Chapter # 2 Paragraph # 3 Study # 14
Lincolnton, NC
August 7, 2005

<176> AV Translation: 33 And Joseph and his mother marvelled at those things which were spoken of him. 1901 ASV Translation: 33 And his father and his mother were marvelling at the things which were spoken concerning him; Textual Issues: In 2:33 the texts differ significantly. The Textus Receptus reads "And Joseph and His mother..." and the Nestle/Aland 26 reads "And His father and mother". In his textual commentary regarding 2:33, Metzger claims a rather high level of confidence that the actual name of His father (Joseph) was a later insertion that was made to soften the impact of the words "His father" (which would, if misunderstood, compromise the virgin birth doctrine by "admission" of the claim that Jesus was actually a typical father-begotten son). The reasoning is simple: if Joseph was "His father", then Jesus was not born of God. The reasoning is also illegitimately simplistic: there are other issues involved in the word "father" than only the identification of where the male sperm came from. Since it was in Luke 1:26-38 that Luke clearly established the virgin conception of Jesus so that He could be called "the Son of God" (1:35), it is impossible that Luke, by using the words "His father", meant to undercut his own presentation. But, that is not to say that Luke would not have used "His father" in his text. Mary, herself, used this terminology in 2:48 without any hint that she was denying her miraculous pregnancy. Since both the textual evidence and the fact that it is highly likely that someone else thought he saw a problem and removed it by changing "His father" to "Joseph", we will accept the legitimate text as "His father and mother...". Luke's Record: