James White: Will He Fix His Errors in 2025?

In a video years ago, Dr. James White asked some questions about Mark 16:9-20.  In 2019 I posted some answers. Let's review.

(1)  How do you define overwhelming evidence?

Something like this: 
99.9% of the extant Greek manuscripts of Mark 16.  The score is something like 1,650 to 3.

99.9% of the extant Latin manuscripts of Mark 16. The score is something like 8,000 to 1 (and the one, Codex Bobbiensis, is the worst-copied Latin manuscript of Mark in existence).

99% of the extant Syriac manuscripts of Mark 16.  The score is at least 100 to 1. 

100% of the extant Gothic manuscripts of Mark 16.  The score is 1 to 0.

At least 80% of the extant Sahidic manuscripts of Mark 16.  The score is at least 5 to 1.

100% of the extant Bohairic manuscripts of Mark 16.  

100% of the Ethiopic manuscripts of Mark 16.  The score is about 200 to 0.   

100% of the extant Greek lectionaries with the Heothina series. 

(The ratios regarding Syriac and Sahidic manuscripts should be increased; I used low amounts here.  The one Syriac manuscript that ends the text of Mark at 16:8 is the Sinaitic Syriac manuscript; the one Sahidic manuscript that ends the text of Mark at 16:8 is Codex P. Palau-Ribes Inv. Nr. 182.) 

(2)  How could Eusebius and Jerome have said what they said?

            For some preliminary data about the testimony of Eusebius and Jerome regarding the ending of Mark, see section #2 of the 2016 post, Mark 16:9-20:  Sorting Out Some Common Mistakes.  As David Parker has acknowledged, Jerome simply recycled material from Eusebius to save time when facing a broad question about reconciling the Gospel-accounts.  (Additional details are in Authentic:  The Case for Mark 16:9-20 (Now in its fourth edition).
            Eusebius worked at Caesarea in the early 300s, and part of the library there had been passed along from Origen in the 200s.  Origen had previously worked in Egypt, and it can be safely deduced that some copies of Mark in Egypt in the 200s ended their text at 16:8.  Eusebius’ comments reflect his awareness of such copies, or of copies at Caesarea descended from such copies. 

            In his composition Ad Marinum, however, Eusebius did not reject Mark 16:9-20.  He addressed Marinus’ question of how a person can harmonize Matthew 28:1-2 with Mark 16:9, regarding the question of the timing of Jesus’ resurrection.  Eusebius said that there are two ways to resolve the question:   one way might be to reject Mark 16:9, and everything that follows it, on the grounds that the passage is not in every manuscript, or is in some copies but not in others, or that it is seldom found.  But that is not the option that Eusebius recommends.  Instead, he advises Marinus to retain the text he has, and to resolve the question by understanding that there is a pause, or comma, in Mark 16:9, so that “early on the first day of the week” refers to the time of Jesus’ appearance to Mary Magdalene, rather than to the time He arose.    

              The Greek text of Eusebius’ composition can be read in Roger Pearse’s free book, Eusebius of Caesarea: Gospel Problems and Solutions, with an English translation.  The things to see are that (a) Eusebius framed the claim that one could reject Mark 16:9-20 on the grounds that it is not in most manuscripts as something that could be said, not as his own favored option, even though there were manuscripts at Caesarea (descended from manuscripts from Egypt) which ended at 16:8, and (b) Eusebius recommended to Marinus that Mark 16:9-20 should be retained, and (c) he used Mark 16:9 on two other occasions in the same composition, and (d) Eusebius showed no awareness of the Shorter Ending.

            (It is extremely likely that Eusebius of Caesarea rejected Mark 16:9-20 when he developed his Canon-Tables, but that is a separate subject from his statements in Ad Marinum.)  

(3) Why do you have early fourth-century codices that do not contain this text?

