How to Find Text Comparison Notes Punctuation Differences

As I was reading about Paul’s confrontation with Peter in Galatians 2:11–21 in The New American Standard Bible (NASB) I noticed footnote 2 at the end of verse 14 which states some versions close the quotes at the end of this verse while others wait until verse 21. (A)

In other words, do Paul’s words to Peter stop in verse 14 or 21?

Of course I wanted to see which Bibles close the quotes in verse 14 so I called on the tool Text Comparison.

Try this:

• Open Text Comparison from the Tools menu
  
  
  
• Choose the panel menu on Text Comparison (B)
• Make sure Ignore punctuation is NOT checked (C)
  
  
  
• Select desired Bibles from the Bible selector drop down list, but for this example select NASB as the first Bible (D)
• Activate both icons Show differences (E) and Show base text (F)
• Type Galatians 2:14 in the reference box (G)
• Press the Enter key to jump to the verse
• Look carefully at the end of verse 14 in some Bibles (such as the ESV [H] and LEB [I]) to notice quotation marks in blue indicating these Bibles close Paul’s words to Peter here

While punctuation marks are not a part of the inspired original writings, it is interesting to see how and where Bible translators choose to insert them. With Text Comparison, that task is much easier!

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