A public Facebook post popped up on my feed today from someone I don’t even know.
I wrote a response in the comments — and as I finished, I realized I wanted to cross-post it here and expand it a little, in case it encourages someone else too.
It’s wild how many different opinions people have about the Bible. When you scroll through the comments, the answers are all over the place. And if you’re someone honestly trying to find the words of God, that can feel overwhelming.
Who do you trust?
How do you know which Bible actually contains God’s words?
I wrestled with these same questions two years ago when I first realized that entire verses and passages are missing from modern Bibles. That shock pushed me into a 400-hour deep dive into Bible history, the Greek and Hebrew texts, and the writings of the scholars themselves.
Eventually, one simple question settled everything for me:
Which Bible is finished, complete, and perfect?
Anyone who uses modern versions — ESV, NIV, NASB, NET, NLT, etc. — ultimately has to admit:
“Our Bible isn’t finished.”
Why?
Because modern scholarship teaches that only the original manuscripts were perfect…
and yet no one has those originals today.
That means you can never confidently hold God’s perfect words in your hands.
Modern translations rely almost entirely on two fourth-century manuscripts:
1. Codex Sinaiticus
Discovered by Tischendorf in the 1800s inside a waste basket at St. Catherine’s Monastery, where pages had been tossed aside and were being burned as scrap.
Tischendorf recorded that the monks had already burned many pages.
And astonishingly, when he found the manuscript, he was more excited about the Shepherd of Hermas and the Epistle of Barnabas than about the New Testament books — believing those extra writings were extremely ancient and precious.
2. Codex Vaticanus
Stored for centuries in the Vatican library.
Erasmus — while preparing the first printed Greek New Testament — examined portions of Vaticanus that were accessible to him. After comparing its readings, he rejected it as representing a corrupt, altered text inconsistent with the Scriptures preserved and used by the churches.
These two manuscripts differ from each other thousands of times.
And they differ from the vast majority of Greek manuscripts used by Christians for over 1,000 years.
Yet modern Bibles rely almost entirely on them.
The Westcott & Hort Revision
In 1881, Westcott and Hort created a new Greek text built almost solely on Vaticanus and Sinaiticus. Their reconstruction changed hundreds of verses, removed or bracketed dozens of passages, and introduced readings unused by any church for more than a millennium.
Modern translations still follow that same revision-based text.
And yes — on a side note, shockingly — Westcott wrote an entire book titled Socialism, which shows the kind of subjects he was thinking and writing about during the same period he worked on the Revised Version.
God’s Providence Through History
When Constantinople fell in 1453, something extraordinary happened.
The Ottoman Empire conquered the last stronghold of Greek Christianity.
Greek believers — scholars, priests, families, and refugees — fled west into Europe.
And they carried their Greek Scriptures with them.
These were the same manuscripts they had used and preserved for centuries in the Byzantine world — manuscripts that formed the backbone of the church’s worship, preaching, and doctrine.
The refugees brought:
the Greek language,
centuries of biblical scholarship,
and their preserved New Testament manuscripts
to Italy, Germany, Switzerland, and England.
These manuscripts helped fuel:
the Renaissance
the Reformation
the printed Greek New Testament
and the recovery of biblical learning across Europe.
The Textus Receptus — “the text received by all”
Out of this influx of Byzantine manuscripts came a printed Greek text — first compiled by Erasmus and later refined by Stephanus, Beza, and the Elzevir brothers.
This printed text represented the Bible that had been:
copied,
preached,
read aloud
memorized,
translated,
and preserved
through the Greek-speaking church for over 1,000 years.
This same textual tradition became the basis for:
Wycliffe
Tyndale
Coverdale
Matthew’s
Geneva
Bishops’
and ultimately, the King James Bible.
The KJV and a Finished Bible
The King James translators — more than 50 highly qualified scholars — did not invent a new text.
They translated the text that had been preserved and received by Christians everywhere.
After 1611, the KJV received spelling updates and corrections to printing errors, but the text itself has remained the same.
And anyone can verify this. I highly recommend using Internet Archive to go and read the primary source documents for anything I’ve mentioned above. David Cloud’s book “Faith vs. Modern Bible Versions” was extremely helpful to me when I was researching and fact checking through primary source documents.
A question for anyone reading this:
Is your Bible finished?
Can you say with 100% confidence that you have all the words God inspired and preserved?
I can.
Because I’ve found that certainty in the King James Bible.
God didn’t just inspire His Word.
He preserved it.
And He preserved it for you.
A helpful tip when reading the KJV
“Thee / thou / thy” = singular
“Ye / you / your” = plural
This adds clarity — especially in John 3, where Jesus tells thee (Nicodemus individually) that ye (everyone) must be born again.
Final encouragement
I shared a specific note to the original poster:
It’s awesome that you’ve found this truth.
Be encouraged! As you keep reading the KJV, more and more clarity will open up to you.
Thanks for sharing your post.
I highly recommend reading the Authorized King James Bible. It will change your life. I hope this post encourages you as I hope it encourages the person who originally posted and shared that they found verses missing in their NIV.
Jesus loves you all.
— Brian
Brian’s Notebook