Manuscript Tradition

Like the rest of the New Testament books, no original copy or fragment of Matthew’s Gospel exists today. Nevertheless, since Matthew was such a popular text in the early church, more papyrus fragments exist today for Matthew than for any other New Testament book except the Gospel of John. Nearly a dozen fragments of Matthew (p1, p37, p45, p53, p64/67, p70, p77, p101, p103, p104) date to the third century or before. The earliest complete or sizable copies of Matthew are from the fourth century: Codex Sinaiticus (א, ', 01) and Codex Vaticanus (B, 03) in Greek, Codex Vercellensis (ita, Beuron 3) in Latin, and Codex Schøyen (mae-2) in Coptic. There have been attempts to date the fragments of p64/67 as early as the first century (Carsten Thiede), but most textual critics favor a date around ad 200 (e.g., Peter Head, Tommy Wasserman).

Unlike Mark (16:9–20) and John (7:53–8:11), Matthew has no sizable passage that is added to or omitted from the manuscript tradition, but there are smaller differences between manuscripts. Several whole verses are missing in early manuscripts of Matthew (9:34; 12:47; 17:21; 18:11; 21:44; 23:14); these might be late additions reflecting attempts to harmonize Matthew with parallel passages in Mark and Luke.

Unique features of Matthew’s manuscript tradition include the following:

• Most early manuscripts do not record a concluding doxology at the end of the Lord’s Prayer (6:13).

• The analogy to the weather in 16:2–3 is absent from some important manuscripts.

• A few significant textual witnesses indicate that Barabbas’ full name was “Jesus Barabbas,” which results in a comparison between “Jesus Barabbas” and “Jesus who is called Christ” (27:16–17).

• Several of the earlier and better manuscripts add to 27:49 a comment about the crucified Jesus being pierced, which caused water and blood to flow. This statement was probably added based on John 19:34.

Most modern translations of the Bible note these and other differences between manuscripts.