The
position in the question, that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is not original to
Matthew 28:19 is held today by very few scholars. Those that do point to a
quotation from the early church historian Eusebius. In Demonstratio 3.6, he replaces "name of the Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit" with "my name."
This is then taken as a direct quote
from the copy of Matthew he was using and the conclusion is then reached that
the long version of Matthew 28:19 was added later. Also, it is concluded that
the short reading was purposefully suppressed.
The originality of the short version
of the verse fails in regards to both physical/manuscript evidence and logic.
Manuscript Evidence I: Matthew
Even though critics of
trinitarians claim there is a mountain of historical evidence, there actually
isn't. Another answer on this site lays out the manuscripts
of Matthew. No manuscript of Matthew is known that has the short form of the
verse. Even though the critical texts used by scholars lay out all kinds of
textual variants throughout the NT, my copy of NA-27 does not list any variants
on Matthew 28:19. Even though it lists out variants on 18 and 20, there are
none for 19. When looking beyond Greek, all ancient translations have the long
reading of Matthew (Latin, Syriac, etc).
One might point out the Hebrew translation of Matthew
known as Shem Tob. While it does not have the long reading, it
does not count for several reasons.
1.
It dates from the late 1300s (the
medieval period, not antiquity). Far too late to be of any significant textual
help.
2.
It doesn't even have the short
reading of "baptizing in my name." Instead, Matt 28:19-20 reads
"Go and teach them to carry out all the things which I have commanded you
forever." It mentions nothing of baptizing at all.
Bart Ehrman, a noted textual critic who is neither a
Christian nor a trinitarian (in fact, he describes himself as an agnostic)
agrees that the long form of the verse is original. The same blog
reproducing Ehrman on this passage has a statement from another New Testament
scholar who is also an authority on Eusebius. He notes:
1.
Eusebius' short form (Demonstratio
3.6, 7(bis); 9.11; Hist. Eccl. III.5.2; Psalms 65.6; 67.34; 76.20 (59.9 not the
same reading); Isaiah 18.2; 34.16 (v.l.); Theophania 4.16; 5.17; 5.46; 5.49;
Oratio 16.8) is the only textual
evidence for the short reading
2.
Eusebius tends to abbreviate
elsewhere
3.
Eusebius quotes the long form in Contra Marcellum
I.1.9; I.1.36; Theologia III. 5.22; EpCaesarea 3 (Socrates, Eccl.Hist 1.8);
Psalms 117.1-4; and Theophania 4.8
It is worth noting that Eusebius in Demonstratio
Evangelica, one of the places where he is supposed to be quoting the short version of Matthew 28:19, also "quotes"
Philippians 2:9. However, the statement is certainly not a quotation:
Eusebius writes is as:
God bestowed on him the name above every name, that in the
name of Jesus every knee shall bow of things in heaven and on earth and under
the earth.
However, the full text is:
Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him
a name which is above every name: That at the name of Jesus every knee should
bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth;
Eusebius is certainly refering to
Phil 2:9f, but his writing of it is not a quotation.
Manuscript Evidence II: Quotation from
the Church Fathers
Text critics don't just look at
manuscripts of the text. They also examine quotations of passages in early
writers. All quotations of Matthew 28:19 that include the "name"
formula have the long version and not the short.
·
Didache
7:1 Concerning baptism, you should baptize this way: After
first explaining all things, baptize in the name of the Father, and of
the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, in flowing water
·
Tertullain On Baptism paragraph 13 Go, he says, teach the
nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father and the
Son and the Holy Ghost.
·
Tertullian Against Praxeas, chapter 2
says, "After His resurrection ..He commands them to baptize into the
Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost".
·
Gregory Thaumaturgus (205-265 AD) in
A Sectional Confession of Faith, XIII
·
Hippolytus (170-236 AD says in
Fragments: Part II.-Dogmatical and Historical.--Against the Heresy of One
Noetus,
·
Cyprian (200-258AD) in The Seventh
Council of Carthage Under Cyprian
·
and others
In total, searching only those Fathers prior to Nicea, I
found 24 quotations of Matthew 28:19 using the full formula. There were no quotations
amongst these writers with the short version. There were also quotations of the
verse where they stopped prior to the list of names (i.e. "he commanded us
to teach all nations"). I did not count those. In several of these, the
full quote provides the basis for the argument supplied in the rest of the
paragraph.
Triune Formulas Elsewhere in the New
Testament
Even if Matthew 28:19 as we now know
it is an addition, that does not eliminate the other trinitarian formulas
present in the New Testament.
·
At the baptism of Jesus, all three
persons are present (Matthew 3:16-17; Mark 1:10-11; Luke 3:21-22; John 1:32).
·
2 Corinthians 13:14 The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you
·
1 Peter 1:2-3a ...who have been
chosen and destined by God the Father and
sanctified by the Spirit to
be obedient to Jesus Christ and
to be sprinkled with his blood: May grace and peace be yours in abundance.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!
Logical Evidence
A third way in which the longer form
can be seen to be original is to simply apply logic to the argument for the
shorter as a conspiracy. The argument is that some faction of the Church
(obviously representing the majority as this view won):
1.
Wanted the trinity formula in
Matthew.
2.
Willfully altered manucsripts of
Matthew 28:19.
3.
Sought out and destroyed all manuscripts of Matthew
28:19 containing the short reading.
4.
Then went through the writings of the
Ante-Nicean Fathers and altered their quotations of Matthew, destroying all
other copies.
However, these conspirators, who had so little respect for
Scripture that they altered it and were so careful as to destroy every copy of
Matthew with the short reading, left intact the so-called original verse in
Luke 24:47 (which is not a
baptismal formula and is not a parallel to Matthew 28:19)* and all references
to Jesus' name baptism in Acts and the Epistles! If this willful alteration is
being done in Matthew, why stop there? Why not change Luke 24:47; Acts 2:38;
8:12, 16; 10:48; and 19:5? These five verses in Acts all refer to Jesus' name
baptism or being baptized in Jesus' name (once, in the name of our Lord). None
of them have textual variants of a trinitarian formula. Logically, if the
conspirators made the change once, they would make the change in other places.
At the time which this conspiracy is supposed to have taken place (Nicea, AD
325), the de-facto canon had been used and recognized since Iraneus. Matthew,
Luke, and Acts were already recognized as Scripture.
*Matthew 28 takes place in Galillee
while Luke's is in Jerusalem. Luke contains only statements of repentance and
remission of sins while Matthew also speaks of teaching and baptism.
Another failing of this conspiracy is
that they missed Eusebius, one of their contemporaries. Eusebius was a
trinitarian and a powerful figure in the church. Yet, while they changed all
quotations of Matthew 28:19 from the short to long in all the Ante-Nicean
Church Fathers, they missed a few places in Eusebius but got his others. How
did they manage to get all of the others yet miss some of one of their own?
If this were a conspiracy, it was a
rather inept conspiracy as it left intact so many other verses in Scripture
while managing to replace all versions of Matthew 28:19 with the new one.
Scholars such as F. C. Conybeare1 have claimed
that the Trinitarian baptismal formula of Matthew 28:19 was not original to the
text of Matthew.
Matt 28:19 (NIV)
19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations,
baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy
Spirit,
In other words, was the phrase in the text "In the name
of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" inserted at a later
date (say, for example, by the First Nicean Council of AD 325)?
Luke 24:47 (NIV)
47 and repentance for the forgiveness of sins would be
proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from
Jerusalem.
Another question on this site had covered some
questions relating to the final portion of the Gospel of Matthew in part,
however my question is whether or not there is any historical and textual
evidence that the particular text of Matthew 28:19 appeared later?
