Matthew 27:4

Matthew 27:4 avqw|/on {A}

The Greek Old Testament has ai-ma avqw|/on (“innocent blood”) fifteen times; ai-ma di,kaion (“righteous blood”) four times; and ai-ma avnai,tion (“blameless blood”) four times. Thus it could be argued that ai-ma di,kaion, being a rare expression, was more likely to have been altered to the more common ai-ma avqw|/on than contrariwise. On the other hand, however, it may be that di,kaion was introduced by copyists from Matthew 23:35. In any case, the weight of the external evidence here is strongly in support of avqw|/on.