
Codex Sinaiticus, Revelation 21.41
Most people wouldn’t know, but the above screenshot is actually really funny. This is the cool thing about knowing ancient, dead languages: I’m in on the joke, but you aren’t, and I know that it’s funny. It’s a sophisticated form of gatekeeping, like when scholars include lengthy citations in German or French in their works without translating them, so that only people in the scholar-club can make any sense of what’s on the page (I wish they wouldn’t do that as much!).
But, as they say, “it’s lonely at the top,” so today I’m going to throw down the ladder. Don’t say that I never gave you anything: after you read this article, you too can be in on the joke! And you too will be able to gatekeep this exclusive joke from your friends, peering down from your lofty heights as one among the few, the chosen, who know why the above image is funny.
Background: Scribes and Manuscripts
Some background is necessary to understand this exclusive joke, before I reveal it in its full glory. Contrary to the belief of some2, the Bible as we have it today did not “drop out of the sky.” Rather, from a traditional view of these texts’ essence, God inspired the canonical texts in history, and after that act of inspiration those texts continued to exist in history.
In antiquity, there was no printing press, and certainly no internet. In our modern context, I can pick up my copy of The Resurrection of the Son of God by NT Wright3, and know with almost certainty that what I’m holding in my hand is equivalent to Wright’s manuscript, coming almost immediately from his computer. However, the ancients did not have it so lucky. In the absence of any particularly sophisticated printing technology, scribes were employed for the purpose of producing copies of books. However, whenever something is produced by a human rather than a machine, it will always have a certain “human touch” associated with it. And, in this case, that “human touch” is imperfection.
When it comes to the Scriptures, on the whole scribes were rather faithful. Christians and Jews were, of course, the ones who produced these manuscripts: therefore, we would expect them to take relative care to produce accurate copies of the books upon which their religion was founded. So variants in the Biblical text do not really account for any major doctrinal difference; no matter one’s view on most of these variants, if they believe what they read, they will still come out as orthodox Christians. But, these scribes are not perfect. Therefore, while there certainly do exist identifiable changes to the text which were intentional,4 most were accidental.
Over centuries of copying, small errors accrue. Eventually, “family trees” of copies start to form, as one manuscript (the “parent”) is copied to create multiple “children.” The children contain the errors of the parent, while also potentially introducing their own small errors. But a manuscript copied off of a different “parent” would have the errors of that manuscript, while perhaps not having the errors of a different “parent.” So what tends to happen is “clumps” of manuscripts form which all read a certain way, and other “clumps” of manuscripts which read differently. And these “clumps” are approximately geographical, but not necessarily so.5
According to the terminology used by experts in this field, a “variant,” is one way a passage reads in a set of manuscripts, which may be compared to other “variants,” how a passage reads in other manuscripts. An “error” is any variant which is not what the original author wrote down.
Think of of this like a game of telephone: the original speaker says, “strawberries are sweet.” Later down the line, someone repeats, “blueberries are sweet.” Even later, someone says, “the blueberries were sweet.” All phrases repeated are “variants,” with one of them being original (here “strawberries are sweet”). So, knowing the original phrase, we can classify the others as errors.
One significant difference between manuscript copying and the telephone game is that, in manuscript copying, you have multiple lines, corresponding to the “clumps” we discussed earlier. So perhaps you have a different line, which also starts with “strawberries are sweet,” but later says, “strawberries are bitter.” This would be a different “clump” or “family,” with different errors.
Knowing this is the case then, what is to be done? Do we have any hope of knowing what was originally said? We have much hope, because we have data! What is left, after the data has been collected, is to weigh the options, to determine which is most likely the original message. “Strawberries” is the subject in two independent streams of transmission, so the decision may be made that “strawberries,” and not “blueberries,” was the original subject of the sentence. This would be weighing the external evidence, which is determining from the transmission data which option is original. Similarly, given the two predicate adjectives in the transmission, “sweet” and “bitter,” it may be decided that “sweet” was original, because it does not make much sense for fruit to be identified as “bitter.” This would be weighing the internal evidence, which is determining from the internal logic of the text which option is original: “bitter” simply does not fit.
This above is a simplified version of how Textual Criticism is practiced,6 except, rather than reconstructing messages about fruit and how they taste, the goal is to reconstruct verses or sections of the Bible to determine what the text originally said.
