A TEXTUAL CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF HEBREWS 2:9

Hebrews 2:9 has been the subject of much debate sense Bart Ehrman had written his work Misquoting Jesus where Bart Ehrman had denied the traditional reading of "by the grace of God" in the passage. We're going to get into the manuscript evidence, but first I want to discuss the issue as we delve deeper into this. in this blog I will be doing a textual critical analysis of, as well as discussing, Hebrew 2:9.

THE ISSUE

Almost all manuscripts read "by the grace of God" (more on that in a minute), but the issue is that Bart Ehrman wrote a book for a popular audience that became a best-seller where he made a case for the other reading that only appeared in three Greek manuscripts (more on that one in a minute too) in his book Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why (Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus, 2005). Bart Ehrman write:

"Although almost all the surviving manuscripts state that Jesus died for all people 'by the grace of God'...a couple of others state, instead, that he died 'apart from God'...There are good reasons for thinking that the latter, however, was the original reading of the Epistle to the Hebrews" (Ehrman, p. 145).

However, is that the case? The Greek words under consideration are χάριτι Θεοῦ (transl. chariti Theou, pron. car-it-ee The-oo, tran. "by the grace of God") and χωρις θεου (transl. chōris Theou, pron. cō-ris The-oo, tran. "apart from God"), as also noted by Ehrman (Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus, p. 145). The reading that is found in almost all Greek manuscript is the reading χάριτι (χάρις) Θεοῦ & it is the other reading, namely χωρις (it's lexical word) θεου, which is found in very few Greek manuscripts as we should see.

In a minute we are going to examine the case Ehrman brings for this reading in his book, but for right now understand that Bart Ehrman is claiming two things with this argument: 1) If he's right he's trying to establish the idea that a particular reading can vanish nearly completely from the manuscript evidence, and 2) that this particular reading changes the meaning of the entire book. Let's see if he's right on either position.

THE MANUSCRIPT EVIDENCE

The manuscript evidence for χάριτι Θεοῦ is staggering. Almost every Greek manuscript possesses the reading, including our earliest uncials & papyrus manuscripts. It is found in p46 (middle of the second century), א (Codex Sinaiticus), B (Codex Vaticanus), A (Codex Alexandrinus), C (Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus), D (Codex Claromontanus), & numerous miniscule manuscripts as well! From our earliest manuscripts & down through the line, nearly every Greek manuscript contains the reading χάριτι Θεοῦ without question.

In fact, we only have two Greek manuscripts that contain a different reading, χωρις θεου, in all of our Greek manuscripts, each of them dated to about 1,000 years after Christ! Then you may ask, what's the problem then? The issue, even as it was raised up by Bart Ehrman (Ehrman, p. 145), is the fact that one of these two manuscripts is miniscule 1739. Although this manuscript dates to around the tenth century (Ehrman, p. 145), it was most probably copied from a second to fourth century manuscript. It shows uncanny agreement with p46 and B, suggesting a nearly unbroken sucession between p46, B, & miniscule 1739 (Philip Comfort, 2005, Encountering the Manuscripts: An Introduction to New Testament Paleography & Textual Criticism, pp. 89-90). Commenting on this manuscript, Bart Ehrman said:

"I don't need to go into the intricacies of the manuscript support for the reading 'apart from God' except to say that even though it occurs in only two documents of the tenth century, one of these (Ms 1739) is known to have been produced from a copy that was at least as ancient as our earliest manuscripts" (Ehrman, 2005, Misquoting Jesus:The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why, p. 145).

Bart Ehrman goes on to claim that Origin, a third century scholar & church father (although rather he was a church father is a matter of dispute), claimed that most of the manuscripts had contained the reading "apart from God" even in his day (Ehrman, 2005, p. 145). Although Dr. Ehrman had claimed this, he never cites from Origin, & neither did he provide any information in neither a footnote nor an endnote to where Origin had said this. He also had not cited even any sources for his information on this either. Others have also said that they are unaware of where Bart Ehrman had said this, such as James White in his debate with Bart Ehrman.

I took the liberty of searching for this quote myself, including recently from the date of this post, and I cannot find any reference to it in Origin's writings. On the surface, this assertion appears made up, unless Ehrman is getting his information from a sendhand or a thirdhand source which he never voices. Either way, it appears suspicious. However, even if Origin had said this it would not mean that it goes back to the original. The MT (Majority Text) actually changes over time, & if a particular varient gets popular, it could wound up in the MT, but this isn't the same as a particular reading disappearing nearly completely from the manuscript evidence. The evidence would suggests that the reading χωρις θεου was never apart of the MT, therefore this concept ought to be rejected.

However, the NA28 Ed. does claim that at least some manuscripts that pertain to Origin might have address the varient (NA28, apparatus, p. 659). There are at least one version outside of the Greek MSS which includes the reading as well, the Latin the Vulgate. Along with this a number of church fathers from the third century to the 11th century has cited these passages (NA28th, p. 659; & Ehrman, 2005, Misquoting Jesus, p. 145). However, in spite all this, no early Greek church nor apostolic father nor writer spoke of this reading. Since the NT was written in Greek not Latin, this is quite telling.

