Let's return now to the famous variant in Matt. 5:22 (go here for Houghton's entry).
You guys, this is where the rubber meets the road (or, as we used to say in California, where the chili meets the cheese) -- examining actual variants. Let me walk you through what Houghton has to say and then I'll give you my final conclusion.
Houghton: " ... the majority of witnesses include the qualification eikē...."
Me: Agreed.
Houghton: The reading eikē "is missing from a few witnesses, some of which are weighty ...."
Me: Again, I have no problem with this observation.
Houghton: The longer reading could be the result of "a mitigation of the commandment never to be angry."
Me: This is true. Metzger argued this, as did Don Carson in both his Matthew commentary and his book The Sermon on the Mount.
Houghton: The longer reading is in keeping with the context since "there is a qualification in the comparable prohibition at Matt. 5:32 (allowing a justification for divorce), which provides a parallel for an original limitation here."
Me: Bravo! Houghton may have derived this observation from my NovT article. But there I also gave another example of qualification, namely the word "falsely" (pseudomenoi) in Matt. 5:11. As you know, this participle was placed in square brackets in UBS5, but UBS6 has removed the brackets from around the word. In short, then, I have argued that Matthew's Sermon on the Mount (as compared with Luke's) seems to have not one, not two, but three important qualifications.
a) Matt. 5:11: "When you are reviled and persecuted and lied about because you are a follower of me, be happy about it, unless, of course, what people are saying about you in true!"
b) Matt. 5:32: "I'm telling you that a man who divorces his wife causes her to commit adultery if she marries again, assuming, of course, that no fornication has occurred."
c) Matt. 5:22: "You have heard what your ancestors were told: 'You must not murder.' But I tell you that if you are only angry with a brother or a sister, you are in danger of judgment, unless, of course, you have a valid reason for your anger."
Houghton: The reading eikē "could have been omitted through assimilation, or possibly overlooked (it occurs at the end of a line in Codex Sinaiticus)."
Me: I couldn't agree more. Plus, if we take the work of Andrew Wilson seriously (following Royse), scribes were far more likely to omit something than add it.
Houghton: At the end of the day, "with several studies in favour of the originality of the longer reading and the limited attestation of the shorter reading, there is room for uncertainty."
Me: I'm confused. On the one hand, Dr. Houghton appears to be saying the variant is pretty much a toss up. Yet he still supports the shorter reading.
My conclusion? Despite the early and widespread attestation in favor of eikē, despite the real possibility that the shorter reading could easily have arisen in an attempt to make Jesus look less indulgent toward anger, despite the fact that an accidental omission may also account for the origin of the shorter reading, and despite all the "uncertainty" caused by recent studies, UBS6 continues to prefer the omission of eikē and even gives it a "B" rating (= "The Committee is fairly confident in this reconstruction of the text," p. 32). I obviously would have wanted the decision to go the other way (you can read my essay here).
Et voilà the "Scorecard" (Dave versus UBS6):
Dave: 0
UBS6: 1
Next up: John 3:13.