This Particular Variant
With necessary background out of the way, all that remains is to explain what precisely it is that the “funny” image pictures. This is an image of a particular page of Codex Sinaiticus, which is a very old7 copy of the New Testament,8 the history of which is a roller-coaster ride akin to Indiana Jones (look it up, if you get the time!).
For this post, it is important to know that Codex Sinaiticus is not some random manuscript without any weight. Rather, Sinaiticus is one of the most significant manuscripts we have for the New Testament, as one of a set of very reliable, very ancient manuscripts referred to as the “great Alexandrian codices.” It may rightly be said that when Codex Sinaiticus speaks, oftentimes we know with relative certainty that its words reflect those of the Apostle.
However, in Revelation 21.4, within Codex Sinaiticus lies a variant which I have not seen anyone talking about, let alone be printed in our Bibles! So, I propose, we take a look at and see just what it’s saying. This is the great Codex Sinaiticus after all, so we could say that the external evidence is good: it’s in a “clump” which is considered reliable.
Revelation 21.4 is a familiar text, so it probably there is probably no need to repeat it. For convenient reference, however, I will put it here in its familiar form:
καὶ ἐξαλείψει πᾶν δάκρυον ἐκ τῶν ὀφθαλμῶν αὐτῶν, καὶ ὁ θάνατος οὐκ ἔσται ἔτι, οὔτε πένθος οὔτε κραυγὴ οὔτε πόνος οὐκ ἔσται ἔτι· [ὅτι]9 τὰ πρῶτα ἀπῆλθαν.10
“And he will wipe away every tear out of their eyes, and death will exist no longer; neither will mourning, nor crying, nor pain exist any longer: [for] the former things have passed away!” – Rev. 21.4
The great Sinaiticus speaks thus:
και εξαλιψει παν δακρυ εκ των οφθαλμων αυτων και ο θανατος ουκ εσται ετι ουτε κραυγη ουτε πενθος ουκ εσται οτι τα προβατα απηλθεν11
I’ve made bold the word I’d like to compare: notice in the text we’re used to, the Greek word employed is πρῶτα, but in Sinaiticus, it’s πρόβατα. I’ve also underlined in red the word we’re looking at in the actual photo of the manuscript below.

Codex Sinaiticus, with the word in question, “πρόβατα,” underlined.
So, what’s the difference between these two readings? Why is Sinaiticus’ reading not what we print in our Bibles today? The words certainly sound similar; the difference is one of an added syllable: PRO-ta versus PRO-ba-ta. But the meaning is vastly different.
Here in the text, God is speaking, and he answers the question: “why will there be no more mourning, no more crying, no more pain any longer?” And, in Codex Sinaiticus, God gives a perplexing answer:
“And he will wipe away every tear out of their eyes, and death will exist no longer; neither will mourning, nor crying, nor pain exist any longer: [for] the sheep have passed away!” – Rev. 21.4
So, on the basis of this reading, I suggest that it ought to be the Church’s task to slaughter all the world’s sheep, to hasten our Lord’s coming! Are you mourning? Crying? In pain? Take it out on a sheep!
So the reason we don’t print Codex Sinaiticus’ reading here is because it’s clearly ludicrous, like someone calling strawberries “bitter” in our telephone example. We would say that the internal evidence is overwhelmingly against this variant’s chances of being original, since it doesn’t make any sense in context. But I find it quite funny, and I love it. The scribes who copied Codex Sinaiticus clearly believed it to be ludicrous as well, as the “οβα” in “πρόβατα” is crossed out, with “ω” above it, making “πρῶτα,” the reading which is more familiar to us. Although the image is grainy, I’ve attempted to zoom into the manuscript enough so that the crossed-out text, and the “ω” above, can be seen:

Codex Sinaiticus, zoomed in to show the correction of “πρόβατα” to “πρῶτα”
And, although this is clearly not the original reading, those scholars who compiled the UBS critical edition of the Greek New Testament though it good to cite it as a significant variant:

The United Bible Societies’ treatment of this variant, p. 851 of the UBS Greek New Testament. Notice at the very end Sinaiticus is cited, and we see “τὰ πρόβατα” next to א*, which is a symbol which means “Codex Sinaiticus prior to being corrected.”
