Sinaiticus and the Byzantine Text: Same Message?

A page from Codex Sinaiticus

            “A person who reads the New Testament as found in Codex Sinaiticus and applies sound exegetical methods to its text will come to the very same conclusions as anyone reading a Byzantine manuscript written a thousand years later.” – James White. (KJV-Only Controversy, p. 74)

            Seriously?  Claims such as that one unrealistically minimize the differences between the Alexandrian text and the Byzantine Text, and downplay the mistakes made by copyists.  Let’s test that claim, comparing the text that was written by the copyist of Sinaiticus (À) – before anyone came along later and made corrections – and the Byzantine Text as found in the Robinson-Pierpont compilation.  In the interest of brevity, I will limit this comparison to the text of the Gospel of Matthew (and I will not make all the comparisons that could be made).  I will add some comments, but for the most part I will let these comparisons speak for themselves.

● 1.  Was Asaph a descendant of David? (see Matthew 1:8)

            Byzantine Text:  no; Asa was a descendant of David.

            Sinaiticus:  yes. 

            To avoid attributing a bad error to Matthew, the person who uses sound exegetical methods will perceive that the Alexandrian Text actually refers to Asa but resorts to a non-standard spelling that happens to produce the same name as the name of a contemporary of David (Asaph) to whom several Psalms are attributed.

● 2.  Was Amos a descendant of David?  (see Matthew 1:10)

            Byzantine Text:  no; Amon was a descendant of David.

            Sinaiticus:  yes. 

            To avoid attributing a bad error to Matthew, the person who uses sound exegetical methods will perceive that the Alexandrian Text actually refers to Amon but resorts to a non-standard spelling that happens to produce the same name as the name of an Old Testament prophet (Amos).

● 3.  In Matthew 5:22, did Jesus prohibit being angry with a brother, unless there was a reason, or did Jesus prohibit being angry with a brother, without qualification?

            Byzantine Text:  Jesus prohibited being angry with a brother without a cause

            Sinaiticus:  Jesus prohibited being angry with a brother, without qualification.

            Inasmuch as Jesus is plainly said to be angry in Mark 3:5, those who utilize both sound exegetical methods and the Alexandrian Text are left with the task of defending the premise that Jesus was consistent with His own teachings.  Perhaps their sound exegetical methods will involve considering the nuances of the Aramaic terms for “anger” that Jesus used.

● 4..  In Matthew 5:19, did Jesus affirm that the person who does what the law says, and teaches others to do so, shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no. 

            The text of À skips the second half of the verse, very likely because the scribe of À’s line of sight drifted from the first occurrence of “in the kingdom of heaven” in the verse to its second occurrence, skipping all the words in between.

● 5.  Did Jesus instruct His disciples to pray, “For Yours is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever,” or not?  (See Matthew 6:13)

            Byzantine Text:  yes, Jesus did this.

            Sinaiticus:  no, Jesus did not do this.

● 6.  In Matthew 7:27, did Jesus mention that “the floods came”?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no

            The scribe of À accidentally skipped the phrase due to a parableptic error (when his line of sight shifted from the letters -μοι at the end of ποταμοι to the same letters at the end of ανεμοι). 

● 7.  In Matthew 8:3, did Matthew mention that the leper was cleansed immediately when Jesus touched him?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no

● 8.  Did Matthew report in 8:13 that the centurion went to his house and found that the servant had been healed?

            Byzantine Text:  no

            Sinaiticus:  yes

● 9.  Where did Matthew say that the demoniacs were encountered in 8:28?

            Byzantine Text:  the country of the Gergesenes

            Sinaiticus:  the country of the Gazarenes

            The reading in the Byzantine Text is supported by Origen in the 200s, before Sinaiticus was produced.  “Gazarenes” (Γαζαρηνων) appears exclusively in Codex Sinaiticus. 

● 10.  In Matthew 8:29, did the demoniacs address Jesus by name?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no

● 11.  In Matthew 9:15, did Jesus say, “But days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them”?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no.  

            The scribe of À carelessly skipped some text again, skipping from the first occurrence of νυμφιος in this verse to the second occurrence of the same word.

● 12.  Did Matthew report (in 9:24) that the people at the home of the young girl who had died knew that she was dead?

            Byzantine Text:  no

            Sinaiticus:  yes

● 13.  Does Matthew 9:35 say that people followed Jesus after He healed them?

            Byzantine Text:  no

            Sinaiticus:  yes

● 14.  Does Matthew 10:3 affirm that Lebbaeus was also named Thaddeus?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no 

● 15.  Did Jesus tell the apostles not to provide themselves with silver as He sent them to preach in Mathew 10:9?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no

● 16.  Does Matthew 10:12 say that Jesus told the apostles, when entering a house, to greet those within with the blessing, “Peace to this house”?

