Matthew 6:33 - The Kingdom of God

            Matthew 6:33 is a verse which many Christians have committed to memory.  There is a textual contest in this verse, and although it does not drastically change the meaning of the verse, the contest here has some instructive features. 

            Most manuscripts begin the verse with the phrase, “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness” – Ζητεῖτε δὲ πρῶτον τὴν βασιλείαν τοῦ Θυ και τὴν δικαιοσύνην αὐτοῦ.  Besides hundreds of medieval minuscules, this group of manuscripts includes E G K L M N S U V W Δ Θ Π Σ Φ and the interesting minuscules  f¹ f¹³ 33 700 892 1263 1424 etc.

            Contrary to what is stated in Willker’s Textual Commentary on the Greek Gospels, minuscule 57 has the usual Byzantine reading, albeit with βασιλείαν harshly contracted.  I consulted 157’s online page-views, but it, too, supports the usual Byzantine reading, and so does 579.       

            Vaticanus and Sinaiticus, however, do not have the words “of God” (τοῦ Θυ); Vaticanus also has a transposition here, so as to read “Seek first the righteousness and His kingdom” (Ζητεῖτε δὲ πρῶτον τὴν δικαιοσύνην και τὴν βασιλείαν αὐτοῦ).  (Metzger theorized that this transposition “is perhaps the result of the desire to suggest that righteousness is prerequisite to participation in the kingdom; compare 5.20,” in which case, such a scribe would seem rather reckless – but it is also possible that B’s word-order here is just an effect of a scribe losing his place, that is, the scribe’s line of sight may have jumped from the first τὴν to the second τὴν,  and then he attempted to salvage his mistake rather than remove it.)  

            In the 1881 revision of Westcott & Hort, the Greek words underlying “of God” were not included, and this reading is still followed in the NIV, which reads, “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness” (applying “his” (αὐτοῦ) to both of the preceding nouns); the RSV read the same way.   The ESV and CSB, however, reject the readings of both B and À.  The NLT, though rendered somewhat imprecisely, also favors the Byzantine reading:  “Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously.”   In addition, the Tyndale House edition of the Greek New Testament (2017) includes τοῦ θεοῦ in its text, thus supporting the Byzantine reading.

            When we turn to early versions, there is widespread support for the Byzantine reading:  the UBS apparatus (2nd ed.) lists most Old Latin copies, the Vulgate, the Sinaitic Syriac, the Curetonian Syriac, the Peshitta, the Harklean Syriac, the Palestinian Aramaic, the Armenian version, and the earliest Georgian copies as allies of the Byzantine text at this point.  (Codex Argenteus, containing most of the Gospels in Gothic, is unfortunately not extant for Matthew 6:33.)      
.       

            If not for a smattering of patristic and versional witnesses that support the non-inclusion of “of God,” one might think that when viewing the Greek manuscripts where “of God” is not present, we are looking at merely a random assortment of examples of recurring scribal carelessness.  But along with evidence from Eusebius of Caesarea (in the early 300s) and Didymus (in the late 300s), the Sahidic and Bohairic versions (both from Egypt) confirm this reading – and, according to James Leonard, so does the Middle Egyptian manuscript Schøyen 2650, a.k.a. Mae² (from the 300s, perhaps the early 300s).  These witnesses echo an earlier shared ancestor.  (The Coherence-Based Genealogical Method may be incapable of detecting much of a historical link among these witnesses because it is limited to manuscript-evidence, but things look different when patristic evidence and versional evidence are in the picture.)

           

            Before proceeding further, let’s momentarily leave these witnesses to notice something on display in some entirely different passages:

            ● In Matthew 13:42, where most manuscripts refer to “the kingdom of their Father,” Codex Θ* and minuscules 124, 700, and 78 refer to “the kingdom of heaven.”

            ● In Matthew 19:23, where other manuscripts refer to the kingdom of heaven, minuscule 579 refers to the kingdom of God.

            ● In Matthew 19:24, where most manuscripts (including À B D K W) refer to the kingdom of God, Codex Z, f¹, 33, 157, and the Sinaitic Syriac (and the Curetonian Syriac as well) refer to the kingdom of heaven.       

            ● At the end of Mark 10:25, where most manuscripts refer to the kingdom of God, minuscule 579 refers to the kingdom of heaven.

            In Mark 15:43, where the Greek text refers to the “kingdom of God,” the Sinaitic Syriac refers to the kingdom of heaven.  (Cf. Luke 23:51 below.)

            ● At the end of Luke 6:20, where most manuscripts refer to the kingdom of God, 1582*, 118, 69, 157, and 1424 refer to the kingdom of heaven.