And I’m glad they did, because this is how I find out that this variant existed! I was just reading along; I was in my undergraduate at Cedarville at the time, and a chapel speaker had just spoken on this text. And I saw this in the margin, and thought it was the funniest thing ever, because it was the funniest thing ever.
And now you’re in on the joke! I hope you found this funny: I only ask that in return you kill some sheep for me, for some good luck and health. And I also hope you found this post a little bit informative for understanding how our modern Bibles are put together.
Excursus: Do Variants Undermine the Doctrine of Scripture?
To some, both Christians12 and non-Christians,13 the fact that there are little copyist errors throughout our Bibles has been seen as an assault on its authority. The concern is this: if there are changes littered throughout the text, then I may not be sure if the text which lies before me is what came from the pen of an Apostle? The whole enterprise is perceived by some as a denial of God’s preservation of his word for a modern critical approach, which is perceived to be an exercise in (low) probabilities without certainty.
There is a real concern here which I do not want to dismiss out-of-hand. It stems from the laudable conviction that God has spoken and that God will preserve his Word, which is something any Christian textual critic must take into account. Textual criticism is itself to be done in a Christian manner, guided by that very assumption that God has preserved his Word.
Rather than God “letting his Word be corrupted by scribes,” I think rather we should think of scribal practice as a means by which God preserved his Word. I think that the objection to textual criticism on the basis of God’s faithful preservation, although it comes from a good place, arbitrarily imposes the means by which God must preserve: namely, with an absolute uniformity of one textual tradition. Naturally, the Majority Text is usually selected as that standard to which the text must conform because of its wide acceptance, at least in the West.14
But why must God preserve his text in this manner? Certainly it is the naive solution; it seems intuitive that a divinely preserved text would be preserved in its widely-accepted form. And certainly there is no doubt that God could have done this. But I don’t think it’s right to assume that this is the mode by which a divine Text must be preserved, and that nothing else is a true preservation.
As God usually does, I think in the preservation of his Word he used normal, human means: namely, scribes. And the scribal process does happen to produce errors in textual transmission. However, I think that these textual traditions which emerge actually have the ironic effect of endowing us with confidence in the Bible’s reliability, especially when compared with other ancient texts, far from undercutting its authority. And, therefore, God was wise to choose this mode of preservation. Note that I said wise — it’s not as if I’m just “capitulating to the critics” and giving up my Christian orthodoxy for the sake of looking credible to skeptics.
A parallel example with another religious document is instructive on this point.15 Sahih al-Bukari is a collection of Hadiths16 held in high regard by Muslims. Book 66, Hadith 9 of this collection is a narrative about how the Qur’an was put together, and the inciting incident is differences in Qur’anic recitation among Muslims. The drama of the story is in God’s Word becoming corrupt among the Muslims, just as it has among the Jews and Christians. Hudhaifa bin Al-Yaman comes to Caliph Uthman with this concern:
“O chief of the Believers! Save this nation before they differ about the Book (Qur’an) as Jews and the Christians did before.”17
So then what is the Rightly-guided Caliph’s response? He sends for Hafsa, the wife of the Prophet, to collect her Qur’an, so that it may be copied. And once this copying is complete, this is enforced as the Qur’an:
“Uthman sent to every Muslim province one copy of what they had copied, and ordered that all the other Qur’anic materials, whether written in fragmentary manuscripts or whole copies, be burnt.”18
The question then becomes, how reliable were Hafsa’s Qur’anic manuscripts? Were the really copies made to be “exact” as the Hadith asserts? Whether Hafsa’s manuscripts were perfectly faithful to the Prophet’s words is irrelevant for this discussion, as the problem is that it is now incredibly difficult to verify whether a particular Qur’anic manuscript’s reading goes back to the Prophet or not. As Small, a textual critic of the Qur’an put it:
“…the available sources do not provide the necessary information for reconstructing the original text of the Qur’an from the time of Muhammad. Neither do they yet provide the necessary information for reconstructing the text from the time immediately after Muhammad’s death until the first official edition of the Qur’an traditionally ordered by the Caliph Uthman.”19
So it becomes possible to reconstruct the Qur’an after Uthman’s decision. This is because these differences in manuscripts help us to critically determine what the text originally said, since it’s usually simple to tell what is an insertion, what is a deletion, and what is original, given data. But if you don’t have data, you must simply take the text as-is, and you have no way of telling whether that text was altered. And, with respect to the Qur’an, Uthman’s (rash) action of burning Qur’ans which differ from his own, make reconstructing what the Qur’an originally said difficult (and as Small put it, impossible).
