The Manuscript Base for Mark 4

The textual history of Mark 4 is preserved across a wide spectrum of Greek witnesses and early versions, with especially weighty testimony coming from the early papyri and the principal majuscules. For this chapter, Papyrus 45 (𝔓45, 175–225 C.E.) is of first importance wherever it survives, since it anchors the text of Mark within the early third century and frequently aligns with the best Alexandrian representatives. Among the majuscules, Codex Vaticanus (B, 300–330 C.E.) and Codex Sinaiticus (א, 330–360 C.E.) remain central for determining the initial text, while Codex Alexandrinus (A, 400–450 C.E.), Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus (C), Codex Bezae (D, 400–450 C.E.), Codex Washingtonianus (W, 400 C.E.), Codex Regius (L, 700–800 C.E.), and Codex Koridethi (Θ) provide valuable cross-checks across the major streams of transmission. Family groupings such as f1 and f13, important minuscules such as 33, and the Byzantine majority tradition (Maj) contribute breadth and continuity, while Old Latin witnesses (it) and Coptic versions (cop) often register early readings or early harmonizations.

Mark 4 contains several variants that are classic indicators of scribal habits: harmonization to Matthew and Luke in the parable discourse, stylistic smoothing of Mark’s compressed or abrupt Greek, occasional expansions that clarify a referent, and occasional omissions that conform the wording to a parallel. The chapter also includes at least one instance where later accentuation practices and visual ambiguity between similar-looking forms facilitated divergence in the copying tradition.

Principles for Evaluating Variants in Mark 4

A textual commentary on Mark 4 must give primary weight to external documentary evidence, especially readings supported by early and diverse witnesses. Where 𝔓45, B, and the earliest Alexandrian tradition agree, the text normally stands on the firmest footing. Internal considerations remain useful, but they must function as secondary controls that explain how rival readings arose. In Mark 4, internal evidence most often clarifies the direction of change because the same scribal impulses recur: assimilation to parallels in Matthew 13 and Luke 8, correction of Mark’s perceived awkwardness, and explanatory supplementation.

The most reliable internal criterion in this chapter is transcriptional probability rooted in observable scribal behavior. Copyists repeatedly import Matthean or Lukan wording into Mark’s parable material, and they repeatedly refine Mark’s abrupt constructions into smoother comparisons. When a reading in Mark looks less like Matthew and Luke, and when it is supported by early witnesses, it regularly proves to be prior to the harmonized forms. Conversely, where a reading matches Matthew’s phrasing too neatly or introduces a clarifying noun that the context already supplies, the evidence commonly points to secondary development.

Mark 4:8 And Mark 4:20: The ἐν And ἕν Variation in the Yield Saying

Although the user-supplied notes emphasize Mark 4:20, the same issue is already present in Mark 4:8, and the linkage matters for transmission history. The variant involves the unaccented form EN, which later scribes and editors could construe either as the preposition ἐν (“in”) or as the numeral ἕν (“one”). Since early manuscripts did not employ systematic accentuation, the written form could be read either way, and scribes sometimes copied what they understood rather than what stood before them, particularly where context suggested a tidy series.

In Mark 4:20, the unaccented word appears in א A C2 D, reflecting a stage of transmission where the ambiguity remained unresolved in copying practice. Other witnesses clarify the sense by choosing the numeral, reading “one” in L Θ and some early versions (including a Coptic strand), while another set clarifies by choosing the preposition, reading “in” in f1, 28, 33, 565, 700. The presence of both interpretive directions indicates that the root cause is not a theologically motivated change but a mechanical ambiguity that invited resolution. In context, Mark’s point is distributive: some produce thirty, some sixty, some a hundred. Scribes who preferred a formally balanced series found the numeral attractive, while scribes who kept closer to a locative or instrumental nuance preferred the preposition. The documentary weight of the earliest strata favors the unaccented form as the point of origin, with later clarification producing the two explicit readings.

This variation is instructive for Mark 4 because it demonstrates that not all divergence is harmonization or doctrinal alteration. Some of the chapter’s variants are best explained by the realities of early bookhand practices and the interpretive choices that later copyists made when confronted with ambiguous, unaccented text.

Mark 4:12: The Expansion “Their Sins” As a Scribal Gloss

At the end of the quotation in Mark 4:12, after the clause ἀφεθῇ αὐτοῖς (“it will be forgiven them”), several manuscripts add τὰ ἁμαρτήματα (“their sins”), notably A D Θ and the Byzantine majority tradition (and thus the Textus Receptus). The added object functions as an explanatory completion: forgiveness is forgiveness of sins, so the scribe makes explicit what is already implicit in the verb.