            We have two fourth-century Greek codices in which Mark stops at 16:8 because those two fourth-century codices were based on manuscripts from, or descended from, Egypt, where Mark 16:9-20 had been lost or taken from the text in a previous generation. 
            Unusual features in Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus show that their copyists were aware of the absent verses; for details see this post about Codex Vaticanus and this post about Codex Sinaiticus.  I show, among other things, that Codex Vaticanus has a blank space after Mark 16:8 that is capable of containing Mark 16:9-20, and that the page on which the text of Mark ends at 16:8 in Sinaiticus is part of a cancel-sheet, that is, four pages that replaced the work of the main copyist.  

(4)  Why do other early fathers never mention material from that passage?  

            Who is Dr. White talking about?  Clement and Origen?  Clement never quoted from 12 entire chapters of Mark.  Saying that Clement never mentioned material from Mark 16:9-20 is like saying, “Clement used Mark 16:9-20 as much as he used 90% of the book.”

            Origen might allude to Mark 16:17-20 in the reworked composition Philocalia, but even if one is not persuaded that he did so, Origen didn’t use the Gospel of Mark very much; there are very large segments of Mark that Origen never quoted.  Here is one way of picturing the situation:  if you divide the text of Mark into fifty-six 12-verse segments, Origen only quotes from 22 of them.  Even if we were to arbitrary increase that amount, and say that Origen used half of the 12-verse segments in Mark, the point would stand that we should approach the data from Origen with the understanding that the chance of Origen quoting from any 12-verse segment of the Gospel of Mark is 50%. 

            Origen did not use 54 consecutive verses from Mark 1:36 to 3:16.  Origen did not use 41 consecutive verses of Mark from 5:2 to 5:43.  Origen did not use 22 consecutive verses from 8:7 to 8:29, and Origen did not use 39 consecutive verses from 10:3 to 10:42. 

            So when he does not quote from 12 verses in Mark 16:9-20, is that supposed to suggest that the passage wasn’t in his manuscripts?  Seriously?  Too many apologists have read “Clement and Origen show no knowledge of these verses” in Metzger’s Textual Commentary, and thought, “Well, that sounds important,” and rephrased Metzger’s claim without ever investigating whether it’s solid evidence, or propaganda.  Well, folks, it is empty propaganda.  Origen shows no knowledge of 450 verses of Mark.  The claim that Origen does not use Mark 16:9-20 – if he wasn’t doing so in Philocalia – has no real force as an argument against the passage, and commentators who use it as if it does deserve to be ignored.

            While we are on the subject of patristic evidence:  when someone claims that early church fathers never use the contents of Mark 16:9-20, that person shows that he is not qualified to give an informed opinion on the subject.  Lots of patristic writers mention material from Mark 16:9-20.  

            In the 100s, Justin Martyr alluded to Mark 16:20.  Tatian incorporated almost the whole passage in his Diatessaron.  And Irenaeus, in what is now France, specifically quoted Mark 16:19, in his work Against Heresies, in Book Three.  In the 200s, passages from Mark 16:9-20 are used in Syriac in the Didascalia Apostolorum, and in a Latin statement by Vincent of Thibaris at a council in Carthage, and in the Latin composition De Rebaptismate, in the 250’s.            

            In the late 200s or early 300s, the pagan writer Hierocles, in the area that is now Turkey, used Mark 16:18 in the course of mockingly challenging Christians to select their leaders by poison-drinking contests.  Also in the 300s, the Latin writer Fortunatianus mentioned that Mark told about the ascension of Christ.  In the same century, the unknown author of the Acts of Pilate used Mark 16:15-16, and so did the author of the Syriac text of The Story of John the Son of Zebedee.    Meanwhile, Aphrahat the Persian Sage utilized Mark 16:17 in his composition First Demonstration, in 337.  Elsewhere, Wulfilas included Mark 16:9-20 in the Gothic version in the mid-300s.  In Syria in the late 300s or early 400s, the translators of the Syriac Peshitta included Mark 16:9-20.  Meanwhile in Milan, Ambrose quoted from Mark 16:9-20 in the 380s. 

            In 383, Jerome made the Vulgate, stating specifically that he had consulted ancient Greek manuscripts for the purpose, and he included Mark 16:9-20.  A little later on, in the early 400s, Jerome made a reference to the interpolation known as the Freer Logion, and said that he had seen it “especially in Greek codices.”  Metzger proposes that the Freer Logion itself was composed and inserted into the text between Mark 16:14 and 16:15 sometime in the second or third century.   

