

  • p⁶⁶
  • p⁷⁵
  • Sinaiticus
  • Vaticanus
  • C*, D
  • BSB, ASV, NIV

Read it this way

John 5:7 already has the man say it: “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am going, another steps down before me.” The stirring is in the story. The man believes it. Jesus does not argue with him about angels. He says: get up. Walk.

A later scribe explained the stirring with an angel — who, when, what it did for the first one in. The oldest papyri do not have that explanation. It reads like a margin note that climbed into the text: a pious answer to a question the sick man had already raised.

The pool, the sick man, and the Lord who heals him are in every copy. The angel is a later answer. Angels are not being banned from John. This angel is being left in the margin, where the oldest books left him.

Some sayThey do not want you to believe in angels at the water.

The pool, the sick man, and the Lord who heals him are in every copy. The angel is a later answer to a question the story already raises.

  • KJV

    on the page

  • WEB

    on the page

  • BSB

    not printed

  • ASV

    not printed

Open John 5

The line the text already walks — that is Foretold. Words you already say out loud sit in Words with weight. Witness is when the copies do not match.