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, P45vid,
01 03 019 Q
Z [Z = the palimpsest Dublinensis, 035, from the 500s] 0298vid 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.
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