Christian Publishing House Blog
Apologetic Defense of the faith, the Bible, and Christianity
Wettstein rendered service to textual criticism by his collection of various readings and his methodical account of the manuscripts and other sources.
The sad state of affairs is that textual scholarship as a whole is unwittingly or knowingly moving the goalposts for some unknown reason. In textual criticism, it is now the earliest knowable text, the sociohistorical approach to New Testament Textual Studies, and, the newest trend of trying to redate our earliest NT papyri.
The Codex Alexandrinus (London, British Library, Royal MS 1. D. V-VIII; Gregory-Aland no. A or 02, Soden δ 4) is a fifth-century Christian manuscript of a Greek Bible, containing the majority of the Greek Old Testament and the Greek New Testament. It is one of the four Great uncial codices.
In the days of Westcott and Hort, the argument was that the Alexandrian scribes removed what we have in the Byzantine manuscripts, while the other argument was that the Byzantine scribes added and altered. How could we ever solve it once and for all?
ζητειτε την βασιλειαν αυτου “seeking his kingdom” ζητειτε την βασιλειαν του θεου “seeking the kingdom of God”
SERIOUS IMPLICATIONS If the WH NU reading is correct, then it is possible that this disciple of Jesus was zealous for the law or was “a zealous nationalist prior to his call to follow Jesus.
A number of Bible translations are choosing to go with εκλεκτος (“chosen one”) over ὁ υἱός (the Son), such as TNIV NEB REB NJB NLT LEB NET, which the recent publication P106 has strengthened εκλεκτος (“chosen one”) as a choice. However, is this the best choice as the original reading based on the evidence?
Lacuna (pl: Lacunae): an unfortunate loss of text within a manuscript due to accident or wear and tear. Even more unfortunate, lacunae usually are more frequent and more damaging in early manuscripts, especially the papyri. Notable Examples ...
A scribe is far more likely to omit a word or phrase mistakenly, as to intentionally adding. The reading that is deemed immediately at odds with the context is preferred if deemed intentional because a scribe is more likely to have smoothed the reading out. The harmonization of passages is likely an intentional change by a copyist, who is seeking to have a passage agree with a similar passage from another book. Examples: Doctrinal Corrections, Liturgical Corrections, Harmonistic Corrections, Historical Corrections, and Linguistic or Rhetorical Corrections.
The quotation in verses 2 and 3 is composite, the first part being from Mal 3:1 and the second part from Is 40:3. It is easy to see, therefore, why copyists would have altered the words ...