Thursday, September 9, 2010

Matt. 26:3


Matt. 26:3 (h.a.)


 ...τοτε συνηχθη-
σαν οι αρχιερεις

και οι γραμμαεις
και οι πρεσβυτεροι
του λαου


Then gathered
the chief priests,

and the scribes,
and the elders
of the people,...


INCLUDE LINE: K, Δ Π, 0255, 22, Byz Maj (Majority of MSS), it(c, f, ff2, h, q, r1), Sy-P, Sy-H
(+ kai oi pharisaioi) W

OMIT: P45, א, A, B, D, L, Θ, 0293, f1, 652, f13, 33vid, 565, 700, 892, 1424, pc, txt Lat(a, aur, b, d, ff1, g1, l, vg), Sy-S, Co(+ mae-2)
Lacuna: C, Sy-C
B: no umlaut



Another very ancient but easy case of Haplography, all the more obvious given the text of the majority of MSS, and independant manuscript support.

In the past, the heavy editing that occured with the 3rd and 4th century uncials has been ignored or denied. But the flip-flop testimony among them when taking these Haplography cases together as a group shows just how much monkey-business indeed happened. If we were to accept the current position that the old uncials best represent the state of the text in the 4th century, then we'd have to admit that the state of the text was incredibly sloppy and wild.

But there is a reasonable alternative: that the state of the text for most manuscripts was stable and reliable, and those manuscripts were copied, worn out, and recycled, while the 'survivors' represent instead some of the worst excesses in text manipulation, and were eventually abandoned.

We have no reason not to believe that when the text was standardized in the following centuries, that Christians throughout the Roman world independantly held fast to the best copies, and adopted the most accurate texts they had. If so, then the majority of copies will represent the best overall text, most of the time.

This is another case where Hort, Nestle, & UBS uncritically adopt the Aleph/B text, even when haplography best explains the MS variants.
The UBS text offers no documentation in its critical apparatus.
Naturally, 'modern' versions following UBS drop the text without a footnote, reviving a clumsy error that had been previously corrected and forgotten.

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