So Papyrus 75 is an early witness to the original text of John's Gospel, and it does not contain the words "in Me" in John 6:47 (as does the Majority Text). But what does this have to do with Free Grace theology? Everything!
I saw one website that attributed all manner of heresies to the shorter reading of John 6:47, when Jesus says, "Truly, truly, I say to you, the one who believes has eternal life." But I would contend that the shorter reading is only a problem for those who are fond of proof-texting the gospel and taking verses out of context, such as Bob Wilkin and the Grace Evangelical Society. But for those of us who read Bible verses in context, the shorter reading of John 6:47 (without the words "in Me") poses no real problem at all. The surrounding context explains verse 47 sufficiently well so that it's obvious what Jesus is saying.
Proponents of the Majority Text contend that the "new" Bible translations such as the NIV and ESV have removed words from the text, such as the words "in Me" from John 6:47. But actually, the KJV and the Byzantine Greek manuscripts upon which it is based are the "new" texts (!) compared to the older Greek manuscripts which do not contain the words "in Me" in John 6:47. Bob Wilkin attempts to get around this stubborn fact by saying, "The key is not the date of the manuscript, but the date of the manuscript from which it was copied and how carefully it was copied."2 But this is nothing more than subterfuge ("an artifice or expedient used to evade a rule, escape a consequence, hide something, etc."), because to be consistent, Wilkin's line of reasoning must also be applied to the source copies! Thus even the source copies would be invalidated in favor of their source copies. In fact, in order to not be guilty of special pleading, Wilkin's logic would need to be applied consistently to ALL the NT manuscripts except for the original autograph, which is the only one that had no source copy. Thus Wilkin's logic collapses into a position where no manuscript is trustworthy unless it's the original autograph. My point is simply this: if the legitimacy of a manuscript depends not on its own date, but rather on the unknown date and quality of the manuscript from which it was copied -- then Wilkin just invalidated every manuscript ever found. That's not textual criticism. That's textual nihilism!
References:
1 Philip W. Comfort and David P. Barrett, The Text of the Earliest New Testament Greek Manuscripts (Wheaton: Tyndale House Publishers, 2001), p. 585. Cf. Philip Wesley Comfort, The Text of the Earliest New Testament Greek Manuscripts (Kregel Academic, 2019), 2 Vols., Vol. 2, p. 92. Note: A transcription of P75 is also available online on The Nazaroo Files website. See the link here.
2 Bob Wilkin, "How Many Complete Greek New Testament Manuscripts Do We Have?" (January 10, 2023), GES Blog.
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The following comments related to Papyrus 75 (P75) appear in the book by Neil R. Lightfoot titled How We Got the Bible. In chapter 11, titled "Manuscripts from the Sand," Lightfoot writes the following under the heading "New Testament Papyri":
"P75. Another of the Bodmer Papyri, this one is especially significant. Published in 1961, the manuscript is dated between A.D. 175 and 225. Embracing considerable portions of the Gospels of Luke and John, it is the earliest known copy of Luke and one of the earliest of John.
This early papyrus has had an extraordinary impact on textual studies. Careful examination of its text has demonstrated that P75 is virtually the same text as that of the Vatican Manuscript (B). When Westcott and Hort issued their critical text in 1881, Hort in his introduction maintained that B preserves a 'very pure line of very ancient text…' [B. F. Westcott and F. J. A. Hort, Introduction [and] Appendix, vol. 2 of The New Testament in the Original Greek (London: Macmillan and Co., 1881), 251.] But later scholars took issue with Hort and maintained that B is rather a third- or fourth-century 'edition' of the text. Yet if P75 and B are practically the same, this shows conclusively that the B-type text was not an 'edited' text but existed already in the second century. Thus P75 points in the direction of Hort's view that B, except for minor points, is essentially the original text."
Source: Neil R. Lightfoot, How We Got the Bible (New York: MJF Books, 2003), p. 124.
Why Do Textual Scholars Prefer the Shorter Reading of John 6:47 in Papyrus 75?
Those who argue for the Majority Text and the longer reading of John 6:47 (with the words “in Me”) are quick to point out that much of John 6:47 is damaged or missing in Papyrus 75. Thus, they suggest that Papyrus 75 could have included the words “in Me”. But I disagree, and I will explain why. There are at least three reasons why textual scholars prefer the shorter reading of John 6:47 (without the words “in Me”) in Papyrus 75. When I asked A.I. (ChatGPT) about it, it gave me a very helpful and informative answer, which I will reproduce below. ChatGPT explains as follows:
“Yes — exactly right, and your intuition is sharp.
When scholars list the shorter reading of John 6:47 in Papyrus 75 (𝔓75), even though the papyrus is damaged, they often do so because of spatial and scribal reconstruction. Let me explain clearly:
Why is the shorter reading assigned to 𝔓75 despite the damage?
1. Line length and spacing analysis:
Scholars can often reconstruct the missing portion based on:
–The number of letters per line in the scribe’s hand.
–How much text is missing based on fiber damage or gaps.
–Comparison with parallel text in other lines of the same papyrus.
–In this case, the space available does not appear sufficient to contain the extra words ‘εἰς ἐμέ’ (‘in Me’).
2. Paleographic patterns:
The scribe of 𝔓75 generally wrote very consistently in line length and letter size. That gives scholars confidence to approximate what could or couldn't fit.
3. Agreement with 𝔓66 and Codex Vaticanus:
Both 𝔓66 (another early Bodmer papyrus) and Codex Vaticanus — which often align with 𝔓75 — have the shorter reading. Since all three are early Alexandrian witnesses, and 𝔓75 often agrees with those two, scholars lean toward assigning it the shorter reading by internal probability.
4. Editorial conventions:
When you see a critical edition like NA28 or UBS5 list 𝔓75 as supporting the shorter reading, it is typically:
–In brackets (e.g., 𝔓75*).
–With footnotes explaining that the support is inferred, not direct.
Example of line fitting:
If a line on the papyrus typically holds, say, 30–32 characters, and the preserved letters + the shorter phrase fits that range, while the longer version would require, say, 36–38 characters, then scholars conclude the longer phrase wouldn’t have fit — unless the scribe unusually crowded the line, which 𝔓75's scribe did not typically do.
Bottom Line:
Scholars assign the shorter reading of John 6:47 to 𝔓75 based on the space constraints in the damaged area, combined with its Alexandrian text-type pattern and paleographic consistency — not because the text is visibly there, but because the longer reading seems physically improbable in that spot.”
Thus the critical editions of the Greek New Testament, NA28 and UBS5, list P75 as supporting the shorter reading of John 6:47 (without the word "in Me"). On John 6:47, see the footnote in the apparatus where it cites P75 with the superscript VID, meaning apparently, as supporting the shorter reading.
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