Announcing a new upload of the Gospel according to Matthew, Byzantine edition. It has the Robinson-Pierpont Greek text alternating with my new English translation. You can download for free a PDF of this Byzantine Gospel of Matthew here, and also get a printed edition of it on Amazon.
I have published on Amazon two editions of my translation of the gospel of Matthew. They alternate verse by verse between the Greek text and my English translation. They have 671 footnotes each. I have footnoted with critical apparatus most all the meaningful variants between the NA28 text and the Robinson-Pierpont Greek text.
Eclectic Edition of the Gospel of Matthew, with my Greek text being unique. I follow more Byzantine readings than does the Tyndale House GNT, but on the other hand there are a few times the TH follows the Byz where I do not. I have a couple readings not found in any of the above. The U.S. price on Amazon is $6.89.
The Robinson-Pierpont edition, the Gospel According to Matthew. The U.S. price on Amazon is $6.95.
February 12, 2023
“The Living Bible” and the movies about Jesus tell the traditional story of Judas Iscariot as follows: In Matthew 27:4-7, Judas tries to return the 30 silver coins to the priests, and they refuse to accept them. Then Judas goes to the temple and he “threw the money onto the floor of the Temple and went out and hanged himself. The chief priests picked the money up. ‘We can’t put it in the collection,” they said, “since it’s against our laws to accept money paid for murder.’ They talked it over and finally decided to buy a certain field where the clay was used by potters, and to make it into a cemetery for foreigners who died in Jerusalem.”
All other English translations say essentially the same thing. After my study of this passage and the prophecies concerning this event, and the account in the Acts of the Apostles, I have concluded that the traditional story is not accurate.
First of all, this is a fulfillment of the prophecy in Zechariah 11:13, NRSV:
Then the Lord said to me, ‘Throw it into the treasury’—this lordly price at which I was valued by them. So I took the thirty shekels of silver and threw them into the treasury in the house of the Lord.”
This is the rendering of several other good translations as well, following the Greek Old Testament, the Septuagint (LXX). But the NASB and NIV following the Hebrew say this: “Then the Lord said to me, “Throw it to the potter, that magnificent price at which I was valued by them.” So I took the thirty shekels of silver and threw them to the potter in the house of the Lord.”
When Judas went to the temple at that time of night, was there a potter in the temple? No, but there was a donation pot for the treasury, see Mark 12:41; Luke 21:1.
I believe Judas deposited the 30 pieces of silver in the donation pot in the temple. The word ῥίπτω, which all translations are rendering as “cast” or “throw” or “hurl,” did not always mean a throwing or casting. It also had a less violent meaning, like in Matt. 15:30, where people “laid” the invalids at Jesus’ feet. They certainly did not throw the invalids down. Similar is how Jesus used the word βάλλω in Matt. 9:17 for merely “putting” wine into wineskins, even though the word generally means “throw.” In the very next verse here, the priests say it is not permissible to βάλλω the silver in the temple treasury. In Mt 25:27, βάλλω is used for “deposit my silver with the bankers.” Nobody translates those verses as throwing wine into wineskins, or throwing silver with the bankers, or throwing silver into the temple treasury. Both these Greek words for “throw” ironically also meant “to carefully place” or “deposit.”
Secondly, some translations render the Greek verb λαμβάνω as “pick up,” as if the coins were scattered on the ground or floor. This is not generally the meaning of λαμβάνω. When Matthew means someone “picked up” something, he uses the verb αἴρω as in Matt. 15:37 where the disciples picked up the left over pieces of bread. The priests λαμβάνω “received” or “took” the money in the pot, and said, No, it is not right that it go to the treasury. So they used it to buy the Potter’s Field. They bought it in Judas’ name, in his honor. The account in Acts 1:18,19 says Judas himself bought the field, but I don’t see how, as he had hung himself. This is how I dealt with this conflict between this passage in Matthew and the Acts account in my Palmer’s Diatessaron.
This post discusses a textual variant in Matthew’s gospel, chapter 26, verse 31, as follows:
διασκορπισθησεται 𝔓³⁷ 𝔓⁴⁵ D E F K U V W Γ Δ Θ Π Φ ƒ¹ 2 28 565 579 1424 pm Eus Chrys Or-pt TR RP ‖ διασκορπισθησονται 𝔓⁵³ ℵ A B C G H L M S Σ 067 0281 ƒ¹³ 33 157 700 892 1071 1241 pm Or-pt SBL TH ΝΑ28 {\} ‖ lac 𝔓⁶⁴ N P Q Ζ 0233 346
The nominative substantive, the subject of our sentence here, is τα προβατα, “the sheep,” a neuter plural subject. But the BYZ text couples with it a singular verb, διασκορπισθησεται, while the NA28 text uses a plural verb, διασκορπισθησονται.
