Stop 0. Two Bibles, one verse

Open two Bibles to Isaiah 53:11.

In the NIV (New International Version), the verse says the servant “will see the light of life.” In the ESV (English Standard Version), it says only that he “shall see.” Then you find a small footnote.

Did someone change the Bible? No. Something more interesting happened. The old copies of this verse do not all match.

Three very old Hebrew scrolls say “light.” So does the old Greek Bible. The standard Hebrew text, copied later, does not. The NIV followed the older scrolls. The ESV kept the standard text and told you about the other wording in a footnote.

Both Bibles were honest about what the copies say. They made a different choice about which copy to trust.

To see why copies can differ, we have to ask where a Bible comes from. That is what the tree shows. We will start at the bottom, with the roots.

Figure 1. The Bible Tree, v3. Leaves are translations; years are first publication where verified. The Douay-Rheims (‡) has an extra step through Jerome’s Latin Bible.