In Mark
10:23, Jesus told His followers, “How difficult it is for those who have riches
to enter the kingdom
of God .” This was just after a young man with many
possessions had gone away from Jesus, after Jesus had invited him to sell
everything he had, and give to the poor, and expect heavenly treasures
instead. The disciples were
astonished. But then, in Mark 10:24,
Jesus affirmed: “Children, how hard it
is for those who trust in riches to enter into the kingdom of God !”
Mark 10:24 in GA 2474 (900s). |
That is
Jesus’ statement in the vast majority of Greek manuscripts of the Gospel of
Mark, representative of a broad assortment of locales. The same sense is given in the KJV, the NKJV,
the EHV (Evangelical Heritage Version), the MEV (Modern English Version), and
the WEB (World English Bible). The Latin
Vulgate (produced by Jerome in 383), the Gothic Version (produced by Wulfilas
in the mid-300s), the Peshitta (the dominant Syriac version, probably produced
in the late 300s), the Sinaitic Syriac, and most Old Latin copies (representing
Latin translations made before the Vulgate) agree with this.
Yet, when
one turns to popular modern English versions such as the ESV, NIV, and CSB, the
text of Mark 10:24 is shorter: the
phrase “for those who trust in riches” is absent. This is not due to any editorial decision on
the part of translators: the phrase is
missing in four important early manuscripts Sinaiticus (ℵ), Vaticanus (B), Delta
(Δ), and Ψ, and in the Old Latin Codex Bobbiensis (k), and two Egyptian versions (the Sahidic and Bohairic).
Although ℵ,
B, and k are old (from the fourth and
fifth centuries) they are relatively isolated.
Furthermore, this is one of those cases – not as rare as one might think
– in which our earliest manuscripts are
not our earliest evidence. Two important
patristic writers provide significantly older evidence: Clement of Alexandria (in the fourth chapter
of his composition Who Is The Rich Man Who Shall
Be Saved?), and Ephrem Syrus (in his Commentary on the Diatessaron). Let’s look at them one at a time.
The exact
years of Clement of Alexandria’s birth and death are unknown, but it can be
safely deduced that he served the church from some time in the 180s to some
time in the 210s. Clement espoused
various controversial doctrines, but for today’s purposes, we may zoom in on
his quotations in the composition Who Is
the Rich Man Who Shall Be Saved?: in
chapter 4, Clement makes an extensive quotation from Mark 10:17-31, specifically
stating (at the outset of the next chapter) that he is drawing on text from the
Gospel of Mark. The text of Clement’s
work was the subject of a doctoral dissertation by Reuben Swanson, and in his
volume on Mark in the New Testament Greek
Manuscripts series, he provides the relevant extract from Mark 10:23:
περιβλεψαμενος δε ο Ιησους λεγει τοις μαθηταις αυτου, πως δυσκολως οι τα χρηματα (χρημα 1 ms) εχοντες ειςελευσονται εις την βασιλειαν του θεου.
Here is the Byzantine text of Mark 10:23, with differences noted:
περιβλεψαμενος δε ο Ιησους λεγει τοις μαθηταις αυτου, πως δυσκολως οι τα χρηματα (χρημα 1 ms) εχοντες ειςελευσονται εις την βασιλειαν του θεου.
Here is the Byzantine text of Mark 10:23, with differences noted:
Και
περιβλεψαμενος [Clement has και before περιβλεψαμενος, instead of δε after it]
ο Ιησους
λεγει τοις μαθηταις αυτου, [no differences]
πως
δυσκολως οι τα χρηματα (χρημα 1 ms) [no differences]
εχοντες εις
την βασιλειαν του θεου ειςελευσονται [Clement has ειςελευσονται before the
words εις την βασιλειαν του θεου instead of after them].
Likewise
for Mark 10:24, Swanson has provided Clement’s text:
Οι δε
μαθηται εθαμβουντο επι τοις λογοις αυτου.
παλιν δε ο Ιησους αποκριθεις λεγει αυτοις, Τεκνα, πως δυσκολον εστι τους
πεποιθοτας επι χρημσασιν εις την βασιλειαν του θεου εισελθειν.
Comparing
this to the Byzantine text of Mark 10:24, bit by bit, we see the following
differences:
Οι δε
μαθηται εθαμβουντο επι τοις λογοις αυτου.
[no differences]
παλιν δε ο
Ιησους αποκριθεις λεγει αυτοις, [transposition of παλιν]
Τεκνα, πως
δυσκολον εστιν τους πεποιθοτας επι χρημσασιν [spelling; χρημασιν]
εις την
βασιλειαν του θεου εισελθειν [no differences].