The Scriptures do not have this problem.20 There was never a situation in which the New or Old Testament was officially standardized like this, and therefore there is data to the sun and back. Ironically, these differences end up bolstering our confidence that what we read are the very words of Paul, and, what’s more, the very words of God. Caliph Uthman’s decree, as an object lesson, while effecting that “one tradition” ideal which some assert as the necessary mode of divine preservation, actually makes it impossible to know by any critical methodology whether Uthman’s text was the correct one, or whether Uthman’s text was altered from a hypothetical Mohammedan original. So the situation of the Jews and Christians, which the Hadith sees as negative, is actually a major positive.
Because of the vast amount of textual data which the Bible has in its corner, I can actually demonstrate to a critic that it was not significantly altered over the course of history. And this is not an unrealistic scenario: how many times have people, who haven’t looked into these things, asserted that Christianity or the Bible came into existence in its modern form at the Council of Nicaea, because of some comment they heard on the History Channel? Because of the wise manner in which God chose to preserve his text, I can actually show, rather than simply assert, that that is not true, from the text of Scripture itself.
- https://codexsinaiticus.org/en/ ↩︎
- I don’t think anyone seriously believes this, but it is just the assumed posture for many that the Bible as we have it today is the Bible as it always has been. ↩︎
- This book was chosen because it just so happens to be sitting next to me on my floor. ↩︎
- As those who believed the text to be from God, these were not nefarious changes to make the text say something completely alien. An example of this would be updating the NT’s grammar to give it better style. Another might be a scribe seemingly trying to ensure that a text is interpreted in a certain way, so “for the Spirit was not yet” is changed to “for the Spirit had not yet been given,” to ensure that a reader might not misconstrue the words of John 7:39 as saying that the Holy Spirit did not exist prior to Jesus’ glorification. ↩︎
- The reason these “clumps” are approximately geographical is intuitive: a child manuscript must be created at the same geographical location as its parent. But just because a manuscript was created at a certain location does not mean that it stayed there, hence “approximately” geographical. ↩︎
- Particularly, this would be the “reasoned eclecticism” school of Textual Criticism, but a comparison of Text-critical philosophies is out of the scope of this article. ↩︎
- In fact, the oldest whole New Testament. ↩︎
- And other books as well. It contains most of the Septuagint, the Epistle of Barnabas, and the Shepherd of Hermas. ↩︎
- There is a textual variant over this οτι as well, as to whether it belongs here. But that is not the focus of this post. ↩︎
- https://www.greekbible.com/revelation/21/4 ↩︎
- https://codexsinaiticus.org/en/manuscript.aspx?__VIEWSTATEGENERATOR=01FB804F&book=59&chapter=21&lid=en&side=r&verse=4&zoomSlider=0 ↩︎
- The crowd which views either the KJV itself or the KJV’s sources as the one, authoritative Bible would be an example of this party. ↩︎
- The example which comes to mind of this would probably be Bart Ehrman, who is a brilliant textual critic who has made a career off of critiquing Christianity. ↩︎
- From the outside looking in, the selection of the Majority Text as the “one true Bible” seems rather arbitrary. ↩︎
- I’m stealing this comparison from some talking points by Baptist apologist James White. I don’t endorse him on everything, but this comparison has stuck with me. ↩︎
- A Hadith, in Islam, is a tradition (as I have used it here) or a collection of traditions about the Prophet or someone near him. They are not Islamic Scripture, and there may be variance from Muslim to Muslim about what Hadiths are taken to be genuine. One must remember that Qur’an contains no narrative, but is more similar to the Psalter than any other text familiar with Christians. So these Hadiths are the primary means by which Muslims are to know details of the Prophet’s life and those close to him. ↩︎
- https://sunnah.com/bukhari/66, Hadith 9. ↩︎
- Ibid. ↩︎
- Small, Textual Criticism and Qur’an Manuscripts, p. 178. ↩︎
- Admittedly, Old Testament textual criticism is more difficult than that of the New Testament, but this is just because the OT is of much greater antiquity than the NT. The Qur’an, which is seven-hundred years younger than the NT, suffers greatly. ↩︎