Acts 8:37, the verse that vanished from verse numbering
Acts 8:37 may be absent from a modern Bible because Reading A has no verse, while Reading B includes a baptismal confession. The question concerns whether that confession belongs in the narrative between Acts 8:36 and 8:38.
The APB text at this verse
The manuscripts, editions, and versions
The committee record at this verse
The APB's translation committee works blind: it is never told it is translating the Bible, never given a book name or a verse number, and it never sees the witnesses above. Since revision 3.5, the places where the manuscripts disagree are decided before translation by three readers, Grok 4.3, GPT-6 Astra, and Claude Fable 5.1, who see the readings and the witnesses by age and class but never a reference or a manuscript name. Whatever was done at this verse was done on the language and the evidence alone, and the record is public.
Acts 8:37: set in brackets as a disputed passage, wording kept.
“The base text reads βαπτισθῆναι. The copies also carry 37 εἶπε δὲ ὁ Φίλιππος· Εἰ πιστεύεις ἐξ ὅλης τῆς καρδίας, ἔξεστιν. ἀποκριθεὶς δὲ εἶπε· Πιστεύω τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ θεοῦ εἶναι τὸν Ἰησοῦν Χριστόν. [later majority tradition]; the committee kept the base text. Default wording chosen; evidence strongly favors βαπτισθῆναι.”
“This passage is not in the earliest copies of the text. The committee judged it a later addition and keeps it in brackets rather than removing it. The external evidence strongly favors absence, and the internal evidence identifies the present passage as a likely explanatory expansion.”
“Included from the Faithlife/SBLGNT apparatus at Acts 8:36 as a traditional verse addition. Witnesses: TR.”
The committee set Acts 8:37 in brackets as a disputed passage and kept its wording. Its decision note says, "This passage is not in the earliest copies of the text." The three readers worked blind, seeing witnesses only by class and date, without a reference, book name, or manuscript name. The committee's own record calls the unit "Textual supplement: Acts 8:37" and records a clean audit verdict for the pericope.
The argument for each reading
If the verse entered later
Reading A leaves no separate verse between 8:36 and 8:38. The listed earliest manuscripts and versions, dated 3rd-5th century A.D., support that absence. The apparatus also places WH, Tregelles, NA28, and the Byzantine textform with βαπτισθῆναι before the TR addition. On this account, the eunuch's request at the water proceeds directly to the next narrated action. The committee's note identifies the longer material as a likely explanatory expansion. Its wording supplies a confession before baptism, but Reading A raises the question whether that familiar formulation entered the narrative through later transmission rather than belonging to its earlier sequence.
If the confession belongs
Reading B preserves a spoken exchange between Philip and the eunuch: a condition of belief and a confession of Jesus Christ as the Son of God. The Textus Receptus, a printed edition, 16th century, reads the full confession, and the supplied material says that the verse lives on in the numbering it left behind. That continued presence gives context for why the passage was copied and retained. It also makes explicit, at the baptismal moment, the confession expressed by the eunuch. The committee's printed text retains the wording in brackets. Reading B therefore keeps before the reader the possibility that this exchange belongs with the narrative rather than only with its later textual history.
The unresolved question is how the baptismal confession came to stand between Acts 8:36 and 8:38 in some textual streams. The packet supplies evidence for both its preservation and its absence, but not a fuller history of every stage of transmission. Within the committee's printed text, Acts 8:35 still has Philip proclaim Jesus, and Acts 8:36 still records the eunuch's request for baptism. No doctrinal conclusion is decided by this variant; broader doctrines rest on many passages.
Common questions
Why is Acts 8:37 missing in some Bibles?
Reading A omits the verse, with the listed earliest manuscripts and versions running from Acts 8:36 to 8:38. Reading B preserves a baptismal confession in the Textus Receptus.
What does Acts 8:37 say?
Reading B gives Philip's condition of belief and the eunuch's confession that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. The committee's printed text retains this passage in brackets.
Does the Byzantine textform contain Acts 8:37?
The supplied apparatus says that the Byzantine textform lacks the verse, alongside WH, Tregelles, and NA28; the Textus Receptus includes it.
Related entries
Witness readings for critical editions are quoted from the SBLGNT apparatus (CC BY 4.0); Hebrew text from the Westminster Leningrad Codex (Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible). Readings of ancient manuscripts and versions are cited as published scholarly fact with their sources linked above. The page does not declare which reading is original.
The registry gives no verdict
The registry does not say which reading is original. Each page lists the witnesses, shows what the committee did with the same text, and leaves the judgment to the reader.