Showing posts with label ECM errata. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ECM errata. Show all posts

Monday, October 10, 2022

An interesting problem with the Editio Critica Maior (Mark 10.45)

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So I was minding my own business and reading an article about Mark 10.45 (M. Thiessen, 'The Many for One or One for the Many? Reading Mark 10:45 in the Roman Empire' HTR 109 (2016), 447-466) when I stumbled on a footnote about the text of Mark 10.45 in Codex W (032):

Although ms W reads λούτρον (ablution) instead of λύτρον (ransom), it is likely that this reading arose due to an unintentional scribal modification. (note 11)

That sounded interesting, but when I checked NA28 it wasn't mentioned, so I checked the facsimile (as one does) and it was obviously correct:

 

Then I checked the ECM apparatus on Mark and I came across this:

OK. So 032r means that the editors have regularised an incorrect reading to an orthographically and grammatically correct form (p. 19*). But λούτρον is a perfectly good word, as the Cambridge Greek Lexicon tells us (and indeed it is a NT word, cf. Tit 3.5):

 

Now, it doesn’t seem like there is anywhere within the three ECM volumes where a reader can figure out what the actual reading of W032 actually is. You can go to the NTVMR and then you get the information you need:

Obviously I accept that even the most objective kind of resource is impacted by a multitude of editorial decisions, but I was a bit disappointed that for such an important manuscript of Mark ECM didn’t tell me about such an interesting reading. I wonder how many other interesting spellings have been “regularized” in potentially overly zealous ways.