? Mark 1:2 Prophets vs. Isaiah the Prophet.

There are basically 2 different translations of this verse: "...as it is written in the Prophets..." and "...as it is written in Isaiah the Prophet..." Since Mark 1:2 is in Malachi and not Isaiah, the rendering of "as it is written in Isaiah the prophet..." is not accurate. Not all Bibles are the same. There are two different lines of manuscripts, one for the King James, another for the new versions. All Bibles were from the King James line up until 1881. Westcott and Hort came out with their new Greek text and made some drastic changes. See which manuscript line your Bible came from.

ESV (NIV, NASB, NET, Catholic Versions, Jehovah Witness NWT) - “As it is written IN ISAIAH THE PROPHET, Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way.”

The quotes here come from two different prophets, and that is why the King James reading is correct. "The prophets" is the reading found in the Majority of all texts including Alexandrinus, and the ancient Syriac Harkelian version. It is also the reading of the Coptic Boharic, Armenian, and Ethiopian ancient versions and is so quoted by Iraeneus in 202 A.D. and by Tertullian in 220, long before anything we have in the Greek copies. The Nestle-Aland Greek text apparatus lists one of the Old Latin texts "r" as reading "in Isaiah and in the prophets".

It receives Patristic citations from Church Fathers such as Irenaeus (202 AD), Photius, and Theophylact.

Irenaeus writes: "Wherefore also Mark, the interpreter and follower of Peter, does thus commence his Gospel narrative: "The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God; as it is written in THE PROPHETS, Behold, I send My messenger before Thy face, which shall prepare Thy way". . . Plainly does the commencement of the Gospel quote the words of THE HOLY PROPHETS and point out Him at once, whom they confessed as God and Lord;" (Against Heresies, 3:10:5)

"Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee" comes from Malachi 3:1, and "The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord..." comes from the prophet Isaiah in chapter 40:3 - thus the correct reading of "IN THE PROPHETS".

This is also the reading of Tyndale 1525, Coverdale 1535, the Great Bible 1540, Matthew's Bible 1549, the Bishops' Bible 1568, the Geneva Bible 1587, The Beza N.T. 1599, Wesley's translation 1755, Worsley Version 1770, Youngs 1898, Godbey N.T. 1902, the Hebrew Names Bible, the NKJV 1982, The Word of Yah 1993, The Interlinear Greek New Testament 1997 (Larry Pierce), the Third Millennium Bible 1998, The Lawrie Translation 1998, God’s First Truth 1999, The Last Days Bible 1999, The Tomson N.T. 2002, The Evidence Bible 2003, The Resurrection Life N.T. 2005, J.P. Green’s Literal Translation 2005, the English Majority Text 2009 (Paul Esposito), Faithful New Testament 2009, The Holy Scriptures VW Edition 2010, The Hebraic Transliteration Scripture 2010, The Online Interlinear 2010 (Andre de Mol), the Jubilee Bible of 2010, The Far Above All Translation 2011, The Modern Literal Version New Testament 2012, the 2012 Hebraic Roots Bible, the 2012 Natural Israelite Bible and the World English Bible 2012.

The Modern Greek Bible - "Καθως ειναι γεγραμμενον εν τοις προφηταις·"

And the Modern Hebrew Bible - ככתוב בנביאים הנני שלח מלאכי לפניך ופנה דרכך לפניך׃

However Vaticanus and Sinaiticus say "Isaiah the prophet" and so the RV, RSV, ESV, NASB, NIV, Holman, ISV, NET and ALL Catholic versions like the Douay-Rheims 1582, Douay 1950, St. Joseph NAB 1970 and the New Jerusalem bible 1985 all read in Mark 1:2: "As it is written IN ISAIAH THE PROPHET, Behold, I send my messenger...."

Foreign language bibles that agree with the King James Bible's "as it is written in THE PROPHETS" are the French Martin 1744, French Ostervald 1996 and the 2007 French Louis Segond - "Conformément à ce qui avait été écrit dans les prophètes", the Italian Diodati 1649 and La Nuova Diodati 1991 - "Come sta scritto nei profeti", the Portuguese A Biblia Sagrada - "Como est escrito nos profetas", Luther's German Bible 1545 and the German Schlachter Bible 2000 - "wie geschrieben stehet in den Propheten", the Polish Updated Gdansk Bible 2013, the Dutch Staten Vertaling, Afrikaans Bible 1953, the Finnish Bible 1776, the Hungarian Karoli, the Russian Synodal, the Norwegian En Leavened Bok 1988, the Czech BKR, Romanian Fidela 2014, the Spanish Cipriano de Valera of 1602 and 1865 as well as the Reina Valera Gómez of 2010 - "Como está escrito en LOS PROFETAS" (BUT the Reina Valera's of 1960, 77 and 1995 have followed the reading of "en Isaías el profeta" thanks to people like Eugene Nida), and the Tagalog Ang Salita ng Diyos 1998.

Thank you to Will Kinney for his in-depth documentation.