Matthew 16:2-3: red sky at night, doubtful in the morning
The packet presents no final answer: Reading A omits the weather sayings, while Reading B includes Ὀψίας γενομένης λέγετε Εὐδία…. The evidence records both omission and continuing printed support.
The APB text at this verse
The manuscripts, editions, and versions
The committee record at this verse
The APB's translation committee works blind: it is never told it is translating the Bible, never given a book name or a verse number, and it never sees the witnesses above. Since revision 3.5, the places where the manuscripts disagree are decided before translation by three readers, Grok 4.3, GPT-6 Astra, and Claude Fable 5.1, who see the readings and the witnesses by age and class but never a reference or a manuscript name. Whatever was done at this verse was done on the language and the evidence alone, and the record is public.
“The base text reads Ὀψίας γενομένης … οὐ δύνασθε. The copies also carry ⟦⟧ [greek majuscule; early greek manuscript tradition]; the committee kept the base text. The committee retains the default because the evidence does not decisively overturn it. The substantial support for omission and the possibility of expansion warrant another reader.”
“The base text reads τὸ ⟦⟧. The copies also carry Ὑποκριταί τὸ [later majority tradition]; the committee kept the base text. Default wording τὸ ⟦⟧ is preferred on both external and internal grounds.”
The APB 3.5 decision first kept the base text for the longer unit and printed the weather sayings. Its note says, “The committee retains the default because the evidence does not decisively overturn it.” It also records “The substantial support for omission and the possibility of expansion warrant another reader.” For τὸ, the decision kept the base wording rather than Ὑποκριταί τὸ. The pericope audit verdict is flagged.
The argument for each reading
If the proverb drifted in
Reading A leaves Jesus' reply without the weather lesson. The packet identifies Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, and early versions as witnesses for that omission, describing them as manuscripts from the 4th century A.D. and as the oldest uncials. It also says that several early versions lack the whole excursus. On this account, the absence is not a small verbal difference but the lack of the entire sequence of weather sayings. The packet's summary raises the possibility that the familiar proverb entered the passage from elsewhere, and Westcott-Hort places the longer material in double brackets. Those features give the omission a substantial evidential case.
If Matthew wrote it
Reading B preserves the familiar weather sayings, beginning Ὀψίας γενομένης λέγετε Εὐδία…. Tregelles reads Ὀψίας γενομένης, and the packet says that Tregelles, NA28, and the Byzantine text keep the passage. The raw apparatus likewise lists Treg NA28 RP for the longer unit, while marking it with ⟦WH⟧. The APB printed text includes the evening and morning sayings in Matthew 16:2-3. For readers considering B, the case is therefore not merely that the wording appears in later presentation: the supplied apparatus and printed texts explicitly carry the passage, even while the omission remains a serious competing reading.
The uncertainty concerns whether the weather sayings belonged in this location, and whether the wording begins with Ὀψίας γενομένης. The supplied evidence records both omission and retention, with a bracketed presentation in Westcott-Hort. What changes on the page is the presence or absence of the weather lesson in Matthew 16:2-3. The packet supplies no doctrinal claim or conclusion that depends on this variant.
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 as published scholarly fact with their sources linked above. The page does not declare which reading is original.
The registry gives no verdict
The registry does not say which reading is original. Each page lists the witnesses, shows what the committee did with the same text, and leaves the judgment to the reader.