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Delve into our New Testament Textual Commentary Articles. Enhance your Bible study with scholarly insights and interpretations.
What are the original words, what is the correct translation, and what is the correct meaning? Why is it somewhat more significant than might be thought? The original wording in Matthew 8:21 is ...
The meaning is changed when the fourth και (“and”) is included in this sentence or excluded from the sentence. This is not a significant change in meaning. Nevertheless, it is a change in translation and meaning. What are the original words, what is the correct translation, and what is the correct meaning?
It is no easy task here in deciding which reading was the original one. Both readings have early and weighty manuscript support and neither of the could be considered a difficult reading because they both make perfect sense. What tipped the scales ...
The beginning and the end. In the New Testament Book of Revelation, God says, “I am Alpha and Omega,” meaning that he is the beginning and end of all things. In the Greek alphabet, alpha is the first letter and omega is the last. “Alpha and omega” refers to God’s sovereignty and eternal nature.
There can only be one reading, which is the original reading. The reading that the other reading(s) most likely came from is likely the original. This is the fundamental principle of textual criticism.
Variation Unit: any portion of text that exhibits variations in its reading between two or more different manuscripts. It is important to distinguish variation units from variant readings. Variation units are the places in the text where manuscripts disagree, and each variation unit has at least two variant readings.
Jude 1:5 refers to Jehovah—not Jesus—as the one who saved Israel. Internal consistency and Jude 9 confirm “the Lord” is the Father, not the Son.
TEXTUAL PRINCIPLE: The more difficult or awkward reading is often preferable. The reading at first will seem to be more difficult or awkward to understand, but after further investigation, it will be discovered that a scribe deliberately or mistakenly changed the text to an easier reading.
Variant Reading(s): differing versions of a word or phrase found in two or more manuscripts within a variation unit (see below). Variant readings are also called alternate readings.
We will explain why these twelve verses were not in the original and should not be in the main text of our modern Bible, even in square brackets like the New American Standard Bible (NASB), and the Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB) have them. John 7:53-8:11 should be in a footnote with an explanation because the verses are early. It is an account that sounds very much like an incident Jesus would have been involved in. As John tells us at the end of his Gospel, Jesus did many things, which no book could hold all, and far more of what Jesus did was passed by oral tradition and was not chosen by the Holy Spirit to be in the original Gospels. But that does not mean that this one cannot be in a footnote.