            ● At the end of Luke 7:29, where most manuscripts refer to the kingdom of God, 1424 refers to the kingdom of heaven, and 579 simply has βασιλειᾳ (“kingdom,” without “of God”).

            ● At the end of Luke 9:60, where most manuscripts refer to the kingdom of God, minuscule 28 refers to the kingdom of heaven.

            ● In Luke 12:31, where most manuscripts refer to the kingdom of God, Codices Β À D* L Ψ and 579 refer to His kingdom (βασιλείαν αὐτοῦ), and Papyrus 75 has only βασιλείαν. 

            ● In Luke 13:18, where most manuscripts refer to the kingdom of God, Codices N and U refer to the kingdom of heaven.

            ● In Luke 13:28, where most manuscripts refer to the kingdom of God, Codex A refers simply to “His kingdom.”

            ● At the end of Luke 14:15, where most manuscripts refer to the kingdom of God, minuscules 69, 579, and 788 refer to the kingdom of heaven.

            ● At the end of Luke 18:16, where most manuscripts refer to the kingdom of God, Codex Λ*, 157, 579 and the Sinaitic Syriac refer to the kingdom of heaven.

            ● In Luke 18:24, where most manuscripts (including À A B D W) refer to the kingdom of God, Codices Y, K, M, and Π refer to the kingdom of heaven.

            ● In Luke 23:51, where the Greek text of Luke 23:51 says that Joseph of Arimathea was waiting for the kingdom of God, the Sinaitic Syriac says that he was waiting for the kingdom of heaven.  (Unfortunately this reading is not noted in the Nestle-Aland apparatus.)

            Thus, where there is a contest in the Synoptic Gospels between variants that refer to the kingdom of God, or to the kingdom of heaven, a strong scribal tendency is shown toward replacing the phrase “kingdom of God” with the phrase “kingdom of heaven.”   This tendency may be the result of natural harmonization toward Matthew, but this cannot be the case in the three examples taken from Matthew, or in the passages which have no Matthean parallel. 

            With this scribal tendency in mind, let’s consider the other horses that are running in this race.  John Chrysostom, though he repeatedly used Matthew 6:33 in its usual form, once uses the phrase, “Seek first the kingdom of heaven and his righteousness.”  Clement of Alexandria (who died around AD 215) stated in the course of Paedagogos (The Instructor) II 120:2, “But you also oppose Scripture, seeing it expressly cries, Seek first the kingdom of heaven, and all these things shall be added unto you.”  Initially, this looks more like a loose recollection of Luke 12:31 than a quotation of Matthew 6:33.  But in Stromateis (Miscellanies) IV 34:6, in the course of offering a series of passages on the theme of avoiding anxiety and relying on God, Clement states:  “”Wherefore I say, take no thought for your life, what you shall eat, neither for your body, what you shall put on.  For your life is more than food, and your body more than clothing.”  And again, “For your Father knows that you need all these things.  But seek first the kingdom of heaven, and its righteousness,” for these are the great things, and the things which are small and pertain to this life “shall be added to you.””

            (Some readers may be interested to know that the last part of Clement’s statement, and another statement of Clement in Stromateis I, chapter 24, appear to constitute a utilization of a statement which circulated in the early church as a saying attributed to Jesus:  “Seek what is great, and the little things shall be added.”  Though not preserved in any of the canonical Gospels, this saying (or “agraphon”) was used not only by Clement but also by Eusebius of Caesarea.)

            Earlier yet, Justin Martyr, in First Apology 15:16 (c. 160), writes, “Take no thought, therefore, as to what you shall eat, or what you shall put on, for your heavenly Father knows that you need those things.  But seek the kingdom of heaven, and all these things shall be added unto you.”  This resembles Luke 12:31 more closely than it resembles Matthew 6:33, but the parallel is inexact due to the reference to the kingdom of heaven.

            If we consult Ephrem Syrus’ Commentary on the Diatessaron, we may find some data that helps explain the origin of Justin’s and Clement’s form of the verse.  Writing in the mid-300s, Ephrem offered comments on substantial parts of Tatian’s Diatessaron, a composition which Tatian put together in about the year 172, blending the contents of the four Gospels into one continuous account.  Tatian was a student of Justin, who appears to have used a similarly blended-together composition that combined the texts of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. 

            This would interlock with the idea that Justin (or whoever made his harmonized narrative that blended together Matthew, Mark, and Luke) – and subsequently Tatian, building on his teacher’s materials – without feeling obligated to maintain the meticulousness that a copyist might feel when making a copy of an individual Gospel, took some minor liberties with the text, resulting in a statement in the Diatessaron, based on Matthew 6:33 and Luke 12:31, which reads, “Seek the kingdom of heaven, and all these things, over and above, shall be added to you as well.”  According to Willker (citing Carmel McCarthy’s translation of the text of Ephrem’s commentary on the Diatessaron), Ephrem Syrus utilized just such a statement in his commentary.     