            Byzantine Text:  no

            Sinaiticus:  yes

● 17.  Did Matthew record (in 10:39) that Jesus said, “He who finds his life will lose it”?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no

● 18.  Did Jesus say, in Matthew 11:29, “Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me,” or merely “Take My yoke upon you, and learn”?

            Byzantine Text:  “learn of Me.”

            Sinaiticus:  “Learn.”

● 19.  In Matthew 12:13, when Matthew described how Jesus healed the man with the withered hand, did he say that the hand that had been withered became as whole as the other?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no

● 20.  Did Matthew say that one of Jesus’ disciples told Him, as He was speaking to the crowds, that His mother and brothers stood outside waiting to see Him?  Or to put it another way:  does Matthew 12:47 belong in the text?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no

● 21.  Does Matthew 13:35 say that the prophet Isaiah wrote Psalm 72?

            Byzantine Text:  no.

            Sinaiticus:  yes.

            In Matthew 13:35, Sinaiticus’ text says that Isaiah the prophet is being quoted.  The quotation that is given, however, is from Psalm 78.  Now, there is another passage – Mark 1:2 – where Isaiah’s name appears in the Alexandrian Text where it does not belong, and in that case, “sound exegetical methods” provide a sort of loophole, so that even though the first part of the quotation is from Malachi rather than Isaiah, eagle-eyed exegetes can perceive that Mark combined two prophetic passages, and only named the more prominent of the two; Malachi’s material being connected in a thematic way. 

            Here in Matthew 13:35, however, there is no such loophole, for the Psalms are not the domain of Isaiah, and are not bundled together with Isaiah’s book.  The author of Psalm 78 is explicitly identified as Asaph.  Thus the person who applies sound exegetical methods to the text faces an irreconcilable contradiction in the text of Codex Sinaiticus, and down falls the doctrine of inerrancy.  (I propose in a series of detailed posts about Mark 1:2 that a better option is to realize that some early copyists occasionally added Isaiah’s name where it didn’t belong, and that Mark 1:2 and Matthew 13:35 are two of those places.)   

● 22.  Did Jesus explain, in Matthew 13:39, that the harvest is the end of the age?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no

           

● 23.  Did Matthew record, in Matthew 13:41, that Jesus said that the angels are “His” angels?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no

            This is an interesting reading in À, because there is no readily obvious mechanism to elicit it.  Vaticanus and other Alexandrian witnesses include “his” (αυτου).

● 24.  Did Jesus immediately make His disciples get in the boat after the feeding of the five thousand, according to Matthew 14:22?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no

            Like the preceding comparison, this one shows another passage in which the scribe of À seems to have arbitrarily dropped a word that was not essential to the sense of the sentence.  Vaticanus and other Alexandrian witnesses include “immediately” (ευθεως).

● 25.  Did Jesus send the crowds away before went up a mountain to pray in Matthew 14:23?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus;  no

● 26.  In Matthew 14:30, was Peter intimidated when he saw that the wind was boisterous, or simply when he saw the wind?

            Byzantine Text:  when he saw that the wind was boisterous

            Sinaiticus:  when he saw the wind

            The Alexandrian Text’s core witnesses share a parableptic error; an early copyist’s line of sight skipped from the letters -ον in ανεμον (“wind”) to the identical letters at the end of the next word, ισχυρον (“boisterous”).

● 27.  In Matthew 15:31, did the multitudes marvel when they saw that the maimed were made whole?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  there is no mention of this (another parableptic error)

● 28.  In Matthew 16:2-3, did Jesus rebuke the Pharisees and Sadducees because they could discern the meaning of certain weather patterns, but could not discern the signs of the times?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no

● 29.  In Matthew 17:15, did the father of the boy with an unclean spirit address Jesus as “Lord”?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no

● 30.  In Matthew 17:21, did Jesus tell His disciples, “But this kind does not come out except by prayer and fasting”?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no; the entire verse is absent

● 31.  In Matthew 18:11, did Jesus say, “For the Son of Man has come to save that which was lost”?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no; the entire verse is absent

● 32.  In Matthew 18:12, in the parable of the lost sheep, does Jesus mention that the shepherd leaves the ninety-nine sheep upon the mountain when he goes to search for the lost sheep?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no; there is no mention of “upon the mountain”

● 33.  In Matthew 19:9, did Jesus say, “And whoever marries her who is divorced commits adultery”?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no.  The final sentence of the verse is absent

● 34.  In Matthew 19:18, does Jesus include “Do not commit adultery, do not steal” among the commandments that one should keep?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no

● 35.  In Matthew 19:20, does the young man say that he has kept the commandments since his youth?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no

