The Westcott/Hort Nine
Luke 24:40

Text

24:39. [Jesus said to them] See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself; handle me and see, for a spirit has not flesh and bones as you see that I have.

24:40. And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet.

24:41. And while they still disbelieved for joy, and wondered, he said to them, Have you anything here to eat?

24:42. They gave him a piece of broiled fish,

24:43. and he took it and ate before them.

Commentary

The added verse is a physical realization of the offer in 24:39, and adds confirmation of Jesus' reality, much as does 24:43, where the proof is the actual process of consuming food. It debated in the early Church whether Jesus was not in fact a spiritual being, without ordinary corporeal reality; these verses as a whole make his corporeality definite, and the added verse underlines that point. That is, they take sides in that known, but later, controversy.

Metzger Commentary 160 asks "Was v40 omitted by certain Western witnesses . . . because it seemed superfluous after v39? Or is it a gloss, introduced by copyists in all other witnesses from Jn 20:20, with a necessary adaptation (the passage in John refers to Jesus' hands and side; this passage refers to his hands and feet)? A minority of the Committee preferred to omit the verse as an interpolation; . . . the majority, however, was of the opinion that had the passage been interpolated from the Johannine account, copyists would probably have left some trace of its origin by retaining thn pleuran in place of tous podas (either here only, or in v39 also)."

This majority scenario is unduly complicated by the assumption that the insertion, if such it was, was made separately by many copyists. In that case we might indeed look for at least one inadvertent failure to adjust the borrowed passage (if such was its origin) to context. But the addition is far more likely to have been made once, fairly high up the main line of transmission, and to have spread by multiplication thereafter. Considered as a single act, Lk 24:40 need only be done adroitly once, in order to be adroit for all. The philological life is easier when inventive copyists are also clumsy, but we cannot expect that to be always the case. It is also relevant to these considerations that the idea of a wound in Jesus's side rests, in Luke, on nothing whatever in the Crucifixion account, in Mark ditto, and in Matthew, on a phrase which is itself dubious as a possible interpolation. Someone working in a Lukan context, whether the original author of Luke or a later copyist, would thus have wide support for a mental picture of Jesus with wounds only in his hands and feet, and not an additional one in his side.

John as a possible source for these dubious readings in Luke does keep coming up, and deserves to be given weight accordingly. It is not however the only possibility here. The wish to make the picture more real, that is, more corporeal, especially in a world where the corporeality of Jesus had been denied by some Christians, would be intelligible also.

Conclusion

Omit as a later intensifying addition, whether or not partly inspired by John 20:20, adding to the vividness of the narrative but chiefly emphasizing the physical reality and presence of Jesus.

25 May 2006 / Contact The Project / Exit to Biblica Page