            When we consider the widespread influence of the Diatessaron, and the scribal tendency to replace “kingdom of God” with “kingdom of heaven,” an explanation for the readings in Matthew 6:33 in the Alexandrian codices presents itself:  in an early manuscript, the text was altered so as to read, “Seek first the kingdom of heaven and his righteousness” – the only difference being the replacement of “of God” with “of heaven” – precisely the sort of change that we see (with problematic frequency) not only in minuscule 579, but in much earlier witnesses such as the Sinaitic Syriac. 

            Subsequent copyists considered this reading intolerably puzzling, and removed “of heaven,” leaving only “the kingdom,” yielding the reading in À.  This scribal modus operandi is basically the same one observed in Papyrus 75 in Luke 12:31, where – whether one regards “His kingdom” or “the kingdom of God” as original – nothing is left but “the kingdom.”   

            In conclusion, we have good reasons to be confident that the Byzantine reading of Matthew 6:33 is original. 

Readers are invited to explore the embedded links for additional resources.       

Matthew 14:24 - In the Middle of the Sea

Matthew 14:24 in Codex L.

In Matthew 14:24, as Matthew sets the stage for Jesus’ miraculous walk upon the Sea of Galilee, there is a clear difference between the Byzantine Text and the Nestle-Aland/UBS compilation.  NA27 (followed by the CSB, ESV, NET, NIV, and NASB) reads σταδίους πολλοὺς ἀπὸ τῆς γῆς ἀπεῖχεν, that is, the ship already “was many stadia from the land.”    

            The Byzantine reading is μέσον τῆς θαλάσσης ἦν, that is, the ship already “was in middle of the sea.”  This reading is supported not only by the vast majority of Greek manuscripts but also by Codex Sinaiticus and a strong array of uncials including Codices C, E, F, G, L, W, Δ, K, M, Π, P, Σ, Φ, S, U, V, X, 073, and 0106.  A singular reading in Codex D – ἦν εἰς μέσον τῆς θαλάσσης – agrees far more closely with the Byzantine reading than with NA27’s reading; the text of D simply transposes the word ἦν and adds εἰς.  A similar reading in the important minuscule 1424 has the same reading as D except without the word εἰς.  

             Strong Old Latin support favors “was in middle of the sea.” The Latin witnesses for this reading include not only the Vulgate text but also Codex Vercellensis – VL 3, which is thought to have been produced in the 370s by, or under the supervision of, Saint Eusebius of Vercelli – and Codex Aureus – VL 15, from the 600s – and Codex Veronensis – VL 4, from the 400s – and Codex Brixianus – VL 10, from the 500s – and Codex Corbiensis – VL 8, from the 400s – and Codex Sangermanensis – VL 7, from the 700s or 800s – and Codex Claromontanus – VL 12, from the 400s (not to be confused with the identically named Greek codex of the epistles of Paul) – and Codex Rehdigeranus – VL 11, from the 700s – and Codex Monacensis – VL 13, from the 500s or 600s. 

The Peshitta, on the other hand, agrees with Codex Vaticanus, the only uncial that reads in Matthew 14:24 exactly like the text in NA27.  So does the Curetonian Syriac manuscript and the main members of the small cluster of Greek manuscripts known as f¹³.   The Middle Egyptian evidence is interestingly divided:  mae² (Schøyen MS 2650 – one of the few versional MSS that supports À and B in Mt. 27:49, where they both have a substantial interpolation based on John 19:34), which is assigned to the 300s, agrees in Matthew 14:24 with the reading in B.  Mae¹ (the Scheide Codex, assigned to the late 300s or early 400s), meanwhile, has a reading which says that the ship was about 25 stadia from the land, which is clearly a harmonization to John 6:19.

The Diatessaron (a popular composition made by Tatian around 172, combining the contents of all four Gospels into one continuous report) blended details from Matthew, Mark, and John at the end of Section 18 and the beginning of Section 19; the Arabic Diatessaron runs as follows:  “And when the nightfall was near, His disciples went down unto the sea, and sat in a boat, and came to the side of Capernaum.  And the darkness came on, and Jesus had not come to them.  And the sea was stirred up against them by reason of a violent wind that blew.  And the boat was distant from the land many furlongs, and they were much damaged by the waves, and the wind was against them.  And in the fourth watch of the night Jesus came unto them, walking upon the water, after they had rowed with difficulty about 25 or 30 furlongs.”  The segment, “the boat was distant from the land many furlongs” clearly supports the reading of B, but it is an open question as to whether this echoes the work of Tatian in the second century, or the Peshitta, to which the Syriac ancestor of the Arabic Diatessaron was conformed.

