"Christ" or "Lord" in 1 Corinthians 10: 9?

[John317]

A very interesting, exciting example of what we can learn from textual studies occurs in relationship to 1 Cor. 10: 9. The Textus Receptus (KJV) has "Christ" as the one whom the children of Israel tempted in the wilderness and were consequently destroyed by serpents.

That is the reading also in the Majority Text. Today many modern translations give misinformation in their footnote or margin when they say, "A few manuscripts read 'Christ'." As a matter of fact, almost all manuscripts read "Christ," and by far the most ancient. Only a handful of Greek manuscripts read "Lord."

The reading of "Christ" at 1 Cor. 10: 9 agrees with 1 Cor. 10:4, which says the spiritual Rock that followed the children Israel in the Sinai Desert was Christ.

For years, since the late 1880s, the Critical Text, following Westcott and Hort, dropped "Christ" in favor of "Lord."

"Lord" is the reading of both the Vaticanus and Sinaiaticus Codices. It is definitely in the minority, but the philosophy of the Critical Text determined that it must be the original reading.

Curiously, the Latin Vulgate agreed at this verse with the TR and the King James Version. Yet virtually all the modern versions read "Lord," including the New International and the New American Standard and Revised Standard Version.

Then a change came to the Critical Text when the 26th edition of the Nestle-Aland and the Third edition of the United Bible Societies were published. These editions were exactly the same in the Greek Text but differed in the apparatus' (notes).

With those editions, the word "Christ" was restored at 1 Cor. 10:9 in place of "Lord," on the basis of a single manuscript, ms. p46, dated to between 85-150 AD. This makes this manuscript one of the earliest in the entire New Testament.

That is just one instance where the Textus Receptus, and the King James Version which was based on it, also the Catholic Vulgate, and the Syriac, were all proven to have the correct reading, whereas the Critical Text, starting with Westcott and Hort, had it all wrong.

It is only just within about the past 15 years that some of the newer translations, such as the NAB (Catholic), NRSV, CEV, CSB, TNIV, and ESV have been restoring "Christ" to 2 Cor. 10: 9. Interestingly, I've just noticed that John Darby's translation had always retained it, even though, since he worked in the 1860s, he did not know about the very early manuscript evidence in its support.