Matthew 13:51-58 - Revision of the Textus Receptus

The gospel according to Matthew

Chapter 13

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51. Λέγει αὐτοῖς ὁ Ἰησοῦς Συνήκατε ταῦτα πάντα; Λέγουσιν αὐτῷ, Ναί, Κύριε. Jesus said to them[1], “Have you understood all these things?” They said to him, “Yes, Lord[2].”

52. Ὁ δὲ εἶπεν αὐτοῖς, Διὰ τοῦτο πᾶς γραμματεὺς μαθητευθεὶς τῇ βασιλείᾳ[3] τῶν οὐρανῶν ὅμοιός ἐστιν ἀνθρώπῳ οἰκοδεσπότῃ ὅστις ἐκβάλλει ἐκ τοῦ θησαυροῦ αὐτοῦ καινὰ καὶ παλαιά. And he said to them, “Therefore every scribe who has been made a disciple in the kingdom of heaven is like a man who is a householder, who brings out of his treasure new and old things.”

53. Καὶ ἐγένετο ὅτε ἐτέλεσεν ὁ Ἰησοῦς τὰς παραβολὰς ταύτας, μετῆρεν ἐκεῖθεν. And it happened that when Jesus had finished these parables, he departed from there.

54. Καὶ ἐλθὼν εἰς τὴν πατρίδα αὐτοῦ ἐδίδασκεν αὐτοὺς ἐν τῇ συναγωγῇ αὐτῶν, ὥστε ἐκπλήττεσθαι[4] αὐτοὺς καὶ λέγειν, Πόθεν τούτῳ ἡ σοφία αὕτη καὶ αἱ δυνάμεις; And coming into his own country, he taught them in their synagogue, so that they were astonished and said, “Where did this man[5] get this wisdom and these mighty works?

55. Οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ τοῦ τέκτονος υἱός; Οὐχ[6] ἡ μήτηρ αὐτοῦ λέγεται Μαριὰμ καὶ οἱ ἀδελφοὶ αὐτοῦ Ἰάκωβος καὶ Ἰωσῆς καὶ Σίμων καὶ Ἰούδας; Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother called Mary and his brothers James and Joses[7] and Simon and Judas?

56. Καὶ αἱ ἀδελφαὶ αὐτοῦ οὐχὶ πᾶσαι πρὸς ἡμᾶς εἰσιν; πόθεν οὖν τούτῳ ταῦτα πάντα; And are not all his sisters with us? Where then did he get all these things?”

57. Καὶ ἐσκανδαλίζοντο ἐν αὐτῷ. Ὁ δὲ Ἰησοῦς εἶπεν αὐτοῖς· Οὐκ ἔστιν προφήτης ἄτιμος εἰ μὴ ἐν τῇ πατρίδι αὐτοῦ καὶ ἐν τῇ οἰκίᾳ αὐτοῦ. And they took offense at him. But Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor, except in his own[8] country and in his own house.”

58. Καὶ οὐκ ἐποίησεν ἐκεῖ δυνάμεις πολλὰς διὰ τὴν ἀπιστίαν αὐτῶν And he did not do many mighty works there because of their unbelief.

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[1] NA-Text and Vg-St omit “Jesus said to them”: א B D 1010 pc vg syr^s syr^c cop^sa cop^bo Origen (commentary on the gospel of Matthew, Book 10, Ch. 14), Jerome and Augustine (Latin: “Intellexistis haec omnia? Dicunt ei: Etiam”, Seventeen questions on Matthew, Q16) | TR: C L W Θ 0137 0233 ƒ¹ ƒ¹³ 22 33 565 579 700 892 1241 1424 Byz (it^a) it^f it^h it^q (syr^c) (syr^p) syr^h (cop^mae) cop^bo(mss) Diatessaron Theophylact || Victorinus of Petau added “he says to them”, but it seemed more of his own commentary as he was putting together some statements from the gospel of Matthew (Commentary on the apocalypse of the Blessed John, Rev 1:16). Same thing for Chrysostom (homily 47). It is hard to explain the widespread reception, use and preservation of “Jesus said to them” across all text-types in multiple locations and times. It is safer then to not change the text here.

