Laudator Temporis Acti

Acts of the Apostles 17:26 (KJV):

And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation...

ποίησέν τε ἐξ ἑνὸς πᾶν ἔθνος ἀνθρώπων κατοικεῖν ἐπὶ παντὸς προσώπου τῆς γῆς, ὁρίσας προστεταγμένους καιροὺς καὶ τὰς ὁροθεσίας τῆς κατοικίας αὐτῶν...

The same (tr. Richmond Lattimore):

And out of one he made every nation of men to live on every face of the earth, decreeing the seasons in their order and the boundaries of their habitations...

Text and apparatus from Barbara and Kurt Aland, edd., Novum Testamentum Graece, 27th ed. (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1993), p. 374: Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (Stuttgart: United Bible Societies, 1975), p. 456:

The Western text, with the support of a wide range of early versions and patristic witnesses, adds αἵματος after ἑνός. This reading passed into the Textus Receptus and lies behind the AV. In support of the longer text is the palaeographical consideration that αἵματος may have been accidentally omitted because it ends in the same syllable as the preceding ἑνός. It is also possible, though perhaps not probable, that someone deliberately deleted the word, since it appears to contradict the statement in Genesis that God made man from dust—not blood (Gn 2.7). Likewise, there is some force in the consideration that αἵματος is not a very natural gloss on ἑνός—for that one would have expected ἀνθρώπου or something similar.

On the other hand, a majority of the Committee was impressed by the external evidence supporting the shorter text, and judged that αἵματος was a typical expansion so characteristic of the Western reviser.

With some amount of hesitation, therefore, and after renewed consideration of the claims of each reading, it was voted to adopt the Alexandrian text.

The verse has been used to justify racial equality on the one hand (ἐξ ἑνός αἵματος), ethnic separation on the other hand (ὁρίσας...τὰς ὁροθεσίας τῆς κατοικίας αὐτῶν).