So you are saying the entire 18th chapter may be an interpolation? You mean just the 11th verse right?

He only means there’s no way to check pre-300 texts for whether the verse is in Matt 18 or not.

(We do need a category called Scriptology for textual transmission and other technical issues related to the scriptures. I’ll see what I can do about getting one set up soon. )

The rebuke in GosLuke (which also spans the end of verse 55) does fit ultimately with the gist of the previous material in the Markan and Matthean parallels, since the warning about being thrown in Gehenna in those texts is aimed at the apostles themselves (which Luke omits here and reports in a different context elsewhere more briefly – although he does save part of that rebuke, still aimed at the disciples, as the immediate followup to the story of the Rich Man and Lazarus in hades!) Not even counting the explicit warning finishing out Matthew 18, aimed at Simon Peter and the other disciples: “In just the same way My Father in the heavens will do to each of you*, if you are not forgiving your brother in your heart.”

Anyway, the part of the rebuke from verse 56 still survives in an undisputable way in GosLuke, as the conclusion to the (main?) story of the conversion of Zaccheus, at GosLuke 19:10.

(I say “main” because Luke goes on to to report the mina-servant warning immediately afterward with a transition explicitly stating He told this parable during the Zaccheus incident. Perhaps not incidentally, just like its parallel parable about the talentons in GosMatt 25, right before the judgment of the sheep and the baby goats, that judgment warning is aimed at professed servants of Christ with some authority, even if not with the more major levels of authority as the version told directly to the disciples in GosMatt! So thematically, one definitely original version of “seek and save the lost” is attached to a fatal rebuke warning aimed at Christ’s own servants; and the other two dubiously transmitted occurrences of “seek and save the lost” are attached to other fatal rebuke warnings aimed at Christ’s own apostles and chief disciples. The saying may not be original to Matt 18 and Luke 9, but it certainly fits there!)*

Paidion, I added more detail to the thread title so readers checking the title lists would have a better idea what the thread is about.

Thank you, Jason, for considering the possible addition of a category called “scripturology.”

Okay. You have explained why you added to the title of this thread, and I don’t object.

However, I just want you to know that I used the brief title “Added or Deleted” deliberately, thinking, since the readers wouldn’t know what it was about, that it would be more likely to arouse curiosity.

Right. When I said, “Unfortunately, no extant manuscript prior to 300 A.D. contains the 18th chapter of Matthew,” I was indicating that since the entire chapter does not exist in any extant pre-300 A.D. manuscript, then it is impossible to find verse 18 in any pre-300 A.D. manuscript that is available to us at this time.

The fact that no one presently possesses a manuscript containing chapter 18 that predates the year 300, in no way implies that no such manuscript existed prior to 300 A.D.

Forgive me my ignorance but where did the scriptures in question come from when our canon was established?

I was on the codex sinaiticus site they showed chapter 18

codexsinaiticus.org/en/manuscript.aspx?book=33&chapter=18&lid=en&side=r&verse=6&zoomSlider=0

Yes, Chapter 18 is in Sinaiticus. I was wrong. What I should have written is that verse 11 of chapter 18 is not found in Sinaiticus.
Because of what you wrote, I thought I’d better check out Vaticanus as well. I was also wrong about it. It, too, contains chapter 18.

However, no manuscript prior to 300 A.D. contains that chapter.

I am not finding any citations for Matthew 18 being completely absent in early manuscripts. Could you point me in the right direction?

For instance,

biblequery.org/mtmss.htm

I see no mention beyond 18:11 and a few variants in a half dozen other verses.

Certainly.

There are many papyri in existence (dated prior to A.D. 300): 1,4,5,9,13,15,16,18,20,23,24,27,29,30,32,37,38,39,45,47,48,4,52,53,64,65,66,67,69,70,72,75,87,90,92,95,98,100,101,102,104,108,109,110,111,114,
115, also some early uncials prior to A.D. 300 are extant, namely: 0162,0171,0189.

However, many of these papyri are but fragments. None of them contain the complete writings of the New Testament.

For example, Papyrus 1 contains only Matthew 1:1-9, 12, 14-20. That’s it! Not only is Matthew 18 completely absent but also Matthew Chapters 2-28, and all the rest of the books of the New Testament.

Papyrus 9 contains only 1 John 4:11-12, 14-17

One of the the oldest manuscripts with considerable content is Papyrus 66 which has been dated in the 100s. It contains most (not all) of the Gospel of John, and nothing else. I possess copies of the actual Papyrus 66 in Greek, all in capital letters and no spaces between words. Papyrus 75 is almost as old. It contains quite a bit of Luke and some of John. Papyrus 46 is dated in the 100s and contains parts of Paul’s letters, and Hebrews.

