Revelation 20:5 - A New Attempt to Change A Doctrinally Significant Text

The first half of Revelation 20:5 has been part of the English text of the book as long as the English text of Revelation has existed – until now.  It appears the same in the Byzantine Text and Textus Receptus:  οἱ λοιποὶ τῶν νεκρῶν οὐκ ἔζησαν ἄχρι τελεσθῇ τὰ χίλια ἔτη.   The meaning is plain:  “But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished.”

A quick review of Bible Gateway shows that English versions including the KJV, ESV, NKJV, NIV, NET, WEB, NASB, NRSV, NLT, CSB, CEV, and EHV include the entire verse. 

The first half of 20:5is missing, though, in Codex Sinaiticus and in an interesting array of munuscules:   61 82 93 141 177 201 218 325 452 456 498 522 808 1424 1719 1734 1780 1795 1849 1852 1872 2048 2053 2138 2256 2350 2377 2495 2582 2672 2681 2845 2847 2886 2917 and 2921.

Victorinus of Pettau (Ptuj in Slovenia) quoted the full text of 20:5 in a commentary composed around 260.  At the New Advent website his comments can be read in English:

“[20:4] And I saw thrones, and them that sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them; and I saw the souls of them that were slain on account of the testimony of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast nor his image, nor have received his writing on their forehead or in their hand; and they reigned with Christ for a thousand years.

[20:5] The rest of them lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. There are two resurrections. But the first resurrection is now of the souls that are by the faith, which does not permit men to pass over to the second death. Of this resurrection the apostle says: If you have risen with Christ, seek those things which are above.

[20:6] Blessed and holy is he who has part in this resurrection: on them the second death shall have no power, but they shall be priests of God and Christ, and they shall reign with him a thousand years. I do not think the reign of a thousand years is eternal; or if it is thus to be thought of, they cease to reign when the thousand years are finished. But I will put forward what my capacity enables me to judge. The tenfold number signifies the decalogue, and the hundredfold sets forth the crown of virginity.  For he who shall have kept the undertaking of virginity completely, and shall have faithfully fulfilled the precepts of the decalogue, and shall have destroyed the untrained nature or impure thoughts within the retirement of the heart, that they may not rule over him, this is the true priest of Christ, and accomplishing the millenary number thoroughly, is thought to reign with Christ; and truly in his case the devil is bound.”

The loss of οἱ λοιποὶ τῶν νεκρῶν οὐκ ἔζησαν ἄχρι τελεσθῇ τὰ χίλια ἔτη is explained by one of the most common scribal accidents:  a scribe’s accidental omission of material when his line of sight shifted from letters in his master-copy to the same (or similar) letter recurring further along in the text.  Anyone can see how such an accident, technically called parablepsis, occurred when a scribe’s line of sight jumped from the χιλια ετη at the end of 20:4 to the identical letters in this middle of verse 5:

⁴και ειδον θρονους και εκαθισαν επ αυτους και κριμα εδοθη

αυτοις και τας ψυχας των πεπελεκισμενων δια την μαρτυριαν

ιυ και δια τον λογον του θυ και οιτινες ου προσεκυνησαν

τω θηριω ουτε την εικονα αυτου και ουκ ελαβον το χαραγμα

επι το μετωπον αυτων και επι την χειρα αυτων

και εζησαν και εβασιλευσαν μετα του χυ [τα] χιλια ετη

⁵και οι λοιποι των νεκρων ουκ εζησαν αχρι τελεσθη τα χιλια ετη

αυτη η αναστασις η πρωτη . . . .

 

I note that in the UBS GNT 1966, there was no apparatus entry for Revelation 20:5, and in the UBS GNT 4^th edition, likewise, there was no apparatus entry for Revelation 20:5.   It is exasperating to see such a shift in the new compilation, particularly when no new pertinent external evidence has appeared.  I recommend that from now on translators should use Wayne Mitchell's The Greek New Testament, 4th edition, or the Robinson-Pierport Byzantine Textform, and set aside the unstable UBS compilation.   

