In John 14:14 there is an interesting translation-impacting textual puzzle: did Jesus tell his followers to pray to him?
ESV: If you ask me[a] anything in my name, I will do it. [footnote: Some manuscripts omit me]
NIV: You may ask me for
anything in my name, and I will do it.
CSB: If you ask me[a] anything in my name, I will do it.[b] [footnotes: Other mss omit me - Other mss
omit all of v. 14
NASB: If you ask Me
anything in My name, I will do it.
NLT: Yes, ask me for
anything in my name, and I will do it!
EHV: If you ask me[a] for
anything in my name, I will do it. [footnote:
Some witnesses to the text omit me.]
WEB: If you will ask anything in my name, I will do it.
KJV: If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it.
EOB: “If you will ask anything in my name, I will accomplish it.” [footnote: Several ancient authorities (P66, ﬡ, B, W, D, Q read: “whatever you ask me in my Name”]
The Byzantine Text is not uniform. 2005 Robinson-Pierpont Byzantine Textform has με in the text and non-inclusion noted in the side-margin. The Hodges-Farstad 1982 Majority Text does not have με in the text; inclusion is noted in the apparatus. Antoniades’ 1904 compilation does not have με.
What’s the external evidence say? Did John write εάν τι αἰτήσητέ με ἐν τῷ ὀνόματί μου ἐγὼ ποιήσω, or εάν τι αἰτήσητέ ἐν τῷ ὀνόματί μου ἐγὼ ποιήσω?
Old Latin witnesses suporting non-inclusion: a, aur, b, d, e, q, r1 vgmss .
A smattering of witnesses replace με with a reference to the Father, mimicing John 16:23. GA 167 uniquely reads, after μου, ἐγω ποιήσω ἵνα δοξάσθη ὁ πατὴρ ἐν τῷ υίῷ.
After μου Codex M/021 (Campianus) has the conflate reading ἐγὼ τοῦτο.
P66c
reads τοῦτο ἐγὼ (a different conflate reading).
Witnesses supporting με include p66 א B E H S U W Δ Θ 060 f13 28 33 579 700 892 1006 1230vid 1242 1342 1646 some lectionaries (including 64, 284, 329, 514, 547, 672, 813, 1231) and itc itf vg syrp syrh and the Gothic version and Fulgentius.
Considering that in John 15:16, Jesus says plainly “The Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name,” and the meaning of this passage is uniform in all transmission-streams, it is unlikely that John would represent Jesus saying both things – with the Father, and himself, as the person to whom the apostles were to address their prayers. (John 16:23 affirms the same point.) The possibility exists that με originated deliberately, due to a desire to enhance the deity of Christ – augmenting the Son’s role in answering prayer. An alternative explanation is that με originated as an error of dittography – a careless repetition of the final syllable of αἰτήσητέ – and instead of correcting via the simple removal of the extra τέ, it was changed to με. However this early error arose, it managed to affect Byzantine and Alexandrian witnesses.
Some people may accuse those who use versions without “me” in John 14:14 of downplaying the Trinity. However, historically both forms of the verse have been used by champions of orthodoxy. Chrysostom, in Homily 74 on the Gospel of John, utilized a text without με.
3 comments:
Dear Sir-Thank you for this fascinating addition. Yet, being a layman, I must confess to being somewhat confused. Both John 14:13 and John 14:14 state that Christ informs his disciples to call upon his Name, and that he is in the position to answear ther call.
P.S As a side-note, I am afraid that I must display my ignorance once more, with regard to your recent illuminating discussion of the comparisons of Codex Sinaiticus and the Byzantine Text. In attempting to research your findings at www.codexsinaiticus.org, I noticed that numerous statements in the Gospel of John which you had listed as not being present in Codex Sinaiticus, such as John 16:15, were in fact present in the online translation of Sinaiticus. From what I gather www.codexsinaiticus.org is a respected academic website, not prone to making statements contradicting the textual evidence. Have I overlooked something ?
A general note on Coptic, James: https://remnqymi.com/crum/?query=%E2%B2%A3%E2%B2%99%CF%A9%E2%B2%89#gsc.tab=0
The web site that we've all been waiting for really, with all of Crum fully digitised, including Statives, nominal and pronominal forms, and every possible dialect variant.
It includes Crum, but also the CDO, and Coptic-Arabic. Basically it is Marcion decoupled, with a lot more extras on top of that
Just a test: Thomas Logion 4, ϫⲛⲉ. The nominal form is ambivalent and can mean 'question' as well as 'make cease', as we can now see. Just as we can see how incredibly poor the CDO really is, that for reasons unknown only shows up ϫⲛⲟⲩ on its own site (I suspect the remnqymi site to rely on an older version of CDO)
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