| The Omission of Christ’s Names and Titles in the Greek Critical Text |
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By G. W. Anderson Editorial Note: This article was originally published in Quarterly Record 524, July 1993. It has been edited and updated to reflect the changes in modern versions and the Critical Text in the intervening time. It indicates a vitally important matter: since ‘Every word of God is pure’ (Proverbs 30.5), this must also include every Divine name and title. Few Christians would challenge the idea that some of the most important of the Bible’s lessons deal with the names of God. In Exodus 3.14 God Himself proclaims His name to Moses: ‘I AM THAT I AM’. This would be His name forever, His memorial unto all generations (Exodus 3.15). This is rendered LORD in most formal translations in English. When He sent His angel to announce the coming birth of His Son, the angel proclaimed the Son’s name, ‘JESUS’ (Luke 1.31). This Jesus would be the Lord’s Christ (Matthew 1.16, Luke 2.26). This was the long-awaited Messiah of Israel, the Saviour of the world. The Greek New Testament, which for more than four hundred years was the basis of New Testament translation, frequently repeats these glorious names and titles. As the Hebrew Masoretic Text includes thousands of references to the LORD, so the Greek Textus Receptus reminds us constantly of the name of God the Son and of His titles. He is Jesus, Christ, Jesus Christ, Christ Jesus. There is not a single page of the New Testament that fails to bring our minds to rest upon Him. The Greek Critical Text, however, differs in many ways from the traditional Textus Receptus of past centuries, primarily in the omission of words, phrases, and verses that are found in the majority of manuscripts but not in the two main manuscripts upon which these Critical Texts are based.1 According to those who uphold the Critical Text, there is no doctrine in Scripture that is adversely affected by these omissions. However, there are two doctrines that are strongly affected: the doctrine of the inerrancy and infallibility of Scripture, and particularly the doctrine of the person, name, and titles of the Lord Jesus Christ. The first of these, the impact of the Critical Text upon the inerrancy of Scripture, is discussed in numerous publications and in other Trinitarian Bible Society articles. In addition, the Trinitarian Bible Society’s article no. 100, A Textual Key to the New Testament, lists 575 omissions from the traditional text which affect Scripture.2 However, the matter of the omission of the name and titles of Jesus Christ merits special attention. Those who stand against the Textus Receptus deny that the Critical Text of the New Testament harms doctrine in any way. They are particularly vigorous in their denial that the testimony concerning the Lord Jesus Christ is in any way affected. James White asserts that there ‘is no conspiracy by the modern Greek texts to hide or downplay the Lord’s majesty or deity through the “deletion” of His titles’.3 It does not have to be a modern conspiracy, however, nor does it need to be a conspiracy at all (though we know heretics did tamper with Scripture in the early centuries). The key question is not the intent behind them but rather the result of these omissions. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate that there are major omissions which betray a grave weakness in the Critical Text. This weakness is demonstrated in the problematic way in which the person and name of the Lord Jesus Christ are portrayed in this text. This weakness and problem concerns the omission of the divine names ‘Lord’, ‘Jesus’, ‘Christ’, ‘Jesus Christ’, and ‘Christ Jesus’ in the Critical Text (using the Nestle-Aland 28th edition). The following material is a list of the omissions from the Critical Text of the name and titles of the Lord Jesus. These were compared with the readings found in the English Standard Version and other versions based upon the Critical Text that claim to follow the principle of translation known as ‘formal equivalence’; the ESV calls its approach ‘essentially literal’.4
Since these versions usually follow what is included or omitted in the Greek New Testament, it can easily be seen whether or not the Greek Critical Text omits these Divine names. The versions all have an ancestry in the American Standard Version (ASV) and the Revised Version (RV). They are the New American Standard Bible (NASB), New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition (NRSVUE), Christian Standard Bible (CSB), and Legacy Standard Bible (LSB). Other translations such as the New International Version and the Good News Bible are based on the Critical Text yet in many instances the translators include these Divine names, but for the wrong reasons. Quite often these versions substitute nouns when the Greek has pronouns. Thus ‘he’ and ‘him’ in the Greek Text are replaced by ‘Jesus’ many times in order to give ‘added clarity’. With these and other versions which use paraphrasing and ‘dynamic equivalence’ methods of translation it is impossible to tell what has been added for the sake of clarity or convenience and where there has been a deviation or variation from the Critical Text. There are 163 instances in which the Critical Text omits or disputes the precious name or titles of the Lord Jesus Christ
Examples: Matthew 4.18, 1 Corinthians 1.8, and 1 Peter 5.10. This figure also includes the omission of five whole verses in John 7.53–8.11. It also includes nine times where a pronoun is substituted for the name ‘Jesus’ but not three occasions where ‘Lord’ is substituted for ‘Jesus’.
