by Yuri Kuchinsky

(as posted to various discussion groups in January 2004)

In the first part of this article, we have seen that, for no apparent reason, our modern textual scholars have decided to accuse Jesus Christ of lying. Only a very few manuscripts have such a divergent reading, and not even our earliest manuscripts. From the textual point of view, there is really not much of a case there for such a serious accusation, and any appeal to the Lectio Difficilior rule of TC -- the only argument that these modern revisers have left to them -- doesn't help much, since its use doesn't seem legitimate in a case like this, even assuming that the rule itself is legitimate.

Now, in Part 2 of this article, let us look at how the "Western" family of manuscripts really treats this highly controversial passage of John 7:8. As we shall soon see, the idea that Jesus was a deceiver really seems to be there explicitly only in a small minority of these ancient witnesses, contrary to what one may conclude based on our standard modern editions of the NT, such as the Nestle/Aland.
 

"WESTERN" TEXTUAL FAMILY & JOHN 7:8

And so, anyone who examines the textual apparatus of any of our mainstream editions of the NT will be left with an impression that the "Western" family of manuscripts mostly lends support to the "revised" reading of verse 8, that portrays Jesus as a deceiver. But, in actual fact, the situation is not nearly that simple.

Instead, what we find is that, in the overwhelming majority of what are known as "Western" witnesses, this rather odd idea is nowhere to be found in the stark form in which we see it in our modern editions; perhaps it is only loosely implied there. So it seems like the way in which these modern editions present their textual evidence is heavily slanted towards a pre-determined conclusion.

We have already seen, in Part 1 of this article, how, in these mainstream editions, all our ancient textual witnesses are divided for us into two categories, the ones that feature the word OUPW (or its equivalents in other languages) vs. the others that feature OUK. One is led to think thereby that, on the basis of our early MSS, either Jesus is portrayed as a deceiver in this passage, or he's not so portrayed -- there doesn't seem to be any middle ground there.

Even in the mainstream UBS editions of THE GREEK NEW TESTAMENT, which usually have the most detailed listings of witnesses (these editions consider only a limited number of textually difficult passages, but the ones that are considered are typically considered in a greater detail), all our textual evidence is still slotted in the same two categories. But this really creates an erroneous impression of what these manuscripts actually do say.

For example, the ancient Old Syriac Aramaic Curetonian manuscript is listed in all mainstream editions of John as featuring OUK (i.e. the equivalent of this word in Aramaic). So, naturally, any scholar examining the Apparatus will conclude that, in this manuscript, Jesus is portrayed as telling a lie...

Well, here is what this manuscript actually does say (in Dr. Burkitt's translation), and it's not at all clear that Jesus is saying anything in any way inappropriate here,

(John 7:8 SyC) Go ye up to this Feast; I go not up to _the_ Feast, because not yet the time for me is accomplished.

Go to the feast yourselves; I am not going up to _this_ feast (eiV thn eorthn _tauthn_), for my time has not yet fully come."

So what we see here is that, in Aramaic, Jesus' reply is sufficiently ambiguous to remove any solid grounds for an accusation that he might have deceived his relatives... In a manner of speaking, the testimony of this ancient Aramaic manuscript seems to stand somewhere in between the two stark extremes, that the Nestle/Aland edition wants to limit us to.

And here is the Aramaic text. First, the transliteration, then the pronunciation, and then an interlinear translation.

Jn 7:8 Curetonian

)ntwn sqw l(d(d) hn),
)n) l) slq  )n) l(d(d),
mTl dl) (dm) lh$) $lm
zbn) dyly,

Antwan sqoo l'Adedao hana;
enay lo sl'q, enay, l'Adedao,
metul d'lo adama l'hasha shlama
zabna diyly

You go up to this Feast;
I go not up, I, to the Feast,
because not yet is accomplished (shlama)
the time for me

(Above, I've modified Dr. Burkitt's translation a little, so that to make it even more literal.)

As for the Old Syriac Sinaitic manuscript, it reads differently here, and stays pretty close to the Greek manuscripts that were relied upon by the RSV editors when they produced their translation. (But it's well known already that the OS Sinaitic is in general much closer to Egyptian Greek MSS, so no surprise there.)
 

THE LATIN VERSIONS -- THE VULGATE

And now, let us look at how various Latin manuscripts are treating this text. Again, we will find all sorts of ambiguities in these ancient Latin witnesses, that seem to remove any solid grounds for an accusation that Jesus was a liar.

When we look at how the Editorial Committee summarised the evidence of the Latin witnesses, as cited in Part 1 of this article, they indicate that most Old Latin MSS, as well as the Vulgate, feature the equivalent of OUK in this passage (while two OL MSS, "f" and "q", do feature /nondum/, the Latin equivalent of OUPW). Well, while this may be technically correct, yet this tends, once again, to create a somewhat false impression as to what the majority of Latin witnesses actually do say here.

So let us begin with the Latin Vulgate. This is how it presents this verse,

http://www.servi.org/latin/John.pdf

(John 7:8)  Vos ascendite ad diem festum hunc. Ego non ascendo ad diem festum istum, quia meum tempus nondum impletum est.