            An anomaly seems to exist in the reporting of the Palestinian Aramaic (formerly called Palestinian Syriac or Jerusalem Syriac) version; the UBS apparatus lists the Palestinian Syriac text as support for the reading of B; however, a consultation of the List of Variants portion of Agnes Smith Lewis’ and Margaret Dunlop Gibson’s The Palestinian Syriac Lectionary of the Gospels (1899) reveals this comment about the three manuscripts used for their compilation:  “All add μέσον τῆς θαλάσσης before βασανιζόμενον.”

 

Matthew 14:24 in Codex X.

           Turning to patristic testimony, we find that Origen, in his Commentary on Matthew, Book XI, chapter 6, refers to this occasion “when they had got as far as the middle of the sea, and the boat was distressed because the wind was contrary to them,” and a little later he mentions that “they were not able to advance farther than the middle of the sea.”  Consulting Erich Klostermann’s edition of the Greek text of Origen’s Commentary on Matthew, one may extract from page 43, line 10, Origen’s description of the disciples:  ἰσχυροτέρους καὶ δυναμένους ἐπὶ τὸ μέσον τῆς θαλάσσης φθάσαι (they were “stronger and capable of reaching the middle of the sea”), and from page 44, lines 1-2, as Origen draws a spiritual application, he states:  λογιζώμεθα ὅτι πλοῖον ἡμῶν μέσον ἐστὶ τῆς θαλάσσης τότε, βασανιζόμενον ὑπὸ τῶν κυμάτων, that is, “Let us consider that our boat is in the middle of the sea, tossed by the waves.”   This does not leave room for a reasonable doubt about the text of Matthew 14:24 that Origen read in the 200s; his copies clearly agreed with the Byzantine text at this point.

            Other patristic evidence comes from John Chrysostom (in Homily 50 on Matthew); not only does the cited text agree with the Byzantine text, but in the course of the homily on this passage Chrysostom mentions that the disciples were “mid-sea.”  And Chrysostom’s Greek copies in Antioch and Constantinople are allied with Augustine’s Latin copies in North Africa; Augustine’s Sermon 25 has this reading in its sub-title.  Notably Augustine began this sermon by referring to “The lesson of the Gospel which we have just heard,” the “lesson” being the lection for that day.  The UBS apparatus includes Chromatius and Jerome as support for ἦν εἰς μέσον τῆς θαλάσσης, too – but not a single patristic writer, it seems, can be found anywhere who used the reading in the Nestle-Aland compilation.

           

           

Matthew 14:24 in GA 2373.

All things considered, then, the external evidence shows that μέσον τῆς θαλάσσης ἦν, and not the reading of Vaticanus, is the reading with the oldest, the most abundant, and the most diverse support.  Now let’s consider internal evidence:

● First, it should be noted that the term σταδίους does not appear anywhere (else) in the Gospel of Matthew. 

● Second, against Metzger’s theory that the text of Matthew 14:24 has been harmonized to Mark 6:47, it should be observed that scribal tendencies were strongly in the opposite direction, that is, Matthew’s Gospel tended to be the one that influenced the others, rather than the other way around.  Also, a direct comparison of the two passages shows that such an alteration would be a harmonization that does not harmonize; Matthew’s wording is μέσον; Mark’s is ἐν μέσῳ.  Also, a harmonizer who attempted to bring the text of Matthew into closer agreement with the text of Mark would be likely to have also tweaked Matthew’s text to say, like Mark, that the disciples were distressed, rather than that the ship was distressed.    

● Thirdly, we see in some Egyptian versional evidence (Mae¹ and the Bohairic version (see Horner’s 1898 edition of the Bohairic version, Vol. 1, p. 123; Horner mentions that Bohairic MS E1 features an Arabic note which states that the Greek text says, “And the boat was in the middle of the sea”)) a reading in Matthew 14:24 that harmonizes Matthew 14:24 to John 6:19, mentioning that the boat was specifically 25 stadia from land.  This indicates shows that in Egypt, the text of Matthew 14:24 was affected by the text in John, rather than by the text in Mark.

