CNT-07 THE VARIATIONS IN DIFFERENT EDITIONS

THE VARIATIONS IN DIFFERENT EDITIONS of the Greek New Testament, to which we call attention. In 1550, Robert Estienne, or Stephen, published at Paris a folio edition of the Greek New Testament. This edition was founded on comparatively few manuscripts, and those mostly modern, and was prepared in the infancy of criticism; but it was for a long time accepted as the standard text, on account of the high reputation of its editor. It differs very little—and in the Sermon on the Mount not at all,—from the Elzevir editions of 1624 and 1633, the latter of which assumed the name of Textus Receptus, or “received text,” and has been in common use for more than two hundred years. It also agrees sub­stantially with the text from which our common English version was made. Since the publication of Stephen’s edition, a vast number of Greek manuscripts of the New Testament have been examined, many of them very an­cient; the old versions of the New Testament in Syriac, Coptic, Latin, Gothic, Armenian, and other languages, and the numerous quotations by ancient Christian writers, have been compared with them, and all the differences noted. We have thus means of correcting errors in the imperfect text of the early editions named, incomparably superior to what we possess in the case of any classical author.

Now, that the reader may judge for himself as to this matter of the “various readings,” we have taken for example the Greek text of the Sermon on the Mount, according to the famous edition of Robert Stephen, as reprinted in Scrivener’s Greek Testament, Cambridge, Eng., 1877, with the various readings of Beza, the Elze­virs, Lachmann, Tischendorf, and Tregelles, to which we shall add those of Griesbach, the manual edition of 1805, his latest critical text; and Westcott and Hort, in 1881. Now what is the result of the examination of the variations from the so-called “received text,” collated from all these sources by various hands, and examined by these great, critical editors? How important are the changes required by the new evidence? A careful analysis will show that nineteen-twentieths of the various read­ings are of no more consequence than the palpable errata in the first proof of a modern printer, and their origin as the mere mistakes of the scribe is so obvious that no scholar would for a moment regard them as having any claim to a place in the text. Of those which remain and are more or less well-supported, probably nine-tenths are of no importance as regards the sense; the differences being so trivial that they affect the form of expression merely, or cannot be represented in a translation. Neither of these classes concerns us. We will then go through the “Sermon on the Mount” as it stands in King James’ translation, and give all the variations from the so-called “received text,” which any one of the editors above named has adopted as genuine, or has deemed worthy of any record; omitting only those which could not in any way affect the sense of the translation. We can thus judge just how much these “various readings," gleaned by learned men from all sources, through three hundred years of critical study, amount to.

It will be observed that our selection of the Sermon on the Mount for this comparison has not been made with a view to avoid any real difficulties, for this pas­sage contains one of the few really notable alterations observed in the later manuscripts, when compared with the earliest authorities, namely, the addition in the text of “the Lord’s Prayer,” of the words, “For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.” Mat 6:13. This addition, the origin of which is easily explained, it probably having been inserted by some copyist who heard it used in connection with other prayers, and supposed it belonged here, is of little im­portance, for we find the same ideas in many other places in the Bible (Rev 5:12; Rev 5:14; 1Ch 29:11); but it is far more important than most of the variations discovered.