● 36.  In Matthew 20:7, as Jesus told the parable of the laborers in the vineyard, did he repeat the master’s statement, “And what is right, you shall receive”?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no

● 37.  In Matthew 20:16, does Jesus say, “For many are called, but few are chosen”?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no

● 38.  In Matthew 20:22, does Jesus ask James and John if they are able to be baptized with the baptism with which He is baptized?  And does Jesus affirm in 20:23 that they will be baptized with the baptism with which He is baptized?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no

● 39.  In Matthew 20:30, did the two blind men at Jericho address Jesus as “Lord”?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no

● 40.  In Matthew 21:12, does Matthew refer to the temple as “the temple of God” or simply as “the temple”?

            Byzantine Text:  the temple of God

            Sinaiticus:  the temple

● 41.  Does Matthew 22:15 mention that the Pharisees plotted how they might trap Jesus in His words?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no

● 42.  In Matthew 23:4 did Jesus say that the scribes and Pharisees devised burdens that were “hard to bear”?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no

● 43.  In Matthew 23:8, did Jesus forbid His disciples to be called “Rabbi”?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no; the first part of the verse is absent.

● 44.  In Matthew 23:35, is Zechariah identified as the son of Berechiah?

            Byzantine Text: yes

            Sinaiticus:  no

            This comparison is particularly interesting, because it catches the scribe of an old witness (Sinaiticus) removing a difficulty, whereas the vast majority of Byzantine scribes left it untouched.

● 45.  In Matthew 24:7, what does Jesus say will happen before the end of the world?

            Byzantine Text:  famines, pestilences, and earthquakes

            Sinaiticus:  earthquakes and famines

● 46.  In Matthew 24:10, did Jesus say that in the last days, many will hate one another?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no.  Sinaiticus, rather uniquely, says that people will hand over one another to tribulation and then verse 11 commences.

● 47.  Did Jesus say in Matthew 24:35, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away”?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no; the verse is absent.

 

● 48.  In Matthew 24:36, did Jesus specifically acknowledge that the Son does not know the day of His return?

            Byzantine Text:  no

            Sinaiticus:  yes

● 49.  In Matthew 25:22, does the servant address his master as “Lord”?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no

● 50.  In Matthew 25:42, does the King tell the goats, “I was naked, and you did not clothe Me”?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no (another parableptic error)

  

● 51.  As Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper in Matthew 26:28, did He say, “This is My blood of the new covenant,” or “this is My blood of the covenant”?

            Byzantine Text:  new covenant

            Sinaiticus:  covenant

            Although the Byzantine Text’s reference to the “new covenant” can be accounted for as a harmonization to First Corinthians 11:25, it is a very widespread and very early reading.  The Alexandrian reading interlocks suspiciously well with Marcionite theology. 

● 52.  In Matthew 26:62, what does the high priest say to Jesus?

            Byzantine Text:  “Do You answer nothing?  What is it that these men testify against You?”

            Sinaiticus:  nothing; the second half of the verse is absent.

● 53.  In Matthew 26:63, does Matthew say that Jesus was silent when questioned by the high priest?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no; the first half of the verse is absent.  (This is the result of another parableptic error; the copyist of À accidentally skipped from “said to Him” in 26:62 to the identical phrase in 26:63, losing all the words in between).

  

● 54.  Does Matthew 27:45 specify that there was darkness “over all the land”?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no

● 55.  Does Matthew 27:49 state that Jesus was pierced with a spear before He died, and that water and blood came forth from Jesus’ body before He died?

            Byzantine Text:  no.

            Sinaiticus:  yes.

            In Matthew 27:49 – when Jesus is on the cross, and has cried out, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” – Codex Sinaiticus includes a passage which says that one of the soldiers took a spear and pierced His side, and that water and blood flowed from the wound.  After this, in Matthew 27:50, Jesus cries out again with a loud voice, and dies.  This contradicts what is stated in John 19:30-34:  John reports that Jesus died (in 19:30), and that the soldiers pierced His side afterwards, confirming that He was already dead.  A person who applies sound exegetical methods to the text of Codex Sinaiticus cannot maintain the doctrine of inerrancy, whereas a person reading the Byzantine Text can.

● 56.  Does Matthew 27:52 report that when the earth quaked and the rocks were split, the graves were opened?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no

● 57.  Does Matthew 27:56 name Mary Magdalene as one of the women who witnessed Jesus’ crucifixion from afar?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no

● 58.  In Matthew 28:6, does the angel invite the women at the empty tomb to “Come, see the place where He lay,” or, “Come, see the place where the Lord lay”?

            Byzantine Text:  Come, see where the Lord lay.

            Sinaiticus:  Come, see where He lay.

