Christian Anti-Sabbath Polemic and the Textual Transmission of Luke 4:16 and 23:56

Abstract Ancient Christian anti-Sabbath polemic worked to fashion Christianity and Judaism as distinct. This article demonstrates how Christian polemic against Sabbath-day synagogue attendance as well as arguments insisting on worship only on the Lord’s Day correspond with textual variants in Luke 4:16 and 23:56. These passages were altered in some manuscripts in a way that distances Jesus and his disciples from Jewish Sabbath observance. Although these textual variants reflect the broader Christian polemic, they do not themselves function as polemic and are not well preserved. For these reasons, they provide a case study for thinking about the nature of New Testament textual transmission at the nexus of reading practices, practices of communal worship, and Christian identity discourse.