            ● Fourthly, while there is nothing about the reading σταδίους πολλοὺς ἀπὸ τῆς γῆς ἀπεῖχεν that seems capable of being misunderstood, a scribe may have been concerned that readers might momentarily misconstrue the phrase μέσον τῆς θαλάσσης as if it meant that the ship was already submerged under the water.  An easy way to reduce such a perceived risk would be to describe the distance in a different way.  (In a manuscript mentioned, but not identified, by Adam Clarke, the text reads βαπτιζόμενον rather than βασανιζόμενον, which would suggest just this understanding.  [Update:  this manuscript is the late minuscule 70.  Thanks, Daniel Gan, for tracking down this detail.])  This factor shows that between “in the middle of the sea,” and “many stadia from the land,” the first reading is more difficult inasmuch as it has (or was thought to have) a higher risk of being misconstrued.  As the more difficult reading, it explains the rise of its rival. 

                The internal evidence thus points in the same direction as the external evidence, and leads to the conclusion that the reading in Codex B did not originate with Matthew, but with an early copyist who prioritized the meaning of the text over a strict perpetuation of its exact form. 

As an addendum it may be noted that if the Byzantine Text were used as the standard of comparison, the texts of B and À would have to be classified as inaccurate and heavily edited forms of Matthew’s account of Jesus’ walk on the Sea of Galilee – but even using NA27’s text as the standard of comparison, the following deviations do not inspire confidence in the reliability of Alexandrian scribes:

14:22:  À initially omitted εὐθέως and B added αὐτοῦ and B omitted τὸ.

14:23:  À initially omitted ἀπολύσας τοὺς ὄχλους.

14:26:  À initially transposed the opening phrase and did not include οἱ or μαθηταὶ.

14:27:  À initially omitted ὀ Ἰησοῦς.

14:28:  B transposed to ὁ Πέτρος εἶπεν αὐτῷ, and À transposed to εἰ σὺ εἶ, Κε.

14:29:  À initially read ελθιν ηλθεν ουν after υδατα.

14:30:  B and À both omitted ἰσχυρὸν.

Matthew 2:11 and the Westminster Confession of Faith

Mt. 2:11 in the 1611 KJV.

In Matthew 2:11, in the passage where the wise men visit Jesus and present their gold, frankincense, and myrrh, there is a difference between the early English Bibles of the 1500’s and the King James Version:

            William Tyndale made his English translation from a printed Greek compilation that had been made earlier by Desiderius Erasmus.  Since Erasmus’ Greek compilation had the word ευρον (euron) here, Tyndale’s English text said that the wise men found the child.
            The Coverdale Bible, in 1535, also stated that the wise men “found the chylde.”

            The Geneva Bible, in 1557, was also based on a Greek base-text with ευρον, so it also said that the wise men found the child.

            The King James (Authorized) Version of 1611 says that the wise men saw the young child.  This implies that ειδον (eidon) was in the KJV’s Greek base-text.

            Neither reading brings the veracity of the text into question (inasmuch as the wise men found and saw the young child Jesus), but the original form of the passage cannot consist of both readings.            

The textual contest is easy, since the support for ειδον is more ancient, more widespread, and more abundant.  Practically everyone accepts ειδον as the original reading:  it is in the  Byzantine Textform; it is in the 1904 Antoniades compilation; it is in Pickering’s family-35 text; it is in the Nestle-Aland/UBS compilation. 

Although ευρον was printed in the 1500’s in Greek New Testaments compiled by Erasmus, Stephanus, and Beza (and this reading fits the Vulgate reading, invenerunt), it does not have strong Greek manuscript support. 

Lectionary 1599
supports "saw."

In minuscule 2 – a manuscript used by Erasmus in his initial compilation of the Greek New Testament – a page begins in Matthew 2:11 with the word ειδον.  It has ευρον written in the margin; the word is written in different ink than what was used for the main text; the word ειδον appears to have been underlined with the same ink in which the word in the margin was written. 

This little difference in the Greek base-texts and early printed English New Testaments of the Reformation era may shine some light on how subscribers to the Westminster Confession of Faith should interpret their creed’s statements about the preservation of Scripture – specifically, the part that states that the Old Testament in Hebrew and the New Testament in Greek, being inspired by God, have been, “by His singular care and providence, kept pure in all ages.” 

A form of “Confessional Bibliology” has arisen which interprets the WCF’s reference to textual purity as a reference not only to the message of the text but to the exact form of the text, as if all text-critical questions are settled.  Since the Westminster Confession of Faith affirms that the text has been kept pure in all ages, it is proposed that this means that the Textus Receptus must be upheld as the authoritative New Testament text and that this renders investigations of manuscripts and other textual evidence superfluous; the Textus Receptus is the text. 

GA 439:  One of

hundreds of Greek

MSS that support "saw."

But this variant in Matthew 2:11 shows that to an extent, there was no “the” Textus Receptus in the 1640’s, when the Westminster Confession of Faith was formulated.  There were multiple editions of the New Testament, and their contents varied in small details such as here in Matthew 2:11. 

