Colossians 1:14, where did “through his blood” go?
Some Bibles print the shorter wording about redemption and forgiveness; others add “through his blood.” The difference reflects two textual forms of Colossians 1:14, with borrowing from the parallel verse a possible explanation for the longer form.
The APB text at this verse
The manuscripts, editions, and versions
The committee record at this verse
The APB is translated by a committee of language models that works blind. The translators are never told they are translating the Bible, never given a book name or a verse number, and never shown the witnesses listed above. Where the manuscripts disagree, the choice between readings is made before translation by the same kind of translator working the same way: it sees the competing readings and the witnesses by age and class, but never a reference or a manuscript name. There are 14,877 such places. For APB 4.0 every one was decided again in October 2026. GPT-6.1 Sol decided every one first. Claude Fable 5.1, from another model family, decided 2,483 of them second, including every place where the first translator left the base text. A departure from the base text needs both translators to agree and the first to be at least 0.8 confident. There is no third translator, so the base text stands when the two disagree. APB 4.0 is translated over those decisions. Whatever was done at this verse was done on the language and the evidence alone, and the record is public.
“The base text reads (nothing). The copies also carry διὰ τοῦ αἵματος αὐτοῦ [later majority tradition]; the committee kept the base text. Early and widespread support strongly confirms the default.”
The APB 4.0 committee kept the shorter base text at Colossians 1:14. Its textual note states: “The base text reads (nothing).” The note then records that “the committee kept the base text.” GPT-6.1 Sol (OpenAI), the first translator, made that decision; no second translator considered the unit. The committee's printed text reads: “in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” The verse remains present without the additional phrase.
The argument for each reading
If the short text
The shorter reading has support across the editions collated with SBLGNT. Westcott-Hort, Tregelles, NA28, and the Byzantine text all read redemption and the forgiveness of sins without the blood phrase. The SBLGNT apparatus records no variant at this verse. That agreement gives the shorter reading a case extending across critical and Byzantine editions.
The shorter sentence identifies redemption with the forgiveness of sins. It does not explicitly name blood as the means of redemption at this point. The parallel verse contains the phrase, which offers a possible explanation for its appearance in the longer form of Colossians 1:14. Agreement among editions supports the case for the shorter wording, but it does not establish every step in the phrase's transmission.
If “through his blood”
The Textus Receptus includes “through his blood,” and that printed Greek text stands behind the familiar King James wording. A minority of late manuscripts carries the phrase. The longer reading therefore has a place in the transmission of this verse and in its familiar English form.
The phrase makes the connection between redemption and Christ's blood explicit within the sentence. It is also Paul's wording in the parallel verse, so its language fits the connection being expressed. That fit helps explain both its appeal and the possibility that it entered Colossians from the parallel. The case for retaining it here rests on its manuscript presence and printed transmission; its presence in the parallel alone cannot settle whether it belongs in this sentence.
The uncertainty concerns whether the blood phrase belonged in Colossians 1:14 or entered it through the parallel verse. The agreement among the collated editions and the phrase's presence in a minority of late manuscripts do not give a complete history of that change. Both readings retain redemption and the forgiveness of sins. The longer form explicitly connects redemption with blood in this sentence; the shorter form leaves that connection unexpressed here. The variant alone does not settle a doctrine of redemption.
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 from the sources linked above.