John 14:14, “if you ask me anything in my name”?
John 14:14 has two readings: “if you ask me anything in my name” explicitly addresses Jesus; “if you ask anything” leaves the recipient unstated. The difference is the presence or absence of με.
The APB text at this verse
The manuscripts, editions, and versions
The committee record at this verse
The APB is translated by a committee of language models that works blind. The translators are never told they are translating the Bible, never given a book name or a verse number, and never shown the witnesses listed above. Where the manuscripts disagree, the choice between readings is made before translation by the same kind of translator working the same way: it sees the competing readings and the witnesses by age and class, but never a reference or a manuscript name. There are 14,877 such places. For APB 4.0 every one was decided again in October 2026. GPT-6.1 Sol decided every one first. Claude Fable 5.1, from another model family, decided 2,483 of them second, including every place where the first translator left the base text. A departure from the base text needs both translators to agree and the first to be at least 0.8 confident. There is no third translator, so the base text stands when the two disagree. APB 4.0 is translated over those decisions. Whatever was done at this verse was done on the language and the evidence alone, and the record is public.
“The base text reads με. The copies also carry the omission [greek majuscule; greek papyrus; early greek manuscript tradition; later majority tradition]; the committee kept the base text. The harder wording and stronger early support favor the default.”
“The base text reads ἐγὼ. The copies also carry the omission [greek majuscule; greek papyrus; early greek manuscript tradition]; the committee kept the base text. The broader early support favors the default despite balanced internal possibilities.”
“The base text reads με. The copies also carry the omission [greek majuscule; greek papyrus; early greek manuscript tradition]; the committee kept the base text. The early division limits certainty, but the default better explains omission.”
“The base text reads ἐγὼ. The copies also carry τοῦτο [greek majuscule; greek papyrus; early greek manuscript tradition]; the committee kept the base text. The external evidence is competitive, but assimilation to the preceding words favors the default.”
“The base text reads τι. The copies also carry the omission [early greek manuscript tradition]; the committee kept the base text. A single witness drops a tiny word, most likely by accident. The rest agree on keeping it.”
“The base text reads ἄν τι. The copies also carry ὅτι ἄν [greek majuscule; later majority tradition]; the committee kept the base text. The strong early support favors the default; the internal explanation is less decisive.”
The APB 4.0 committee retained με, and its printed text reads: “If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.” Its textual decision states: “The early division limits certainty, but the default better explains omission.” Another note on the same word states: “The harder wording and stronger early support favor the default.” GPT-6.1 Sol (OpenAI) served as the first translator; Claude Fable 5.1 (Anthropic) served as the second translator.
The argument for each reading
If “ask me”
Westcott-Hort, Nestle-Aland 28, and Robinson-Pierpont Byzantine Textform all print με, giving the request an explicit recipient: Jesus. Agreement among these editions places this reading in both critical editions and the Byzantine majority edition. Westcott-Hort's account also identifies support from the earliest manuscripts.
With the word present, Jesus invites people to ask him for anything in his name and promises to act. The combination of addressing Jesus and asking in his name gives the sentence its distinctive wording. The committee's decision treats that harder wording as a reason to retain the word, while acknowledging early division.
If “me” is absent
Tregelles omits με, leaving the request without an explicit recipient in this sentence. Its account connects the omission with witnesses whose wording matches John 15:16 and John 16:23. Those passages explicitly speak of asking the Father in Jesus' name. This gives the shorter reading a coherent place alongside the related sayings.
The committee's textual notes also acknowledge early support for omission, so the division cannot be reduced to a difference between early and later texts. Without the word, Jesus still promises to act on requests made in his name. This sentence would no longer explicitly identify him as the one being asked.
The early division leaves uncertainty about whether με belongs in the wording of John 14:14. The editions disagree, and agreement among several editions does not erase that division. Both readings preserve asking in Jesus' name and his promise to act. John 15:16 and John 16:23 explicitly speak of asking the Father. The variant affects whether this particular sentence also explicitly invites prayer addressed to Jesus; broader teaching about prayer draws on more than this word.
Related entries
Witness readings for critical editions are quoted from the SBLGNT apparatus (CC BY 4.0); Hebrew text from the Westminster Leningrad Codex (Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible). Readings of ancient manuscripts and versions are cited from the sources linked above.