CASE STUDY: Matthew 23:14, Stephanus' TR vs KJV

Stephanus' 1550 TR

14 ουαι υμιν γραμματεις και φαρισαιοι υποκριται οτι κλειετε την βασιλειαν των ουρανων εμπροσθεν των ανθρωπων υμεις γαρ ουκ εισερχεσθε ουδε τους εισερχομενους αφιετε εισελθειν 

Stephen’s 1550 Textus Receptus: With Morphology (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2002), Mt 23:14.

TRANSLATION: 14 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces; for you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who are entering to go in.

KJV

14 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows' houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation.

Conclusion:

Matthew 23:14 presents a striking textual problem: Stephanus’ Textus Receptus includes a complete saying about shutting the kingdom of heaven, while the KJV renders an entirely different accusation about devouring widows’ houses. This discrepancy reveals how scribal transmission and manuscript traditions created competing versions of Jesus’ woe against the Pharisees.

The Greek text in Stephanus’ TR—condemning the Pharisees for blocking entry to God’s kingdom—appears nowhere in the earliest and most reliable Greek manuscripts. Instead, it represents a scribal conflation: copyists merged material from Matthew 23:13 (the preceding verse about shutting the kingdom) with an insertion that lacks strong manuscript support. The KJV’s reading about “devour[ing] widows’ houses” actually derives from parallel passages in Mark 12:40 and Luke 20:47, where Jesus condemns the teachers for devouring widows’ houses and making lengthy prayers. A scribe apparently inserted this material into Matthew’s account, creating the longer form that Erasmus encountered when reconstructing his Greek text from limited manuscripts.

The critical issue is manuscript genealogy. The earliest attestation in Matthew shows only the condemnation about shutting the door of the kingdom and preventing entry (Matt 23:13–14)—which is verse 13. Verse 14 as it appears in the TR is a secondary expansion, likely created when scribes harmonized Matthew with the synoptic parallels or attempted to supply what seemed like missing material. The KJV faithfully translated this expanded form, unaware that the “widows’ houses” clause was borrowed from Mark and Luke rather than original to Matthew’s text.

Modern critical editions omit verse 14 entirely or bracket it, recognizing it as a scribal addition without strong early support. This demonstrates how the TR, though valuable historically, sometimes preserves later textual developments rather than the original wording—a crucial distinction for understanding where differences between ancient texts and traditional translations originate.