● 59.  Does Matthew 28:9 begin by mentioning that “As they went to tell His disciples,” Jesus met the women?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no

● 60.  Does Matthew 28:17 specify that when the disciples saw Jesus, they worshiped Him, or does it simply say that they worshiped?

            Byzantine Text:  they worshiped Him     

            Sinaiticus:  they worshiped

    

         It should be obvious from this comparison that the sermons of a Christian preacher in the early church using a copy of the Byzantine Text of the Gospel of Matthew certainly would not and could not be the same as the sermons prepared by a preacher who used Codex Sinaiticus, even if their methods of exegesis were identical.  Not only would they be different regarding a variety of details, but a preacher using Sinaiticus’ errant text of Matthew 13:35 and 27:49 would not reach the same conclusion about the veracity of the text as a preacher using the inerrant Byzantine text of Matthew 13:35 and 27:49.  And in passages such as Matthew 5:19, 6:13, 9:15, 10:39, 12:47, 15:31, 17:21, 18:11, 19:9, 20:16, 23:8, 24:10, 24:35, and 26:62-63, the difference between what was written by the copyist of Sinaiticus and what was written by Byzantine scribes is the difference between no text and a text.

            Similarly, a sermon preached by a preacher using Codex Sinaiticus would differ from a sermon preached by a preacher using the Byzantine Text because the Byzantine Text does not contain the harmonizations and expansions that corrupt the text of Codex Sinaiticus in passages such as Matthew 8:13, 9:24, 9:35, 10:12, 13:35, and 27:49.  The idea that anyone, however sound their exegetical methods may be, will interpret nothing the same way he would interpret something, and draw the same conclusions, is absurd.  This is particularly true when one reading conveys an error and a rival reading does not (as is the case in Matthew 13:35 and 27:49). 

            It is not my intention today to defend in detail either the contents of Sinaiticus, or the contents of the Byzantine Text (although in most of the cases I have listed, the reading in Sinaiticus is an obvious scribal corruption, disagreeing not only with the Byzantine reading but also with the reading found in the manuscript’s Alexandrian allies).  This comparison simply shows that the text of Matthew in Codex Sinaiticus and the text of Matthew in the Byzantine Text are so different from one another that they do not elicit the “very same conclusions” from their readers.  Such a thing is not remotely possible. 

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

Bible Footnotes and the Byzantine Text

             Do the text-related footnotes in the NIV, CSB, NLT, and NKJV give an accurate picture of the differences between the Byzantine Text and the Alexandrian Text?  No, they do not.  Readers should not treat the text-related footnotes in those Bibles as if they fully denote the differences between the Byzantine Text and the primarily Alexandrian Nestle-Aland/United Bible Societies compilation.  To illustrate this, let’s look into the textual disagreements between the Byzantine Text and the Nestle-Aland compilation in the book of Ephesians.  

             If one were to take in hand the NIV, one might say, “Hmm; only one footnote in Ephesians mentions a difference in manuscripts; that must be the only textual variant in this book. Those copyists were phenomenally accurate.”

            A reader of the ESV might say, "Hmm; only two footnotes in Ephesians mention a disagreement in the manuscripts; those copyists were extremely accurate.”

            Reading the CSB or NLT, one might conclude, “Hmm; eight footnotes in Ephesians mention a difference in manuscripts.  I guess the manuscripts of Ephesians are all alike except for that.”

            Reading, instead, the NKJV, readers could understandably think, “Hmm; fifteen footnotes in Ephesians refer to differences in the manuscripts.  That’s remarkably uniform considering how long the text was transmitted in handwritten copies.”

            The NKJV’s text-related footnotes point out three differences between the Textus Receptus and the Majority (Byzantine) Text, and 12 differences between the Byzantine Text (including the Textus Receptus) and the primarily Alexandrian Nestle-Aland compilation.  Thus, readers who get their idea of the contents of Greek New Testament manuscripts from footnotes in major English translations could understandably conclude that there are only 12 differences in Ephesians between the Nestle-Aland compilation and the Byzantine Textform. 

            Readers who look into the text in more detail by studying the United Bible Societies’ Greek New Testament could also conclude that there are only 23 significant variant-units in Ephesians, because only 23 variant-units are in the UBS apparatus.  If, instead, they read the Tyndale House edition of the Greek New Testament,they might think that there are only 21 significant variant-units in Ephesians (because only 21 variant-units are covered in Ephesians its apparatus).    

            Here are the textual variant-units that the NKJV tells its readers about: 

            ● 1:14 – Byz reads “who” while NA reads “which.”

            ● 3:9 – NA does not include the phrase “through Jesus Christ.”

