New Testament
Week 27: The Epistle to the Hebrews & the epistle of James
4 May 2023
Lesson Materials
Notes
Handout
Additional Reading and Links
One of the earliest complete manuscripts of the New Testament, the famed Codex Vaticanus (c. ᴀ.ᴅ. 350), has a different word in Hebrews 1:3: Instead of the reading found in all other manuscripts that Jesus “upholds [φερων, pherōn] all things by the word of his power,” Vaticanus reads that Jesus “reveals [φανερων, phanerōn] all things by the word of his power.” In the Vaticanus manuscript, a later scribe changed phanerōn to pherōn, but yet another scribe changed it back and wrote in the margin, “Fool and knave! Leave the old reading and do not change it!” You can examine the entire manuscript at the website of the Vatican Library.
Alma E. Gygi looks at the evidence that Melchizedek and Shem, the son of Noah, were the same person in “I Have a Question,” Ensign, November 1973, pp. 15–16.