Matthew 14:22-36 - Revision of the Textus Receptus

The gospel according to Matthew

Chapter 14

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22. Καὶ εὐθέως ἠνάγκασεν τοὺς μαθητὰς ἐμβῆναι εἰς τὸ πλοῖον καὶ προάγειν αὐτὸν εἰς τὸ πέραν, ἕως οὗ ἀπολύσῃ τοὺς ὄχλους. And immediately he[1] made the[2] disciples get into the boat and go ahead of him to the other side, while he sent the multitudes away.

23. Καὶ ἀπολύσας τοὺς ὄχλους ἀνέβη εἰς τὸ ὄρος κατʼ ἰδίαν προσεύξασθαι. Ὀψίας δὲ γενομένης μόνος ἦν ἐκεῖ. And after he had sent the multitudes away, he went up into the mountain by himself to pray. And when evening had come, he was there alone.

24. Τὸ δὲ πλοῖον ἤδη μέσον τῆς θαλάσσης ἦν[3], βασανιζόμενον ὑπὸ τῶν κυμάτων, ἦν γὰρ ἐναντίος ὁ ἄνεμος. But the boat was now in the middle of the sea, distressed by the waves, for the wind was contrary.

25. Τετάρτῃ δὲ φυλακῇ τῆς νυκτὸς ἀπῆλθεν[4] πρὸς αὐτοὺς, περιπατῶν ἐπὶ τὴν θάλασσαν[5]. And in the fourth watch of the night, he[6] went to them, walking on the sea.

26. Καὶ[7] ἰδόντες αὐτὸν οἱ μαθηταὶ ἐπὶ τῆς θαλάσσης[8] περιπατοῦντα ἐταράχθησαν, λέγοντες ὅτι Φάντασμά ἐστιν. Καὶ ἀπὸ τοῦ φόβου ἔκραξαν. And when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, “It is a ghost!” And they cried out in fear.

27. Εὐθέως[9] δὲ ἐλάλησεν αὐτοῖς ὁ Ἰησοῦς, λέγων, Θαρσεῖτε. Ἐγώ εἰμι. Μὴ φοβεῖσθε. But immediately Jesus[10] spoke to them, saying, “Be of good cheer! It is I! Do not fear.”

28. Ἀποκριθεὶς δὲ αὐτῷ ὁ Πέτρος εἶπεν, Κύριε, εἰ σὺ εἶ, κέλευσόν με πρὸς σὲ ἐλθεῖν ἐπὶ τὰ ὕδατα. And answering him, Peter said, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the waters.”

29. Ὁ δὲ εἶπεν, Ἐλθέ. Καὶ καταβὰς ἀπὸ τοῦ πλοίου ὁ[11] Πέτρος περιεπάτησεν ἐπὶ τὰ ὕδατα ἐλθεῖν πρὸς τὸν Ἰησοῦν. And he said, “Come!” And stepping down from the boat, Peter walked on the waters to come to Jesus.

30. Βλέπων δὲ τὸν ἄνεμον ἰσχυρὸν ἐφοβήθη, καὶ ἀρξάμενος καταποντίζεσθαι ἔκραξεν λέγων, Κύριε, σῶσόν με. But when he saw the strong[12] wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink, he cried out, saying, “Lord, save me!”

31. Εὐθέως δὲ ὁ Ἰησοῦς ἐκτείνας τὴν χεῖρα ἐπελάβετο αὐτοῦ, καὶ λέγει αὐτῷ, Ὀλιγόπιστε, εἰς τί ἐδίστασας; And immediately Jesus stretched out the hand, took hold of him, and said to him, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?”

32. Καὶ ἐμβάντων[13] αὐτῶν εἰς τὸ πλοῖον ἐκόπασεν ὁ ἄνεμος. And when they got into the boat, the wind ceased.

33. Οἱ δὲ ἐν τῷ πλοίῳ ἐλθόντες[14] προσεκύνησαν αὐτῷ, λέγοντες, Ἀληθῶς θεοῦ υἱὸς εἶ. And those in the boat came and worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God!”

34. Καὶ διαπεράσαντες ἦλθον εἰς τὴν γῆν[15] Γεννησαρέτ. And when they had crossed over, they came to the land of Gennesaret.

35. Καὶ ἐπιγνόντες αὐτὸν οἱ ἄνδρες τοῦ τόπου ἐκείνου ἀπέστειλαν εἰς ὅλην τὴν περίχωρον ἐκείνην, καὶ προσήνεγκαν αὐτῷ πάντας τοὺς κακῶς ἔχοντας, And when the men of that place recognized him, they sent to all that surrounding region and brought to him all who were sick;

36. καὶ παρεκάλουν αὐτὸν ἵνα μόνον ἅψωνται τοῦ κρασπέδου τοῦ ἱματίου αὐτοῦ. Καὶ ὅσοι ἥψαντο διεσώθησαν. and they begged him that they might only touch the fringe of his garment. And as many as touched it were made whole.

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[1] NA-Text and Vg-St omit “Jesus”, thus rendering “he made his disciples”: א B D Origen (Book 11, Ch. 4) Chrysostom | TR: Jerome Bede and Theophylact. Scrivener says that the proper name was added here for the sake of a public lesson in a church. In fact, this is the concluding verse of a lesson in the old Byzantine lectionary (Chrysostom’s homily 49 ended at verse 22) or the opening verse in the traditional Latin lectionary, where the proper noun would have been added for clarity. Proper noun removed.

