Answering criticism of bigotry on Ephesians 5:22
Is it bigotry? Answering a critic
Is it bigotry to suggest that the term “submit” in Ephesians 5:22 is not in the original text and that translators who imported it into the text may be misled to believe that Christian submission is one-sided? Apparently, one of my readers has recorded his criticism saying that my view borders on bigotry. I set the challenge aside to craft a response when I had time to research a complete answer. I failed to answer in a timely fashion, and another project and ill health put this research on the back shelf. It is now time to provide the evidence for the missing verb in Ephesians 5:22. This post responds to the first part of the criticism that I copied below. I hope that my readers will find the discussion helpful.
First of all, your scholarship is shallow and you are showing a very judgmental attitude toward the translators. It borders on bigotry, I suggest you check your heart before the Lord.
FYI the verse 22 DOES have the word “submit” (upotasso) in it. Only two manuscripts–P46 and B have upotasso left out. “Submit (upotasso) IS in thousands of manuscripts, including Aleph, A, D, F, G, I, K, P, Psi, the Uncials, the Byzantine; ancient translations into Italic, Syriac, Georgian, and Slavic; and ancient quotations by Chysostom, Origen, Basil, Theodore, Ambrosiaster, Ambrose, Jerome, Pelagius, and Augustine (not to mention Ignatius, in the Epistle to the Philadelphians, chap IV). Why did the editors of the NA27 Greek text leave it out? If there’s a bias in this issue, it would seem to be one that wishes to avoid the submission of women to men as taught in this verse. The only major translation that seems to follow the NA27 at this point is the New American Standard. All the others–and rightfully so, given the manuscript evidence–follow vast majority of the manuscripts, and the critical editions such as the Majority Text, Stephanus, Scrivener, and render the verse, “wives, to your own husbands submit, as to the Lord”. (Submitted by Tom)
Why did the editors of the NA27 Greek text leave out the Greek word for “submit”?
Tom suggests that the bias is with the NA27 team. Did they want to avoid the issue of the submission of wives? Tom seems to suggest that at best the scholars who produced the Greek text of NA27 had no good reason to leave out “submit” in Ephesians 5:22 or at worst that they were themselves biased. I set out to look objectively at the evidence. I found several compelling reasons for the omission of the verb “submit”. I also found out that the NA27 is not the only Greek text that has the term omitted in Ephesians 5:22. The Lexham Syntactic Greek New Testament: SBL Edition (Society for Biblical Literature), the UBS 4th edition and the NA28 all leave out the verb in verse 22. There are also countless scholars and commentaries that note that the earliest manuscripts do not have the verb in verse 22. So, let’s have a careful look at the evidence. …