How could anyone, reading editions of the Greek New Testament prepared by Erasmus, Stephanus, and Beza with ευρον in Matthew 2:11, and the Authorized Version that echoes ειδον instead, say that both forms of the verse are pure?  By understanding “pure” as a reference to the general character of the text, and not to every little detail.

The author of the preface to the King James Version, The Translators to the Reader, seems to have had an idea something like that in mind when he wrote the following (slightly modernized): 

“We do not deny, nay we affirm and avow, that the very meanest translation of the Bible in English, set forth by men of our profession, (for we have seen none of theirs of the whole Bible as yet) contains the word of God, nay, is the word of God.”

(Before continuing, I interrupt to explain something:  by “our profession,” the author was referring to the translators’ profession of faith, as opposed to the Roman Catholicism.  The Rheims New Testament, which Roman Catholic scholars had translated from a Latin Vulgate base, had been translated in 1582, but the complete Bible (now known as the Douay-Rheims) had not been read by the author of the KJV’s preface at the time he wrote.  This is the context in which the reference to “profession” should be understood; it is not as if professional butchers and bakers were creating new Bible translations; nor is it as if the author meant that anything with the words “Holy Bible” on the cover is the Word of God; he meant that even the least-esteemed English Bible produced by Protestants, at the time he wrote, was the Word of God.)  

A few sentences later the preface-writer continued:     

“A man may be called comely and lovely, though he has some warts upon his hand, and not only freckles upon his face, but also scars.  There is no reason therefore why the word translated should be denied to be the word, or forbidden to be current, notwithstanding that some imperfections and blemishes may be noted in the setting forth of it.”

Codex K supports "saw" in Mt. 2:11,
with a spelling-related variant.

Now if a person were to say that regardless of whether an English Bible says “found” or “saw” in Matthew 2:11, it is the Word of God – and the preface-writer affirms this to be the case – then the speaker would have to be referring to the general character of the text, and not its exact form.  Both forms of the text are pure to the extent that neither one teaches an error, even though one of them must be the textual equivalent of a scar left from an injury received from an inattentive or undisciplined copyist. 

The claims of some “Confessional Bibliologists” to the effect that subscribers to the Westminster Confession of Faith are obligated to use the Textus Receptus are therefore not well-grounded.  For although it is convenient to appeal to a “settled” text, the Textus Receptus itself was not 100% settled throughout the 1500s and early 1600s.  Not only in Matthew 2:11, but in some other passages, too, there are variations in the exact form of the Greek text used in that period. 

Minuscule 700, a Gospels-MS
with many unusual readings,
supports "saw" in Mt. 2:11.

Thus, assuming that the formulators of the Westminster Confession wrote from a sufficiently informed position – that they knew about differences in printed editions of the Textus Receptus and about the differences in the English versions based upon it – it seems precarious, presumptive, and arbitrary to assume that they intended for their words to strictly refer to one and only one edition of the Greek text.  Adherents to the Westminster Confession of Faith might feel obligated to refuse to accept Greek variants which convey a meaning opposed to that of the reading of the vast majority of Greek manuscripts – but there are not many such variants. 

Luke 7:31 - A Non-original Phrase in the Textus Receptus

MS 270 does not have "And the Lord said"
in Luke 7:31.  The verse begins a lection
and a Eusebian Section (#73/5).

          The Textus Receptus – the Greek text from which the New Testament was translated in the King James Version, the New King James Version, and the Modern English Version (and others) – contains an introductory phrase at the beginning of Luke 7:31:  “And the Lord said” (in Greek, ειπεν δε ο κυριος).  An investigation of this little phrase may have a significant impact not only on an accurate reconstruction of the text of this particular verse, but also on a larger issue involving the King James Version.

          The phrase “And the Lord said” is not in Luke 7:31 in most major recently-made translations of the New Testament.  This is not surprising, because instead of being based on the Textus Receptus, the NIV, NASB, NRSV, ESV, etc. are based primarily on the Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece compilation, which relies very heavily on the Alexandrian Text – a text that is transmitted by a relatively small number of manuscripts, but which many researchers consider to be of higher quality than the Byzantine Text, which is supported by a much higher number of manuscripts.  The Alexandrian Text does not contain this phrase.

MS 10 does not have "And the Lord said" in Luke 7:31.
A "telos" in the text means that a lection ends at this point.
The lection-note in the lower margin means,
"Lection for Friday of the third week [after New Year's Day]
- begin with 'The Lord said, "To what shall I liken."'"

