Matthew 5:22, angry with his brother… without cause?
Matthew 5:22 has both readings: angry with his brother, and angry with his brother without cause. The qualifier changes whether the sentence judges anger itself or only anger without a cause.
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 αὐτοῦ. The copies also carry αὐτοῦ εἰκῆ [early greek manuscript tradition; later majority tradition]; the committee kept the base text. The qualifier softens a severe saying and is the easier reading. The short text is early and well spread.”
“The base text reads (nothing). The copies also carry εἰκῆ [greek majuscule; early greek manuscript tradition; later majority tradition]; the committee kept the base text. The stronger early support and the softening effect of εἰκῆ favor the default.”
The committee's decision kept the base text without the qualifier. Its note states: "The qualifier softens a severe saying and is the easier reading. The short text is early and well spread." GPT-6.1 Sol (OpenAI) served as the first translator; Claude Fable 5.1 (Anthropic) served as the second translator. The committee's printed text follows that decision: "everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment".
The argument for each reading
If anger itself is judged
Reading A says that everyone who is angry with his brother is liable to judgment. Westcott-Hort prints this unqualified wording, and the apparatus places NA28 alongside it. The support described for this reading includes the oldest witnesses. The committee's textual note also describes the short text as early and well spread.
The case for this reading combines that support with a possible explanation for the longer wording: adding a qualification makes a severe demand easier to accept. On this reading, the sentence gives no explicit exception for anger with a cause. That severity helps explain the argument for the shorter wording, but it does not establish how the difference arose.
If only causeless anger
Reading B includes the qualification "without cause". Robinson-Pierpont Byzantine Textform prints the adverb, and the apparatus also places Treg alongside this reading. The committee's textual notes associate the addition with early Greek manuscript tradition as well as later majority tradition. Its support therefore extends beyond the later majority alone.
The qualification gives the sentence a narrower scope: anger without a cause brings liability to judgment. The case for retaining it rests on its attested presence across those traditions. Although the wording softens the demand, that effect alone does not establish that someone added it for that purpose. The reading still places causeless anger under judgment.
The uncertainty concerns whether the qualification belongs in the sentence and how the two forms arose. The witnesses attest both forms, but their wording does not reveal a copyist's motive. Both readings connect anger toward a brother with judgment. The dispute concerns the scope of that warning. It does not remove the surrounding warnings about insults or the instruction to attend to a grievance involving a brother.
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.