            In the 400s, Patrick quoted from Mark 16:16 in Ireland; Augustine quoted from Mark 16:9-20 in North Africa – and he casually mentioned that his Greek copies affirmed a reading in verse 12 – and Macarius Magnes used it in Asia Minor, and Marcus Eremita used it in Israel, and Eznik of Golb quotes verses 17 and 18 way over in Armenia, and five forms of the Old Latin chapter-summaries, displayed for instance in Codex Corbeiensis, refer to the contents of Mark 16:9-20. 

            How many names of patristic writers who utilized Mark 16:9-20 are found in The King James Only Controversy in the section where James White focuses on external evidence about this passage?    Is Justin mentioned?  No.  Tatian?  No.  White mentioned two Georgian copies made after the time of Charlemagne, but did he mention Irenaeus?  No.  He mentioned the Slavonic version from the ninth century, because he thought it supports non-inclusion (it actually supports inclusion), but did he mention the Gothic version from the fourth century?  No.  Why not?

            James White didn’t mention the evidence from Justin, and Tatian, and Vincent of Thibaris, and Hierocles, and Fortunatianus, and Wulfilas.  But why should his readers feel as if they have been misled?

            James White didn’t mention Acts of Pilate, and the repeated quotations of Mark 16:9-20 by Ambrose in Italy, or by Augustine in North Africa. He didn’t mention that Augustine’s Greek manuscripts had Mark 16:9-20.  But why should his readers feel misled?    

            James White didn’t mention Patrick’s use of Mark 16:15-16 in Ireland, or Macarius Magnes’ extensive use of the passage in Asia Minor, or the use of Mark 16:18 by Marcus Eremita in Israel – but he did not lie to anyone.  Maybe his readers just misunderstood what they were being told.  

            White didn’t mention that Pelagius, Prosper of Aquitaine, and Peter Chrysologus used Mark 16:9-20.  But his readers have not been lied to.   

            James White did not mention a single one of these Roman-era witnesses that support Mark 16:9-20.  He did not mention that Irenaeus, c. 180, had a manuscript that contained Mark 16:9-20, over a century before Vaticanus was made. But why should anyone feel misled by White’s selectivity in choosing what evidence to share, and what to hide?      

(5)  Why the differing endings if the one is original?

            The question is, in part, a request for a hypothesis, so I shall offer one:  in the first century, after the Gospel of Mark began to be disseminated from the city of Rome (with 16:9-20 included), a copy reached Egypt.  At this point, the last twelve verses were lost; a simple accident is possible, but I think they were removed or obelized (and then later removed) deliberately by someone who recognized them as resembling a short composition which Mark had written on another occasion as a freestanding text, summarizing Jesus’ post-resurrection appearances.  This individual regarded Peter as the primary author of the Gospel of Mark; Mark being merely a recorder and organizer of Petrine material.  He therefore obelized verses 9-20 as something that was not the work of the primary author, and in the next generation, the obelized portion was not perpetuated.   

            Of course we do not have this on video – just as we do not have any of the dozens of scribal corruptions that James White proposes in his book on video.  And this hypothesis can be tweaked without essential change; for example, it is possible that verses 9-20 were removed in a single step.  But this or something like this accounts for the absence of Mark 16:9-20 in Egypt, while the Gospel of Mark spread with 16:9-20 included everywhere else, as the patristic evidence shows – that is, as the patristic evidence would show, if the patristic writers had not been tied up and gagged, and thrown in a pit where they cannot be heard.

            In a later generation, in Egypt, the Shorter Ending was created by someone who could not stand the abruptness of the text in its truncated form (ending at the end of 16:8).  There are eight Greek manuscripts that have the Shorter Ending; some of them are damaged, but all eight also have verse 9, which implies that all eight also had verses 9-20 when the manuscripts were in pristine condition. 