 

 

 

 

 

Anomalies in Codex Beratinus (043)

Codex Beratinus (043), a copy of the Gospels of Matthew and Mark from the 500s, is semi-famous as the most unique of the Purple Uncials (022, 023, 042, and 080).  It is officially categorized as Byzantine (Category V) but its editor Pierre Batiffol noticed that its text is more accurately described as Mixed. 

Codex Beratinus contains only the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Mark, with several considerable lacunae (Matthew 1:1-6:3, 7:26-8:7, 18:23-19:3, and Mark 14:62-end). The codex contains 190 extant parchment leaves measuring 31.4 × 26.8 cm, or approximately the same size as those of Codex Alexandrinus, and have two columns per page, with 17 lines per page,^[1] in characters larger than the script in Codex Alexandrinus^[2] in 8-12 letters per line, applied in silver ink.^[3] The title and the first line in Mark are written in gold.^[4] The writing is continuous in full lines without stichometry. Quotations from the Old Testament are marked with an inverted comma (<).  

The text is divided according to the κεφαλαια (chapters) and according to the Ammonian Sections (smaller than κεφαλαια). On the left margin are inserted the numerals of the κεφαλαια and above the pages are inserted the τιτλοι (titles) of the κεφαλαια. The numerals of the Ammonian sections are given on the left margin, and a references to the Eusebian Canons were added by a later hand in the 8th century. A note in the manuscript states that the loss of the other two Gospels is due to "the Franks of Champagne", i.e. some of the Crusaders, who may have seen it while at Patmos, where it was believed formerly to have been.^[5]

The text of the codex is generally of the Byzantine text-type, but it contains the long Western addition after Matthew 20:28, occurring also in Codex Bezae:^[6] Aland gave it the following textual profile: 131¹, 83^1/2, 11², 18^s.^[1]

"But seek to increase from that which is small, and to become less from which is greater. When you enter into a house and are summoned to dine, do not sit down at the prominent places, lest perchance a man more honorable than you come in afterwards, and he who invited you come and say to you, "Go down lower"; and you shall be ashamed. But if you sit down in the inferior place, and one inferior to you come in, then he that invited you will say to you, "Go up higher"; and this will be advantageous for you."^[5]

In Matthew 21:9, the following interpolation occurs, shared only with syr^cur:^[6]

και εξελθον εις υπαντησιν αυτω πολλοι χαιροντες και δοξαζοντες τον θεον περι παντων ων ειδον

And many went out to meet him; all who were seeing [him] round about were rejoicing and glorifying God.

In Matthew 27:9, in the phrase επληρωθη το ρηθεν δια Ιερεμιου του προφητου (fulfilled what was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet) the word Ιερεμιου (Jeremiah) is omitted, as in Minuscule 33, a, b, syr^s, syr^p, and cop^bo.^[7]

In Matthew 27:16 it has additional reading ος δια φονον και στασιν ην βεβλημενοις εις φυλακην (who for murder and insurrection had been thrown in prison).^[8]

In Matthew 27:35, it includes ἵνα πληρώθη τὸ ῤηθὲν διὰ τοῦ προφήτου, Διεμερίσαντο τὰ ἱμάτια μου ἑαυτοῖς καὶ ἐπὶ τὸν ἱματισμὸν μου ἔβαλον κλῆρον along with 0250, 037, 038, 1424, 1582, 124, 348, 788, 1279, 1579, and 517.

This is a unique manuscript with an interesting textual ancestry.  It merits a lot more attention that it typically receives from researchers who belittle manuscripts with an essentially Byzantine text.

Matthew 26:28 - "This is my blood of the new covenant" . . . right?

