the Text of the Apocalypse of John

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C. S. Bartholomew
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Re: the Text of the Apocalypse of John

Post by C. S. Bartholomew »

Markos,

The web page greek text looks like "code" which isn't functional in my browsers. The english text is normal.

Looks like a home brewed translation. Somewhat awkward.The extra clause in the Byz text seems rather out of place, certainly undermines the parallelism which is borrowed from the Hebrew.
C. Stirling Bartholomew

C. S. Bartholomew
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Re: the Text of the Apocalypse of John

Post by C. S. Bartholomew »

[ὁ ἀθάνατος] Immortal A02 is a strikingly incongruous reading which does not fit the context. There is no correction in the manuscript. J. Herndandez notes[1] that Apocalypse isn't corrected very often in Codex Alexandrinus. Perhaps the fact that the book wasn't used in the liturgy had something to do with this.

REV 6:8 SBLGNT
καὶ ⸂εἶδον, καὶ⸃ ἰδοὺ ἵππος χλωρός, καὶ ὁ καθήμενος ἐπάνω αὐτοῦ ὄνομα αὐτῷ ὁ Θάνατος, καὶ ὁ ᾅδης ἠκολούθει ⸂μετʼ αὐτοῦ⸃, καὶ ἐδόθη ⸀αὐτοῖς ἐξουσία ἐπὶ τὸ τέταρτον τῆς γῆς, ἀποκτεῖναι ἐν ῥομφαίᾳ καὶ ἐν λιμῷ καὶ ἐν θανάτῳ καὶ ὑπὸ τῶν θηρίων τῆς γῆς.


ESV: Death {[ὁ Θάνατος] (025, 2351, (WH,) (NA,) 046, 2329, Byz, ς,}
poss: Death {[Θάνατος] 01, 61*, 1006, 1841, 1854, 2053, 04, 1611, 2073, pc, ?: syr }
poss: Immortal {[ὁ ἀθάνατος] 02}>

[1] J. Hernandez notes that in Apocalypse of John, only one out 84 singular readings in Codex Alexandrinus is corrected compared to 120 corrected singular readings out of 201 in Codex Sinaiticus. (Hernandez, Juan, Scribal Habits and Theological Influences in the Apocalypse, Pages 102-103.)
C. Stirling Bartholomew

mwh
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Re: the Text of the Apocalypse of John

Post by mwh »

Does the fact that αθανατος is not an NT word (let alone an Apocalypse one) tell us anything about the Alexandrinus' copyist or tradition? Are there comparable copying errors in this manuscript (whether corrected or not)? It would be interesting to know more about the nature of the Alexandrinus.

Wouldn't it be helpful to distinguish obvious copying errors such as this from readings which are not obviously wrong? "Singular readings", covering everything from slips of the pen to acceptable readings, seems to me a singularly unhelpful category.

C. S. Bartholomew
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Re: the Text of the Apocalypse of John

Post by C. S. Bartholomew »

I am actually not working on the TEXT now but the lexical semantic issues that result in translation variations. My mind is no longer focused on the text and hasn't been for some time so today when I ran into a textual problem that I had not documented it brought me to a full stop. I could make any sense out of the different sources I have available for textual variants.

The issue is simple enough.

Rev 5:5b ανοιξαι το βιβλιον και λυσαι τας επτα σφραγιδας αυτου

Rev 5:5b ἀνοῖξαι τὸ βιβλίον καὶ τὰς ἑπτὰ σφραγῖδας αὐτοῦ.

The witnesses cited for inserting λυσαι before τας επτα … were 01 (Sinaiticus), 2344, syr(ph), vg(cl), ς (TR) according to NA27. David Aune (v1 323) cites Oecumenius(2062), Andrew(d), Hippolytus (Comm. in Dan. 4.34). Another source cited 2053(text) which is somehow related to 2062. Hoskier apparatus at this point is hard to fathom. He appears to use the TR reading as the base text and cites variations against that which doesn't tell us what the evidence is for the TR. So I gave up and just used NA27.

The problem with Aune's data is that elsewhere in the book (page cxlv) he says that 2062 is part of family 2053 which only covers Rev chapters 1-2, 15-22. So how to we have it supporting a reading from chapter five? I don't really have to solve this but if anyone has the answer would like to clear this up.
C. Stirling Bartholomew

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