          The Textus Receptus usually agrees with the Byzantine Text.  In the Gospel of Luke, there are 220 disagreements between the Textus Receptus and the Byzantine Text (these sums are based on a comparison of Scrivener’s 1881 reconstruction of the Textus Receptus, and the Robinson-Pierpont 2005 Byzantine Textform).   When one sets aside variations involving the spelling of names, and the benign interchange of similarly-pronounced vowels (a kind of variant called itacism, due to the frequent interchange of the Greek vowel iota), and word-spacing, the number of disagreements shrinks to 188.  

          If one then sets aside instances of word-order differences that do not affect the meaning of the sentence in which they occur, the number of differences between the Textus Receptus and the Byzantine Text in the Gospel of Luke is reduced to 172.   In the chapters of the Gospel of Luke that come before the reading in Luke 7:31 that is our focus, 18 differences between Scrivener’s 1881 reconstruction of the Textus Receptus and the Byzantine Text occur which are capable of having an impact on translation.  They are:

1:35 – The Textus Receptus has εκ σου (of thee).  (The NKJV does not have these words; its editors used a very slightly different form of the Reformation-era text than the KJV’s translators used)

2:12 – The Textus Receptus has τη before φατνη (the manger).  (The KJV nevertheless has “a manger.”)

2:21 – The Textus Receptus has το παιδιον (the child), clarifying the Byzantine Text’s αυτον (the pronoun “him”) which is found in the Byzantine Text.

2:22 – The Textus Receptus has αυτης (her); the Byzantine Text has αυτων (their). 

3:19 – The Textus Receptus has φιλιππου (Philip), naming the brother of Herod; the Byzantine Text does not.

4:8 – The Textus Receptus has γαρ (For); the Byzantine Text does not.

4:42 – The Textus Receptus has εζητουν (sought); the Byzantine Text has επεζητουν (sought for, sought after).

5:19 – The Textus Receptus has δια (by); the Byzantine Text does not.

5:30 – The Textus Receptus does not have των (the) before τελωνων (tax collectors).

5:36 – The Textus Receptus has επιβλημα (piece) near the end of the verse, instead of just once.

6:7 – The Textus Receptus has αυτον (him) in the opening phrase.

6:9 – The Textus Receptus ends the verse with απολεσαι (destroy); the Byzantine Text has, instead, αποκτειναι (kill).  (Here the NA/UBS compilation agrees with the TR.)

6:10 – The Textus Receptus has τω ανθρωπω (the man), clarifying the Byzantine reading αυτω (him).

6:10 – The Textus Receptus has ουτως (so); the Byzantine Text does not.

6:26 – The Textus Receptus has υμιν (unto you) in the opening phrase; the Byzantine Text does not.

6:26 – The Textus Receptus has παντες (all) before οι ανθρωποι (men).  (A significant minority of manuscripts includes this word, and here the NA/UBS compilation agrees with the TR).

6:28 – The Textus Receptus has και (and) before προσευχεσθε (pray).

6:37 – The Textus Receptus does not have και (and) before μη κρινετε (you shall not be judged).  (The 1550 compilation by Stephanus, however, includes και). 

MS 490 does not have "And the Lord said"
in Luke 7:31.

          Except for the variations at Luke 1:35, 2:22, 3:19, 6:9, and 6:26, even the translatable differences in chapters 1-7 express the same ideas, just at different degrees of clarity.  This is also true of the textual variant at the beginning of Luke 7:31 – except this variant is noticeably larger, consisting of four words:  the Textus Receptus begins Luke 7:31 with the phrase, “And the Lord said” (in Greek, ειπεν δε ο κυριος).

          There is so little support for ειπεν δε ο κυριος that even though this variant is four words long, it is not listed in the UBS Greek New Testament’s apparatus, or in the Nestle-Aland-27 apparatus.  It is covered in the newly expanded 2015 edition of Wieland Willker’s Textual Commentary on the Greek Gospels.  I have not found this exact phrase in the text of any Greek manuscripts, and although my research is not exhaustive (I checked over 20 manuscripts, sampling various Byzantine sub-groups), I suspect that it may have entered the Textus Receptus as a retro-translation from the Latin phrase “Ait autem Dominus,” found in the Clementine edition of the Vulgate (but not found in most earlier Vulgate manuscripts such as the Book of Kells and the Moutier-Grandval Bible – although the phrase “Tunc Iesus dixit” (Then Jesus said) appears here in Codex Perusinus, a fragmentary Vulgate manuscript made in the 500’s or 600’s).

MS 119 does not have "And the Lord said" 
in Luke 7:31.

