Why was this text altered?

[Paidion]

Here is the way John 14:17, as it appears in Papyrus 66 (in modern Greek characters). This manuscript was produced about 150 A.D.

το πνα της αληθειας ο ο κοσμος ου δυναται λαβειν οτι ου θεωρει αυτον ουδε γεινωσκεται υμεις γεινωσκεται αυτον οτι παρ υμειν και ενυμιν εσται

The “πνα” was an abbreviation for “πνευμα” (spirit). The verse tells us that the world system (ο κοσμος) is not able to receive or perceive him (“αυτον” is a masculine pronoun) or understand. You understand him (“αυτον” again) because he remains beside you and will be in you.

However, somebody, made some changes in the text, probably somebody in the 4th or 5th century.

το πνα[/oveline] της αληθειας ο ο κοσμος ου δυναται λαβειν οτι ου θεωρει αυτον(1) ουδε γεινωσκεται (2) υμεις γεινωσκεται αυτον(3) οτι παρ υμειν και ενυμιν εσται

(1),(3) “αυτον” was changed to “αυτο” by deleting “ν” with a dot above and a slash through the letter.
(2) “αυτο” was added super linearly.

By changing “αυτον”(masculine) to “αυτο” (neuter), the tamperer may have thought he was simply correcting the grammar, by making the pronoun agree in gender with the neuter noun “πνευμα”, Or he may have had a theological reason for doing so --- namely, to avoid giving personality to the Holy Spirit.

The copyist who originally wrote Papyrus 66 may have simply been sloppy in copying. He may have written the masculine “αυτον” by mistake, or John the apostle himself may have actually written “αυτον” in order to indicate that the Holy Spirit was personal, and not a mere force.

Any thoughts?

[dizerner]

Nice, some textual criticism. My best guess is that the change was motivated by grammar, because it seems to me John sometimes violated grammar to make a theological point (scholars say how terrible the grammar is in the book or Revelation yet I feel it was the difficulty of John wanting to express the story just so).

Another interesting point on this verse is the καὶ ἐν ὑμῖν ἔσται. (Joh 14:17 NA28) You'll notice in your copy of P66 that note e specifies that estin was changed to estai. We've got the two readings "who is in you" or "who will be in you," and that's also a very theological nuance. Metzger says:

14.17 menei … estai {C}

A majority of the Committee interpreted the sense of the passage as requiring the future estai, which is adequately supported by P66c, 75vid a A Q Y f13 28 33vid 700 syr s,h al.

The NET Bible is even a little more helpful and tells us:

14:17 tc Some early and important witnesses (66 *B D *W 1 565 it) have ἐστιν (estin, "he is") instead of ἔσται (estai, "he will be") here, while other weighty witnesses ({66c, 75vid א A D1 L Θ Ψ f 13 33vid as well as several versions and fathers }), read the future tense. When one considers transcriptional evidence, ἐστιν is the more difficult reading and better explains the rise of the future tense reading, but it must be noted that both 66 and D were corrected from the present tense to the future. If ἐστιν were the original reading, one would expect a few manuscripts to be corrected to read the present when they originally read the future, but that is not the case. When one considers what the author would have written, the future is on much stronger ground. The immediate context (both in 14:16 and in the chapter as a whole) points to the future, and the theology of the book regards the advent of the Spirit as a decidedly future event (see, e. g., 7:39 and 16:7). The present tense could have arisen from an error of sight on the part of some scribes or more likely from an error of thought as scribes reflected upon the present role of the Spirit. Although a decision is difficult, the future tense is most likely authentic. For further discussion on this textual problem, see James M. Hamilton, Jr., "He Is with You and He Will Be in You" (Ph. D. diss., The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2003), 213- 20.

[Paidion]

Thank you, Dizerner, for sharing what you learned.

I find it totally thrilling that we, in our day, have the opportunity of examining a reproduction of a text from around 150 anno domini!

Here is a copy of the page from Papyrus 66 in which the text was altered. You may be interested in seeing this for yourself (Verse 17 begins in line 11 and goes to the end):