Matthew 16:19–20

tc Most mss (א2 C W 𝔐 lat bo) have “Jesus, the Christ” (Ἰησοῦς ὁ Χριστός, Iēsous ho Christos) here, while D has “Christ Jesus” (ὁ Χριστὸς Ἰησοῦς). On the one hand, this is a much harder reading than the mere Χριστός, because the name Jesus was already well known for the disciples’ master—both to them and to others. Whether he was the Messiah is the real focus of the passage. But this is surely too hard a reading: There are no other texts in which the Lord tells his disciples not to disclose his personal name. Further, it is plainly a motivated reading in that scribes had the proclivity to add Ἰησοῦς to χριστός or to κύριος (kurios, “Lord”), regardless of whether such was appropriate to the context. In this instance it clearly is not, and it only reveals that scribes sometimes, if not often, did not think about the larger interpretive consequences of their alterations to the text. Further, the shorter reading is well supported by א* B L Δ Θ f1, 13 565 700 1424 al it sa.

tn Or “Messiah”; both “Christ” (Greek) and “Messiah” (Hebrew and Aramaic) mean “one who has been anointed.”

sn See the note on Christ in 1:16.