John 13:31-32 - (h.t.)

John 13:31-32 (traditional text)

οτε ουν εξηλθεν λεγει ο IΣ νυν
εδοξασθη ο υιος του ανθρωπου
και  ο θεος εδοξασθη εν αυτω
  ει  ο θεος εδοξασθη εν αυτω
και  ο θεος  δοξασει αυτον εν
εαυτω και ευθυς δοξασει αυτον
Then as He left, Jesus said, "Now
is glorified the Son of Man,
and God is glorified in Him:
if God is glorified in Him, 
God also will glorify Him in
Himself, and glorify Him immediately!"

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INCLUDE LINE:
א(Corr.2), A, C(Corr.), K, Δ Θ ψ, f13, 33, 157, 565, 700, 1241, 1424, Maj (Majority of all continuous MSS)

Lat(aur(C), e, f, ff2(C), q, r1, vg), Sy-P, sa, bo(pt), goth, Or(Lem), Nestle/Aland-25th ed.

OMIT LINE: P66, א*, B, C*, D, L, W, X, Π*, f1, 2*, 579, 1071, al, L253,
it(a, aur*, b, c, d, ff2*, l, 11A, 29, 47), vg(mss), Sy-S, Sy-H, ac2, mf, bo(pt), Westcott/Hort (1882)

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Westcott/Hort follow their favoured manuscripts, Codex Vaticanus/Sinaiticus (B/Aleph).
The UBS text places the line in single brackets, because it can't bring itself to firmly commit to the obvious Haplography, due to the ongoing (and increasingly embarrassing) deference for the early Alexandrian witnesses, chiefly Aleph/B.

But here even Nestle balked, and left the traditional text alone.


The only 'modern' version to follow Westcott/Hort here is the old American Standard Version of 1901. Virtually every New Testament scholar since Hort (1882) has long since abandoned defending this absurd omission by the old Uncials, and no modern translation has been willing to adopt the cut.

Even the support of Papyrus 66 (P66) gives no confidence in this boner, in which the original two lines differ by only a single letter! But the error was old, and copied by those using the Alexandrian manuscripts as their master-copies. Thankfully, independant and uncontrolled copying prevailed, preserving the line in the majority of MSS.

Its not that this omission is catastrophic to the passage, which retains reasonable sense without it. But no scribe/editor would insert an unneeded complex conditional clause (an "If...then" statement) into a flat monologue, especially when it adds absolutely nothing to the message.

The lesson is plain however: the Alexandrians were indeed prone to dropping lines and failing to correct them, allowing many such worthless variants to sneak into the copying stream. And it really is a worthless variant, when it adds nothing to the text either way.