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EDWARD D. ANDREWS (AS in Criminal Justice, BS in Religion, MA in Biblical Studies, and MDiv in Theology) is CEO and President of Christian Publishing House. He has authored over 120 books. Andrews is the Chief Translator of the Updated American Standard Version (UASV).
Major Critical Texts of the New Testament
Byz RP: 2005 Byzantine Greek New Testament, Robinson & Pierpont TR1550: 1550 Stephanus New Testament Maj: The Majority Text (thousands of minuscules which display a similar text) Gries: 1774-1775 Johann Jakob Griesbach Greek New Testament Treg: 1857-1879 Samuel Prideaux Tregelles Greek New Testament Tisch: 1872 Tischendorf’s Greek New Testament WH: 1881 Westcott-Hort Greek New Testament NA28: 2012 Nestle-Aland Greek New Testament UBS5: 2014 Greek New Testament NU: Both Nestle-Aland and the United Bible Society TGNT: 2017 The Greek New Testament by Tyndale House
Textual Critic: a scholar whose goal is to reconstruct from extant manuscripts either the autograph or the initial text of the NT, from which all existing copies originated. The methodology is the same in either case. The critic uses mental, and computer-based toolsets to decide between variant readings among the manuscripts. There are different schools of thought, which tend to prefer either the early manuscripts with more difficult readings or the later manuscripts exhibiting what has been called the Majority Text.
Textual Criticism: the art and science (some would say only art) of determining the original text from variant readings exhibited by extant manuscripts. At present, a good deal of scientific methodology seems to be used as statistics, and computer processing is heavily employed. At the same time, however, TC is also faith-based (at least among conservative theologians), and the results are arguably impossible to verify. Faith plays a role in the belief by many that God has preserved His word somewhere among extant Greek manuscripts, which makes conjectural emendation unnecessary and unacceptable. As to verification, logic and the genealogical relationships between texts that can be constructed are often very convincing, but sometimes a decision is somewhat tenuous. Some critics would claim that no decision can really be verified, but many theories are accepted today without physical verification, on the strength of reasonable probability.
Matthew 6:33 New King James Version (NKJV)
33 But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.
Matthew 6:33 English Standard Version (ESV)
33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
Matthew 6:33 Christian Standard Bible (CSB)
33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be provided for you.
[CE] TR NA/UBS: τὴν βασιλείαν [τοῦ θεοῦ] καὶ τὴν δικαιοσύνην αὐτοῦ “the kingdom of God and his righteousness” —— L W Θ 0233 f,13 33 Maj syr (KJV, NKJV, NRSV, ESV, NLT, CSB)
Matthew 6:33 Updated American Standard Version (UASV)
33 But be you seeking[85] first the Kingdom[86] and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
Matthew 6:33 New American Standard Bible (NASB)
33 But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
Matthew 6:33 Revised Standard Version (RSV)
33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things shall be yours as well.
[BRD] WH: την βασιλειαν και την δικαιοσυνην αυτου “the kingdom and his righteousness” —— א (it) cop,bo Eusebius (RSV NASB NIV NJB NET UASV)
Variant: την δικαιοσυνην και την βασιλειαν αυτου “the righteousness and his kingdom” —— B (none)
Variant: την βασιλειαν των ουρανων και την δικαιοσυνην αυτου “the kingdom of the heavens and his righteousness” —— Clement (none)
Variant: την βασιλειαν του θεου “the kingdom of God” —— 245 (none)
In short, the kingdom is found in the earliest Alexandrian manuscripts א and B, as well as (itk) copsa, bo, Eusebius, which the later scribes expanded to include the kingdom of God in L W Θ 0233 f,13 33 Maj syr, and Clement the kingdom of the heavens.
Note: א and B are not entirely in agreement because they disagree in word order. However, it is true that they both have “the kingdom,” but it’s not an entirely clean comparison.
א “the kingdom and his righteousness” B “the righteousness and his kingdom”
Metzger says that the minority of the committee observes, “the reading that best explains the rise of the other readings is that supported by א (B) itlal, inasmuch as the addition of τοῦ θεοῦ [of God] (or τῶν οὐρανῶν [of the heavens]) after βασιλείαν [kingdom] seems to be an altogether natural supplement, which, if present originally, would not have been deleted.”[1] Agreed, if either of these readings were in the original, why would the later scribes delete them? Since there is no explanation for this, the kingdom is significantly more likely to be the original reading. The committee should have stayed with this initial sense of what and why the kingdom was original.
However, Metzger says, “a majority of the Committee was impressed by the prevailing usage of Matthew, who almost never employs βασιλεία [kingdom] without a modifier (the instances in 8:12; 13:38; 24:7, 14 were regarded as special exceptions), and explained the absence of a modifier in several witnesses as due to accidental scribal omission.”[2] Again, this argument is the very reason the kingdom is the original reading because later scribes had this reason for adding of God or of the heavens. The likelihood of an accidental omission in both א and B is highly unlikely. Generally, when it comes to the testimony of later manuscripts such as L W Θ 0233 f,13 33 Maj syr, Metzger and his committee would not have given more weight to them than the evidence of the Alexandrian manuscripts א and B, yet here they thought it was “In view of these conflicting interpretations, it was thought best to include the words in the text but to enclose them within square brackets.”[3] This is the inconsistency that shows up in the NA text at times.
B. F. Westcott and F. J. A. Hort, Introduction to the New Testament in the Original Greek: Appendix (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1882)
Biblical Studies Press, The NET Bible First Edition Notes (Biblical Studies Press, 2006)
Bruce Manning Metzger, United Bible Societies, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, Second Edition a Companion Volume to the United Bible Societies’ Greek New Testament (4th Rev. Ed.) (London; New York: United Bible Societies, 1994),
Eberhard Nestle and Erwin Nestle, Nestle-Aland: NTG Apparatus Criticus, ed. Barbara Aland et al., 28. revidierte Auflage. (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2012).
Dirk Jongkind, ed., The Greek New Testament: Apparatus (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2017).
Dirk Jongkind, ed., The Greek New Testament (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2017), Matt. 6:8.
Eberhard Nestle and Erwin Nestle, Nestle-Aland: Novum Testamentum Graece, ed. Barbara Aland et al., 28. revidierte Auflage. (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2012)
Philip Wesley Comfort, A COMMENTARY ON THE MANUSCRIPTS AND TEXT OF THE NEW TESTAMENT (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Academic, 2015).
Philip W. Comfort, New Testament Text and Translation Commentary: Commentary on the Variant Readings of the Ancient New Testament Manuscripts and How They Relate to the Major English Translations (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 2008).
Philip Wesley Comfort and David P. Barrett, The Text of the Earliest New Testament Manuscripts: Text of the Earliest New Testament Greek Manuscripts, 2 Volume Set The (English and Greek Edition) (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Academic, 2019)
Rick Brannan and Israel Loken, The Lexham Textual Notes on the Bible, Lexham Bible Reference Series (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2014).
Roger L. Omanson and Bruce Manning Metzger, A Textual Guide to the Greek New Testament: An Adaptation of Bruce M. Metzger’s Textual Commentary for the Needs of Translators (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2006).
Wallace B., Daniel (n.d.). Retrieved from The Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts: http://csntm.org/
[1] Bruce Manning Metzger, United Bible Societies, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, Second Edition a Companion Volume to the United Bible Societies’ Greek New Testament (4th Rev. Ed.) (London; New York: United Bible Societies, 1994), 15–16.
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