            ● 3:14 – NA does not include the phrase “of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

            ● 4:6 – At the end of the verse, NA does not include “us” before “all.”  (The Textus Receptus reads “you all.”)

            ● 4:9 – NA does not include “first” before “descended.”

            ● 4:17 – NA does not include “the rest of.”

            ● 5:5 – NA reads “For know this” instead of “For this you know.”

            ● 5:9 – NA reads “fruit of the light.”  Byz and the Textus Receptus (supported here by Papyrus 46) read “fruit of the Spirit.”

            ● 5:21 – NA reads “fear of Christ.”  Byz reads “fear of God.”

            ● 5:30 – NA does not include “of His flesh, and of His bones.”

            ●  6:9 – NA reads “He who is both their Master and yours” instead of “your own Master also.”

            ● 6:12 – NA reads “rulers of this darkness” instead of “rulers of the darkness of this age.”

            It would require a deliberate effort on the part of an interpreter to perceive a significant difference of meaning in some of these twelve cases of different wording.  In other cases, though – especially 3:9b and 3:14 and 5:9 and 5:30 – I would say that the differences in wording are likely to yield some differences of exegesis; preachers are not likely to treat the different readings in those four passages as if they are saying the same thing. 

            The NKJV’s footnotes, however, do not inform readers of the full extent of the significant differences between the Byzantine Text and the primarily Alexandrian Nestle-Aland compilation.  Not even close.  When one takes in hand the Robinson-Pierpont Byzantine Textform and consults its text-related footnotes, it becomes obvious that there are more than 12 passages where the Byzantine Textform and the Nestle-Aland compilation diverge.  The actual number of differences between the Byzantine text and the Nestle-Aland text in Ephesians is 93.

            If we start with that 93 and consider bracketed readings in the Nestle-Aland compilation to be merely unstable, but still in the text, and if we set aside the variants in 3:2 and 4:21 which are a matter of different divisions of letters into words (in both places, Byz = εἴγε, NA = εἴ γε), then 11 differences can be removed from consideration, thus lowering the number of differences to 82.

            If we further eliminate from consideration transpositions of words which, while changing the wording, do not materially affect the meaning – such as the transposition in 1:1 where the Byzantine Text says “Jesus Christ” and the N-A compilation says “Christ Jesus” – then another nine differences may be set aside as trivial, yielding now a total of 73.

            Continuing to filter out trivial variants, if we collect differences which are matter of orthography (spelling), such as αλλα versus αλλ’ in 4:29 and 5:29 and 6:4, we can set aside variants in 3:13 (εκκακειν versus εγκακειν), 3:16 (δωη versus δῷ), 4:2 (πραότητος versus πραΰτητος), 6:6 (οφθαλμοδουλείαν versus οφθαλμοδουλίαν), and even 6:17 (δέξασθαι versus δέξασθε), reducing the number of non-trivial disagreements to 65.

            Some of those 65 disagreements are too minor to have an impact on the meaning of the text, but the following do have such an impact:

            ● 1:6 – the small difference here (εν η versus ης) is the difference between “in which He made us accepted” and “which He lavished upon us.”

            ● 1:14 – the difference between ος and ο is the difference between “who is” and “which is.”  (This variant is not stable in the N-A compilation.)

            ● 1:16 – The Byzantine reading υμων makes explicit what is implied in the N-A text.

            ● 1:18 – The Byzantine Text has “and” after “calling.”

            ● 1:20 – The difference here is the difference between “seated” and “having seated.”

            ● 2:1 – The longer Alexandrian reading here ends the verse with “your sins.”

            ● 2:17 – The longer Alexandrian reading here consists of a repetition of the word “peace,” so as to read, “Peace to you [who are] far off and peace to those [who are] near.”

            ● 2:19 – The longer Alexandrian reading consists of a repetition of the word “are,” so as to read, “you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but are fellow citizens . . . .”

            ● 3:3 – The Byzantine reading means “He made known to me,” whereas the Alexandrian reading means “was made known to me.”

            ● 3:6 – The Byzantine text says “His promise.”  The Alexandrian text does not say “His.”

            ● 3:6 – The longer Alexandrian reading says “in Christ Jesus” instead of “in Christ.”

            ● 3:8 – The Byzantine reading means “among the nations,” the Alexandrian reading, without εν, means “to the nations.”

            ● 3:9 – The Byzantine reading affirms that God created all things through Jesus Christ.  The Alexandrian reading only says that God created all things.

            ● 3:14 – The Byzantine text has the phrase “of our Lord Jesus Christ.”  The Alexandrian text does not.

            ● 3:21 – The longer Alexandrian reading adds “and” between “church” and “Christ Jesus,” whereas the Byzantine reading, without και, means “in the church by Christ Jesus.”

