Most Christians are familiar with the similitude from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, “You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet” (Matt 5:13–14; ESV). I have heard many explanations for what “salt” does in these verses, including preserving or flavoring foods.

What most Christians are unfamiliar with—including myself until recently—is a similar passage in Mark 9:49­–50. Jesus has just finished discussing the dangers of Gehenna (hell) and the unquenchable fires therein when he says, “For everyone will be salted with fire. Salt is good, but if the salt has lost its saltiness, how will you make it salty again? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.” The transition is strange, going from imagery of fire to salt in v. 49 is not intuitive for the modern reader.

However, when reading my Greek New Testament, I saw that there is a textual variant for v. 49,“everyone will be salted with fire and every sacrifice will be salted with salt.” The variant was most likely introduced accidentally by a scribe, who, seeing Lev 2:13 in a marginal note in his Bible (put there by an earlier scribe) about the salt of the grain offering and inserted it into the main text of the Bible.

This variant helps us understand, at the very least, how earlier Christians understood Jesus’ salt similitude. However, it also may give a correct Levitical, sacrificial background to Jesus’ words. In contrast with the fire of Gehenna, the disciples will also undergo a fiery trial, that also serves as a sacrificial offering. Whenever we are “salted with fire” we are also to function as the sign of God’s covenant. If we lose our flavor, our essence, what characterizes us as Christians, our sacrifice will be invalidated. Therefore, Jesus commands his disciples to “have salt” among themselves and be a peace with each other (v. 50). We must always remember who we are—God’s covenant people—especially in times of hardship and fire.