“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)
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 |
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
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 |
6 comments:
James, I appreciate your intelligent criticism of the standard scholarship which has made the agreement of aleph and B a strong indication of the original text even when it goes against the majority of the majuscules, the versional evidence and the writings of the fathers. The “best and most ancient manuscripts” failed here and in other countless places to preserve the original. I personally benefited from many Alexandrian readings that are clearly better supported and superior over the entire Byzantine tradition reflected in the textus receptus, the patriarchal text and majority text but I lament the fact that it became the primary text and everything else became just a secondary or text that has grown, even when its support is more ancient and far better in witnesses from different locales.
Just a quick comment on your post here. In the same gospel of Nicodemus from which we first learn the name of the soldier that pierced Jesus, Joseph of Arimathea accuses the Jews of piercing Jesus with a spear, even though Annas and Caiaphas say that it was the soldier Longinus that did it. It is possible that the apocryphal is reflecting an ancient tradition where this soldier is associated with the Jews. The accusation against the Jews who pierced Jesus was totally negative there. Here’s what it says in chapter 12:
“And you have acted not well against the just man, because you have not repented of crucifying him, but also have pierced him with a spear. And the Jews seized Joseph, and ordered him to be secured until the first day of the week”
So, another possibility is that the variant was a product of an oral tradition imbued of anti-Judaic sentiments by the same scribes who excised Lk 23:34 from the gospel of Luke.
Matthew 27:49 in the complete RV Bible published in 1885 reads:
"And the rest said, Let be ; let us see whether Elijah cometh to save him."
The verse is footnoted, and the note reads:
"Many ancient authorities add And another took a spear and pierced his side, and there came out water and blood. See John xix.34."
Jeff DOdson, Thanks! I'll update the post accordingly.
Demian,
<< So, another possibility is that the variant was a product of an oral tradition imbued of anti-Judaic sentiments by the same scribes who excised Lk 23:34 from the gospel of Luke. >>
It is very difficult to differentiate between what is pro-Roman and what is anti-Judaic.
JS
There's any translation that maintain this verse?
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