"Go you up to this festival day: but I go not up to this festival day, because my time is not accomplished."

What this translation has completely missed, unfortunately, is the ambiguity that is inherent in the Latin expression /dies festus/. Because, in actual fact, /dies festus/ can mean both "the feast" in general, but also "any particular day of the feast". The Feast of Tabernacles, of course, goes on for a whole week, so this would allow a somewhat broader interpretation of this Vulgate passage.

In other words, the Latin text allows us to interpret the words of Jesus as "I'm not going up to the feast on this particular day", i.e. his reply can be understood as "I may be going later".

Now, some people might think that I've just come up with this explanation all by myself, and that nobody has interpreted these Latin words before in such a way? Well, not quite... In fact, this is an explanation that had already been offered way back 1600 years ago! And it was none other than St. Augustine who offered it.

So here's St. Augustine, himself, both in English and Latin.

http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/NPNF1-06/npnf1-06-100.htm

Sermon CXXXIII

    On the words of the gospel of
    John vii. 6, etc., Where Jesus said
    that He was not going up unto the
    feast, and notwithstanding went up.

The words themselves solve the difficulty.
That feast was kept for many days. "On
this", that is, this present "feast day", saith He,
this day, that is, when they [his brothers]
hoped, He went not up; but when He
Himself resolved to go. Now mark what
follows, "When He had said these words,
He Himself stayed in Galilee." So then
He did not go up "on that feast day". ...

... He said, "I go not up," that He might be
hid; He added "this," that He might not
lie. Something He expressed, something
He suppressed, something He
repressed; yet said He nothing false, for
"nothing false proceedeth out of His
Mouth."

http://www.augustinus.it/latino/discorsi/discorso_170_testo.htm

(Underlines below reflect the direct citations from John, following the presentation at this website.)

Ipsa verba solvunt quaestionem.
Multis diebus agebatur ille dies festus. _Ad
istum_, utique hodiernum _diem_, inquit,
_festum_, istum utique hodiernum quando illi
sperabant, non ascendit; sed quando ipse
disponebat. Denique attende quod sequitur:
_Haec cum dixisset, ipse mansit in Galilaea._
Ergo non ascendit _ad istum diem festum._ ...

... Non ascendo, inquit, ad diem
festum. Dixit: Non ascendo, ut occultaretur;
addidit: istum, ne mentiretur. Aliquid
intulit, aliquid abstulit, aliquid distulit; nihil
tamen falsi dixit, quia nihil falsi de eius ore
procedit.
 

THE OLD LATIN MSS

And now, here's what the Latin side of Codex Bezae, this very famous old manuscript, has for this passage; it seems to allow a very similar interpretation, but even more so, in my humble opinion,

(John 7:8)  Vos ascendite in diem festum. Ego non ascendo in hunc diem festum ...

"You go up to the feast; I am not going up on this day of the feast...

As to the other surviving Old Latin manuscripts of John, the important divergence in two of them ("f" and "q") has already been noted, and this is even listed in our mainstream UBS editions.

Generally speaking, there's some considerable variability in this verse among our Old Latin MSS, but these differences are mostly minor in character (with some important exceptions), and they only affect the degree to which Jesus' words might be misinterpreted to lend support to a negative accusation such as this.

And so, in summary, it sure looks to me like _none_ of our Latin manuscripts of John really support an explicit accusation that Jesus was trying to deceive anyone... Plus, we can add to this the witness of the Old Syriac Curetonian manuscript, that basically falls in the same category.

In a manner of speaking, these Latin and Aramaic manuscripts seem to form a very large "grey area" that doesn't really fit in into the narrow picture, as presented for us by our mainstream editions of the NT, where only two alternative readings are indicated for this passage... In reality, most "Western" witnesses seem to read somewhere in between these two alternatives, but hardly any of them really go so far as to provide any solid grounds for an accusation that Jesus deceived anyone at all.

To be sure, in a standard textual apparatus, such as the Nestle/Aland's, it is very difficult to summarise in a short form all the ambiguities of a difficult passage such as this... But, still, in my opinion, the way Nestle/Aland's slots the Curetonian Aramaic MS together with all the witnesses that contain OUK -- as if this Aramaic MS fully supported Jesus being untruthful in this verse -- comes pretty close to a misrepresentation of textual evidence.

END OF PART 2
 

In the fourth part of this article, I will bring in even more textual evidence (from both the Old Latin and Greek MSS) that seems to cast some considerable light on the history of this passage. None of this is listed in our recent mainstream editions of the Greek NT, unfortunately... So I will suggest that _neither_ of the two readings, as presented in our mainstream editions, may have been the earliest. Because there actually exist yet some other important variant readings for this verse that may be more original -- the readings that are not even mentioned by Aland et al.! (Still, one of these readings had been discussed by the late great Rudolf Bultmann.)

Also, my analysis of John 7:5, which seems quite relevant to the problems that we've been considering, will also be included in Part 4.

Go to any of the other parts of this article.

Go to Yuri's NT Scandals and Controversies Page.

Go to Yuri's New Testament Research Page.