            Did James White tell you about the notes that appear in some of those manuscripts?  No?  Maybe that has something to do with why he is asking this question.  Let’s take a few minutes to zoom in on those notes.  Without getting bogged down in details, the thing to see is that most of these six manuscripts are related to the same narrow Egyptian transmission-stream.  Here are the basic details:

            In Codex L, a note appears before the Short Ending:  “In some, there is also this.”  And between the Shorter Ending and 16:9, a note says, “There is also this, appearing after ‘for they were afraid.”  It may be safely deduced from these notes that the person who wrote these notes knew of some copies with the Shorter Ending after verse 8, and some copies with verses 9-20 after verse 8.

            In Codex Ψ, the six lines that follow the line on which Mark 16:8 ends contain the Short Ending, and then there is a note:  “This also appears, following ‘for they were afraid.’”  The wording of the note is not quite identical to the note in L, but it is very close. 

            083 is a damaged fragment, but enough has survived to show that 083 has the closing-title “Gospel According to Mark” after 16:8, and then has the Shorter Ending in the next column, and before 16:9, the note, “There is also this, appearing after ‘for they were afraid,’” exactly as in Codex L. 

            099, which is even more fragmentary than 083, has a feature which creates a link to a locale in Egypt.  16:8 is followed by a gap, which is followed by the Shorter Ending, which is followed by another gap.  Then, instead of the beginning of 16:9, the contents of 16:8b are repeated (beginning with ειχεν γαρ αυτας τρομος ) and after 16:8 is completed, 16:9 begins.

            Why does this link these manuscripts to Egypt?  Because of the Greek-Sahidic lectionary 1602 – which James White mislabeled “l, 1602” in the second edition of his book, just as he mislabeled lectionary 153 as “l, 153” on the previous page.  In l 1602, a note appears between 16:8 and the Shorter Ending:  “In other copies this is not written.”  Then, after the Shorter Ending, there is the same note that appears in Codex L.  After the note, instead of beginning 16:9, the text resumes in 16:8b (at ειχεν γαρ, as in 099), which is followed by 16:9ff. 

            To review:  L and Ψ and 083 and  l 1602 have the note “There is also this, appearing after ‘for they were afraid,’” before 16:9.  099 and l 1602 both repeat the text of 16:8b before 16:9.  Thus, all five of these witnesses are traced to the same narrow transmission-stream, where Sahidic was read (i.e., in Egypt).     

 

            That leaves two Greek manuscripts with the Shorter Ending:  579 and 274.  579 (from the 1200s) does not share any of the notes that L, Ψ, 099 and 083 have, but it shares (approximately) the rare chapter-divisions that are displayed in Codex Vaticanus, the flagship manuscript of the Alexandrian Text.  It also shares many readings with Vaticanus, such as the non-inclusion of Luke 22:43-44 and Luke 23:34a.

            That leaves 274.  In the main text of 274 (from the 900s), 16:9 begins on the same line on which 16:8 ends (the verses are separated by an abbreviated lectionary-related note, “End of the second Heothina-reading”).  The Shorter Ending has been added in the lower margin of the page, to the right of a column of five asterisks; another asterisk appears to the left of 16:9 so as to indicate where the Shorter Ending was seen in another manuscript.    The Shorter Ending in 274 is more like an incidental margin-note, mentioning an interesting feature in some secondary exemplar, than part of the manuscript’s text copied from the main exemplar.

           

            The takeaway from this is that the Greek witnesses for the Shorter Ending echo situations in one particular locale, namely Egypt, where Mark 16:9-20 was first lost (or excised), and the Shorter Ending was then created to relieve the resultant abrupt stop of the narrative, and then copies appeared in which 16:9-20 followed 16:8.  Copyists in Egypt, facing some exemplars with no text after 16:8, and some exemplars with the Shorter Ending after 16:8, and some exemplars with verses 9-20 after 16:8, resolved the situation by including both endings.  Meanwhile, everywhere else – from Ireland to France to Rome to North Africa to the coast of Italy to Asia Minor to Palestine to Cyprus to Israel to parts of Egypt to Syria to Armenia – copies of Mark were being used in which 16:8 was followed unremarkably by 16:9-20.          