Examples: Matthew 23.8, John 6.69, Romans 1.16, 1 Corinthians 9.18, and Galatians 3.17. This figure includes six instances where ‘the Lord’, ‘God’, or ‘Jesus’ are substituted for ‘Christ’. While this may not seem so bad as an omission it still potentially removes the Saviour or His Messiahship from the verse. It also includes a further two verses where Christ is omitted twice and one instance (1 Corinthians 1.8) where Christ is disputed and included in brackets in the Critical Text. It is omitted by N.T. Wright’s New Testament for Everyone translation.5
Examples: Matthew 28.6, Luke 22.31, and Romans 13.14. This figure includes seven instances where ‘Jesus’, ‘Christ’, or ‘God’ are substituted for ‘Lord’. This figure also includes the omission of two whole verses, Mark 16.19–20, containing the name Lord.
Romans 16.25, 27, 1 Corinthians 16.22, Ephesians 3.9, and 2 Timothy 4.22. This also includes Acts 8.37 which is omitted as a whole verse including the phrase ‘Jesus Christ is the Son of God’.
Romans 16.24, Ephesians 3.14, and Colossians 1.2.
Galatians 6.15. There are some instances in which the Critical Text omits the names or titles of Christ, but the English Standard Version, contrary to the formal equivalence translation principles which were used, insert that name. Instances in which this is done, from the list of omissions above, are listed below.
Examples: Matthew 8.3, 2 Corinthians 4.6, and Philippians 3.12.
Acts 20.21, Romans 16.20, and 1 Corinthians 1.8 (in the last Christ is disputed and included in brackets in the Critical Text).
Romans 16.25 and Romans 16.27. It is important to note that this great omission of Divine names and titles does not destroy the significance of the name of Jesus. Just as we do not formulate doctrine on the basis of just one verse, the precious name of Jesus is used throughout the New Testament, giving support for the true doctrine of who Jesus is. The omission of His names and titles does, however, adversely affect this doctrine and others. The effect of these individual omissions falls into three areas: Firstly, like any other textual variant the omissions affect the individual verses or passages of Scripture in which they are rightly found. Secondly, they reflect how the Critical Text detracts from the person and work of Christ. Some people may still wish to deny that this is the case, but these omissions, combined with the verses in the Critical Text which omit the deity, virgin birth, and redemption through Jesus’ blood, make it apparent that there is something significantly wrong with this text. (E.g. John 3.13, 1 Timothy 3.16, Luke 2.33, Colossians 1.14.) Thirdly, the omissions reflect unfavourably upon the modern translations, of which much is made regarding the accuracy and fidelity to the text of the Greek New Testament. It is true that in various places some of these versions try to correct these failures, but they are being unfaithful to their Greek text, in reality they have created their own variety of it. How do defenders of the Critical Text explain the omissions? Rather than assuming that the Word of God must be handled uniquely, they apply the assumptions of secular textual criticism which assume that the text being analysed has been corrupted at an early stage and evolved. These assumptions include the idea that the shortest and the most difficult readings are most probable. They follow the rationalistic idea that Scripture is less likely to have originally been harmonious with other parts of Scripture and its overall message. Such assumptions are asserted but not proved; indeed it is doubtful how they could be proved. Critics assume that orthodox scribes were more likely to add the names and titles of Christ by the ‘expansion of piety’ through a desire to bring out orthodox Christology more prominently. Thus, they make orthodox believers rather than heretics the ones who deliberately altered Scripture. They make these assumptions even though studies have shown that scribes were far more likely to omit than to add.6 Another theory is that the traditional reading is from a later period when ‘readings from other text-types were put together (“conflated”) into the Byzantine reading’. This conflation theory was, however, refuted by Ernest C. Colwell as long ago as 1947.7
In 1 Corinthians 5.5 the majority of manuscripts, including one of the earliest, read ‘the day of the Lord Jesus’ while the Critical Text based on a few of the older manuscripts omits the word ‘Jesus’. But there is an early manuscript that reads ‘the day of our Lord Jesus Christ’. If indeed it was an ‘expansion of piety’ in the manuscripts of the traditional text, why did the scribes not expand it fully? There is no evidence that it is any later a reading than the one preferred by the Critical Text. Clearly there are many undisputed times where all of Christ’s titles are used in the New Testament, but these are not evidence of expansion.8 Another example is also instructive. In Luke 23.42 the dying thief’s prayer is not the same in the Critical Text. It omits ‘Lord’ from the text, and he is only recorded as addressing Christ as ‘Jesus’. But the Received Text reading is well supported by early manuscripts as well as the vast majority of them. It is also present in the ancient translations and the early Church Fathers such as Tatian in the second century. There are no Church Fathers who cite the text as recorded in the Alexandrian Text. This is neither a later addition nor a pious expansion. It is rather an important omission. The name ‘Jesus’ means Saviour. As John Murray observes, the ‘first name by which our Lord is identified is that which bespeaks salvation’.9 Therefore, there must be nothing which stands in the way or clouds the issue regarding the name of Jesus. It is true that the person of Jesus is not dependent upon the number of times His name is used. However, it must be seen as a grave deficiency for such omissions to take place. We must uphold each and every occurrence of this wonderful name. In every verse in which there is an omission we lose something. We lose, among other things, the sound of His lovely name. As John Murray has so aptly said, ‘How sweet is the name of Jesus to the contrite sinner’.10 May the people of God continue to rejoice every time we see in print or hear His wonderful, precious name. Published in Quarterly Record 651. Endnotes
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