John 4:2 and Grant’s Commentary
The traditional text here suffers from
a contradiction which interrupts the normally smooth flow of John’s writing.
After asserting that Jesus “made and baptized more disciples than John” the
traditional text reads “though Jesus himself baptized not, but his disciples.”
Professor Robert M. Grant, chairman of
the New Testament and Early Christian Literature at the Divinity School of the
University of Chicago, used this passage as his example of “compositional
difficulties” relating to interpolations by scribes. He commented “Sometimes
scholars have listed criteria for finding interpolations by criticizing the
style of certain passages. They assume that such an author as John could write
well, and therefore interpolations may exist where there are compositional
difficulties.” (Robert M. Grant, A Historical Introduction to the New
Testament, New York: Simon and Schuster [1972] p. 68)
The inspired translation by Joseph
Smith demonstrates a whole transitional passage which properly builds to the
corrected line “Now the Lord knew this, though he himself
baptized not so many as his disciples, for he suffered them for an example,
preferring one another.” (Wade Brown, A Textual Analysis of The Joseph
Smith Translation of the New Testament [Studies in the Scriptures 2; N.P.:
Research Publications, 1989], 77-78)
