And these, brothers, I have applied to myself and Apollos due to you, in order that you might learn from us [Note: The NOT was written over alpha], in order that you not puff yourselves up one over one against the other.
Actually, I don’t see much wrong with assuming that “μὴ ὑπὲρ ἃ γέγραπται” is a quotation introduced with τό, but I ran into the above suggestion and thought that it was interesting. Apparently the suggested scenario would be that a scribe worked from a manuscript with ΙΝΑΕΙϹΥΠΕΡΤΟΥΕΝΟϹ, but that had been corrected by writing ΜΗ above the alpha in ΙΝΑ. He restored the ΜΗ and made a marginal note ΤΟΜΗΥΠΕΡΑΓΕΓΡΑΠΤΑΙ, which was then incorporated into the text, which then became the archetype.
An intriguing theory based on the internal logic of the discourse, but it’s worth pointing out that there is apparently no manuscript evidence to support this (at least according to N-A 28).
John Strugnell argued that given what we know about transmission history of the NT, the idea that we had perfect archetypes is magical thinking. It’s likely that there are problems with the text even in some places where we have manuscript agreement.
Georg Luck has an article with a number of possible/probable emendations without manuscript support, “Conjectural emendation in the Greek New Testament.”
I was thinking of starting threads based on a few of his proposals. The conjecture about 1 Cor 4:6 that I started this thread about was not so convincing to me as some of the others, but I thought that it was at least an interesting possibility for what is a somewhat irregular passage.
the suggested scenario would be that a scribe worked from a manuscript with ΙΝΑΕΙϹΥΠΕΡΤΟΥΕΝΟϹ, but that had been corrected by writing ΜΗ above the alpha in ΙΝΑ. He restored the ΜΗ and made a marginal note ΤΟΜΗΥΠΕΡΑΓΕΓΡΑΠΤΑΙ, which was then incorporated into the text, which then became the archetype.
The conjecture is wholly implausible, with absolutely nothing to recommend it.
No less implausible, however, is the notion that the books of the New Testament were somehow immune from the perils of manuscript transmission that affect all texts.
So why is it “wholly implausible?” Care to explain your reasoning here?
And who on this forum actually believes that “the books of the New Testament were somehow immune from the perils of manuscript transmission that affect all texts?” You seem to be making a point against something which no one has stated.
Barry, this is not B-Greek. Can you not see how implausible it is? I was just making the observation, in hopes of deterring Joel from paying further attention to such bad suggestions. At the same time I thought I should endorse the position that there is room for conjectural emendation in the NT as in other texts.
EDIT. OK, I’ll relent, and explain.
For starters, the notion that μη was ever written above the alpha of ινα in correction of a scribal omission is a fantasy. (That doesn’t prove it wasn’t, obviously, but there’s no evidence that it was.)
Even if it was, the fact would not have been recorded.
And most damning of all, υπερ α γεγραπται does not mean “was written abοve α." It means “beyond what’s written.” The whole hypothesis collapses.
B-Greek avoids discussion on text critical issues and focuses on issues of language and linguistics, so the moderators would limit this discussion to how the text critical issue affects our understanding of the language of the text. The point is not what I see, but the fact that raw assertions help no one. You have an opportunity to help Joel and everyone else see why the reading is implausible. Why would you be reluctant to do so? Personally, my skills at telepathy are weak, and they never work through a computer screen, so I can’t see what’s in your head, and I doubt that others can do so either. Additionally, anyone who makes an assertion should be willing to provide support for it when asked, don’t you think?
Barry, See my edit, which crossed with your post. But don’t expect me to support every assertion I make, any more than you support the assertions that you make. I waste enough time here as it is.
I’ll disagree with Barry in the other thread. This is a discussion forum, and nobody is required to teach if they don’t feel like it.
I had done some reading of the arguments on both sides of the 1 Cor 4:6 emendation before posting. A number of people have rejected it, and given their reasons for doing so. I leaned in the direction that I claimed in the first post, though I still posted this thread because, as I said, I thought it was interesting. mwh’s judgement in this thread and the John 6:4 thread, however, was very helpful to me in seeing what sorts of arguments are reasonable, and what not.
There is sometimes an unstated background research requirement to the comments of our most learned contributors. There are plenty of others available here for hand-holding beginners when that is necessary.
