Heb 2.9 in P46 (and NA27)

Just a couple of points:

1. In the inner margin of NA the numbered kephalaia are given as 'most widely used in the manuscripts' (p. 78*). These are often interesting and sometimes illuminating, and sometimes very relevant to textual criticism (e.g. on the pronoun of Romans 8.2; cf. Romans keph. 11). Right here (at Heb 2.9) the placement of the number is interesting in the sense of 'strange'. (Assuming for the moment that this placement is accurate to the placement in most manuscripts [which in any case I cannot check].) It is strange because it breaks up Hebrews' interaction with Ps 8: the final clause of Ps 8.7 is in view in Heb 2.8c as not yet seen; whereas the two preceding clauses of Ps 8.6 are in view in Heb 2.9a-b as now seen (this also confirms the decision to follow the shorter text of Ps 8.7 in the citation in Heb 2.7). So this particular chapter division is interesting in the sense of being profoundly unhelpful.
2. The reader marks of P46 (see my earlier post) are interesting in 2.9 as signalling a pause between DIA TO PAQHMA TOU QANATOU and the following clause (from Ps 8) DOXH k.t.l. This could be read as associating the 'lower than the angels' directly with Jesus' death; and separating the 'crowning' as subsequent (with plenty of modern commentators). I take the crowding of ESTEFANWMENON (unusually given the whole page) as a kind of punctuation too - ending this clause at the end of the line and leaving the OPWS clause to a new line.
3. Hebrews' use of Ps 8 is clearly very interesting and purposeful. In my own thinking about it I see Hebrews as really crediting the title of the Psalm as significant (EIS TO TELOS): he knows from this that it is eschatological, hence his approach to this section is to differentiate precisely between what is already and what is not yet - this is not an arbitrary reading but a LXX-canonical reading that Hebrews is pursuing (of the LXX clearly, not a Hebrew Bible).
4. I actually quite like to see the NA27 note about the conjecture to omit the OPWS clause (the deletion of all conjectural emendations is one aspect of NA28 that I am not looking forward to). It is a signal to me that scholars have found the clause awkward and so it is a stimulus to think it through carefully (I confess that I am unlikely to follow proposed conjectural emendations without any external evidence). They are also interesting for the history of scholarship (over to Jan for more ...).
5. P46 already reads XARITI QEOU here, which suggests that if in fact XWRIS QEOU is the original text, the alteration to XARITI took place pretty early and established itself fairly readily as the manuscript reading. (Although of course even if you don't think XWRIS QEOU is original we must all acknowledge it as an ancient reading preserved for a millenium in manuscripts no longer extant and then appearing in some late uncials and early minuscules) I don't have the strength right now to defend this reading (read the brilliant treatment in B.D. Ehrman, Orthodox Corruption, 146-150 for a compelling argument at this point).