Scrivener’s Missing “Amen”

The F. H. A. Scrivener Greek New Testament[i] “according to the text followed in the Authorised Version” leaves out the last “Amen” at the close of the letter to the Ephesians (Ephesians 6:24).

Ephesians 6:24 η χαρις μετα παντων των αγαπωντων τον κυριον ημων ιησουν χριστον εν αφθαρσια ____.

When we search our King James Bibles, we find “Amen” in that location.

In this place Scrivener missed (and followed) a printing error. In connection with the 1870 resolution to revise the English Bible, and subsequently developed rules, F. H. A. Scrivener compiled a Greek New Testament text made “so far as was possible uniformly representative of the Authorised Version” (The New Testament in the Original Greek, Scrivener, 1881, p. vii). The Greek New Testament texts to which the Authorized Version translators had access (e.g., Erasmus 1516, et al., Stephanus 1550, Beza 1598) have “αμην” in that location.[ii] Yet Scrivener did not include the “αμην” / “amen” in his Greek compilation. I believe the explanation is as follows.

Due to a printer’s error, the first printing of the new 1611 translation by Robert Barker left off the concluding “Amen” in Ephesians 6:24. F. H. A. Scrivener dutifully followed the 1611 printing. He explains, “The Authorised Version as it was originally printed in 1611, has been taken as the primary guide” (Scrivener, 1881, p. x). So either Scrivener did not look for 1611 printing errors that were later corrected by the printer, he did not consider this a printing error, or he slavishly followed the 1611 printing regardless.

 Ephesians 6:24, 1611

That the preceding Greek New Testaments has the word “amen” at the conclusion of Ephesians 6:24 confirms this as a printing error, coupled with the fact that this was corrected in 1616 (i.e., “amen” added to the end of verse 24). 

Scans showing Eph. 6:24 in 1598 Beza Greek and 1619 KJV (in Roman type)

This 1619 printing in Roman type was produced by Bonham Norton and John Bill. A scan of a 1631 printing by Robert Barker, also in Roman type, can be found on Google Books (The Holy Bible, Printed at London by Robert Barker).

Another evidence of this being a 1611 printer’s error is the fact that the concluding “Amen” appears in all previous English Bibles: Wycliffe, Tyndale, Coverdale, Matthew, Taverner, Great/Whitchurch, Geneva NT, Geneva 1560, and Bishops.

It is significant that this correction was made during the lifetime of the translators. Though corrected in the 1616 King James Bible, the “αμην” has never been added to the Scrivener Textus Receptus.

---

[i] That which many of us know as the Greek Textus Receptus printed by the Trinitarian Bible Society.
[ii] The translators used, especially, the 1598 Greek New Testament of Beza.