Introduction to the textual criticism of the Greek New TestamentNestle, Eberhard
Religion
Introduction to the textual criticism of the Greek New Testament
Nestle, Eberhard
Bible. New Testament -- Criticism, Textual
Palimpsests of Bible manuscripts came to be prohibited by the Church.
The Sixth Ecumenical Council (Trullan, Concilium quinisextum, 680-681),
in its 68th canon, Περὶ τοῦ μὴ ἐξεῖναί τινι τῶν ἁπάντων βιβλία τῆς
παλαιᾶς καὶ νέας διαθήκης διαφθείρειν, forbids the sale of old
manuscripts of the Bible to the βιβλιοκάπηλοι or the μυρεψοί, or to any
persons whatever.[58] There was naturally a special aversion to letting
such manuscripts fall into the hands of Jews; but yet there were
discovered, in the lumber room of the Synagogue of Old Cairo, fragments
of a Greek MS. of the Gospels, which had been afterwards employed to
receive Jewish writing. Parchments of this sort were at first used only
for rough drafts and such like, instead of wax tablets from which the
writing could be erased again.
Punctuation.
A good example of the importance of punctuation will be found in Lk. i.
35, on which see p. 201. Compare also Lk. xxi. 8, 1 Tim. ii. 5, where
Lachmann punctuates καὶ ἀνθρώπων ἄνθρωπος. By a different punctuation in
Heb. i. 9, Tischendorf and Westcott-Hort make ὁ Θεός vocative and
nominative respectively. In the former case the Messiah is God, in the
other God is the one who anoints him. This difference was not observed
at first by O. v. Gebhardt. Similarly there is a difference between the
text and the margin of Westcott and Hort in verse 8, where by the
insertion or omission of the two commas before and after ὁ Θεός the
meaning is either that Messiah is God or that God is Messiah’s throne.
Considering the importance of such marks of division, the rule laid down
by Ephraem Syrus in the year 350, and again emphasized by Bengel and
Lagarde, should be carefully attended to in the New Testament: εἰ
κέκτησαι βιβλίον, εὐστιχὲς κτῆσαι αὐτό· μήποτε εὑρεθῇ ἐν αὐτῷ πρόσκομμα
τῷ ἀναγινώσκοντι ἢ μεταγράφοντι (see Nestle, _Bengel als Gelehrter_, p.
24). Compare also what Chrysostom says regarding punctuation on Mt.
viii. 9: τινὲς δὲ καὶ οὕτως ἀναγινώσκουσι τουτὶ τὸ χωρίον· εἰ γὰρ ἐγὼ
ἄνθρωπος ὤν, καὶ μεταξὺ στίξαντες ἐπάγουσιν· ὑπὸ ἐξουσίαν ἔχων ὑπ’
ἐμαυτοῦ στρατιώτας. See also Victor (or whoever it is) on Mk. xvi. 9. On
the change of the sense by means of false emphasis or punctuation see
below, pp. 204(7), 276. J. A. Robinson thinks it probable that ὁ
Ἀγαπητός is a separate title of the Messiah, and would point ὁ υἱός μου,
ὁ Ἀγαπητός in Mk. i. 11, ix. 7 on the authority of the _Ascensio Esaiae_
and the Old Syriac (see Hastings’ _Bible Dictionary_, ii. 501).
Contents.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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