Classical, Attic, Greek had a grammar rule that broke the grammar rules. Usually, verbs must agree in gender, number and case with the subject noun. This is called concord. But there was a rule that neuter plural subjects usually took a singular verb.
BDF §133: “This is because neuter plurals were originally in part feminine singular collectives: Schwyzer ɪ 581 f.). The rule appears to have been most strictly followed in the Attic dialect (Schwyzer ɪɪ 607); Homer and Koine are less consistent, while the plural is used exclusively in MGr. In the NT (as in the LXX and pap.: Mayser ɪɪ 3, 28 ff.) there is marked diversity, and often in individual instances the MSS diverge. The plural is used for the most part in Herm. (1) The plural is used especially with neuters designating persons (also class., K.-G. ɪ 65), most frequently with ἔθνη, less often wth τέκνα and δαιμόνια. (2) The singular, on the contrary, preponderates with words having non-personal meaning (even when a numeral is inserted: ἐὰν γένηται…ἑκατὸν πρόβατα Mt 18:12), (3) and even more so with abstracts and pronouns (ταῦτα, ἅ etc.).—For stereotyped ἴδε, ἰδού, ἄγε used in spite of a plural subject, s. §144.”
Smyth §958: “A neuter plural subject is regarded as a collective (996), and has its verb in the singular: καλὰ ἦν τὰ σφάγια the sacrifices were propitious X.A.4.3.19. Here, sheep are a herd, a collective, so take a singular verb, the herd is scattered. But Smyth then says in §959, “A plural verb may be used when stress is laid on the fact that the neuter plural subject is composed of persons or of several parts: τὰ τέλη τῶν Λακεδαιμονίων αὐτὸν ἐξέπεμψαν the Lacedaemonian magistrates despatched him (Thuc. 4.88), φανερὰ ἦσαν καὶ ἵππων καὶ ἀνθρώπων ἴχνη πολλά many traces both of horses and of men were plain X.A.1.7.17. (a.) With the above exception Attic regularly uses the singular verb. Homer uses the singular three times as often as the plural, and the plural less frequently with neuter adjectives and pronouns than with substantives. In some cases (B 135) the metre decides the choice.”
Here in Mt 26:31 the sheep are persons, so one cannot declare with absolute certainly which reading in this variant is grammatically correct for classical Greek. Now, there are many other examples of this category of variant in Matthew, but I am showing this one because so many papyri are extant. The testimony is equally early for both readings. Each has a III century papyrus in support, 𝔓⁴⁵ and 𝔓⁵³. The Greek Old Testament, the Septuagint, does not pertain here, as Zech 13:7 in the LXX does not have the same sentence structure, that is, there is no neuter plural subject. Rather it says, “Strike the shepherds, and remove the sheep…” I should also mention that neither the Byzantine majority text nor the “critical text” consistently follow this Attic rule. There are variants where the Byz breaks the rule and the critical text follows it.
Now a question for us is, was Matthew (or his translator, if he wrote his gospel in Hebrew or Aramaic) bound to follow Attic rules, or even familiar with Attic rules? Possibly editors or copyists of Matthew corrected what they thought was incorrect grammar, to follow the Attic rule. But in this variant we probably have a legitimate exception to the Attic rule since the sheep are persons. This explanatory note, and many like it, can be read in my translation of the gospel of Matthew, downloadable here.
There is a variant in the Greek manuscripts of the gospel of Matthew, chapter 25 verse 6, where the Majority text reads, “Look! The bridegroom is coming,” while the NA28 reads, “Look! The bridegroom.” So the NA28 text lacks the word ερχεται, “is coming.” Then after that, in both texts, the next Greek word is also a form of the word “come,” εξερχεσθε, and says “Come out to meet him.”
νυμφιος ερχεται C³ E W Σ Φ latt syr-p,h arm Chrys TR RP ‖ νυμφιος ℵ B C* D L Z cop-sa Cyr SBL TH NA28 {\} ‖ lac A N P 0233 0281
What I found that is significant, is that the scribe of Codex D, Codex Bezae, first wrote εξερχεται, which is only two letters different than ερχεται, just adding εξ to it, “out,” but then he omitted εξερχεσθε that is supposed to follow that according to all manuscripts. He seems to have gotten confused by the similarity of the two words. Here is a snip from the image of Codex D.
So in view of the problem the scribe of Codex D had, I changed my Greek text to that of the Majority text, adding ερχεται, “the bridegroom is coming.” Because I find this to be an explanation as to how the variant arose, how ερχεται dropped out of text streams. In other words, the most important question in textual criticism is, which variant best explains the rise of the others?
