Matthew 16:20

16:20 Then he instructed his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Christ. ¹ 

Matthew 23:10

23:10 Nor are you to be called ‘teacher,’ for you have one teacher, the Christ. ² 

Matthew 24:23

24:23 Then if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ ³  or ‘There he is!’ do not believe him.

Matthew 1:16

1:16 and Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, by whom ⁴  Jesus was born, who is called Christ. ⁵ 

Matthew 2:4

2:4 After assembling all the chief priests and experts in the law, ⁶  he asked them where the Christ ⁷  was to be born.

Matthew 16:16

16:16 Simon Peter answered, ⁸  “You are the Christ, ⁹  the Son of the living God.”

Matthew 24:5

24:5 For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ ¹⁰  and they will mislead many.

Matthew 16:21

First Prediction of Jesus’ Death and Resurrection

16:21 From that time on ¹¹  Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem ¹²  and suffer ¹³  many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests, and experts in the law, ¹⁴  and be killed, and on the third day be raised.

Matthew 26:63

26:63 But Jesus was silent. The ¹⁵  high priest said to him, “I charge you under oath by the living God, tell us if you are the Christ, ¹⁶  the Son of God.”

¹ tc Most mss (א² C W Ï lat bo) have “Jesus, the Christ” (᾿Ιησοῦς ὁ Χριστός, Ihsou" Jo Cristo") here, while D has “Christ Jesus” (ὁ Χριστὸς ᾿Ιησοῦς). On the one hand, this is a much harder reading than the mere Χριστός, because the name Jesus was already well known for the disciples’ master – both to them and to others. Whether he was the Messiah is the real focus of the passage. But this is surely too hard a reading: There are no other texts in which the Lord tells his disciples not to disclose his personal name. Further, it is plainly a motivated reading in that scribes had the proclivity to add ᾿Ιησοῦς to Χριστός or to κύριος (kurio", “Lord”), regardless of whether such was appropriate to the context. In this instance it clearly is not, and it only reveals that scribes sometimes, if not often, did not think about the larger interpretive consequences of their alterations to the text. Further, the shorter reading is well supported by א* B L Δ Θ Ë^1,13 565 700 1424 al it sa.

² tn Or “Messiah”; both “Christ” (Greek) and “Messiah” (Hebrew and Aramaic) mean “one who has been anointed.”

³ tn Or “Messiah”; both “Christ” (Greek) and “Messiah” (Hebrew and Aramaic) mean “one who has been anointed.”

⁴ tc There are three significant variant readings at this point in the text. Some mss and versional witnesses (Θ Ë¹³ it) read, “Joseph, to whom the virgin Mary, being betrothed, bore Jesus, who is called Christ.” This reading makes even more explicit than the feminine pronoun (see sn below) the virginal conception of Jesus and as such seems to be a motivated reading. The Sinaitic Syriac ms alone indicates that Joseph was the father of Jesus (“Joseph, to whom was betrothed Mary the virgin, fathered Jesus who is called the Christ”). Although much discussed, this reading has not been found in any Greek witnesses. B. M. Metzger suggests that it was produced by a careless scribe who simply reproduced the set formula of the preceding lines in the genealogy (TCGNT 6). In all likelihood, the two competing variants were thus produced by intentional and unintentional scribal alterations respectively. The reading adopted in the translation has overwhelming support from a variety of witnesses (̹ א B C L W [˹] 33 Ï co), and therefore should be regarded as authentic. For a detailed discussion of this textual problem, see TCGNT 2-6.

⁵ tn Or “Messiah”; both “Christ” (Greek) and “Messiah” (Hebrew and Aramaic) mean “one who has been anointed.”

⁵ tn Or “and scribes of the people.” The traditional rendering of γραμματεύς (grammateu") as “scribe” does not communicate much to the modern English reader, for whom the term might mean “professional copyist,” if it means anything at all. The people referred to here were recognized experts in the law of Moses and in traditional laws and regulations. Thus “expert in the law” comes closer to the meaning for the modern reader.

⁶ tn Or “Messiah”; both “Christ” (Greek) and “Messiah” (Hebrew and Aramaic) mean “one who has been anointed.”

⁶ tn Grk “And answering, Simon Peter said.”

⁷ tn Or “Messiah”; both “Christ” (Greek) and “Messiah” (Hebrew and Aramaic) mean “one who has been anointed.”

⁷ tn Or “Messiah”; both “Christ” (Greek) and “Messiah” (Hebrew and Aramaic) mean “one who has been anointed.”

⁸ tn Grk “From then.”

⁹ map For location see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; JP1-F4; JP2-F4; JP3-F4; JP4-F4.

¹⁰ sn The necessity that the Son of Man suffer is the particular point that needed emphasis since for many 1st century Jews the Messiah was a glorious and powerful figure, not a suffering one.

¹¹ tn Or “and scribes.” See the note on the phrase “experts in the law” in 2:4.

⁹ tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated.

¹⁰ tn Or “Messiah”; both “Christ” (Greek) and “Messiah” (Hebrew and Aramaic) mean “one who has been anointed.”