As far as I know, none of these papyri contains all parts of any Biblical book. So it is not at all surprising that Matthew 18 is missing from ALL of them.

No not surprising, and not as likely to lead to a conclusion that Mt 18 is an interpolation, but I would be interested to see what other chapters are likewise missing from all of them.

Actually, it never entered my head that Matthew 18 was an interpolation. However, it may be the case that verse 11 is. But even if it is, that doesn’t prove that Jesus didn’t utter the sentence. John wrote:“Now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.” (Last verse of John’s “gospel”)

Some things that Jesus said or did may have been added later by those who obtained the information from a different source. For example, the story of the woman taken in adultery was not originally in John’ s gospel. Yet I believe it is a true account, and that someone added it later when John’s gospel was copied. Many have placed it elsewhere. For example, the copier of one manuscript has placed it after John 21:25, another after Luke 24:53. According to Eusebius’s Church History, the story was found in “The Gospel to the Hebrews.”

Since I have copies of ALL of them, I can answer that question.
The following chapters are missing from all of them:
Matthew 7,8,9,15-19,22,27,28
Mark 1-3,10,13-16
Luke 19-21
John (none is missing)
Acts 1,20,21,22,24,25,27,28
Romans 7
1 Corinthians 14,15,16
2 Corinthians (none is missing)
Galatians (none)
Ephesians (none)
Philippians (none)
Colossians (none)
1 Thessalonians 3
2 Thessalonians 3
1 Timothy (all is missing)
2 Timothy (all is missing)
Titus 3
Philemon (none is missing)
Hebrews (none)
James (none)
1 Peter (none)
2 Peter (none)
1 John 1,2,3,5
2 John (all is missing)
3 John (all)
Jude (none)
Revelation 18-20

This gives you more information, but not complete information. Even the chapters that are NOT missing have verses missing in many cases.

So the - for some - controversial chapter 8 of John - is IN all of those sources?

Thanks, very interesting.

No.
In response to Eaglesway’s expressed desire to know what other chapters were missing in ALL the pre-300 available manuscripts , I listed the chapters that were missing in ALL of them. “None is missing” indicated that there is no chapter of John that is missing in ALL the pre-300 available manuscripts.

Ok, got it!

As a pastor, I really should be more aware of these kinds of issues than I am. I’m familiar with the most obvious ones, such as the woman caught in adultery and the end of Mark, but even in such cases, I’m often at a loss as to how to treat such passages. Should I skip them entirely, or preach them with a disclaimer? I’ve heard preachers preach them with disclaimers quite well. I’ve heard other preachers not give a disclaimer, yet subtly not treat them as authoritative (I kind of got that impression from Peter Hiett in a sermon on the woman caught in adultery, in which he quickly moved to Old Testament passages and used the passage in John 8 as more of an illustration…not sure if that was on purpose or not, but I did find it interesting).

Anyway, as Jason pointed out, pertaining to the Son of Man coming to seek and to save the lost, Luke 19:10 says the very same thing, and (as far as I know) there’s no question that this verse is authentic.

STP, there is no reason to suppose that the story of the woman caught in adultery was invented, even if John didn’t include that story in his memoirs of Christ. Likewise with Luke 9:56. As Jason, and now you, pointed out, "For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost,” is found in Luke 19:10.
I wish I could verify that with the pre-300 manuscripts. Unfortunately, none of the extant pre-300 papyri contain it. However, all three major codices, Vaticinus, Alexandrinus, and Sinaiticus contain the verse.

Whether or not such words are authentic is not the reason I brought up the fact of the omissions (in the earliest manuscripts) of the first part of Luke 9:56 and the story of the woman caught in adultery. As I have pointed out more than once, my purpose was to quash the false idea that they are omitted in the newer translations because the translators wanted to discredit them.

I agree. I do tend to think that the story in John 8 actually happened (or at least some version of it). So I would likely at least comment on the passage if I were preaching systematically through John. But I don’t think it was part of John’s original gospel account (just like the end of Mark). And if “preaching” is the proclamation and exposition of God’s word (the Bible), then it is just a little weird to “preach” a “passage” that wasn’t even originally in the Bible, but kind of found it’s way in.

Anyway, I see your point, and I completely agree. The newer translations were merely trying to be faithful to what the manuscript evidence points to. I guess what I was saying is just the same thing; in my preaching, I want to be faithful to the what the manuscripts point to.