Updated American Standard Version
Giving Bible readers what God said not what translators think God meant
There is a bewildering variety of variant readings here. The number of variants is evidence that the scribes had some serious difficulties. There can only be one reading, which is the original reading. The reading that the other readings most likely came from is
Codex Vaticanus (03, B) contains the Gospels, Acts, the General Epistles, the Pauline Epistles, the Epistle to the Hebrews (up to Hebrews 9:14, καθα[ριει); it lacks 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon, and Revelation. It is written on 759 leaves of vellum and is dated to c. 300–325 C.E.
Codex Vaticanus (03, B) contains the Gospels, Acts, the General Epistles, the Pauline Epistles, the Epistle to the Hebrews (up to Hebrews 9:14, καθα[ριει); it lacks 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon, and Revelation. It is written on 759 leaves of vellum and is dated to c. 300–325 C.E. Arguably, one could say that Codex Vaticanus…
As we have noted elsewhere in other articles, the textual scholar looks at two forms of evidence: external (manuscripts) and internal (what the author or scribe wrote). Internal evidence concerns what might have led to scribal errors. Therefore, we will discuss scribal practices and tendencies, to get an image of how the Word of God came down to us by way of the copyist.
The first two words of 5:20, the third-person imperative and the demonstrative pronoun (γινωσκέτω ὅτι ginōsketō hoti) would seem to be the original reading and were altered to the second-person plural imperative (γινώσκετε ginōskete).
"Copyists were perplexed, not knowing whether ψυχὴν αὐτοῦ (his soul) referred to the soul of the person converted or to the soul of the person who converted someone else."
One of the greatest tragedies in the modern-day history of Christianity [1880 - present] is that churchgoers have not been educated about the history of the New Testament text.
As Luke, Paul, Peter, Matthew, James, or Jude handed their authorized text off to be copied by others, i.e., published, what would it have looked like? What is the process that the New Testament writers would have followed to get their book ready to be published, that is, copied by others?
We must face the reality that while the original 39 OT manuscripts and 27 NT manuscripts were inspired by God [Lit. “God-breathed”] (1 Tim. 3:16), as the authors were moved along by the Holy Spirit (1 Peter 1:21), this was not the case with the copyists thereafter. Yes, hundreds of thousands of scribal errors crept into our manuscripts.
