CLAIM: KJV Only advocates argue that modern translations have removed the blood of Christ from their translations—specifically here in Colossians 1:14. The KJV reads: “In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins.” Other translations—like the NASB or NIV—omit these words. Why?

RESPONSE: There is not conspiracy of omitting the blood of Christ in modern translations. This section simply does not exist in the earliest manuscripts. White writes, “It is missing not only in the Alexandrian manuscripts, such as A and B, but from the majority of Greek manuscripts, including the majority of the Byzantine tradition. According to the information cited by the UBS 4^th Greek text, the earliest Greek manuscript to contain it is from the ninth century, and the earliest father to cite it in this way is from the late fourth century.”^[1]

The Byzantine text (which is the foundation for the Textus Receptus and the KJV translation) probably lifted this expression from Ephesians 1:7, where we read in the NASB: “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace.” We might ask, “If modern translations are trying to eliminate the blood of Christ from the Bible, then why does Ephesians 1:7 retain this?”