Acts 21:22 (h.t.)

Acts 21:22 (traditional text)

 τι ουν εστιν παντως
δει συνελθειν πληθος
ακουσονται γαρ οτι εληλυθας
what then is all this?
its apt, to come together, the throng;
'for they will hear that thou hast come.

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INCLUDE LINE: P74 Aleph A D E P Ψ 33 88 181 326 629 945 1739-c it(ar)/e/gig Vg (W.O.R.) 049 056 0142 104 330 451 1241 (1877) Byz Maj (Majority of MSS) it-d, Chrysostom etc.

OMIT: B C* 436 614 630 1505 1739 2127 2412 2495 Syr(p)/h Cop-Sa/Bo, Arm Aeth Geo Origen?

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Here we can see not only homoioteleuton (similar ending), but a string of letters with about a 70% agreement in content or similarity. Only 7 letters are significantly different in form and sound to distinguish the two phrases.

A scribe reciting to himself this set of syllables could easily get "Deja Vu" and imagine he already wrote the second line. Again, the text has been shortened by fatigue, while the next copyist has an admittedly easier task with a smaller size text...


The nice thing about haplography is that like lightning, it usually can't happen twice in the same place, once the first similar line is lost.

W/H, Nestle, UBS follow B here, although Codex Sinaiticus flatly contradicts it. A further word-order-reversal by one branch of the copying stream makes the original Haplographic error nearly vanish. But modern scholars have no similar excuse, with all the variants before them.

Modern versions blank out again, caving in to the "assured results" of modern, but somehow uninspired, scholarship, even when it means ignoring the earliest papri evidence.