John 11:41 - (h.t.)

John 11:41 (traditional text)

        ...ηραν ουν  τον λιθον
ου ην  ο τεθνηκως  κειμενος
ο δε IΣ ηρεν τους οφθαλμους
ανω και ειπεν πατερ ευχαρι-
στω σοι οτι ηκουσας μου
...then they took away the stone
from where the dead was laid;
But   Jesus   lifted His eyes
up and said, "Father I thank
You since You have heard Me..."

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INCLUDE LINE: C(corr.3), Δ, 0141, f13, 700, 892S, 1424, Byz Maj (Majority of all continuous MSS)

OMIT LINE:
P66, א, B, C*, (D), L, W, X, Θ ψ, 0233, 33, 157,

1241, pc, Lat, Sy, sa, ac2, arm

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Once more, the reading is completely missing from the UBS-2 apparatus, and Nestle/Aland don't give adequate documentation either in their footnotes: They simply list the Traditional reading as "Byz" (=Byzantine). W. Willker has supplied at least some witnesses.


Many MSS are simply lacking the pages (e.g. P59/P75 ), but there is early Uncial support for the line, making both readings very old. The strongest clues to what happened are the double-Haplography features: similar beginning AND ending of lines, as well as similar letters in mid-line.

As with other examples, the wild variation in support between these potential cases of Haplography clearly indicate that these omissions come from different and independant sources: that is, many of them must be in fact errors, and not 'lucky preservations' of the original text.

We should not be surprised to find a rich supply of cases which suggest one of the most common errors, Haplography. The only more frequent mistakes will be spelling errors and word-order reversals, when a scribe skips a word and stuffs it in immediately afterward to avoid having to erase.


In this case, all the 'modern' versions drop the line without notes, snipping off yet another bit of text, and reviving one more ancient gaffe.