            The Sahidic, Bohairic, and Ethiopic versions, like almost all versions, echoed the Greek manuscripts accessible to their translators:  the earliest strata of the Sahidic version echoes a situation in Egypt when and where the text of Mark ended at 16:8; the versions with the double-ending (always with the Shorter Ending first, when it appears in the text – for it would be superfluous after 16:20) echo later situations.  (Notably, the Garima Gospels, the oldest Ethiopic Gospels-manuscript, does not have the Shorter Ending after 16:8; it has 16:9-20.)

                       

            It is now 2025.   I call upon James White yet again to face me in a cordial debate and defend his claims.  Anywhere, any place, any time.

Readers are invited to double-check the data in this post.

Spotlight on John 11 (Again) - BAR's Alliance With Silliness

            Since the editors of Biblical Archeological Review have decided to spread Elizabeth Schrader's (now Schrader Polczer, Assistant Professor of New Testament at Villanova University) wild ideas about the text of John 11 (already debunked in 2019) in the article The Mystery of Mary and Martha, I decided to revisit the subject today.  The idea that the original text of John 11 is no longer extant is simply ridiculous.  Even a novice textual critic should be intelligent enough to realize that that what she claimed to be a demonstration that "one in five Greek witnesses and one in three Old Latin manuscripts display some sort of inconsistency" pertaining to Martha are not meaningful inconsistencies at all, but merely a collection of ordinary and unremarkable scribal errors. 

          Papyrus 66 (shown here) was corrected to amend the scribe's initial error (repeating Mary's name twice) and the reason why Schrader noted that "perhaps this was just a mistake" is because it WAS a mistake; the fact that other scribes of other manuscripts made other mistakes will not make it anything else.  Having noticed a parableptic error in Codex Alexandrinus, the sensible thing to do would be to acknowledge it for what it is and move on undisturbed.  Every scribe, generally speaking, makes such errors if they write enough.  Nevertheless Schrader chose to consider Codex A's scribe (or the scribe of its ancestor) "apparently uncertain" about whether one or two women were present in John's narrative in 11:1 - as if scribes in the early fifth century, after the story had circulated in churches for over 300 years, would be clueless on the subject.

            Nobody should imagine that the scribe of Alexandrinus or the scribe of any of its its ancestors harbored the doubts that Schrader has attributed to him (or her).  What Schrader was looking at had already been analyzed correctly by B. H. Cowper in 1840.  In most copies of the Gospel of John the text of 11:1 is Ἦν δέ τις ἀσθενῶν Λάζαρος ἀπὸ Βηθανίας, ἐκ τῆς κώμης Μαρίας καὶ Μάρθας τῆς ἀδελφῆς αὐτῆς – “Now a certain man was sick, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha.”  In 02, though, besides shifting from αυτης to αυτου (and thus causing the text to refer to “his sister Martha”), the copyist skipped the two words καὶ Μάρθας.  Perceiving that this could be salvaged, the scribe erased the word κώμης and rewrote it in small letters at the end of the previous line.  Following that, the scribe filled in the newly blank space was filled with the words Μαρίας καὶ Μάρθας. 

There is nothing here that even remotely suggests an agenda in the early church to diminish the influence of Mary by adding an extra character (Martha) to John's narrative, and the editors of BAR only make themselves look like fools publishing this sort of sensationalized nonsense to sell more copies.  You just need to realize that a scholar who has testified that Mary Magdalene spoke to her – in other words, that she somehow engaged in necromancy – might not be the best source for serious analysis of the text.

            BAR personnel Nathan Steinmeyer and C. Moyer are invited to pay attention.

Wrong Again Dr. Head - PSA is NOT a Witness to the Abrupt Ending of Mark

 Dr Peter Head, in a 2022 article at Text & Canon Institute, claimed that "The earliest evidence we have for the Christian Palestinian Aramaic version of Mark (Codex Sinaiticus Rescriptus in St Petersburg, Syr. No. 16) ends at 16:8."

