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Greek textual variant in 2Cor 3:1


Λύχνις Δαν

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Hi ya,

 

  I am reading 2Cor right now and as some of you no doubt already know I use the EPT as my main reading text. There is a very interesting textual variant (at least I spent a bit of time on it) in 2Cor 3:1. Here is the EPT:

 

Κορινθίους 3·1 ¶     ΑΡΧΟΜΕΘΑ πάλιν ἑαυτοὺς συνιστάνειν; εἴ μὴ χρῄζομεν ὥς τινες συστατικῶν ἐπιστολῶν πρὸς ὑμᾶς ἢ ἐξ ὑμῶν συστατικῶν;

 

And the NA:

 

Κορινθίους β 3·1 ¶     Ἀρχόμεθα πάλιν ἑαυτοὺς συνιστάνειν; μὴ χρῄζομεν ὥς τινες συστατικῶν ἐπιστολῶν πρὸς ὑμᾶς ἢ ἐξ ὑμῶν;

 

Now while I can easily imagine this was phonetic it led me to wonder about these opening sentences which are universally considered and marked up as questions.

 

Anyhow, any one know anything much about this variant ? It isn't covered in the UBS apparatus that I have nor does the OSB say anything. Any Acc resource say much about it that anyone is aware of ?

 

Thx

D

Edited by דָנִיאֶל
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There is nothing in the Comfort text commentary about this variant.

 

NIGTC has a short explanation and BECNT has a longer one, but not really by way of textual evidence. 

Edited by Alistair
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Daniel –

 

When I can't find any info in the NA28th or UBS5th apparatus, I go to CNTTS.

 

Here are the mss that support η:  P46 01 03 04 06 010 012 049 69 131 424c 999 1448 1505 1646 1720 1739 1881 1900 2495 SBL

 

P46 dates at about 200, Vaticanus (03) is probably the best single ms we have; 1739 & 1881 are significant because they were produced by a scribe who looked for the oldest ms he could find to make his copy.  

 

Here are the mss that support ει:  02 044 1 33 35 76 209 218 424* 489 927 945 1243 1244 1245 1249 1315 1319 1563 1573 1628 1735 1768 1874 1876 1877 1962 2374 2400 MT TR

 

The earliest ms is Alexandrinus (5th).  044 dates to the 9th-10th century.  All the others are 9th century or later, though 33 is a very good minuscule.

 

The editors of the NA28th must have seen ει as having poor support compared to η.  I think they're right.

 

By the way, CNTTS has the best manuscript descriptions of any resource we have in Accordance.  I use it regularly.  It also covers many variants that are not discussed in any other apparatus.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

My Note @ minuscule 1739: Miniscule 1739 was copied from a much older majuscule.  “The manuscript was copied by a monk named Ephraim. He copied 1739 from an uncial exemplar from the 4th century. It was discovered by E. von der Goltz in 1879 at Mount Athos and is usually known by his name. A collation was made by Morton S. Enslin (in Kirsopp Lake Six Collations).

The codex is housed at the Great Lavra (B 184), in Athos.” Wikipedia  See also Dan Wallace video, CSNTM, External Evidence Part 1 @ 5:10.
 
My Note @ minuscule 1881: Miniscule 1881 was copied from a much older majuscule.
Edited by Julia Falling
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@Alistair, Thanx. I didn't even consider checking NIGTC which is silly as I own it in Acc. I am using Long (BHGNT) in print on 2Cor, which is really excellent by the way, particularly if you are interested in discourse features. NIGTC attributes it to itacism - phonetics.

 

@Julia, many thanx for this. I'll look further into it. I had checked the Sinaiticus which shows the Η. I tried to check the Vaticanus but the Vatican online site does not make it easy to find the chapter and verses on a page the way codexsinaiticus.org does for א.

 

One thing I'll note here about this instance is this. In EPT the ει is accented as εἴ which is almost how the η is accented (ἢ) in the NA. Now what is more curious about this little tidbit is that while εἰ μὴ exists in many instances in the NA and the EPT it only appears in 2Cor 3:1 with a breather in EPT. Even the GNT F35 text in Acc does not do it this way, omitting the smooth breather. Hmmmm.... but I'm not sure when the breath marks and accents were put in the text. Clearly not in the majuscules. All stuff I've not really had time to go through.

 

Thx

D

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