[2] NA-Text and Vg-St omit “Lord”. Similar external witnesses are found for the word “Lord” as discussed in the previous footnote with the difference that codex Θ and both families of manuscripts ƒ¹ and ƒ¹³ are against the inclusion whereas all Coptic versions and Chrysostom support the inclusion of the word “Lord”. It is hard to understand why the Coptic versions or minuscule 33 are not reflecting any sign of the reading in codices Sinaiticus and Vaticanus. Codices Θ, family of manuscripts ƒ¹ and ƒ¹³ may be reflecting collectively the absence of Lord in Origen’s manuscript. Jerome used old Egyptian manuscripts for his Latin translation of the gospels, which might explain the absence of the word “Lord” in the vulgate, but several old Latin codices preserved it, including it^b, it^c, it^e, it^f, it^g1, it^h and it^q. It is possible that a nomen sacrum for “Kurie” might have been lost by phonetic homoeoteleuton (ναι , thus missing “Lord”), if the overline was fading or halfhearted in the exemplar of the copyist or the scribe simply overlooked it.

[3] NA-Text reads “τη βασιλεια” instead of “εις την βασιλειαν”: א B Θ Byz^pt | TR: L Γ Δ 28 (33) 892^c Byz^pt Theophylact. Codex D reads “εν τη βασιλεια”. The support for the Alexandrian reading is better so its reading has been adopted in the Greek text.

[4] NA-Text reads “εκπλησσεσθαι”, same word spelled differently.

[5] “man” is not in the Greek text. It was supplied for clarity’s sake.

[6] NA-Text reads “ουχ”: א B C N W Δ Θ 700 1241 | TR: D L ƒ¹ ƒ¹³ Byz Chrysostom Theophylact. Either the Byzantine text harmonized the form of negation to verse 56 or the Alexandrian to verse 55. Because the support is better for “ουχ”, it has been adopted in the text.

[7] NA-Text and Vg-St read “Joseph”. There are no signs of harmonization from Mark 6:3 in the Byzantine copies. The Greek texts are quite different, and the transposition of the names Simon and Judas found in Mark has not been imported into the gospel of Matthew. We would expect to see a conformation of several elements of the Markan reading to Matthew if a scribe suspected that the reading in Matthew was corrupt, which is not the case here. The vulgate cannot be considered a witness to the proper reading in the original text, once it has not preserved the name “Joses” in Mk 6:3, which is certain. The strength of the Alexandrian codices on the agreement of א and B also cannot be used here once codex א failed to maintain the proper reading “Joses” in Mark 6:3. Besides, the Diatessaron reflecting a text from the 100’s, Papyrus 103 from the 200’s and Chrysostom in the late 300’s are all against the reading found in the NA-Text. Hort thinks that “Joses” is a “Byzantine” adjustment to the text, but as this reading is found in the Coptic versions, including the Sahidic, codex L, minuscules 565, 1241 and possibly in papyrus 103, this conclusion is not necessarily reflecting the evidence.

[8] NA-Text omits “his own” and renders literally “except in country and in his own house”.

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Notes:

1. Text in red letters are places where the original reading in the Textus Receptus has been revised and corrected;

2. The English translation used as a reference is the WEB brought to conformity as literal as possible to the Textus Receptus. The end product though is not the WEB or a revised WEB and it should not be called WEB. The content of this post is freely available to everyone and it is not supposed to be copyrighted;

3. TR: Textus Receptus. This text is not copyrighted;

4. NA-Text: Nestle-Aland text commonly known as critical text;

5. M-Text: Majority Text; 

6. M-Text^RP - Majority Text compiled by Maurice Robinson & William Pierpont;

6. M-Text^HF - Majority Text compiled by Zane Hodges & Arthur Farstad; 

7. Vg-St: Vulgate of Stuttgart;  

8. WPF³⁵: Wilbur Pickering-family 35;

9. P-Text: Patriarchal Text, also known as Patriarchal Greek New Testament, published by the ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople.

10. The creator of the variant apparatus available in the VarApp kindly gave me permission to freely use the information contained in the material he put together.

 

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To God all the glory for the preservation of the scriptures! He reigns!