            ● 4:6 – The Byzantine Text means “us all.”  The Alexandrian Text only says “all.”

            ● 4:8 – The Byzantine Text has “and” before “He gave gifts to men.”

            ● 4:9 – The Byzantine Text says that He descended first.

            ● 4:17 – The Byzantine Text says “as the rest of the Gentiles.”  The Alexandrian Text only says “as the Gentiles.”

            ● 4:28 – The longer Alexandrian reading, besides changing the word-order, includes “own,” so as to say, “producing with his own hands what is good.”

            ● 4:32 – The Byzantine Text says “us.”  The Alexandrian Text (and the Textus Receptus) says “you.”

            ● 5:5 – The Byzantine Text says “For this you know.”  The Alexandrian Text says “For know this.” (Byz:  εστε.  Alex.:  ιστε)

            ● 5:9 – The Byzantine Text (henceforth “Byz”) says “fruit of the Spirit.”  The Alexandrian Text says “fruit of the light.” 

            ● 5:17 – Byz says “understanding,” whereas the Alexandrian reading is a command, “understand.”

            ● 5:19 – The longer Alexandrian reading includes εν (“in”) before “psalms.”

            ● 5:22 – Byz says “submit yourselves.”  The Alexandrian text does not (implying a re-application of the same verb from the previous verse).

            ● 5:24 – Byz says “Husbands, love your own wives.”

            ● 5:28 – The longer Alexandrian reading includes “also” before “husbands.”  

            ● 5:29 – Byz says “even as the Lord does for the church.”  The Alexandrian Text says “even as Christ does for the church.”

            ● 5:30 – Byz includes the phrase, “of His flesh, and of His bones.”  The Alexandrian Text does not.

            ● 5:31 – Byz says “his” after “father.”  The Alexandrian text does not.

            ● 6:9 – The longer Alexandrian reading says “both their Master and yours.”  Byz says “your own Master” (the “your” is plural).

            ● 6:10 – Byz includes the words “my brothers.”  The Alexandrian text does not.  

            ● 6:12 – Byz refers to “the rulers of the darkness of this age.”  The Alexandrian reading refers to “the cosmic powers of darkness.” (Cf. CSB.)

            ● 6:16 – The Alexandrian text begins the verse with εν, so as to say “In all circumstances.”  Byz begins the verse with επι, so as to say, “Above all.”

            ● 6:24 – Byz closes the book with “Amen.”

           

            Thus, in terms of differences in the Greek base-text that have an impact on the wording in English, there are 36 textual disagreements between the Byzantine Text and the Alexandrian Text that have an impact on English wording.  It may be safely concluded that the 15 textual footnotes in Ephesians in the NKJV (and the eight textual footnotes in the CSB and NLT, and the two in the ESV, and the one textual footnote in the NIV) do not remotely approach a full presentation of the significant differences between the Alexandrian and Byzantine Texts. 

What about the textual apparatus in the Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece?   James White, in 1993 (in the 29th minute of this audio), claimed the following:   “I wish people would take the time, even if you don’t buy it, to go by a Christian bookstore and pick up the Nestle-Aland text, the UBS, now fourth edition that just came out.  Look at the text, and look at the bottom of the page.  Anyone who has these critical texts has all the readings of the manuscripts right there in front of them.  When I look at a passage, I can tell you exactly what any of the manuscripts in the various manuscript – all through the Byzantine tradition, so on and so forth – what they read, due to the tremendously advanced, very wisely put together textual apparatus at the bottom.  And any reading that is in any of these traditions is found either in the text or in the footnotes.” (emphasis added)

            Sadly, that is not true.  The textual apparatus of the Nestle-Aland compilation fails to report the Byzantine reading in Ephesians 1:20, 2:3, 2:11, 2:12, 2:13, 2:20, 3:6, 3:7, 3:8 (twice), 3:11, 3:12, 3:16 (twice), 4:2, 4:29, 5:3, 5:4, 5:5, 5:24 (twice), 5:27, 5:29, 6:4, 6:6 (twice), 6:8, 6:9 (twice), 6:17, and 6:18.  To restate:  in the Nestle-Aland apparatus, the reading found in the majority of manuscripts of Ephesians is not reported in 30 out of 93 places where the two compilations diverge.   

            White’s comment should be tempered by his subsequent statement in The King James Only Controversy, regarding a Byzantine reading at the end of Acts 22:16 (another reading not reported in the Nestle-Aland apparatus):  “Surely such a reading, despite it probably being secondary, should at least be noted for the sake of all those who wish to do textual studies.”

             Daniel Wallace has also exaggerated the situation, stating, “It is certain that the original wording is found either in the text or in the apparatus.”  But (to give just one example) is it certain that a copyist added the word ἰδίοις in Ephesians 5:24, and utterly inconceivable that a copyist accidentally omitted the word ἰδίοις when his line of sight drifted from the letters οις in the preceding word (τοις) to the same letters at the end of ἰδίοις?  (The NET’s footnotes, by the way, cover 18 variant-units in Ephesians.)   More recently, Wallace wrote (as Maurice Robinson has observed),  “Pragmatically, the wording of the original is to be found either in the text or the apparatus of the Nestle-Aland Greek New Testament. We have the original in front of us; we’re just not sure at all times whether it is above the line or below it.”  This is difficult to take seriously in a world in which nearly one out of three readings that are supported by the majority of Greek manuscripts (in Ephesians) are absent from the Nestle-Aland apparatus.

            The textual footnotes in major English translations of the New Testament only provide mere samples of the differences between the Byzantine/Majority manuscripts and the Alexandrian manuscripts.  Furthermore, even the Nestle-Aland apparatus badly fails to report Byzantine readings.  The only convenient and reliable way to identify the Byzantine-versus-Alexandrian readings is to consult the footnotes in the Robinson-Pierpont Byzantine Textform, also known as The New Testament in the Original Greek (2005).

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

Short Western Readings in Mark 1-4

 

Codex Bezae, the main Greek manuscript
of the Western Text
of the Gospels and Acts.

           “The Western text is so inclined to addition that, if it omits any reading found elsewhere, the probability is that it does so because the omission is primitive.”  (emphasis added)  So claimed Kirsopp Lake.

            “Generally speaking, it [the Western Text] is characterized by harmonistic tendencies and additions.”  (emphasis added)  So said David Alan Black (in New Testament Textual Criticism:  A Concise Guide, page 33.)

            The Western Text “is usually considered to be the result of an undisciplined and ‘wild’ growth of manuscript tradition and translational activity.” (emphasis added)  So wrote Bruce Metzger.

           

            These statements, and others like them, do not give an accurate picture of the nature of the Western Text.  Some researchers seem to have assumed that because the Western text of Acts is about 8% longer than the Alexandrian text of Acts, the same tendency toward expansion typifies the Western Text throughout the Gospels.  However, this is not really the case.  Although the primary Greek manuscript representative of the Western Text, Codex Bezae, does have some interpolations (most famously at Matthew 20:28 and Luke 6:4), it regularly contains readings which are shorter than their Alexandrian and Byzantine rivals.

            To illustrate this, let’s look into some Western readings in the first four chapters of the Gospel of Mark, as found in Codex Bezae, that are shorter than their Alexandrian and Byzantine rivals.  To simplify things for non-specialists, I will present these readings in English.

CHAPTER 1  (14 Shorter Readings)

1:4 – D doesn’t have the word “river.”
1:6 – D doesn’t have the phrase “and a leather belt around his waist.” (probable h.t. error)

1:7 – D doesn’t say “he preached.”

1:10 – D doesn’t say “immediately.”

1:11 – D doesn’t say “came.”

1:15 – D doesn’t say “And.”

1:16 – D doesn’t use Simon’s name twice, only once.

1:18 – D says that Andrew and Simon left “all,” instead of “their nets.”

1:25 – D doesn’t use Jesus’ name.

1:27 – D doesn’t include the words “What is this?”

1:35 – D doesn’t say “having risen.”

1:44 – D doesn’t say “nothing.”

1:45 – D doesn’t say “freely” (or “much”).

1:45 – D doesn’t say “he” was no longer able to openly enter a city.

CHAPTER 2  (17 Shorter Readings)

2:2 – D doesn’t say “the” before “word.”

2:4 – D doesn’t say “Him” after “they could not come near.”

[2:4 – D includes Jesus’ name, so as to say “where Jesus was.”]

2:4 – D doesn’t say “uncovered” (or “dismantled”).

2:7 – D doesn’t say “alone.”

2:8 – D doesn’t say “immediately.”

2:13 – D doesn’t say “again.”

2:15 – D doesn’t say “that” (or “and”) after “house.”

2:17 – D doesn’t say “to them.”

2:19 – D doesn’t say “Jesus.”

2:20 – D doesn’t say “As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast.” (probable h.t. error)

2:21 – D doesn’t say “from it” or “its” (not αφ’ αυτου, not απ’ αυτου, and not αυτου).

2:22 – D doesn’t say “But new wine for new wineskins.”

2:23 – D doesn’t say “his.”

2:23 – D doesn’t say “as they went.”

2:24 – D doesn’t say “to Him.”

2:26 – D doesn’t mention Abiathar the high priest.

2:27-28 – D doesn’t say “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.  Therefore.”

CHAPTER 3  (8 Shorter Readings)

3:2 – D doesn’t say “him” after “heal.”

