Many (perhaps most) modern versions emulate the Revised Version and simply omit the sentence in question without any explanatory comment. This is a complete sentence, and yet it did not receive, in the Textus Receptus editions, a verse number of its own. It does not appear here in the majority of important codices, such as א B C D L W Δ Θ and Latin, Sahidic, and some Syriac and Boharic manuscripts. It does, however, appear in some significant manuscripts, including ƒ1,13, A, two very old Latin manuscripts, and some Syriac and Boharic manuscripts, and with slight differences in minuscule 33 (9th century).
NTTC MATTHEW 3:7: the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to the baptism
“… coming to the baptism” א* B cop Origen; “… coming to his baptism” א1 C D L W 0233 f1, 33 565 579 700. 892 1241 1424 Maj it syr cop. The earliest textual support and likely the original reading of Matthew is
NTTC JAMES 4:14b: “for you are a mist, appearing for a little while”
The process of attempting to ascertain the original wording of a text is important, regardless of how minor the textual variant may seem. Our primary purpose is to give the Bible readers what God said by way of his human authors, Our primary goal is to be accurate and faithful to the original text. Therefore, we must have the original words.
NEW TESTAMENT MANUSCRIPTS Copies of the New Testament Produced or Reproduced by Hand
Originally, all New Testament texts were written in Greek. By the year 500, these texts had been translated into Syriac, various Coptic, Latin, Gothic, Armenian, Georgian, and perhaps Ethiopic dialects. This article is a great introduction for those just learning about New Testament Textual Studies.
New Testament Textual Studies and Scribal-Gap Filling
It is my opinion that scribal gap-filling accounts for many of the textual variants (especially textual expansions) in the New Testament—particularly in the narrative books (the Four Gospels and Acts). What is scribal gap-filling?
NEW TESTAMENT TEXTUAL STUDIES: The Aland’s Local-Genealogical Method
Kurt Aland (1979, 43) favors a type of textual criticism that he calls the local-genealogical method. He defines it as follows:
NEW TESTAMENT TEXTUAL STUDIES The Acts of the Apostles
The book of Acts existed in two distinct forms in the early church—the Alexandrian and the Western.
The Process of Attempting to Ascertain the Original Wording of the Original Texts of the New Testament
Confronted by a mass of conflicting readings, editors must decide which variants deserve to be included in the text and which should be relegated to the apparatus. Although at first, it may seem to be a hopeless task amid so many thousands of variant readings to sort out those that should be regarded as original, textual scholars have developed certain generally acknowledged criteria of evaluation.
History of the Transmission of the New Testament Text
In the earliest days of the Christian church, after an apostolic letter was sent to a congregation or an individual, or after a gospel was written to meet the needs of a particular reading public, copies would be made in order to extend its influence and to enable others to profit from it as well. It was inevitable that such handwritten copies would contain a greater or lesser number of differences in wording from the original. NOTE: This is an introductory article, but filled with links to more in-depth articles if one desires a deeper look.
NTTC LUKE 23:34: “[[But Jesus was saying, ‘Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.’]]”
What is the meaning of Luke 23:34, and why does it not appear in the Updated American Standard Version (UASV) of the Holy Scriptures? Yet, it is found in the English Standard Version, the Christian Standard Bible, and the New American Standard Bible 1995 but within single square brackets in the NASB2020 and within double square brackets in the Lexham English Bible. Isn't part of the text spurious?