I have pointed out lately a few places where Reuben Swanson’s apparatus has been incorrect, so now I will be fair and point out a place where I think Swanson is correct and the NA28 apparatus is not.
In Matthew chapter 22 verse 30 there is a variant where most manuscripts say “are like the angels of God in heaven,” but some mss. say only “are like the angels in heaven.” (As does the parallel passage in Mark 12:25.) It is the difference between:
ὡς ἀγγελοι τοῦ θεοῦ εν ουρανῶ εισιν and
ὡς ἀγγελοι εν ουρανῶ εισιν.
Swanson’s apparatus says the original reading of Codex E (07) did not have the words τοῦ θεοῦ “of God” and then a corrector (possibly the original scribe himself) rubbed out the original writing and added those words. The NA28 apparatus, however, does not indicate that the manuscript has been corrected there. I think Swanson is right here. Here is a snip of the manuscript:
Note that in the second half of the second line, the words ΤΟΥ ΘY̅ ƐΝ ΟY̅ΝW̅ ƐΙCΙΝ are smaller and fainter than all the other letters. This means the scribe had to shrink the rest of the words on the line in order to fit ΤΟΥ ΘY̅ in the line without having to correct the next line as well. As long as we are here, if you have not seen “nomina sacra” before, here we have two of them. The genitive form of the word θΕΟΣ, ΘΕΟΥ is shortened to ΘY̅ with a line above it. And the dative form for the word for heaven, ΟΥΡΑΝΟΣ, ΟΥΡΑΝW, is shortened to ΟY̅ΝW̅ with two overlines. These are called “nomina sacra” and they did this also for the words Jesus, Christ, David, Holy Spirit, and sometimes for Jerusalem and other words.
As I am making my Robinson-Pierpont edition of the gospel of Matthew, I am editing my eclectic edition here and there. During this process I found a Byzantine reading that I think is the original text rather than what I previously had in my eclectic text and is found in the NA28.
Matt 21:25 παρ εαυτοις ℵ C D E W Σ Φ 0102 0233 𝔐 TR RP TH ‖ εν εαυτοις B L Z Cyr SBL NA28 {\} ‖ lac A N P 0281.
The reading with παρ has strong support. I immediately thought that since εν εαυτοις is a very common phrase in the gospels, and παρ εαυτοις is not, it is far more likely that scribes would write εν εαυτοις automatically unconsciously, than the other way around. So I changed my text to the παρ εαυτοις reading, and this was before I looked up the Tyndale House reading and saw that they follow that reading. The preposition παρα with the dative case answers the question “where.” They were “by” themselves, which implies separation for privacy; thus, “away by themselves.” You can download my eclectic edition of Matthew’s gospel here.
What is going on here in Matthew 20:15? The Majority text reads:
Ἢ οὐκ ἔξεστίν μοι ποιῆσαι ὃ θέλω ἐν τοῖς ἐμοῖς; Εἰ ὁ ὀφθαλμός σου πονηρός ἐστιν, ὅτι ἐγὼ ἀγαθός εἰμι;
Here are the two significant variants in the verse, showing only witnesses 8th century and earlier:
η ουκ…ει ο οφθαλμος lat Chrysostom TR RP ‖ η ουκ…η ο οφθαλμος ℵ C E N W Σ Φ 085 syr-p,h cop-sa TH [NA28] ‖ ουκ…η ο οφθαλμος B* D L Z SBL ‖ ουκ…ει ο οφθαλμος B² ‖ lac A P 0233 0281.
All the witnesses above except B D L Z SBL begin the sentence with the Greek word Ἢ, “or.” Then the TR and Majority text for the second variant read ει, a marker for a direct question. What I am pointing out is that none of the English translations based on the Majority reading translate the word Ἢ as “or.”
BUT, neither do the English translations based on the second reading, which has the Greek word η for both variants, neither do they appear to render their text as it is found.
Practically none of the English translations translate the first η as “or.”
The translations supposedly based on the TR / Majority text, at first seem to read as the Vaticanus corrector. (ουκ…ει ο οφθαλμος B²). The English translations from the Syriac, the Etheridge and Murdock translations, also seem to read as B².
The EMTV, “English Majority Text Version, reads as the SBL text.
We have seen that none of the English translations translate the first η as “or.” But they are probably not following the reading of B* D L Z Θ SBL. The BDF grammar in Sec. 440 (3) says a simple interrogative ἦ does not exist in the NT. In Sec. 440 (1) DeBrunner gives four examples in the NT of “simple interrogative ἤ,” Matt. 20:15, 26:53; 1 Cor. 9:8; 2 Cor. 11:7. This must be how the first η is being interpreted.