John 7:53
John 7:5353Then each went to his own home.
The Watchtower notes that this verse and the passage running to — the woman caught in adultery — are absent from the earliest manuscripts, and the NWT omits them accordingly. Watchtower material has used the presence of such passages in other Bibles as evidence that Christendom's translations carry material that does not belong, and that careful textual work supports the NWT's reliability.
Concede this one immediately and completely, because the NWT is right. to 8:11 is not in the earliest papyri or the great fourth century codices, it is absent from the early Greek fathers' commentaries on John, and where it does appear in later manuscripts it sometimes turns up in a different place altogether. Every serious modern translation brackets it or footnotes it. The NWT's treatment here matches the ESV, NIV and NASB. Saying so plainly matters more than it looks. If you are going to raise the NWT's rendering of , or , you need the Witness to believe you are describing translations honestly rather than attacking a Bible on principle. Granting a case where their translators did careful work — and where the King James tradition got it wrong — is what earns that. It also sets up a fair question for later. The textual scholarship that removed this passage is the same scholarship that removed the clause at . Both were followed. So the interesting question about the NWT is not about its text but about specific translation choices — which is a much narrower conversation. Compare , .
The NWT omits this verse, along with the whole passage through , and its study edition states that the earliest authoritative manuscripts do not contain it. This is the correct decision on the manuscript evidence and matches the ESV, NIV, NASB and NRSV. Noted here because the omission is visible to any reader comparing Bibles, and because it is a genuine case of the NWT following the evidence rather than a doctrinal preference.