[2] NA-Text, M-Text and Vg-St omit “his” and renders “the disciples”: א C D L W Γ Δ 067 0106 ƒ¹ 28 33 700 1010 1071 1195 1216 1230 1241 1253 1646 Byz^pt it^d it^e it^f it^l arm geo Origen Chrysostom | TR: B K P X Θ Π f13 565 892 1009 1079 1242 1344 1365 1424 1546 2148 2174 Byz^pt it^a it^aur it^b it^c it^ff1 it^ff2 it^g1 it^h it^q vg^mss syr^c syr^p syr^h syr^pal cop^sa cop^bo cop^fay eth Diatessaron || The pronoun in Matt. 14:22 is likely a harmonization to the parallel passage in Mark 6:45 that uses the same wording at the beginning of the verse. The support for the inclusion of the pronoun is widespread and robust. It is possible that copyists in the 100’s or the 200’s added the pronoun after comparing their texts with the Diatessaron that reads Mark 6:45 after Matt. 14:21, not realizing that the beginning of the next verse was from Mark, not Matthew. Therefore, “his” (Gr. “αυτου”) has been dropped from the Greek text and the translation.

[3] NA-Text reads “σταδιους πολλους απο της γης απειχεν” (“many stadia distant from the land" instead of "in the middle of the sea"). The collective witness of the majuscules, including codex Sinaiticus and the minuscules is overwhelmingly against this reading. Origen, Hilary, Augustine, Jerome, Chrysostom, Bede and Theophylact read “in the middle of the sea”. Codices B and Θ are reflecting a reading that was possibly created by Tatian in his harmony of the gospels that was not received as the correct reading of the word of God by the Greek and the Latin fathers or Origen in Egypt. The Clementine vulgate, the vulgate of Stuttgart and the Byzantine compilations have not preserved this reading.

[4] Or: “ηλθεν” (came, Latin equivalent: “venit”) according to NA-Text and Vg-St: א B Diatessaron Origen Jerome Chrysostom Bede | TR: C*^vid D K L P W Γ Δ 0106 28 579 Byz syr^h cop^sa(mss) Theophylact. Both variants are strong and viable.

[5] NA-Text reads “την θαλασσην” (accusative instead of genitive): א B P W Δ Θ 084 0106 ƒ¹ ƒ¹³ 700 1241 Chrysostom | TR: C D K L 33 565 579 892 Byz Theophylact. The support for the accusative here is slightly better. Text adjusted.

[6] NA-Text and Vg-St omit “Jesus” and renders “he came to them”: Codices א B D Origen Jerome Chrysostom Bede | TR: Byz Diatessaron Theophylact || The proper noun was likely added to bring clarity for a reading in the church so one can know that the one who is coming to the disciples is Jesus. Therefore, the proper noun has been dropped from the text.

[7] NA-Text reads “δε” after the verb, meaning the same thing.

[8] NA-Text reads “επι της θαλασσης” (genitive instead of accusative): א B C D Θ 084 ƒ¹ ƒ¹³ 33 700 892 1010 1241 Chrysostom | TR: K L P W Γ Δ 0106 565 579 Byz Theophylact. The support for the genitive here is better. Text adjusted.

[9] NA-Text reads “ευθυς”, same word spelled differently.

[10] NA-Text brackets “Jesus”. The collective witness of the Greek majuscules and minuscules is overwhelmingly against the omission of the proper noun Jesus in this verse, including codex Vaticanus. A scribe noticed the error in codex Sinaiticus and corrected it in the 300’s or 400’s.

[11] NA-Text brackets the definite article before the proper noun “Peter”.

[12] NA-Text brackets “strong”. The collective witness of the Greek majuscules, the minuscules, the versions and patristic witnesses is overwhelmingly against the omission of “strong”, which was probably missed by homoeoteleuton (ανεμον ισχυρον, thus missing “strong”). A scribe noticed the error in codex Vaticanus and corrected it in the 500’s or 600’s.

[13] Or: “αναβαντων”, (“got up into”, NA-Text and Vg-St read, Latin equivalent: “ascendissent in”): א B D Θ 084 ƒ¹³ 33 700 892 1424 Diatessaron Jerome and Bede | TR: C K L N P W Γ Δ 0106 ƒ¹ 565 579 Byz Theophylact || Chrysostom uses the verb “επιβαντων”, which could be translated as “got on”. Matthew uses both verbs to refer to the action of “getting into the boat” (“get into” in Matt. 8:23 and 13:2 and “get up into” in Matt. 15:39). The parallel passage in Mark 6:51 uses “get up into” using a different wording, which rules out scribal harmonization. The Alexandrian verb is a strong variant for this verse.

[14] NA-Text omits “came”.

[15] NA-Text reads “επι την γην εις γεννησαρετ”: א B D W Δ Θ 084 0106 33 892 syr^h; C N ƒ¹³ 1010 1424 read like the NA-Text but without the preposition “εις”, but as this reading is probably a harmonization to Mark 6:53, it has been ruled out as valid reading for this passage. | TR: K L P Γ ƒ¹ 565 700 1241 Byz Origen (commentary on the gospel of Matthew Book 11 Ch. 6) Theophylact || Even though the external support is better for the NA-Text, Matthew tends to use “εις” to refer to a particular region like Nazareth here and “that entire region” in Matt. 9:29. On the other hand, he uses “επι” referring to ground/soil (Matt. 9:29, 10:29, 10:38, 13:23 and 15:35) or less specifically the entirety of the earth/land (Matt. 5:5 and Matt. 27:45). Therefore, in this context, we would expect Matthew to read “εις την γην γεννησαρετ”. Therefore, the Greek text remains unchanged.  

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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!