# John 5:4 and the KJV/ESV Translations



## APuritansMind (Dec 3, 2008)

I enjoy reading the KJV and use the ESV for reference. I am not a KJV-only person and I enjoy the readability of the ESV along with the cleaner/clearer font that is used and I wish that one day the KJV would be published in a cleaner/clearer font. The ESV is much easier on the eyes when using bifocals.

I agree that the ESV language is easier to read in many passages, but I have one major hang-up and need some help from you all. I'm not trying to stir up the pot and my intentions are honest. I simply want to understand the opinions of more learned people than me. This issue keeps me from feeling 100% confident in the ESV translation and I would appreciate hearing from any ESV proponents concerning the following questions:

1. Would you consider the last part of John 5:3 and all of John 5:4 part of God's Word?
a. If so, would a ESV proponent reading this chapter before the congregation (consecutive chapter reading of Scripture in worship) read from the footnotes or skip right from verse three to verse five?
b. If not, wouldn't the KJV folks be adding to God's Word when reading the end of verse three and the entirety of verse four?



I deeply appreciate any light you can shed on this for me. 



KJV
Joh 5:3 In these lay a great multitude of impotent folk, of blind, halt, withered, waiting for the moving of the water. 
Joh 5:4 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. 

ESV
Joh 5:3 In these lay a multitude of invalids--blind, lame, and paralyzed. 
Joh 5:4 (OMITTED TEXT and VERSE NUMBER) Text inserted as a footnote at the bottom of the page.


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## MW (Dec 3, 2008)

Metzger states it is omitted because of,
1. Absence from earliest and best witnesses.
2. The presence of asterisks or obeli to mark the words as spurious.
3. The presence of non-Johannine words.
4. Wide diversity of various forms where the reading is included.

Response:
1. Presupposes a textual theory which accredits one kind of witness with a superiority over another. Hence it becomes an issue of a priori assumptions.
2. The asterisk indicating addition and obelus marking something considered spurious are not to be found in some mss. which nevertheless alter the details, thereby indicating that there is something in the text which caused editors idealogical problems which they sought to overcome.
3. Non-Johannine words can be explained on the basis that he reported an incident which is unique. OTOH, Rev. 16:5 provides a reference to "the angel of the waters" as a unique Johannine expression.
4. The wide diversity of ms. witnesses becomes a problem to the theory which supposes the reading was not original, because there is no explanation which accounts for so many changes to an unoriginal statement. Why would so many different interpolators seek to introduce the statement into the reading?


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## Grymir (Dec 3, 2008)

Here's a good link that explains those and others. There is good evidence that they are scripture.

CHAPTER SIX

I teach them as scripture and know that I'm not adding to God's word.


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## Prufrock (Dec 3, 2008)

For those of you who are pastors or teaching elders, and who do not use the AV, but use a translation such as ESV which does not include such verses, what do you do when you come across these? Do you ignore them in the public reading? Mention them afterwards? Mention them just in the sermon if you think it pertinent? etc.


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## KMK (Dec 3, 2008)

Grymir said:


> Here's a good link that explains those and others. There is good evidence that they are scripture.
> 
> CHAPTER SIX
> 
> I teach them as scripture and know that I'm not adding to God's word.



Here is the exact section from the fascinating article:



> 2. The Angel At The Pool (John 5:3b-4)
> 
> The words in italics (vss. 3b-4) are omitted by Papyri 66 and 75, Aleph B C, a few minuscules, the Curetonian Syriac, the Sahidic, the Bodmer Bohairic, and a few Old Latin manuscripts. This disputed reading, however, has been defended not only by conservatives such as Hengstenberg (1861) (13) but also by radicals such as A. Hilgenfeld (1875) (14) and R. Steck (1893). (15) Hengstenberg contends that "the words are necessarily required by the connection," quoting with approval the remark of von Hofmann (an earlier commentator) that it is highly improbable "that the narrator, who has stated the site of the pool and the number of the porches, should be so sparing of his words precisely with regard to that which it is necessary to know in order to understand the occurrence, and should leave the character of the pool and its healing virtue to be guessed from the complaint of the sick man, which presupposes a knowledge of it." Hilgenfeld and Steck also rightly insist that the account of the descent of the angel into the pool in verse 4 is presupposed in the reply which the impotent man makes to Jesus in verse 7.
> 
> ...



Some great points!


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