The evidence identifies this as a secondary gloss. The addition is not drawn from the Hebrew text or the Greek Septuagint form of Isaiah 6:9–10, where the conclusion is expressed in terms of healing, nor is it taken from the principal New Testament parallels that quote the Isaianic passage more fully (Matthew 13:14–15; John 12:40; Acts 28:26–27), which likewise conclude with “and I would heal them.” Mark’s citation is a condensed, stylized appropriation rather than a full quotation, and Mark’s closing with forgiveness language already stands apart from the Isaianic phrasing familiar from the broader tradition. The addition τὰ ἁμαρτήματα pulls Mark’s line toward an explanatory finish consistent with later ecclesiastical usage and catechetical phrasing.

The external profile also supports gloss. The reading is prominent in later and broader witnesses, including the Byzantine majority and representatives that frequently exhibit expansion and harmonization. Against it stands the shorter form preserved in earlier and stronger witnesses. Transcriptionally, the movement from “it will be forgiven them” to “it will be forgiven them their sins” is straightforward and natural for a scribe, while the reverse movement demands an improbable motive: no copyist removes “their sins” if it had been present, since it does not create difficulty and it clarifies meaning. The shorter text is therefore prior, and the longer text is an interpretive expansion that entered the stream through scribal supplementation.

Mark 4:15: “Into Them,” “In Them,” And the Pull of the Parallels

Mark 4:15 sits at the center of one of the most harmonization-prone sections in the Synoptic tradition: the interpretation of the parable of the sower. The wording that describes the removal of the sown word appears in several forms across the manuscript tradition.

One reading, supported by B W f1 and reflected in many modern critical editions, reads along the lines of αἴρει τὸν λόγον τὸν ἐσπαρμένον εἰς αὐτούς, expressing that the word has been sown “into them.” Another cluster, represented by א C L Δ, reads αἴρει τὸν λόγον τὸν ἐσπαρμένον ἐν αὐτοῖς, expressing that the word has been sown “in them.” A third form, represented in the Byzantine tradition and reflected in the Textus Receptus, reads αἴρει τὸν λόγον τὸν ἐσπαρμένον ἐν ταῖς καρδίαις αὐτῶν, explicitly adding “in their hearts.” A fourth, more isolated form in A reads αἴρει τὸν λόγον τὸν ἐσπαρμένον ἀπὸ τῆς καρδίας αὐτῶν, shifting the emphasis toward removal “from their heart.”

The decisive feature in this variation is the expansion toward καρδία language. The explicit “in their hearts” readily arises from assimilation to the parable explanations in Matthew 13 and Luke 8, where καρδία terminology is prominent and where the sower imagery is interpreted with that anthropological emphasis. Mark’s own style is terser, and Mark frequently states the action and its effect without the fuller explanatory nouns that Matthew employs. A scribe familiar with the parallels, copying in a liturgical environment where the Synoptic accounts were heard together, naturally imports the familiar “heart” phrasing into Mark. This is harmonization in its clearest form.

Between εἰς αὐτούς (“into them”) and ἐν αὐτοῖς (“in them”), the evidence demands careful handling, since both are short and both fit Mark’s general idiom. External support favors the εἰς αὐτούς wording when B and allied witnesses are weighed, but the ἐν αὐτοῖς wording also has substantial early backing through א and other majuscules. In this specific context, transcriptional direction favors movement toward ἐν. Copyists routinely replace less common prepositional choices with more ordinary ones, and ἐν readily presents as the more expected locative expression for “sown in.” The εἰς expression, while not un-Greek, is more vivid and somewhat less expected, and that is precisely the sort of phrasing that copyists normalize. The καρδία expansions confirm the same impulse: Mark’s wording is repeatedly brought into closer alignment with more transparent interpretive language. For that reason, the text that lacks καρδία and that preserves the more distinctive prepositional force best accounts for the rise of the other readings.

The A reading with ἀπὸ τῆς καρδίας αὐτῶν is best explained as a conflation of impulses: the scribe wants καρδία, and the scribe wants the removal action to be explicit. The result creates a sharper image of extraction and aligns the line more closely with common interpretive preaching: Satan removes what was implanted. That is interpretive sharpening rather than preservation of a difficult ancestral reading.

Mark 4:19: An Omission Driven by Synoptic Conformity

In Mark 4:19, a group of witnesses including D W Θ and additional representatives omit the phrase καὶ αἱ περὶ τὰ λοιπὰ ἐπιθυμίαι (“and the desires for the rest of the things”). The omission aligns the Markan line more closely with Matthew 13:22, where the wording is tighter and the focus falls on the deceitfulness of riches and the choking of the word. Mark’s fuller phrase, with its “desires for other things,” is characteristically expansive in a Markan way, piling up concrete forces that choke the word.

