“Two
suppositions alone are compatible with the whole evidence. First, the words ἄλλος δὲ κ. τ. λ. may
belong to the genuine text of the extant form of Mt, and have been early
omitted (originally by the Western text) on account of the obvioous difficulty. Or, secondly, they may be a very early
interpolation, absent in the first instance from the Western text only, and
thus resembling the Non-Western interpolations in Luke xxii xxiv except in its
failure to to obtain admission into the prevalent texts of the third and fourth
centuries.
“The prima facie difficulty of the second
supposition is lightened by the absence of the words from all the earlier
versions, though the defectiveness of African Latin, Old Syriac, and Thebaic evidence
somewhat weakens the force of this consideration. We have thought it on the whole right to give
expression to this view by including the words in double brackets, though we
did not feel justified in removing them from the text, and are not prepared to
reject altogether the alternative supposition.”
(Hort, Notes on Select Readings, p. 22)
What was
F.J.A. Hort talking about? Most
Americans who are acquainted with the NIV, ESV, CSB, and NASB have no clue,
because these versions have no footnote at Matthew 27:49. The Tyndale House Greek New Testament does
not have an apparatus-listing at Matthew 27:49.
(Dr. Dirk Jongkind, Tyndale House GNT editor, discussed it in February
2018 at the Evangelical Textual Criticism blog).
The CSB is
particularly strange in this regard, because it features a textual footnote
pointing out trivial textual variants nearby, but not for this one which
involves a drastic change in meaning and in doctrine.
Let us take
a closer today.
 |
| From Westcott & Hort's 1881 Greek text |
ἄλλος δὲ λαβὼν λόγχην ἔνυξεν αὐτοῦ τὴν
πλευρὰν καὶ ἐξῆλθεν ὕδωρ καὶ αἷμα is supported by Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, C L U
Γ and by about 35 minuscules MSS (specifically, 5 26 48 67 115 127 160 175 364
782 871 1010 1011 1057 1300 1392 1416 1448 1555 1566 1701 1780 2117 2126 2139
2283 2585 2586 2622 2680 2766 2787). The
first hand of minuscule 2437 (previously
examined here in 2018) should be included in this list, despite having had
the words erased by a corrector.
Also supporting the inclusion of
these words (in some cases with ὕδωρ and αἷμα transposed) are Palestinian
Aramaic copies, the Ethiopic version, Middle Egyptian, quite a few Irish Vulgate
and Old Latin copies (the list includes the Book
of Mulling and the Book
of Kells and the Book
of Dimma).
I will not review the details
of what Hort, in 1881, and more recently, Willker has written regarding
Macedonius and Chrysostom and Severus and the ancient (alleged) autograph of
the Gospel of Matthew found on Cyprus
in the late 400s.
The Revision Committee in
1881 heeded Hort’s advice somewhat, and as a result the 1881 RV featured a margin-note linked to Matthew 27:49 which stated, “Many ancient authorities add And another took a spear and pierced his side, and there came out water and blood. See John xix. 34.” If the men who
translated and edited the 1984 NIV had done what they did 99% of the time – i.e.,
follow the Nestle-Aland compilation – then the NIV, too, would say “And someone
else, taking a spear, pierced his side and there came out water and blood” in
Matthew 27:49. The same can be said
regarding the creators of the NASB, ESV, NNIV (that’s how I refer to the 2011
NIV, which varies drastically from the 1984 NIV), and CSB. I cannot of course judge their motives but
they seem awfully fickle at this particular point.
Perhaps their fickleness is due to
reluctance to admit into the text, even in double brackets or in a footnote, a
textual variant which would destroy the doctrine of inerrrancy (which I have
already discussed here). Philip Comfort acknowledgd in Encountering the
Manuscripts (2005) that the inclusion of ἄλλος δὲ λαβὼν λόγχην ἔνυξεν αὐτοῦ τὴν
πλευρὰν καὶ ἐξῆλθεν ὕδωρ καὶ αἷμα would appear to create “a jarring
contradiction.”
(Notice, by the way, that there is
no distigmai in Vaticanus here – because
Sepulveda would not have pointed out to Erasmus such an erroneous reading in
his (Sepulveda’s) prized ancient codex.)
Operating on the premise that
editors of the NIV, ESV, CSB, etc., have held (that it is an interpolation),
what would motivate an early scribe to create and into the text these words?
A desire to show that some Romans,
or some Jews, were merciful to Jesus as he was dying on the cross. Crucifixion is a painful experience. It can last for days. A person who ended Jesus’ torture would be
understood by his contemporaries to be acting mercifully.
There is a slight anti-Judaic
tendency in the Western text of Acts. I
propose that there was a slight pro-Jewish tendency at work in the Alexandrian
Greek transmission-line, which carried over into the Old Latin transmission-line
that is represented in some Irish Old Latin copies of the Gospel of
Matthew.
Before the
four Gospels were collected together, our interpolator could point to his
interpolation and say “Look! Not all of
the Jews on the scene were bad. Sure,
God destroyed Jerusalem forty years later, but there was a remnant there on
Calvary; there was at least one noble Jew who defied the Romans and showed
mercy to Jesus on the cross – not giving him a drink to prolong his suffering,
but spearing him, in defiance of the Roman soldiers, in order to end his
suffering.”
Or, the
interpolation might have been made by an early pro-Roman scribe, who wished to
convey that the Romans who crucified Jesus were just following orders, and had
no personal vendetta against Jesus (something most first-century readers of
Matthew would naturally assume), and that one of them, in an act of
insubordination, speared Jesus, causing his immediate death and an end to his
sufferings.
 |
Picture from the Rabbula Gospels
|
The
traditions about Saint Longinus may thus become more relevant – was he Roman,
or Jewish? Or both?
The
earliest traditions about Longinus consistently portray him as a Roman centurion,
as far as I can tell. On that premise,
the interpolation in the Alexandrian text of Matthew 27:49 was created in order
to excuse the Romans. The Romans could
argue that as legitimate agents of the Roman Empire, they should be forgiven
for crucifying Jesus – and, with this interpolation, offer an extra
consideration: they didn’t even allow
Jesus to suffer on the cross longer than what was required to carry out the
orders of Pontius Pilate – barely enough time to crucify Jesus, and enough time
to allow all the bystanders to read the inscription Pilate ordered them to post
on the cross, and enough time to finish gambling.
(As it
turned out, it only took Jesus six hours to suffer and die for the sins of the
whole world, but the Roman soldiers couldn’t have known that.)
I consider it very likely that John, when he wrote the fourth Gospel in Ephesus, was aware of
this interpolation and either read it, or heard about it.
Notice the explicit words of John 19:35
- “The one who saw it [i.e., John] has testified , and his testimony is
true. He knows that he is telling the
truth, so that you also may believe.”
What could be the motivation for such explicitness, except to respond to
an interpolation that John detected in his own copy of the Gospel of Matthew,
or a copy that someone had told him about?
So: after walking through the
external and internal evidence carefully and slowly, I conclude that the words
ἄλλος δὲ λαβὼν λόγχην ἔνυξεν αὐτοῦ τὴν πλευρὰν καὶ ἐξῆλθεν ὕδωρ καὶ αἷμα in the
Alexandrian text (and whatever other texts) are an interpolation, and may
confidently be treated as the interpolation they are. That is, they are an interesting display of
an early scribe’s concern, but as a representation of the autograph of the
Greek text of the Gospel of Matthew, they should be entirely ignored.
Not everyone subscribes to the Alands' estimate of the value of Byzantine manuscripts - I certainly do not. To our colleague Dr. Carlson I say, congratulations! May such serendipitous events continue to occur. 
