Citing Nonnus’ paraphrase of John in support of a “short reading” (BDF §402.1) struck me as odd. I recall on the TC-forum which went away about fifteen years ago we had an Nonnus aficionado. I couldn’t find Blass himself mentioned in any textbook on NT textual criticism. The english translation BDF which is a grammar edited by R. Funk is mentioned in Aland & Aland. Decades ago Gordon Fee wrote an article on the 1950s attempt by M.-E. Boismard to get some traction for a theory that was ignored when Blass first introduced it.
Fee in his characteristic style gives a methodical critique of Boismard’s project. If you live in blessed corner of the cyber space you may able to read this online. I pulled it up with a literal search “Boismard gave it a fresh” otherwise you could search for Blass Boismard Nonnus.
CHAPTER 16 THE TEXT OF JOHN IN THE JERUSALEM BIBLE: A CRITIQUE OF THE USE OF PATRISTIC CITATIONS IN NEW TESTAMENT TEXTUAL CRITICISM Gordon D. Fee
FYI, Fr. Blass was one of the most discerning scholars of ancient Greek who ever lived, and he made hundreds of still accepted corrections to our transmitted texts. His Grammar of New Testament Greek, written over a century ago (in an age when scholars really knew Greek), is still unsurpassed.
“Blass vs. everyone else.”
Scholars, like manuscripts, are to be weighed, not counted.
Blass may have taken the lectio brevior principle too far in John. Or he may not. We’ll never know.
But this doesn’t address the question of αυτον at Jn.2.24. (And nor did Blass, so far as I’m aware.) Any idea why the Sinaiticus’ text is not taken more seriously?
Okay, I don’t know if this helps answer your question, but only Aleph is listed as lacking auton, in the CNTTS apparatus in Bibleworks 9. So both Sinaiticus (a) and (b) lack it, with (c) and (d) lacking verse 24 altogether.
Tischendorf’s apparatus just says ‘om’ for Aleph (a) (which if I’m reading his abbreviations rightly, he calls ‘01’).
NET Bible (again, as the aforementioned 2, are in Bibleworks 9) seems to disregard auton and treat pantas as the subject? I’m not used to reading that one, so maybe I misread its apparatus.
All these are in the ‘Verse’ tab in BW9. Hope this helps.
Not to beat a dead horse, but I wonder whether a case can be made for αὐτὸν in the passage in question.
The sentence doesn’t begin Ἰησοῦς δὲ ; rather, it begins αὐτὸς δὲ Ἰησοῦς, and perhaps τὸ αὐτὸν γινώσκειν πάντας mirrors and continues the slight emphasis implicit in αὐτὸς δὲ Ἰησοῦς. Loosely: “But no, he didn’t entrust himself to them, because he knew them all …” He knew them well.
Then again, in what follows we have another αὐτὸς that must be to some degree emphatic, or at least calls for explanation, because the pronoun seems otherwise unnecessary: αὐτὸς γὰρ ἐγίνωσκεν τί ἦν ἐν τῷ ἀνθρώπῳ: “he knew himself what was in the man/generic man.” αὐτὸν γινώσκειν seems exactly parallel to αὐτὸς γὰρ ἐγίνωσκεν.
So we have three αυτος’es (well, two αυτος’es and one αυτον) in sequence, each of which seems emphatic, or at least unnecessary absent some explanation.
What point was the author of this text trying to make with his apparently superfluous pronouns? Applying the “Hemingway principle,” why didn’t he just write this?
But wouldn’t that have the same effect as (I forget the verse) where Paul plays “I would comfort you with the comfort with which (Whom) I am comforted”?
Or, Maybe to play on how Christ is a different autos versus all others?
Sorry, I’m posting too much. I love questions like this. Will shut up now, thank you.
By the way, did Blass propose to delete just αὐτὸν, or the whole phrase διὰ τὸ αὐτὸν γινώσκειν πάντας, objecting to the διὰ τὸ + articular infinitive construction?
Certainly a case can be made for αυτον, and it may well be right. The two Luke passages I singled out support it, though others don’t. Here as elsewhere in NT and koine αυτος and αυτον are not being used as they would be in classical Greek, as I pointed out in my first post. Still I wonder why it’s taken for granted, since a good case can be made for the version without it too, and the Sinaiticus is hardly a negligible manuscript!
brainout, thanks for the additional MS details. But on either reading there’s no reason to take pantas as subject of the infinitive, even if it is a tenable (but extremely perverse) construal of the Greek.