The direction of change runs from Mark’s fuller expression to Matthew’s tighter form. Copyists engaged in harmonization routinely trim Mark where Matthew offers a shorter parallel, especially in instructional material used for catechesis. The longer Markan phrase is not the sort of addition a scribe invents without cause, since it introduces a broad category that intensifies the warning beyond riches and anxieties. Conversely, a scribe can easily remove it to create closer conformity and a smoother cadence. The omission is therefore secondary, and the fuller Markan wording reflects the earlier text.

Mark 4:24: “And It Will Be Added to You” As Harmonizing Expansion or Harmonizing Omission

Mark 4:24 includes an additional clause in many witnesses: καὶ προστεθήσεται ὑμῖν (“and it will be added to you”). This clause is lacking in D W 565 and certain Old Latin witnesses (including it, e and it, e), and its presence or absence is best interpreted through the lens of synoptic and intra-Synoptic assimilation.

Matthew 7:2 contains a closely related saying about measure and recompense, and the Matthean form commonly circulates with the “it will be added” idea in various forms of tradition. In Mark 4, the clause functions as an appended reinforcement to the measure principle, producing a smoother rhetorical finish and a fuller promise. The shorter text, ending with the measure principle without the added promise, reads more abruptly in Mark’s manner, and that abruptness is frequently what triggers scribal supplementation.

At the same time, harmonization works in both directions across the manuscript tradition. Some scribes import familiar expansions; other scribes delete material that diverges from a parallel they are consciously matching. In this case, the absence in D W and certain Latin witnesses is explained by conformity to the Matthean parallel as understood in their copying environment, while the presence in the broader tradition is explained by the natural attraction of the promise clause as an edifying completion. Where the external evidence is divided, the reading that best explains both addition and omission must be preferred. The shorter form has a strong claim on that basis because it accounts for the rise of the longer, rhetorically satisfying form, and it also explains why a harmonizing scribe might omit the promise in order to align more strictly with a parallel wording pattern in Matthew as transmitted in a given locale.

Mark 4:26: The Kingdom Comparison and Scribal Smoothing

Mark 4:26 introduces a parable unique to Mark, and its uniqueness contributes to its textual instability. Several manuscripts, including א B D L Δ 33, preserve a form like Οὕτως ἐστὶν ἡ βασιλεία τοῦ Θεοῦ ὡς ἄνθρωπος βάλῃ τὸν σπόρον ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς, presenting an abrupt comparison: “So is the kingdom of God as a man might cast seed upon the earth.” The comparison, compressed and somewhat awkward, is thoroughly Markan in its directness and paratactic movement.

Scribes adjusted the phrase in multiple ways, each designed to improve the Greek and clarify the comparison. One stream reads ὡς ἄνθρωπος ὅταν, turning the line into a more explicit temporal comparison, “as when a man…” Another reads ὡς ἐὰν ἄνθρωπος, “as if a man…,” a common smoothing that makes the simile more idiomatic. Another reads ὥσπερ ἄνθρωπος, using a more polished comparative marker.

The diversity of the smoothing attempts is a significant argument for the priority of the abrupt form. When copyists confront a line that sounds awkward, they do not all correct it in the same way; they correct it in the ways their own Greek instincts suggest. That is exactly what the evidence shows. The earliest and strongest witnesses preserve the more difficult comparison, while later witnesses exhibit multiple independent improvements. This is a textbook instance of stylistic smoothing rather than doctrinal editing. The original text retains Mark’s compressed introduction, and the later tradition displays the scribal drive toward a more formally elegant simile.

Mark 4:28: πληρῆς And πληρῆ as Morphology and Transmission

Mark 4:28 contains a variant that is small in appearance but instructive in assessing scribal instincts and editorial judgments. The phrase describing the final stage of growth appears as πλήρης σῖτον ἐν τῷ στάχυϊ (“full grain in the head”) in the reading adopted by certain editors following the judgment that πλήρης functions here as an indeclinable form. This reading is found in C* and 28. The more common form is πλήρη, which corresponds to a standard accusative agreement and is the form many scribes expected in context.

The central issue is not meaning but morphology. Copyists frequently regularize unusual grammatical forms, especially when they encounter indeclinable usage that is less familiar in their own period. If πλήρης stood in the ancestral text as an indeclinable accusative, scribes would naturally “correct” it to πλήρη, thereby producing a form that matches ordinary declension expectations. Conversely, if πλήρη were original, the emergence of πλήρης is not readily explained as a deliberate change because it introduces a grammatical oddity without providing clearer meaning.

