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A Note on Matthew 6:33

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 August 2011

William H. P. Hatch
Affiliation:
Episcopal Theological School, Cambridge, Massachusetts

Extract

The first half of Matthew 6: 33 presents a difficult problem to the textual critic, and the leading editors of the New Testament have solved it in different ways. The textual authorities offer several variant readings, but none of them is satisfactory from every point of view. However, it is possible by means of a highly plausible conjecture to obtain a text which makes excellent sense.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1945

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References

1 א g2 k l m (semel) vg. (3 MSS) Tert. Cyp. Aug.

2 E G K L M S U V Δ Θ Π minusc. pler. a b c f ff1 g1 h m (semel) aur. vg. (pler. et WW) Syr. cur. pesh. hl. hier. Geo. Aug. Hil.

3 301 Clem. (bis) Iust.

4 According to the texts of Westcott and Hort and von Soden βασιλεία τῶν οὐρανῶν occurs 32 times and βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ only 4 times in Matthew. According to Tregelles and Tischendorf the ratio is 33 to 3.

5 It should be noted that Tregelles did not have access to Codex Sinaiticus until he had almost finished his work on the four Gospels.

6 Lachmann published his edition before the discovery of the New Testament part of Codex Sinaiticus.

7 I.e. τῶν οὐρανῶν instead of τοῦ θεοῦ after τὴν βασιλείαν and his kingdom and his righteousness.

8 Cf. Wellhausen, J., Das Evangelium Matthaei (second ed., Berlin, 1914), p. 29Google Scholar. Wellhausen himself calls this expedient only a “Notbehelf.”

9 A similar misunderstanding of an Aramaic pronominal suffix seems to have given rise to the reading αὐτοῦ in Luke 2: 22. See Hatch, W. H. P. in The Harvard Theological Review, XIV, pp. 377Google Scholar ff.

10 The particle δέ is due to the translator.

11 Cf. e.g. Matt. 4: 23; 8: 12; 9: 35; 13: 19; and 24: 14.