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Scribal Skips: 1700 Words That Fell Out of the Bible
In the human enterprise of the hand copying of ancient texts it has been discovered that mistakes are likely. It has therefore been the goal of biblical text criticism to examine the extant manuscript copies and determine the mistakes copyists made in order to recover and preserve the authentic text. This scientific endeavor therefore strengthens our confidence in the reliability of the Bible.
Rules for text criticism were proposed in 1796, and by the 19th century they became dominant. One rule for short and long readings is that the shortest reading among manuscripts is preferred, and if the manuscript with the short reading is early then evidence from other manuscripts that text could have dropped out should be dismissed.
However, recent studies of early papyri have found that they were not immune from numerous copyist skips. Other studies have shown that the age of a manuscript is not to be equated with the age of the text. These discoveries have been changing the rules of text criticism.
In the 5th Edition of Scribal Skips, the author presents over 70 new examples totalling over 560 examples from Genesis to Revelation from the text criticism literature and personal research of text that has evidence of having fallen out of manuscripts and editions from scribal skips, and has mostly not as yet been restored to Bible translations. For those who want to know everything that was said in the original Bible, this edition should be of significant interest.
“This book is an amazing feat… and will be a very useful tool for both the text critic and the exegete.”
Peter Rodgers
Adjunct Professor of Theology
Fuller Theological Seminary
Rules for text criticism were proposed in 1796, and by the 19th century they became dominant. One rule for short and long readings is that the shortest reading among manuscripts is preferred, and if the manuscript with the short reading is early then evidence from other manuscripts that text could have dropped out should be dismissed.
However, recent studies of early papyri have found that they were not immune from numerous copyist skips. Other studies have shown that the age of a manuscript is not to be equated with the age of the text. These discoveries have been changing the rules of text criticism.
In the 5th Edition of Scribal Skips, the author presents over 70 new examples totalling over 560 examples from Genesis to Revelation from the text criticism literature and personal research of text that has evidence of having fallen out of manuscripts and editions from scribal skips, and has mostly not as yet been restored to Bible translations. For those who want to know everything that was said in the original Bible, this edition should be of significant interest.
“This book is an amazing feat… and will be a very useful tool for both the text critic and the exegete.”
Peter Rodgers
Adjunct Professor of Theology
Fuller Theological Seminary
246 pages, Paperback
Published April 7, 2025
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