EDIT: I’m referring to myself as the beginner here, and not meaning to apply that to anyone else.
In his Judicium vocalium, Lucian consistently uses the article with the letters as calls them to our attention (names them). Although our current focus of discussion - the Alpha - is only mentioned once, and is there spelt out with his name in full, (Α-Λ-Φ-Α) it might go a little way towards suggesting that if we were to be considering the “Α” as the letter, then it would have the article.
That suggests to me that if the scribe were to have been following the same conventions as Lucian, this α is not a noun.
@mwh: If the α in 1Corinthians 4:6 were a reference to the letter in the text, then as a Semitic loan word, it would be indeclinable. In that case ὑπὲρ may have any of its significances: either those of the genitive or of the accusative. If the α was understood as genitive, i.e. ὑπὲρ [sc. τοῦ] ἃ γέγραπται it could mean “above”.
@BH: In the recently discused On the Murder of Eratosthenes (Lysias 1), we saw the (now reversed) women’s quarters as (usually) being ἄνω:
However, the word for the women’s quarters is ὑπερῷον. The distinction between ὑπὲρ and ἄνω is not about whether one or the other signifies “above” (in the sense of “beyond”) or “above” (in the sense of “in a physically higher relative position”).
The reasonings behind an assertion are the intellectual property of the person thinking them. Demanding, requiring, etc. that somebody share their property with others when it is not freely offered is hybris. A polite request and encouragement to share is enough. After that it is up to the owner. It is better to be respectful of the rights of others than to expect them to share what they may not like to with those they may not like to share with.
A girl may give a man a smile that came from the warmth of her heart, but he will have to work hard to woo her to give him her heart - demanding and saying she should won’t go far towards keeping her heart warm, and more than likely he won’t walk home with it either.
The NT shows the same thing in Revelation, an alpha spelled out alongside an unspelled omega, both with the article, three times: τὸ ἄλφα καὶ τὸ ὦ (Rev 1:8; 21:6; 22:13)
Just glancing through the several hundred instances of γέγραπται and the sixty or so of ἐγράφη within the Perseus corpus, it is safe to say that γέγραπται is a form of the verb used (as required) in descriptions of the physical location of written text - both the location of text in relation to the world (books, walls, etc.) and also the physical relationship between textual elements.
The closest thing to the suggested ἐπάνω is the ἄνω used by Cassius Dio to say that he mentions the τὸ νάφθα τὸ ἀσφαλτῶδες (bitumenous naphtha) previously, (literally “up (the page a ways)”).
While ἐπάνω (+gen.) is not used in that selection, ἐπί is. Here is an exploration of some of the uses of ἐπί in a physical sense with γέγραπται:
Besides Plutarch’s repetitious use of the literary formula "(ὡς) ἐν τοῖς περὶ <person’s name> γέγραπται (cf. D.S. 9.30), Demosthenes and Pausanius give the most examples of physical descriptions using γέγραπται - Pausanius for the description of where things were written in the world, and Demosthenes for examples also of where parts of a text are written in relation to the text, but examples are not limited to those two authours (cf. Rev.13:8, 17:8). Here are a few:
If, however, one wanted to quote a single example of one textual element being described as written “above” another using γέγραπται, it would be an example from Euclid. Perhaps this example:
If one wanted to caricature this present interpretation of 1 Corinthians 4:6, then one might consider Polybius
“not was written next to an alpha”.
Or, continuing with the (μή above the alpha of ἵνα) authour’s unspoken assumption that ὑπὲρ is cognate with Lat. super and γράφω and scribo have the same meaning,
“above which the following is written”, “the following is written superscript”. (cf. Plutarch, Caesar, 65.1).
For those who transfer the idea derived from sola scriptura that scripture is used to interpret scripture to their study of Greek (those who limit their Greek reading to Scripture), taking the μετὰ ταῦτα as an adverbial prepositional phrase of location, rather than a temporal one in Acts 15:15-16, in a similar way that Demosthenes uses it in the following quote from Against Lacritus might serve as an absurd parallel:
A similar suggestion for the physicality of writing might be to read Mark 9:12 to mean that Jesus received a painful tattoo or engraving or something similar which wrote something derogatory on his skin:
