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.

Major Early Uncials of the Gospels: Online Access

This week, digital images of Codex Vaticanus (B, 03) came online, allowing viewers to see every page of that extremely important Biblical manuscript.  Most of the major early uncial parchment manuscripts containing the Greek text of the Gospels (or portions of the Gospels) are now online.  Manuscript-digitization are underway not only at the Vatican Library but also at the British Library, the University of Chicago, and other institutions.  The Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts continues to add to its extensive collection of manuscript-images.      

Here is a list of embedded links to images or PDFs of some major New Testament uncials.  (Clicking on a name will take you to the images, or to a page that features a download-PDF option):
Codex Sinaiticus  (, 01):
Codex Alexandrinus (A, 02):
Codex Vaticanus (B, 03):
Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus (C, 04)
Codex Bezae (D, 05)
Codex Seidelianus (G, 011) 
Codex Regius (L, 019)
Codex Campianus (M, 021)
Codex Guelpherbytanus B (Q, 026)
Codex Nitriensis (R, 027) 
Codex Washingtoniensis (W, 032)
Codex Monacensis (X, 033) 
Codex Sangallensis (Δ, 037)
Codex Beratinus [one of the Purple Uncials] (Φ, 043)
Codex Macedonianus (Y, 034)

Some manuscripts representing versions of the Gospels are also online:
Latin Gospels of Augustine of Canterbury
Latin Saint Cuthbert's Gospel of John
Latin Book of Kells 
Latin St. Chad/Lichfield Gospels
Coptic Lycopolitan Gospel of John 
Gothic Codex Argenteus
Syriac (Peshitta) Khabouris Codex 
Syriac (Harklean) Mingana Collection, Syriac 124
Armenian Sargis Gospels/Gospels of the Translators  
Ethiopic Tigray Gospels
Slavonic Chrysanthus Gospels
Old English Bath Gospels


In addition, images of minuscule Greek manuscripts of the Gospels, as well as manuscripts of the Gospels in other languages, can be viewed (either page-by-page, or in downloadable PDF's) at CSNTM, the Digitized Manuscripts Collection at the British Library (enter "Gospels" in the Quicksearch box), the Goodspeed Manuscript Collection, the website of the Leimonos Monastery, the Parker Library on the Web, the Digital Walters Art Museum, the World Digital Library, and the George Grey Collection.

Lots of New Testament papyri are online, too, such as the pages of Papyrus 46 at the University of Michigan.  But that's a subject for another day.
O what challenging times in which we live!