Proponents of.modern English versions of the Bible very often talk about the minimal or negligible effect of word differences between the received text and the modern critical text of the New Testament.  These men might show a side by side of either of the two texts and their translation to show how few changes appear.   They very often say that few doctrines change or no doctrine is lost.  Do the differences between the Textus Receptus and the Novum Testamentum Graece matter?

Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount

In the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5:18, Jesus says:

Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.

I’m not going to tell you what that means about preservation.  I’ve written about it already and it’s also self-evident.  Instead, I want you to go down to Matthew 5:43, really the same context of 5:18:

Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy.

Jesus here talks about what the Pharisees did and that He found from religious leaders in their tradition.  In 5:44, Jesus continues:  “But I say unto you.”

The “but” is a strong adversative, a strong contrast.  The Pharisees did something, but Jesus did not and would not.  He did not come to destroy the law like they would have done.  The Pharisees did change the meaning of scripture and they also did that by changing a few words.  Look back at 5:43 above.  What did they change?

The Subtraction of Two Words

The Pharisees subtracted just two words.  Those two words would not have stood out in the comparison of a proponent of the modern critical text.  “Thou shalt love thy neighbor” quotes Leviticus 19:18, which says:  “thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.”  What two words did they subtract?

The Pharisees in their tradition left out the words, “as thyself.”  Perhaps you remember what Jesus taught in Luke 10, defining neighbor.  They changed the meaning of neighbor that permitted them not to love their neighbor.

The strategy or technique of the Pharisees was reduction or minimization.  They reduced God’s Word to something they could keep on their own.  Part of how they did that obviously was the removal of few words, like two of them from Leviticus 19:18.

Jesus promised that not even letters would pass from the law, but two words is what textual critics might call a small amount.  One way to reduce what God said was leaving words out.  Today modern textual critics will say something like only two percent difference between the Nestles-Aland and the Textus Receptus.

“As thyself” wasn’t teaching, “Love thyself.”  No, everyone already loves himself or least knows how he wants treated.  Paul wrote in Ephesians 5:28, “So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies.”  No one wants reduction of the love for himself, so that descriptor maximizes love, gets it to where it is actual love.  This is very similar to all the other illustrations that Jesus uses in verses 21 to 48 to explain righteousness that exceeds that of the Pharisees (5:20).

Two Words Do Matter

If two words don’t matter, then “Thou shalt love thy neighbor” is probably good enough.  However, those two words do matter, because they bring the love to something exceeding that of the Pharisees.  The Pharisees could easily reduce love to their own understanding of it without those two words.

Let’s say that we start by saying that the very Words of God are perfect Words.  Subtracting words matter if the very words are perfection.  Even if only “the message” matters or “all the doctrines” matter, two words will matter to God.

Supreme Court and the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights

I was listening briefly today to the Louisiana Solicitor General argue before the Supreme Court for a proper interpretation of the United States Constitution on the freedom of speech.  His particular case was new.  No one had argued about freedom of speech regarding censorship of social media.  This Solicitor General told the nine justices he was a free speech absolutist and a free speech purist.

Freedom of speech in the United States comes down to two words really, “abridging the.”  The next three words are “freedom of speech.”  The government cannot abridge the freedom of speech and maybe they did that by coercing or encouraging social media companies to censor.  Did that violate that right in the Bill of Rights?  Not much language exists on that right, so one or two words is important.

Jesus Himself made the point of the importance and effect of two words with their subtraction in Matthew 5:43.