Revelation 20:5
Several manuscripts (א
2030 2053 2062 Majk syrp) omit the first sentence of this
verse: οι λοιποι των νεκρων ουκ εξησαν αχρι τελεσθη τα χιλια ετη (“the rest of the dead did not come out
from the dead until the thousand years finished”). The omission may have been
accidental, due to homoeoteleuton. The previous verse ends with the same last
two words: χιλια ετη (“thousand years”). But it is also
possible that the omission was intentional because it seems to interrupt a
connection between 20:4 and 20:5b (assuming that αυτη η αναστασις η πρωτη [“this is the first resurrection”] is
supposed to refer to 20:4b and not 20:5a). With the sentence deleted, there is
a better syntactical connection: “And they came to life and reigned with Christ
a thousand years [20:4]. This is the first resurrection [20:5b].”
Other scribes may have expunged the sentence for doctrinal reasons.
Elimination of the sentence, “the rest of the dead did not come to life until
the thousand years finished,” eradicates the problem of having to explain how
certain Christians (i.e., the martyrs of 20:4) are allowed to participate in
the first resurrection and the millennial kingdom, while others (i.e., those
who are not martyrs) have to wait until after the millennium to experience
resurrection. If the witnesses א
2030 2053 2062 Majk syrp actually preserve the original
text, then the sentence “the rest of the dead did not come out of the dead
until the thousand years finished” could be seen as a scribal gloss (which
eventually found its way into the text) that provides an explanation for what
would happen to those Christians who did not get to participate in the
millennium. (Philip W. Comfort, New Testament Text and
Translation Commentary: Commentary on the Variant Readings of the Ancient New
Testament Manuscripts and How They Relate to the Major English Translations
[Carol Stream, Ill.: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 2008], 864)
20:5 αυτη
(this) {C}
Many witnesses, including the Andreas tradition, have a parenthetical
phrase at the beginning of this verse, such as και λο λοιποι των ωεκρων ουκ εζησαν αχρι τελεσθη τα χιλια ετη (‘And the rest of the dead did not come
to life until the thousand years were ended’; [02] 254 1006 [1611] 1637 etc.).
This is absent from Codex Sinaiticus and the Koine text (01 2053 etc.). It
would be very easy for the longer text to have been omitted through eyeskip
from the preceding χιλια ετη (‘a thousand years’)
and the phrase is included in the previous hand editions as well as the SBLGNT
and THGNT. Nevertheless, the variety of forms in which it is found and its clarificatory
content, as well as the smoother reading which results from its absence, led
the ECM editors to consider it as a later gloss formed of text from the two
preceding verses (see the long discussion in the ECM Revelation Textual Commentary).
It may be noted that all Greek manuscripts here and at Rev. 20:3 read αχρι (‘until’): the appearance of εως (‘until’) in the Textus Receptus is a synonym consistent with a
retranslation from the Latin by Erasmus (cf. Rev. 1:4, 6:1, 21:6 etc.). (H. A.
G. Houghton, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament: A
Companion to the Sixth Edition of the United Bible Societies’ Greek New
Testament [Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2025], 556-57)