In this kind of variant, external support and transcriptional probability must be integrated carefully. The attestation of πλήρης is limited, yet its character as the more difficult form supplies a strong internal explanation for the rise of the more common πλήρη. The variant demonstrates the value of distinguishing between meaning-driven changes and form-driven changes. Here the scribal impulse is grammatical: the copying tradition repeatedly exhibits regularization, and the direction from unusual to usual accounts for the data.

Mark 4:40: The Double Question and the Shape of the Rebuke

Mark 4:40 displays a well-known cluster of readings in the rebuke spoken by Jesus after the stilling of the storm. The primary form in many modern critical editions reads τί δειλοί ἐστε; οὔπω ἔχετε πίστιν; “Why are you fearful? Do you still not have faith?” This reading is supported by א B D L Δ Θ 565 700 and certain Coptic witnesses. Another form, widely represented in A C 33 and the Byzantine tradition, reads τί δειλοί ἐστε οὕτως; πῶς οὐκ ἔχετε πίστιν; “Why are you fearful in this way? How do you not have faith?” A further minor form reads τί δειλοί ἐστε οὕτως; ἔχετε πίστιν; “Why are you fearful in this way? Do you have faith?” and is represented by W and an Old Latin strand. A form associated with 𝔓45 and f13 reads τί οὕτως δειλοί ἐστε; οὔπω ἔχετε πίστιν; “Why are you so fearful? Do you still not have faith?” with the opening word order shifted.

Several forces are at work. First, Mark elsewhere uses οὔπω with pointed rhetorical effect, and the οὔπω question fits Mark’s pattern of rebuke that exposes dullness or slowness to grasp, as in Mark 8:17 and 8:21. That favors the οὔπω ἔχετε πίστιν form as intrinsic to Mark’s style. Second, copyists often sharpen rebukes into more rhetorically balanced pairs, and the πῶς οὐκ ἔχετε form reads like a stylistic intensification, turning the second question into a more pointed challenge. Third, the insertion of οὕτως in various positions reflects a scribal drive to intensify “fearful” into “so fearful,” a natural expansion of emphasis.

The role of 𝔓45 is important because it preserves an early third-century form that differs in word order from B and א while maintaining the core οὔπω clause. That indicates that, at an early stage, the rebuke circulated with some flexibility in the placement of οὕτως, yet the presence of οὔπω remained stable in a strong line of transmission. The reading in א B and allied witnesses combines early attestation with Markan rhetorical habit. The Byzantine-supported reading, with πῶς οὐκ ἔχετε, displays the kind of sharpening and smoothing that emerges frequently in later transmission: it reads well, it preaches well, and it tightens the second question into a more direct challenge. The W form that changes the second question to ἔχετε πίστιν is best explained as either simplification or accidental alteration that removes the rhetorical sting of οὔπω while keeping a question structure, producing a blunter but less Markan line.

Here the external evidence is strong for the τί δειλοί ἐστε; οὔπω ἔχετε πίστιν; form, and the internal evidence supports it as Mark’s characteristic phrasing. The early flexibility in the position of οὕτως explains the 𝔓45-associated word order without requiring a different underlying rebuke. The most stable core is the two-question structure with οὔπω.

Scribal Habits Displayed Across the Variants in Mark 4

The variants in Mark 4 repeatedly display harmonization, clarification, smoothing, and grammatical regularization. Harmonization appears most clearly in the parable interpretation material, especially at Mark 4:15 and 4:19, where Matthew 13 and Luke 8 exert continuous pull. Clarification is evident in the addition “their sins” at Mark 4:12 and in the καρδία expansions at Mark 4:15, where scribes articulate what readers already understand. Smoothing is conspicuous in Mark 4:26, where multiple alternative refinements arise independently, and in Mark 4:40, where the rebuke is sharpened into more rhetorically balanced forms. Grammatical regularization is visible in Mark 4:28, where an unusual form is brought into line with expected declension patterns. Mechanical ambiguity contributes to variation in Mark 4:20, where the unaccented EN provoked different interpretive resolutions in later copying.

These habits, taken together, confirm that the text of Mark 4 has been transmitted with a high degree of stability in its main contours while exhibiting predictable local alterations at points where Mark’s wording is either compressed, stylistically abrupt, or susceptible to assimilation with familiar parallels. The early manuscript base, especially where 𝔓45, B, and allied witnesses converge, provides a strong foundation for restoring the Ausgangstext, while the later expansions and smoothings supply a clear window into how scribes read Mark as Scripture for public instruction.

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