In real life, as Steven Avery has stated, Codex Sinaiticus Rescriptus in St Petersburg, Syr. No. 16 has a lacuna near the beginning of verse 8.  The manuscript is simply a silent witness.  

While on the subject of correcting Dr. Head, his claim that Hesychius of Jerusalem weighs in against Mark 16:9-20 must also be addressed.  In the composition In Christi Resurrectionem (also attributed to Severus of Antioch) Eusebius' statements to Marinus are recycled - but further along in the composition the author stated, "But likewise also that which has been written by Mark, 'The Lord therefore on the one hand, after he had spoken to them was received into the heaven and sat down at the right hand of God.'"

Let it be noted that the number of inaccuracies in Dr. Head's initial article are accumulating:   he is flatly incorrect regarding the Diatessaron, regarding the CPA, and regarding Hesychius - and no retraction has been forthcoming.  He is invited to use the comments-section.

News: Silver Amulet Found in Frankfurt - Philippians 2:10-11 in Text

          Ulf von Rauchhaupt has reported this week about the publication of the discovery and treatment of an artefact from the third century in Frankfurt, Germany:  a small amulet, or phylactery that was found in a grave in 2018 in the district of Praunheim.  The grave itself is dated between 230 and 270 AD, so this convenient gives us the latest possible date for the inscription.

          Following the discovery of the amulet, scholars were reluctant to unroll it due to its fragility.  The solution, as described by Markus Scholz of Goethe University, was to utilize anew kind of x-ray scanning - a "tomographic" scanning of the object in small slivers, culminating in combining them.  Dr. Ivan Calandra was closely involved in the process of solving the mystery of how to read the silver foil scroll's text without destroying the ancient material.   

          The inscription:  "(In the name?) of Saint Titus. Holy, holy, holy! In the name of Jesus Christ, Son of God! The Lord of the world resists with [strengths?] all attacks(?) / setbacks(?). The God(?) grants entry to well-being. May this means of salvation (?) protect the man who surrenders himself to the will of the Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, since before Jesus Christ every knee bows: those in heaven, those on earth and those under the earth, and every tongue confesses (Jesus Christ)."

          Considering that the text concludes with a utilization of Philippians 2:10-11, it is likely to receive a Beuron identification number.  It is among our earliest witnesses to the passage.  

John 14:14 - Praying to the Son?

          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?

          A, D, G, K, L, M, P, Ψ, 69, 157, 706 866 100 114 129 164 177 184 200 204 205 236 237 238 239 260 275 276 298 299 1071 1241 and 1424 and Coptic versions do not have με.

          In addition, X, L*, 0141, f¹, 565, pc, b, vg^ms, the Sinaitic Syriac and the  Palestinian Aramaic and Armenian versions omit the entire verse – which I regard as an effect of simple parablepsis.

Old Latin witnesses suporting non-inclusion:  a, aur, b, d, e, q, r1 vg^mss .

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 1230^vid 1242 1342 1646 some lectionaries (including 64, 284, 329, 514, 547, 672, 813, 1231)  and it^c it^f vg syr^p syr^h and the Gothic version and Fulgentius.

          There is an issue regarding the testimony of P75.  A sizeable lacuna prevents the firm establishment of the testimony of P75 for either inclusion or non-inclusion.

          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.  

John 17:9 - A Glitch in the Matrix

          In John 17:8 there is an interesting textual variant which, as far as I know, receives no attention in the footnotes of any major English translation.  It is not noticed in the UBS Greek New Testament (4^th edition), although Metzger made a brief commend about it in his Textual Commentary on the GNT.

          Following ἔλαβον, the words καὶ ἔγνωσαν (“and knew”) are absent in ﬡ*, A, D, W, 0211, pc, a, d, e, q, ac², vg^ms, pbo, and the Gothic version.  The Old Latin presented with Beuron numbers = VL 3 (Vercellensis), VL 5 (Bezae), VL 2 (Palatinus) VL 13 (Frisingensis/Monacensis) and VL 16 (Fragmenta Curiensa).

