John 13:2 is a case in point. In Swanson’s volume on the Gospel of John the UBS compilation stands alone, the exact array of the 16 words in the UBS/N-A compilation is not found in any extant witness. The Tyndale House GNT’s form of John 13:2 agrees with 03 except for its minor orthographic reading δίπνου. Let’s walk through the verse just to get the lay of the land.
Byz : UBS
καὶ : καὶ
δείπνου : δείπνου
γενομένου
: γινομένου
τοῦ : τοῦ
διαβόλου : διαβόλου
ηδη : ηδη
βεβληκότος : βεβληκότος
εἰς : εἰς
τὴν : τὴν
καρδίαν : καρδίαν
Ἰούδα : Ἰούδα ἳνα
Σίμωνος : Σίμωνος παραδοι
Ἰσκαριώτου : αὐτὸν
ἳνα : Ἰούδας
αὐτὸν : Σίμωνος
παραδω : Ἰσκαριώτης
Aside from the transposition at the end of the verse, γενομενου versus
γινομενου near the beginning separates the
Byzantine Text from the Alexandrian Text – did the footwashing occur while
supper was taking place or when supper had ended? The
majority of popular English versions favors “during supper” –
KJV, NKJV: “supper being ended”
MEV: “supper being concluded.”
ASV, AMP, EOB, ESV,
NASB, NRSV, WEB: “during supper”
NIV: “The evening meal was in progress”
CSB: “time for supper”
CEV: “before the evening meal started”
EHV: “By the time the supper took place”
NLT: “It was time
for supper”
It was not my goal today to settle this textual contest - Jordan Shollenbarger is looking into it, and may share his finding in a future post. I just wanted to bring the variation, and the varying English echoes, to your attention.
