Acts 8:37 — the verse that vanished from verse numbering
Acts 8:37 does not appear in modern Bibles because they print reading A, where the narrative runs 8:36 → 8:38, rather than reading B, a baptismal confession. The verse number remains where the confession once stood.
What the APB prints.
Every witness, on the record.
What a blind committee did here.
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. Whatever it did at this verse, it did on the language alone — and its record is public.
“Included from the Faithlife/SBLGNT apparatus at Acts 8:36 as a traditional verse addition. Witnesses: TR.”
The blind committee record identifies the phrase as “Textual supplement: Acts 8:37”. Its note says, “Included from the Faithlife/SBLGNT apparatus at Acts 8:36 as a traditional verse addition. Witnesses: TR.” For the pericope, the recorded audit verdict is “clean”. The record thus documents an inclusion drawn from the apparatus and identifies the witness supplied there.
The case for each reading.
If the verse entered later
Reading A lets the account move directly from the eunuch’s question in Acts 8:36 to the next narrative step in 8:38. Its witness row lists P45 P74 ℵ A B and describes the verse as absent in the earliest manuscripts and versions. The apparatus likewise places the addition after βαπτισθῆναι and assigns the longer material to TR, while WH, Tregelles, NA28, and the Byzantine textform lack it. On this account, the numbered gap reflects a later verse division preserving the location of a confession rather than a sentence in the running narrative. The row’s description of the confession as ancient liturgy points to an understandable setting in which such words could accompany baptism.
If the confession belongs
Reading B supplies an explicit exchange before baptism. Philip sets a condition, and the eunuch answers with the confession: “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God”. The fuller Greek appears in the apparatus after βαπτισθῆναι: Πιστεύω τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ θεοῦ εἶναι τὸν Ἰησοῦν Χριστόν. The TR prints this verse, and the APB presents the dialogue as Acts 8:37. The case for this reading is therefore not merely that a verse number survives, but that it preserves a compact baptismal confession and gives spoken form to the response immediately before the baptismal action. The witness row connects its later appearance with Irenaeus and the Western tradition.
What remains uncertain is whether the confession belongs in the running narrative as reading B or whether the account moves from 8:36 to 8:38 as reading A. The difference changes the presence of a spoken baptismal confession at this point; it does not change Philip’s proclamation of Jesus in Acts 8:35 or the eunuch’s request in Acts 8:36. Doctrinal conclusions need not rest on this single disputed verse; doctrines rest on many passages.
More places where the manuscripts argue.
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. Nothing on this page declares a winner — the evidence is the point.
Weigh it yourself.
The registry doesn't tell you which reading is true. It puts every witness on one page, shows what a blind committee did with the same language, and leaves the verdict where it belongs — with the reader.