John 5:4

Not in earliest manuscript first come first served?

This portion John 5:3–4 was probably not written by John, because it is not found in the earliest manuscripts (?66 ?75 א B C* T), and where it does occur in later manuscripts it is often marked with asterisks to signal spuriousness marking John 5:4 . The passage was a later addition—even added to manuscripts, s, that did not originally contain the portion. This scribal gloss is characteristic of the expansions that occurred in gospel texts after the fourth century. The expansion happened in two phases: First came the addition of John 5:3b —inserted to explain what the sick people were waiting for; and then came John 5:4—inserted to provide an explanation about the troubling of the water mentioned in John 5:7 Of course, the second expansion is fuller and more imaginative. Nearly all modern textual critics and translators will not accept the longer portion as part of the original text. NASB and HCSB, however, continue to retain verses in deference to the KJV tradition Another paper on the feasibility for the interested . I am still reading it and hope to summerise it by the July 19th Gordon Fee is a well-known scholar here inauthenticity_fee

https://biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/eq/inauthenticity_fee.pdf