In Matthew 26:28, as Jesus instituted the sacrament of communion, he told his disciples, “This is my blood of the new covenant, which is poured out for many for the remission of sins.”   Or did he?  Byzantine-based versions such as the KJV, NKJV, EOB, and MEV uniformly report that he did, but in the CSB, NIV, NLT, NASB, ESV, NRSV the word “new” is not included.  The Evangelical Heritage Version, the Easy-to-Read Version, J. B. Phillips (1960), the New Life Version, and The Voice and the hyper-paraphrase known as The Message both include “new” despite echoing plenty of non-Byzantine readings elsewhere.

The manuscripts for non-inclusion include P37, P45^vid, 01 03 019 Q Z [Z = the palimpsest Dublinensis, 035, from the 500s] 0298^vid 33.  Swanson erroneously presented Codex Y as if it also supports non-inclusion.  This is a variant-unit where the papyrus evidence has had a real impact:   in the 1800s Griesbach, Lachmann, Tischendorf and Wordsworth favored inclusion; Alford had καινῆς bracketed. 

Bruce Metzger wrote that the UBS committee favored non-inclusion on the grounds that if καινῆς “had been present initially, there is no good reason why anyone would have deleted it.”  This is a bit amusing because even a novice can realize that καινῆς could easily be lost via parablepsis after τῆς.  Wayne A. Mitchell noticed this possibility in Scribal Skips.

The editors of the UBS and Nestle-Aland compilations assumed that Matthew’s text was harmonized to conform to the wording of Luke 22:20 (and First Corinthians 11:25).  However, an accidental parableptic loss explains the shorter reading without positing thorough scribal creativity that went in the opposite direction of their usual tendency.   

The question of whether Jesus explicitly said the equivalent of “new,” as Paul plainly wrote in his recollection of the institution of the eucharist, is a separate issue, perhaps one which boils down to  more of a preference for the inspired record of Jesus’ ipsissima vox, or the inspired verba understanding him.

 

Romans 10:17 - Whose Word Is It Anyway?

Neither :of Christ" or "of God" on 010!

What should be read at the end of Romans 10:17” – “word of God” or word of Christ”?

You can usually tell what kind of base-text is used in English versions of the New Testament by looking at the end of Romans 10:17.  Byzantine-based versions (KJV, NKJV, EOB, MEV, MLV, WEB) end the verse with “word of God”.  Alexandrian-based versions (ESV, NIV, CSB, NASB, NET, NLT, NRSV) end Romans 10:17 with “word of Christ”   The rendering in the New Life Version seems to be based on a third reading that ends the verse without either “God” or “Christ.”

The diverse array of support for Θεοῦ is good, including À¹ Alexandrinus 06¹ K P Ψ 049 33 1175 1241 1881 2200 the Peshitta, the Georgian version, and Basil Chrysostom Jerome and Theodore. 

The support for Χριστοῦ less in quantity but greater in terms of diversity:  P46^vid À* B C^vid 06* 6 81 1506 1739 1853, the Sahidic, Bohairic, and Armenian versions, and Augustine (in On Nature and Grace ch. 2).

The difference come down to a single letter – Χῦ or Θῦ.  Among modern-day compilations, Nestle-Aland/UBS, SBLGNT, and Mitchell GNT4 favor Χριστοῦ; R-P Byz and Hodges-Pierpont both favor Θεοῦ.   

The reference to the “word of Christ” or “message of Christ,” if original, occurs only here in the New Testament.  This is a slight point in favor of Θεοῦ because “word of God” is a Pauline (though not uniquely Pauline) expression (ῥῆμα Θεοῦ in Eph. 6:17).

Θῦ  fits the context better in light of Paul’s preceding use of Isaiah 53:1 and his immediately following use of Psalm 19, which both can be naturally categorized as divine messages, but only one of which is particularly Messianic.

Neither "of Christ" or "of God" in 012!

The shorter reading should not be casually rejected.  It is supported by F G and Old Latin witnesses f (VL 10), g (VL 77) and o (PEL(B))  and by Hilary Ambrosiaster and Pelagius.  An argument could be made that the shorter reading plausibly accounts for the rise of both rival readings:  a hanging reference to hearing the message would be very tempting for scribes to expand. 