          This variant is one of many exceptions to the often-repeated generalization that the Textus Receptus echoes the majority of Greek manuscripts.  Jack McElroy, in the pro-KJV book, Which Bible Would Jesus Use, states that the Byzantine text “is the form found in the largest number of surviving manuscripts and underlies the Received Text” (p. 49) – but here in Luke 7:31, the inclusion of ειπεν δε ο κυριος is opposed by the vast majority of Greek manuscripts.   The 2005 Robinson-Pierpont edition of the Byzantine Textform does not include ειπεν δε ο κυριος in Luke 7:31.  Neither does Wilbur Pickering’s compilation of the family-35 text.  And neither does the 1904 compilation by Antoniades.

The words "And the Lord said" are not in 
the text of MS 2407, but a barely visible 
lection-note in the upper margin has the words 
"The Lord said" as part of an incipit-phrase.

          So why, one might ask, are these four words in the KJV, NKJV, and MEV?  Why were they included in the Textus Receptus?  They are there in order to make the meaning of the text more obvious to ordinary readers.  The preceding two verses (Luke 7:29-30) are a parenthetical statement by Luke, but without this opening phrase in verse 31, English readers – before the use of quotation-marks was widely adopted – might think that verses 29-30 are a continuation of Jesus’ words, as if Jesus thus described the people who heard John the Baptist.  Although the original text did not have ειπεν δε ο κυριος, its presence (or, in English, the presence of “And the Lord said”) helps ensure a correct understanding of the passage.

          Even without the phrase “And the Lord said,” versions such as the HCSB, NASB, NLT, 1984 NIV, and ESV make it clear that verses 29-30 are a parenthetical comment by Luke.  In these versions, verse 31 thus resumes Jesus’ words with no introductory phrase.  The transition is obvious in modern English thanks to punctuation and quotation-marks (and, in some cases, the use of parentheses).

          In ancient Greek, however, written without quotation-marks, and with only sporadic punctuation, verses 29-30 could be interpreted as part of Jesus’ discourse.  To help readers understand that verses 29-30 are not part of Jesus’ discourse, a phrase was added from the lectionary-incipits – that is, the phrases which were used to introduce passages from the Gospels when selections were read in church-services.  The phrase “ειπεν ο κυριος” was one such phrase, and it was used in the church-services to introduce Luke 7:31-35 when the passage was annually read on the third Friday after New Year’s Day.

In Codex M, a lection-note (highlighted in yellow)  in the outer margin 
identifies Luke 7:31-35 as the lection for the Friday of the third week 
(after New Year's Day), and provides the incipit-phrase,
"The Lord said, 'To what shall I liken.'" 

          Codex Campianus (M, 021 – an important uncial from the 800’s) provides an example of this.  In Luke 7:31, an asterisk in the text guides the reader to the margin, where there is a note that does two things.  First, it identified Luke 7:31 as the beginning of the lection for the Friday of the third week after New Year’s Day.  Second, it instructs the lector to begin reading the lection with the words, ειπεν ο κυριος [using the usual contraction, κς] τινι ομοιωςω, that is, “The Lord said, ‘To what shall I liken.’”  (It is worth noticing that the word “therefore” has been left out.)  The same instructions to the lector can be observed in the margins of minuscules 8, 10, 261, 2399, 2407, and some other manuscripts that have the Byzantine lectionary-apparatus with incipit-phrases in the margins.

A faded lection-note in the upper margin of MS 8
is similar to the note in Codex M, giving the date
for the lection that begins at Luke 7:31,
with the incipit-phrase,
"the Lord said, 'To what therefore shall I liken.'"

          What the Textus Receptus conveys via the addition of four Greek words, modern English versions (based on compilations without those four words) convey via the addition of quotation-marks and parentheses.  The 2011 NIV even resorts to the same sort of thing we see in the Textus Receptus; in the 2011 NIV, Luke 7:31 begins, “Jesus went on to say.”

          This little investigation should teach us three things. 

           

● First:  most of the Textus Receptus’ deviations from the Byzantine Text do not affect translation.

● Second:  in cases where the Textus Receptus’ minority-readings affect translation, they usually have a clarifying or magnifying effect, bringing the original text’s meaning into sharper focus, rather than introducing some new idea.

● Third:  the Textus Receptus does not constitute the original text in its pristine form.  Here in Luke 7:31 the Textus Receptus contains an accretion – benign and helpful though it be – which can be clearly traced to the lectionary-apparatus.  Some Christians believe that the Textus Receptus is the original text, preserved in the same form in which it was written.  Some of these individuals adhere to a creed known as the Westminster Confession, which affirms in the eighth part of its first section that the New Testament, being immediately inspired by God, has been “by His singular care and providence, kept pure in all ages.”  The manuscript-evidence for Luke 7:31 (and other passages) compels the conclusion that if such an affirmation is to be retained, it must be with the understanding that the purity which has been providentially maintained in the Greek New Testament is an aspect of the message of the Greek text used by the church, and not its exact verbal form.


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