Family 1739 preserves an ancient Pauline text and repeatedly confirms the early Alexandrian line represented by P46, Vaticanus, and Sinaiticus.
Family 1739 in the Pauline Epistles: Affinity with P46 and Early Alexandrian Witnesses
Why Does Matthew 16:4 Read “The Sign of Jonah” Rather Than “The Sign of Jonah the Prophet”?
Matthew 16:4 originally read “the sign of Jonah”; “the prophet” is a later scribal clarification and likely a harmonization to Matthew 12:39.
What Does the Bible Really Say About Snake Handling?
The Bible does not command snake handling. It condemns testing Jehovah and shows serpent protection as exceptional, not a worship practice.
Matthew 16:2b–3a and the Secondary Red Sky Saying in the Manuscript Tradition
Matthew 16:2b–3a is a secondary interpolation, added to clarify Jesus’ reply and influenced by Luke 12:54–56 rather than written by Matthew.
Magadan, Not Magdala: The Documentary Priority of the Harder Reading in Matthew 15:39
Matthew 15:39 preserves “Magadan,” not “Magdala,” because the earliest and strongest witnesses support the harder reading.
Matthew 15:18–19: Haplography, the Heart, and the Original Wording of the Saying
Matthew 15:18–19 preserves Jesus’ teaching that defilement comes from the heart, and the omission in a few witnesses arose through haplography.
The New Testament in the Light of Textual Criticism: The Gospel of Matthew
A documentary reading of Matthew shows that early manuscripts preserve a concise, stable text while later scribes often harmonized, clarified, and expanded it.
The Majuscules and Minuscules: Deciphering the Greek Scripts of the Old Testament
How majuscule and minuscule Greek scripts reveal the transmission, revision, and textual value of the Old Testament in Greek.
Untangling the Textual Complexities of the Pastoral Epistles
A documentary untangling of the Pastoral Epistles shows real textual complexity, but not textual chaos, and confirms a stable, recoverable Pauline text.
Tracing the Transmission: The Journey of the New Testament Text Through the Centuries
A documentary history of how the New Testament text was copied, varied, preserved, and restored from the autographs to modern Greek editions.