Χῦ appears to be an early substitution that began in the Western transmission-line (and passing from the Old Latin into the Vulgate) and which was adopted into the early Alexandrian line.  The scribal tendency to change a general reference to Θς (“God”) or Κς (“Lord”) into a reference specifically to Christ or to Jesus repeatedly impacted both the Western and early Alexandrian transmission-lines.

 

What a Modern Movie Can Teach Us About How John 8:1-11 was Remembered

Not part of the Scriptural account.

With the popularity of programs like The Chosen, perhaps as many Americans get their impressions about what happened during Jesus’ ministry from what they see onscreen as much as what they read off the pages of their Bibles.  Which is why the depiction of Jesus’ interaction with the adulteress in the movie Son of God is a bit concerning.

Some scholars, such as James Hamilton, insist that we shouldn’t treat this episode, usually found in John 7:53-8:11, as part of the Bible at all.  I disagree in my book Jesus and the Adulteress and offer there a theory about how early scribes mistakenly removed the passage.  But today, as Easter 2026 approaches, I want to look into how Son of God re-imagines this episode.

The historical Jesus never did
what he does in this scene.

The adulteress is brought to Jesus in the 22^nd minute of the show – but in a scene that’s set in a wilderness, not in the temple as stated in the Gospel of John 8:2.  In Son of God, her daughter is with her, calling the adulteress “Mother” – an unnecessary embellishment that lacks any Scriptural basis whatsoever.

When questioned by a religious legalist, Jesus – already standing – does not put his finger to the ground.  Instead he picks up a stone from the ground and walks around.  Then he raises it over his head as if he intends to throw it at the adulteress – another unnecessary visual embellishment with absolutely no Scriptural warrant.

He says, “I’ll give my stone to the first man who tells me that he has never sinned” – a deviation from “Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her” in John 8:7 (EHV).  Then Jesus, instead of asking the adulteress about her accusers, simply tells her, “Go and sin no more” which accurately echoes part of what he says in John 8:11.  She says “Thank you.  Thank you.”  Jesus then kneels and kisses her on her head – another unnecessary an Scripturally unwarranted embellishment.

Then she stands and a young child runs to her and hugs her, and the scene ends.

Have you assumed that the scribes and Pharisees
were holding stones and dropped them?

            It occurs to me that if a modern-day screenwriter can start with John 7:53-8:11 and end up with what we see in Son of God, it is not difficult at all to picture the early writer of the Didascalia Apostolorum adding new details in the course of recollecting the interaction between Jesus and the adulteress in the course of critiquing the hard-heartedness of some church leaders.

            Let’s look at the seventh chapter of the Didascalia Apostolorum, a Syriac text which is generally assigned to the 200s:  “If you do not receive the one who repents, because you are without mercy, you shall sin against the Lord God; for you do not obey our Savior and our God, to do as he also did with her that had sinned, whom the elders set before him, and leaving the judgment in His hands, departed.  But he, the searcher of hearts, asked her and said to her, ‘Have the elders condemned thee, my daughter?’  She said to him, ‘No, Lord.’  And he said unto her, ‘Go your way; neither do I condemn thee.’  In him therefore, our Savior and King and God, is your pattern, O bishops.” 

Although this is far from a precise rendering of John’s account, when these words are entered into Google’s search-bar, Google’s artificial intelligence Gemini states, “The quote provided is a strong exhortation regarding mercy, repentance, and the forgiveness of sins, echoing the spirit of Jesus' interaction with the woman caught in adultery (John 8:1-11).” 

