Big changes

For a variety of reasons, there have sometimes been more significant changes that have taken place to the text of the Bible.

Texts of different lengths
A few books of the Bible such as Jeremiah and Acts are either longer or shorter in different manuscripts.

However:

• The longer version of Jeremiah merely contains repeated and rehashed passages from elsewhere in the same book
• The longer version of Acts is viewed by many scholars as a less authentic version of the original

Texts with ambiguous meanings
In some cases, the different versions in each manuscript lead to the actual meaning being a bit unclear.

A classic example is the text of Luke 2.14, which is often read out at Christmas. It proclaims either ‘peace on earth to humanity’, or just to ‘those who God favours’, depending on which ancient text is consulted.

Texts which are missing
There are also a small number of passages that are found in some manuscripts and not in others. This includes, for example, most of chapter 16 of Mark’s Gospel. While some scholars make much of these missing passages, others see them as largely irrelevant to the big picture.