          This has to have been a very early variant, considering that it somehow spread to early representatives of Alexandrian, Western, and Byzantine transmission-lines. Since there is more or less no way to connect these particular witnesses closely through a textual relationship, logic seems to require positing a scenario in which the omission of καὶ ἔγνωσαν was elicited in the minds of two or more scribes independently in separate transmission-lines.  In other words, more than one early scribe fell to the temptation to relieve a perceived difficulty by removing the ostensibly problematic text.  The suspicion of Marie-Joseph Lagrange – that καὶ ἔγνωσαν was omitted because it seemed to collide with John 6:69 – is probably correct.

John 17:1 - "The Son" or "Your Son"?

There’s a small textual variant in John 17:1 that impacts translation.  At the beginning of his high priestly prayer, did Jesus say, “Glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you,” or did he say “Glorify your Son that your Son may glorify you”?

          Did John write ὁ υἱος or did he write καὶ ὁ υἱος σου or did he write ὁ υἱος σου?
          The English versions are not in unison:

 ESV:  “Glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you,”

CSB:  “Glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you”

NASB 95:   “Glorify Your Son, so that the Son may glorify You”

NRSV:  “Glorify Your Son so that the Son may glorify You.” 

EHV:  “Glorify your Son so that your Son may glorify you”

NET:  “Glorify your Son, so that your Son may glorify you – ”

NIV:  “Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you.”

 

KJV:   “glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee”

NKJV:  “Glorify Your Son, that Your Son also may glorify You”

EOB:  “Glorify your Son, so that your Son may also glorify you”

WEB:  “Glorify your Son, that your Son may also glorify you.”

(The NLT blurs the translation as if a pronoun is in the base-text, yielding “NLT:  “Glorify your Son so he can give glory back to you.”)

 

          In his Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, Bruce Metzger defended the UBS Committee’s choice by  stating, “On the basis of the weight of p60^vid ﬡ B C* W 0109 it d e ff² al the shorter text is preferred.”

          [Papyrus 60, assigned to the 600s/700s, was found at  Nessana (Nitzana, on the border of Egypt and Israel).  GA 0109 is assigned to the 600s/700s.]

          In favor of reading ὁ υἱος we have a smattering of witnesses:  P60^vid ﬡ B C* W 0109 it^d it^e it^ff2  Origen (1 of 2) Victorinus of Rome Hilary of Poitiers (4/6) Ambrose (2/4), and Augustine (1/10).

          Weighing in for ὁ υἱος σου we have A D Θ 0250 1 579 it^{a aur b c f r1} Vulgate Sinaitic Syriac Peshitta Palestinian Aramaic Sahidic Bohairic Achmimic² Armenian Georgian Slavic Origen (½). 

           In favor of καὶ ὁ υἱος σου:  C³ G K L M N S U Γ Δ Λ Π Ψ 0141 f13 2 28 33 118 157 180 205 597 700 1006 1010 1071 1241 1243 1292 1342 1424 1505 Byz [E H] Lect it^q some Vulgate copies Ethiopic Origen (½) (Lat ½) Didymus^dub Chrysostom Cyril Theodoret Ambrose (1/4) Quodvultdeus Varimadum Pseudo-Vigilius.

           We begin with two possibilities:  either scribes unnecessarily added σου, or scribes unnecessarily removed σου.  I think that scribes removed σου, considering it superfluous so close to σου τὸν υἱον.   

          Καὶ was either added or removed twice in the verse, after οὐρανον and before ὁ υἱος σου.  Apparently an early scribe – early enough to affect the Alexandrian and Western transmission-lines – economized by removing the και before ὁ υἱος, regarding it as unnecessary to preserve the meaning of the sentence.  An opposite tendency was also at work in the early Byzantine transmission-line – και was added after οὐρανον.

          The same Alexandrian tendency to economize the text elicited the omission of  σου, but it was never popular in Egypt, as the support for σου from the Sahidic version and all copies other than ﬡ B C* W shows.       

          The UBS Committee appears (again) to have too easily embraced the shorter reading.

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This post is dedicated to James Bechtel.