            If it is granted that the Didascalia’s author was recollecting from the Gospel of John, we have here patristic testimony that is comparable in date – using Brent Nongbri’s re-dating of Papyrus 75 – to the earliest manuscript evidence of the non-inclusion of the pericope adulterae. Nongbri wrote (in 2016 in Journal of Biblical Literature, in the article Reconsidering the Place of Papyrus Bodmer XIV–XV (P75) in the Textual Criticism of the New Testament) that “we should seriously consider the possibility that p75 was also produced in the fourth century.”  Such an assessment overturns the popular view, held by the late Philip Comfort, that P75 was made in the late 100s or early 200s.  The catalogue of witnesses in the Nestle-Aland 27^th edition of NTG simple assigned a “III” to papyrus 75, which could be any time in the 200s.  Which tends to expose as lies or at least as exaggerations the claims of those who have said that the story of the adulteress originated as a late "floating anecdote."



_______________ 
The movie Son of God directed by Christopher Spencer is copyrighted by ©Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation 2014 All rights reserved.  

Possible Witchcraft Influence in Ancient Gospels Manuscript

In the 800s in western France, as Charlemagne’s successors worked to eliminate paganism, the manuscript known as the Harkness Gospels was produced. The illustrations in this copy of the Vulgate Gospels are suspected to express pagan mockery of the holy evangelists.  Some specialists suspect that the original orthodox illustrations were replaced by an artist involved in “maleficium,” defiling holy materials with the exaltation of pagan deities. 

The frontispiece, depicting all four evangelists with Jesus Christ in the center, derides the authors in two ways: first, as if they are all casting an ancient Frankish spell against rocks and paper, and second, as if the evangelist Mark is represented by a duck rather than a lion. Similarly in the interior of the manuscript, Mark is depicted as a horse-headed creature, Luke is represented by a humanoid horned creature with wings, and John’s symbol, instead of being a majestic eagle, is a lowly vulture. 

This blasphemous imagery would normally have never been allowed to survive in Christendom, but the Harkness Gospels were protected intact in the collection of a distinguished family until ownership passed to the family of Edward S. Harkness in 1926. The manuscript is now in a collection in New York, USA.

No relation

Mark 7:2 - Polishing in the Byzantine (and Western) Text

A variant in Mark 7:22 illustrates the weight of intrinsic evidence – when textual critics ask, “What did the scribe probably have in  front of him in his exemplar?” and “Which reading accounts for the rise of its rivals?”  It may also illlustrate how reasonable people can interpret the intrinsic evidence in opposite ways. 

This contest consists mainly of the presence or absence of ἐμέμψαντο, represented in the NKJV by the words “they found fault.”   The word is not in the NA28, the UBS GNT, or in Mitchell’s GNT.   Although Swanson listed the majority text as support for non-inclusion, the Robinson-Pierpont Byzantine Textform and Hodges-Farstad both include ἐμέμψαντο, as does the Solid Rock GNT. 

The base-texts of the ESV, NIV, NLT, NASB 1995 and EHV do not include ἐμέμψαντο.

To most proponents of the Alexandrian text, supported in non-inclusion by 01, 02, 03, 011, 019, 037, 0211, 0274, and 19 minuscules (including 713 892 1424 and 2200), it is obvious that a scribe added ἐμέμψαντο to ensure that the meaning of the sentence would be understood.  The alteration had to have been early to affect witnesses which include 032, the Greek Byzantine stream and family 1, the Peshitta, and the Vulgate (vituperaverunt).

But it may seem equally obvious to some advocates of Byzantine Priority that an early scribe excised ἐμέμψαντο on the grounds that the Pharisees only thought that they found fault with the activity that Jesus permitted, and did not want to risk having readers misunderstand as actual what merely an impression.

The Western text of Codex D (05) may help.  If the Byzantine text originated as a blend of the Alexandrian and Western texts, as Hort proposed, we would expect to find, instead of ἐμέμψαντο, D’s unique reading κατέγνωσαν.   This indicates that the Byzantine text’s earliest layer of expansion did not depend upon the existence of the Western text, and (assuming that the shorter reading is original) that in both streams a scribal tendency to polish sentences that could seem difficult was at work. 

Interestingly, the primary scribe of minuscule 2 did not include ἐμέμψαντο, ending the sentence with ἄρτον (agreeing with À!); a corrector has added ἐμέμψαντο αὐτοῖς.