Concerning this passage Manson gives the reading "by the grace of God" (χάριτι Θεοῦ) an "A" for its probably that this particular reading goes back to the original text, & then he adds:

"The reading in the text is very strongely supported by good representatives of both the Alexandrian and the Western text-types. But a rather large number of Church Fathers, both Eastern and Western, as well as a few other Greek manuscripts and early versions have the more difficult reading χωρις θεου (apart from God)...The reading χωρις θεου may have arisen by error as a copyist misread χάριτι. More probably, when a copyist read the words 'putting everything in subjection under his feet' in v. 8, he remembered the words 'it is plain that he is excepted who put all things under him' from 1 Cor 15:27b. So the copyist wrote the word χωρις in the margin of v. 8 to explain that the word 'everything' in v. 8 does not include (χωρις) God. Then a later copyist thought that χωρις written in the margin was a correction of the word χάριτι in the text of v. 9 and introduced χωρις into the text itself" (Roger L. Omanson, A Textual Guide to the New Testament, 2006, pp. 454-455).

By "early versions" he probably means the Latin Vulgate, but I'm not aware of any other versions. The NA28 just give the text found among certain church fathers beyond the Vulgate (labled as "vg" in its apparatus, p. 659). However, as for that last statement by Ominson above as for his reason that he thinks is most probable for the reading χωρις is what text critics call a gloss. This is where someone would write something in the margins of a manuscript & a later scribe not knowing if this was something the earlier scribe just forgot to put in, or if it was a commentary on a particular verse, would then, to be better safe than sorry, would insert the reading in the text. This is what textual scholars call a "gloss" & it is the most reasonable explanation for the word χωρις being inserted in some of the manuscripts. Of course, we can't mind-read scribes that lived over a thousand years ago. It's possible that the reading could've also occur because the two words are very similar to each other.

When we weigh the evidence it seems if this reading, χωρις θεου, was the original reading it would have not disappeared so utterly from the manuscript evidence. We have nearly 5800 Greek NT manuscripts, and some of these are quite early. They are going all across the Roman empire, being written by various scribes & different time periods. This also gives us multiple lines of transmission by which to reconstruct the original text. We do not expect an utter disappearance of an entire reading like this. My verdict is that, although some MSS might have possessed the reading χωρις θεου, The likelihood (of the highest probability) this does not go back to the original text. I imagine the reading probably dates back to the early third century sense it was likely cited at some point by Origin (possibly, although Ehrman fells to give us any references where this is found in Origin's extant writings), but not to the original NT. There is no doubt in my mind that χάριτι Θεοῦ, "by the grace of God," wins out & it is most likely the original reading of the text.

THEOLOGY & MEANING

Let's flip the script for a few minutes. Let's say the original reading was "apart from God" (χωρις θεου), what would that impact? Even if this was the original meaning nothing would be alter by this sense this would be no different than Jesus saying, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" in the text. This would not alter Christian theology in the slightest, & this has been acknowledged by Bart Ehrman. However, Ehrman has other ideas concerning this passage. He had said:

"After laying out these methods, I will illustrate how they can be used by focusing on three textual variants found in our manuscript tradition of the New Testament. I have chosen these three [this would include Hebrews 2:9] because each of them is critical for interpreting the book it is in; what is more, none of these variant readings is reflected in most of our modern English translations of the New Testament. That is to say, in my judgment the translations available to most English readers are based on the wrong text, and having the wrong text makes a real difference for the interpretation of these books" (Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus, 2005, p. 127).

We have already dealt with the evidence that shows why most translations, & both of the Greek printed texts of the NT has these readings. It is because of how good the evidence is for favoring these readings that he's talking about (see my blog post, "A Textual Critical Analysis of Mark 1:42", located in this site, for more insight into another alternate reading that he is referring to). Notice how Bart tries to make an illogical leap from attacking manuscripts to attacking Bible versions. This is misleading to someone who doesn't know all of the data needing to be examined.

However, what about the rest of his comments? This is a bold claim. Ehrman is claiming that the meanings of an entire book changes with some of these readings. This, too, is an illogical leap on the part of Ehrman. Books are made of more than just one verse or word. In addition to this, in order for someone to say that the context would fit either passage, this means the book would not change its meaning sense the context would fit just as easily. If you, then, argued that the context doesn't fit the passage, then the verse is likely not original in the first place. Either way, a single verse difference would not affect the meaning of an entire book!

THE CONCLUSION

Let me reiterate, the evidence for the reading "by the grace of God" is so strong in the manuscript evidence that this leaves very little doubt. This is why most scholars side with the reading χάριτι Θεοῦ. This is also why the vast majority of English translations also side with it as well. Furthermore, even if the original reading was really "apart from God" nothing theological would be affected by it. This would align just as perfectly with the Gospels as the verse "by the grace of God" would be. Both readings would fit the context, so this change, if any, would not impact the meanings of entire books. Books of the Bible are always made up of more than one verse so such interpretations are both illogical & unsound.

We must be careful to not let works like Misquoting Jesus mislead our thinking. Also, we must always look at the evidence.

Brian K. Bowen