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Just because your Bible is (a little) smaller, that doesn't necessarily mean it's infected with modernism.
There are a lot of people today who are what we call “King James only” Christians. They believe that the King James Version (KJV) of the Bible is the only inspired version and that modern translations are modernist. One argument for this is that there are some verses contained in the KJV that are not in recent modern versions.
The argument of KJV-only adherents only betrays their ignorance of the process of inspiration, transmission, and translation. As Baptists we sometimes joked that, “If the KJV was good enough for St. Paul, it is good enough for me.”
Examples of missing verses and passages are Mark 16:9-20, John 5:4, Acts 8:37, and 1 John 5:7.
We don’t have any of the original writings of the documents in the New Testament—only copies and copies of copies. There are thousands of fragments and manuscripts from the early centuries. The earliest is called the John Ryland fragment, which contains a small portion of John 17 and 18. It is dated at A.D. 125 and was found in the sands of Egypt, written on papyrus.
The more ancient the manuscripts, the more likely they are to be accurate to what the apostles actually wrote. This reflects the old adage: “The closer you are to the spring, the cooler and clearer the water.”
Continued below.
The Mystery of Missing Bible Verses
Are newer Bible translations rife with modernism because they lack certain verses that older Bibles include? Not exactly.