PS. Blass. Sterling says he “omit” the whole phrase, which I take to mean he proposed that it was a later addition to the text of John’s gospel. I have no reason to doubt the report, but I don’t know where Blass made the proposal—not, at any rate, in the place cited by Robertson (pasted by Sterling above), i.e. p.236 of his NT Grammar, where Robertson wrongly says he “unnecessarily rejects Jo. 2:24.” Blass’s Grammar is on-line and conveniently searchable, and nowhere does he reject the verse or any part of it. On p.236 he quotes the phrase in the context of prepositions with articular infinitives (he gives a more extensive list of δια το + inf. than Sterling gave above). Evidently this was a piece of carelessness by Robertson.
In short, it appears that Blass somewhere (but not in his Grammar) proposed to delete the whole phrase, not just αυτον. I don’t know his reason, beyond his preference for a shorter text (which I expect he took to extremes). So far as I’m aware no-one has championed the Sinaiticus’ text, which NT editors—very oddly—do not even mention.
Still I wonder why it’s taken for granted, since a good case can be made for the version without it too, and the Sinaiticus is hardly a negligible manuscript!
Maybe modern editors accept τὸ αὐτὸν γινώσκειν because of what follows in the next sentence, αὐτὸς γὰρ ἐγίνωσκεν, where αὐτὸς seems equally pleonastic.
Sorry to repeat the point–I wasn’t sure you noticed it and didn’t simply respond to the first sentence of my post.
Blass cites the articular infinitive with δια in John 2:24 on p. 231 of his New Testament grammar (sec. 71, 5).
Maybe. Do they say? Do they even know there’s a variant? I did read your whole post (if I read others’ I’m certainly going to read yours) and the same points had occurred to me before I first posted but the argument is hardly probative as you yourself acknowledged and I didn’t care to argue the whole thing out. There’s no reason to hesitate to accept the normally accepted text—apart from the fact the Sinaiticus (and the Syriac?) has something else, which may indeed be mistaken but you’d expect it at least to be cited because it’s not unequivocally wrong. That was my only point.
Your Blass reference is to the German ed. while mine like Robertson’s was to the englished version which includes revisions and corrections by Blass himself.
Maybe we’d both do well to stay away from this forum.
Please don’t stay away. I can’t tell you how refreshing it is to read your posts. I’ve been in B-Greek for years but cannot post there without disclosing my real name. So this is a godsend to me.
OTOH I shouldn’t make my pleasure an issue in your posting. I guess it’s a weird way to say THANK YOU.
This is just how my pastor talked when alive, about whether articular infinitive, and other uses, etc. to explain his often unusual translations. Next best thing to having him back alive, talking.
I see several goofs here. The poor scribe, first of all. Then a number of editors of the critical editions. Finally, all of the monks correcting the Sinaiticus manuscript over the centuries (it is heavily corrected). It is almost redundant and likely just an easy word to miss.
However, since mwh has asked twice now for someone to argue for παντας as the subject I’ll oblige him (only for fun).
The first thing that I would do is change αὑτὸν to αὐτὸν. It could be a reference to the word that he was teaching the crowds in the above verse.
“Jesus himself did not entrust it [the word] to them, because all knew it and [each one] also knew that he did not have need for someone to testify about the man [Jesus], for [each one] himself knew what was in the man [Jesus].”
Of course, even more fun would be the Gnostic version:
“Jesus himself did not entrust him [Thomas, John the beloved/other?], because he [Thomas/John/???] knew everything, and because [Jesus] didn’t need anyone to testify about the man, for he himself knew what it was in the man.”
Just in case anyone’s misled, I most certainly did not ask for for someone to argue for παντας as the subject. I expressed the hope that no-one would be so perverse as to do so. I don’t begrudge jeidsath his fun, but there are enough irresponsible NT interpretations out there without adding to them.
But he does make the point that the Sinaiticus’ text was never “corrected” here despite all the people who went over it collating it with other manuscripts. But I agree that may not count for very much in the circumstances.
The thing is, NET Bible’s apparatus for the verse DID use pantas. But on reading it in BW9’s Verse tab, they use it for ‘all people’ rather than the usual translation, ‘all men’ so on second thought that reinforces your point.
Frankly, whether that last auton is omitted or not, the meaning seems the same. HE is singular, and pantas is acc plural.