Skip to main content
Bible Q

Why does the ESV have “Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt” (Jude 1:5 ESV)?

Answered by . May 22, 2023 - 7:27 am

The ESV was the only version to have “Jesus” following the Alexandrian text where other versions have “the Lord” following the majority of manuscripts. The NRSVUE 2021 has now followed suit.

1:5 Now I desire to remind you, though you are fully informed, once and for all, that Jesus, who saved[f] a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe.
footnote [f] 5 Other ancient authorities read “informed, that the Lord who once and for all saved” (NRSVUE 2021)

The NRSVUE has recently switched Jesus/Lord between main text and footnote to put Lord in the footnote rather than main text.

The United Bible Society committee which produced the UBS Greek text NA27 in Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament has this comment on Jude 1:5:

Despite the weighty attestation supporting Ἰησοῦς (A B 33 81 322 323 424c 665 1241 1739 1881 2298 2344 vg cop, bo eth Origen Cyril Jerome Bede; ὁ Ἰησοῦς 88 915), a majority of the Committee was of the opinion that the reading was difficult to the point of impossibility, and explained its origin in terms of transcriptional oversight (ΚΧ being taken for ΙΧ). It was also observed that nowhere else does the author employ Ἰησοῦς alone, but always Ἰησοῦς Χριστός. The unique collocation θεὸς Χριστός read by P72 (did the scribe intend to write θεοῦ χριστός, “God’s anointed one”?) is probably a scribal blunder; otherwise one would expect that Χριστός would be represented also in other witnesses. The great majority of witnesses read ὁ before κύριος, but on the strength of its absence from א Ψ and the tendency of scribes to add the article, it was thought best to enclose ὁ within square brackets.

Additional comment follows by Bruce Metzger:

[Critical principles seem to require the adoption of Ἰησοῦς, which admittedly is the best attested reading among Greek and versional witnesses (see above). Struck by the strange and unparalleled mention of Jesus in a statement about the redemption out of Egypt (yet compare Paul’s reference to Χριστός in 1 Cor 10:4), copyists would have substituted (ὁ) κύριος or ὁ θεός. It is possible however that (as Hort conjectured) ‘the original text had only ο, and that ΟΤΙΟ was read as ΟΤΙΙΣ and perhaps as ΟΤΙΚΣ’
(A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, 2nd Ed., p. 657).

In NA28 however the newer committee has gone with “Jesus” rather than “the Lord” – without this in any way changing either the Greek manuscripts or the freedom of English Bible versions to continue to follow the majority Greek text if they wish.

There is an additional possible factor not mentioned in UBS TCGNT, but which has been aired in commentaries, and that is that Jesus is a copying error caused by confusion with Joshua. Jesus being the same word in Greek and used in Acts 7:45 for the Joshua (Jesus) who led the Jews into the promised land.

 

 

No Comments yet!