3. Bible word counts differ substantially… Yet Revelations threatens God’s consequences if the text is altered.
The word counts of the complete Bible text differ, obviously between the different translations, and sometimes within editions of the same translation. For example, one source reports the New International Version as containing 727, 969 words, another claims the NIV’s word count as 726,109. The King James Version is 783,137 words; the New KJV is reported by the same word count source as containing 770,430 words. Obviously many words have been removed from different editions or versions of the bible, which renders them works of the editors and scholars which prepared them.
Why is this of any significance? Revelations 22:19 (KJV) reads; “And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.” It can be argued that the ominous warning in the verse applies only to the Book of Revelations in which it appears, but it still seems clear that modifying the book by addition or subtraction is a punishable offense. The same verse appears with different wording and phrasing in other translations. The Amplified Bible takes the modification a great deal further.