If there is one occupational hazard that threatens a good number of the text-critical guild, it is that of being pedantic. Squabbling over commas, dots in the margin, spelling, and one another's work (or lack thereof), we have seen it all.
I caught myself out when looking at these words in Rev 18:18 (as in the current Nestle Aland edition):
ἀστραπαὶ καὶ φωναὶ καὶ βρονταί
[lightning and sounds and thunder]
Regardless of the question of the correct word order (and I thing P47 and the koine Byzantine branch have a strong shout here), I noticed how the word order variants are listed in the apparatus of NA28:
1 4 5 2 3
5 4 1–3
1 4 5
1–3
And I thought, Is this tendentious? Why is the first one not listed as 1 2 5 4 3, with just the final two nouns swapped? Or the second as 5 2 1 4 3? Actually, the possibilities are quite numerous. Perhaps the last one should be 1 4 3? And by then I caught myself sinking down in the morass of pedanticism and tried to repent immediately ...
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You may have a good point about not squabbling or being pedantic, but I was far too distracted by your error in typing a "g" for a "k" in the sentence "and I thing* P47 and the koine Byzantine branch have a strong shout here"
ReplyDeletemaybe it is a kind of tc haiku
ReplyDeleteI would bet that the numbers given represent a fair amount of debate with those working on the aparatus. I personally think the clearest representations would have been
ReplyDelete1 2 5 2 3
5 2 1-3
1 2 5
1-3
but then the original is
1 2 3 2 5
so part of the problem is that there is not optimal solution here without changing the rules of the representation.
bob
I think that's something we need more of in tc.
ReplyDeletehaiku, that is.
open challenge: post your best tc poetry
ReplyDeletehaiku:
the scribes - they did it
cross-pollination committed
fix through conjecture
Ryan,
DeleteI think you left out a "we mustn't" to finish up your l. 3. (Hehehe!)
Sincerely,
Jonathan
haha thanks ryan
ReplyDelete