3:6 – D doesn’t say “immediately.”

3:7 – D doesn’t say “followed” or “followed Him.”

3:11 – D doesn’t say “the” before “unclean spirits.”

[3:14 – D doesn’t say “whom He named apostles.”  (The Byzantine Text also does not have this phrase here.)]

[3:16 – D doesn’t say “And He appointed the twelve.”  (The Byzantine Text also does not have this phrase here.)]

3:20 – D doesn’t say “they.” 

[3:23 – D says “the Lord Jesus” said to them, etc.]

3:27 – D doesn’t describe the house as “his.”

3:29 – D doesn’t say “against.”

3:29 – D doesn’t say “never” (i.e., “does not” is there, but not “never”).

CHAPTER 4  (10 Shorter Readings)

4:1 – D doesn’t say “on the land.”

4:3 – D doesn’t say “to sow.”

[4:4 – D says “of heaven.”  This phrase, rendered as “of the air,” is in the Textus Receptus, though not in the Byzantine Text.]

[4:9 – D closes the verse with, “And the one with understanding, let him understand.”]

4:10 – D says “His disciples” instead of “those around Him with the twelve.”

4:16 – D doesn’t say “likewise.”

[4:17 – D says “and” instead of “or.”]

4:19 – D doesn’t say “and the desires for other things.”

4:24 – D doesn’t say “and more will be given to you” or “and to you who hear, more will be given.” (probable h.t. error)
4:32 – D doesn’t say “And when it has been sown, it grows up.” (probable h.a. error)   

4:33 – D doesn’t say “to them.”

4:38 – D doesn’t say “and” before “said to Him.”

4:41 – D doesn’t say “Him” after “obey.”

            That’s not all the short readings that Codex D has in these four chapters.  But it is abundantly enough to demonstrate a few things:

First:  The compilers of the Nestle-Aland text applied the (obsolete and wrong) principle of  lectio brevior potior (prefer the shorter reading) extremely selectively.  They did not adopt the shorter reading in any of the 49 instances I just listed.  “Prefer the shorter reading if it’s Alexandrian” is the real principle that was employed.

           

Second:  Footnotes that are limited to descriptions of the Byzantine/Majority Text, and the “NU” Text (the heavily Alexandrian Nestle-Aland/United Bible Societies compilation) do not supply the whole story; there’s a whole text-type that is being pushed out of the picture.  The textual footnotes in the NKJV in Mark 1-4 cover only 15 variant-units (never mentioning the Western reading as such).  The apparatus of the UBS Greek New Testament in Mark 1-4 (in the fourth edition) covers a total of only 28 variant-units.  Clearly neither of these resources is sufficient to get more than a sketch of the history of the text’s transmission. 

 

Third:  Although it may be tempting to simplify pictures of the history of the New Testament text as a contest between the Byzantine and Alexandrian forms of the text, it should be emphasized that the Western Text is very early and merits the attention of researchers. 

Fourth:  The Byzantine Text, in defiance of the oversimplified theory that Hort proposed to account for its origin, frequently attests to readings which are neither Alexandrian nor Western.   Consider just the first chapter of Mark:  the Byzantine Text has readings in verses 2 (x2), 5 (x2), 7, 8 (x3), 10 (x2), 13, 14, 16 (x2), 18, 19, 21, 24, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34 (x2), 35 (x2), 36, 37 (x2), 39, 40 (x2), 41, 42, 43, and 45 which disagree with both Vaticanus and Bezae.  Does anyone, even at Dallas Theological Seminary, seriously think that these 40 non-Alexandrian, non-Western readings were the result of an editorial effort to create a compilation via the selection of readings from Alexandrian and Western exemplars?  (And yet as recently as 2015, Dan Wallace was still attempting to salvage the doomed and untenable Lucianic Recension theory as the explanation for the origin of the Byzantine Text.  And how can Moises Silva look at this data and still say he is “an unrepentant and unshaken Hortian”?)  

            This high number of distinct readings in the Byzantine Text should make one wonder what evidence Metzger and Ehrman were thinking of when they claimed that “Byzantine editors formed their text by taking over elements of the earlier extant traditions, choosing variant readings from among those already available rather than creating new ones that fit their sense of an improved text.”  (See The Text of the New Testament, fourth edition, page 279.)  For if the many non-Western, non-Alexandrian, non-conflate readings in the Byzantine Text are not the instant creations of editors, then they must echo an ancient non-Western and non-Alexandrian form of the text, and this is tantamount to an admission that a very Byzantine-like form of the text (distinct enough to contain 40 distinct readings in Mark 1’s 45 verses) existed in the 200s. 

(Readers are invited to check the data in this post.)