Heb 2:9 – ‘We see Jesus, who was made lower than the angels for a little while, now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that by God’s grace he would experience death on behalf of everyone.’

Summary

An alternative reading has ‘apart from God’ (χωρὶς θεοῦ), instead of ‘by God’s grace’ (χάριτι θεοῦ).  The evidence for this alternative reading is weak.

In detail

Hagner thinks that the evidence for the accepted reading is ‘overwhelming’.  He remarks that, although generally a more difficult reading is to be be preferred to an easier reading, this is not always the case, and is unlikely to be the case here.

F.F. Bruce thinks that it is likely that a scribe, having read v8 (‘he left nothing that is not subject to him’), wrote in the margin, ‘apart from God’ – recollecting Paul’s comment in 1 Cor 15:27.  This marginal comment then became attached to v9, then to be ‘softened’ by a later scribe to ‘by the grace of God’.  Lane adopts the same view.

P.E. Hughes notes that a number of early Christian teachers accepted and even defended the reading, ‘apart from God’.  They understood the text to mean that Christ suffered ‘apart from his divine nature.’  But he adds that this assumes a rather questionable construction in the Greek.  Another understanding of the text was that it meant that Christ tasted death for all, apart from God.  But this too is improbable, since it is incredible that anyone should suppose that the ‘everyone’ for whom Christ tasted death might have included God.  A further possibility (if ‘apart from God’ represents the original and correct reading) is that this means that when Christ tasted death he did so ‘separated from God’.  This would be in line with the cry of dereliction from the cross (Mk 15:34), but again relies on a rather unnatural construction.  Hughes opts in the end for ‘by the grace of God’ as the more likely reading.

Michaels summarises the prevailing scholarly opinion:

‘A few late mss, versions, and patristic quotations…have “apart from God” (chōris theou) instead of chariti theou, based perhaps on traditions about Jesus’ cry of dereliction from the cross (Mark 15:34). The idea of Christ being abandoned is foreign to Hebrews, where in the very next verse it is God who makes Jesus perfect through suffering (see also 5:7, where “God heard his prayers,” and 12:2, where he knew of “the joy awaiting him”). Alternatively, the variant could mean that Jesus tasted death for everyone “except for God” (see Bengel 4.357–358, citing 1 Cor 15:27). “By God’s grace” is without question the correct reading.’

Guthrie, and almost all modern commentators, support the reading ‘by the grace of God’.

Peterson agrees that the variant is ‘poorly attested’.