(I think Swanson’s
transcription contains a typo and should read χρημασιν.)
The thing to see is that as Clement quotes Mark 10:24, he quotes it with the words τους πεποιθοτας επι χρημσασιν – not in the Alexandrian form (which lacks this phrase), and not in the Western form (in which verse 24 appears after verse 25). Thus we have confirmation, in a patristic composition written around the year 200 in
Now we turn
to Ephrem Syrus. Ephrem wrote in the
mid-300s, in Syria ,
in the Syriac language. The Diatessaron – the text upon which he
wrote a commentary – is older; an individual named Tatian compiled the
Diatessaron as a combination of all four Gospel accounts, in the early
170s. The discovery of an important
manuscript of Ephrem’s commentary on the Diatessaron was announced in 1957,
when Syriac MS 709, assigned to the late 400s, was added to the Chester Beatty
collection – and subsequently additional parts of Ephrem’s commentary were
found, including two more portions of Chester Beatty Syriac MS 709 in the
1980s. Not only was this evidence was
unavailable to Hort in 1881; it was unavailable to Metzger when he wrote his Textual Commentary on the New Testament.
When we
look into Ephrem’s quotations from Tatian’s Diatessaron, (cf. page 231 of
Carmel McCarthy’s Saint Ephrem’s
Commentary on Tatian’s Diatessaron: An
English Translation of Chester Beatty Syriac MS 709 with an Introduction and
Notes) we see this statement: “When
he turned away, our Lord said, It is
difficult for those who trust in their own riches.” One might initially suspect that Ephrem has
merely cited 10:23, but the quotation does not refer merely to those who possess wealth; it refers to those who trust in their wealth – a statement not
found in Mark 10:23, nor in the parallel accounts in Matthew 19:23-24 and Luke
18:24-25, but exclusively in Mark 10:24.
Via Ephrem’s comment, we may see the Gospels-text used by Tatian in the 170s – a
text in which Mark 10:24 included the phrase “for those who trust in riches.”
Thus two
very early patristic writers, from two far-removed branches of the
transmission-stream, constitute strong support for the inclusion of the words
“for those who trust in riches” in the text of Mark 10:24; finding these
citations in the quotations of Clement and Ephrem is roughly congruent to
finding small second-century papyrus fragments of Mark 10:24 in Alexandria
(where Clement wrote) and in Rome (where Tatian studied under Justin Martyr).
Nevertheless,
what answer shall be given to Metzger’s theory (phrased as an assertion): “The rigor of Jesus’ saying was softened by
the insertion of one or another qualification that limited its generality and
brought it into closer connection with the context”? Besides mentioning the usual reading, he adds
that two different readings are attested: Codex W and itc support πλουσιον, and 1241 reads οι τα
χρηματα εχοντες. The counter-point is
not hard to find: πλουσιον is not a wholesale insertion, but a harmonization to
the parallels in Matthew and Luke; meanwhile οι τα χρηματα εχοντες is a
harmonization to the identical phrase in Mark 10:23. (Willker mentions that the latter
harmonization is read by five other minuscules, 588, 973. 1090, 2791, and
2812.)
Finally, we
may consider the simple mechanics by which the phrase for those who trust in riches could be lost. This phrase – τους πεποιθοτας επι χρημασιν –
ends with the same two letters that come before it, at the end of the word
εστιν. If an early copyist’s line of
sight drifted from the letters ιν at the end of εστιν to the letters εστιν at
the end of χρημασιν a line or two later, the accidental disappearance of the phrase
in an early transmission-stream in Egypt is accounted for. Meanwhile, everywhere else, the phrase was
included, perpetuating the original reading, though in some witnesses it was
expanded (so as to read “in their
riches”) or harmonized to the parallels in Matthew and Luke or to the preceding
verse.
So, rather
than tell His disciples that it is hard to enter into the kingdom of God ,
Jesus did not contradict what He said elsewhere, that His yoke is easy and His
burden is light. Entering God’s kingdom can
be hard indeed, if we attach ourselves to the things of this world and turn
them into priorities above the will of God.
But if we let go of the things of this world, and trust in the atoning work
of Christ, with surrendered hearts, then the entrance into God’s kingdom, even through tribulations, can become
not only easy, but joyful.
Matthew 19.23 _ Mark 10.23 _ Luke 18.24
ReplyDeleteIt's difficult for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God
Mark 10.21 ADD
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GA 032 GA 02 : having carried the cross