Nate holds an open Bible next to KJV, NIV, NASB, and ESV translations, with sticky notes on missing verses and the Trinity.

Did They Really Remove Verses From the Bible? KJV vs NIV vs NASB vs ESV

When was the last time you actually opened two different Bibles side by side? On this episode of the Ask A Christian Podcast, Nate spends nearly two hours fielding callers who came ready to argue, starting with a long-form challenge on Old Testament slavery laws that sends him straight to the Talmud for backup. But by the time Heather calls in wondering why her copy skips a verse her friend’s Bible has, the conversation on Bible translations becomes the real main event: King James against NIV against NASB against ESV, verse by verse, footnote by footnote, with a caller’s manuscript correction thrown in for good measure.

Bible Translations: The Biblical Bottom Line

The short answer on Bible translations is that nothing is being smuggled out of your Bible. Verses like Matthew 17:21 and the longer ending of Mark 9-20 sit on either side of a manuscript question, not a conspiracy: older texts such as Codex Sinaiticus predate the manuscripts behind the King James Version, and faithful modern translations disclose the difference in a footnote rather than pretending it does not exist. The NASB brackets the verse and still prints it. The ESV footnotes it and moves on. That is transparency, not deletion. The real red flag is a translation like the Queen James Bible, which alters the text itself to erase what Scripture actually condemns. Read the King James, the NASB, the ESV, or the NIV side by side and you will land on the same gospel every time. For a fuller look at how the church has always defined that gospel, see our Theology Unpacked category, and for the Old Testament law questions that opened the show, our Biblical Answers archive digs into the same ground.

ChatGPT Won’t Touch This One

Not every rabbit trail was theological. Mid-episode, one caller floated using AI to write a satirical post about a five-year-old getting drunk, then immediately predicted the chatbot would refuse. Nate agreed on the spot that the refusal would be the correct call. A caller vacationing in Norway also got a cheerful reminder from Nate that a plane going down over the Irish Sea beats freezing to death in the ocean, so at least there is that. Later, as the show wound down, a caller asked whether Ezekiel’s wheel in the sky was secretly about the band Journey, which somehow led to an impromptu roll call of everyone’s age in the room. Two hours of slavery law, manuscript history, and the Trinity, and it still ends on Journey lyrics.