Paragraph Break at Greek Esther 2:5?

In a comment to a previous post, Peter Head noted the presence of reading aids on a page of the Esther part of Ra 967. I have now looked at the available digital images for Esther, and it is clear that these marks do break the text into various sense units. Sometimes they mark what might be equivalent to a comma (e.g. see image below after βενεαμιν) or period (e.g. see image below after αστιν) and at other times, perhaps, they mark a break between paragraphs. It's the latter issue I want to present here and ask for your input.

Sinaiticus at Esther 2:5

This appears to be a standard example of ΚΑΙ in ekthesis to indicate a paragraph break between verse 4 and verse 5. The previous line is left half empty with punctuation indicating a break. The same ekthesis is in B at the same place.

Rahlfs's Text at Esther 2:5

Rahlfs's Edition followed suit by creating a paragraph break between verse 4 and verse 5

Ra 967 f. 40r at Esther 2:5

Here we see the reading aid marking a sense division between verse 4 and verse 5 in the 2/3C papyrus MS, albeit lacking the οὕτως. 

Gӧttingen Esther at 2:5

Ra 967 exercised some influence on the editor of Esther in terms of the layout for the text, for now there is no paragraph break between verse 4 and verse 5, only a period dividing them. But, if I'm reading matters correctly, the reading aid in Ra 967 could have provided a clue to the editor that there may have been a larger sense division in Ra 967, since the scribe of that MS did not use ekthesis or other means for marking paragraphs. Rather he used the same reading aid that he used for all other sense divisions in the text.

It does appear that the 4C scribe of S followed his exemplar by indicating a paragraph break in the text between verse 4 and 5. Did he interpret a reading aid as in 967 as marking a paragraph break here? Or did he invent the paragraph break? Can we know one way or the other? What do you think?

Preferring a Longer Reading in Ephesians 5.22

Yesterday at church, I happened to be reading Eph 5.22 and thinking again about the relationship between Eph 5.21 and Eph 5.22. My NA26, which I had with me at the time, notes the possibility of punctuating v. 21 with v. 22 or separately from it. The NA28 punctuates it with v. 22 and the paragraphing follows suit. One of the reasons for doing this is because v. 22 doesn’t have a main verb but one that is implied from the participle ὑποτασσόμενοι (“being in submission to”) from v. 21. In this, v. 21 is set apart from the other similar participles in 5.16–20 that unpack what it means to “walk worthy” (5.15).

However, the apparatus of NA also notes that most manuscripts have an explicit imperative in 5.22 which would make 5.22 line up naturally with the other second person imperatives in the rest of Eph 5.22–6.20 (see 5.25, 6.1, 6.5, 6.10). Each of these starts its own paragraph in NA.

There are two alternate readings in 5.22. The first is ὑποτάσσεσθε (“y’all be in submission to”) found in K L 630 Byz syr. The other is ὑποτασσέσθωσαν (“they should be in submission”) found in 01 A I P 0278 6 33 1505 1739 lat syh co etc. What I realized yesterday in thinking about this is that the second reading has a really good claim to originality; in fact, I now think it may have the best claim to that.

Variant and paragraph break at Eph 5.22 in 01

Not only is it attested early and well, but it can easily explain both the alternate readings while alternatively not being well explained by either. It explains the shorter reading (found only in P46 B Clem Hier) by simple homoioteleuton, the word being omitted because of the repeated ν on ἀνδράσιν just before it. On the other hand, it explains the Byzantine reading which is the obvious way to assimilate this verse to the rest of this section, the other imperatives being 2nd person rather than 3rd person as we have with ὑποτασσέσθωσαν. I think this latter point is also good grounds against preferring the shorter reading; if a scribe were going to add a verb here (as, I readily admit, would be natural), it  would most likely have taken the form of the 2nd person imperative to fit with the others. In other words, it would take the form of the dominant Byzantine reading.

There is, then, a strong case to be made for ὑποτασσέσθωσαν as the original reading. And, if so, then v. 21 should be read more with what precedes and v. 22, more with what follows. The paragraph break thus belongs after v. 21 not before it.

The question I had at church was whether or not anyone else had taken this view. Sure enough, Tregelles prefers ὑποτασσέσθωσαν and he is followed by the editors of the new THGNT. The latter also has a paragraph break at v. 22. [Update: Lachmann has it and WH give ὑποτασσέσθωσαν as a marginal reading.] So, I am at least in good company.

Whatever your view, this is certainly not an insignificant decision. Given the debates about vv. 21 and 22, the choice of variant and its effect on where to break the text, affects how you read and apply the text. Let no one say that textual criticism doesn’t influence interpretation and application. The other lesson from this example is: always take your GNT to church! You never know what you’ll discover.

Paragraphing and Formatting in Nestle-Aland

The arrival of the THGNT has provoked us to think afresh about matters we normally take for granted like orthography, paragraphing, and even punctuation. With that provocation in mind, I was interested to see this description in my newly-acquired NA26, the first NA edition, you may remember, to move away from Nestle’s tradition of following other critical editions.

The system of paragraph divisions has been developed more extensively than before, and not simply for greater clarity. It is designed to aid the reader’s understanding of the writings by clarifying their structure, e.g., in the Gospels distinguishing the primitive units. The strophic printing of verse has been expanded, perhaps even too much at times but further revision is always possible. The same holds for punctuation, which seek to follow Greek usage in contrast to the earlier Nestle which was dominated by German usage, and The Greek New Testament where the influence is English.

Old Testament quotations are not printed in bold face as before (and in The Greek New Testament), but in italics. We hope this will be welcomed as a means of making them distinct , but without the overemphasis to which their frequency in bold face tended. They have also been completely revised: the problems involved here are familiar. (Intro, p. 44*)

Remember that NA and UBS share the same text, but not necessarily orthography, paragraphing, or punctuation. Regarding the last of these, I knew that Nestle had followed German comma rules but I didn’t realize that these were revised in the NA26 to follow “Greek usage.”

It is also interesting (to me, at least) that the NA26 introduction says that “the font used is certainly lacking in the simplicity and clarity of that used for The Greek New Testament.” That font, of course, was Porson. Metzger—rightly!—bemoaned the loss of “the beautiful Porson font” from the UBS4 which, he tells us, he had recommended for the earlier editions (Reminiscences, p. 73). For its part, the NA26 blames the font change on the need for a typeface “that could be used in diglot editions.”

Where does the Parable of the Sower begin? (Mark 4:3)

In the Greek New Testament, Produced at Tyndale House, Cambridge (THGNT) we made the decision to begin the Parable of the Sower in Mark’s gospel with the second, not the first, word of Jesus’s speech. In Mark 4:3 we have ἀκούετε ‘listen’ and then a new paragraph beginning Ἰδοὺ ἐξῆλθεν ὁ σπείρων σπεῖραι· ‘Behold the sower went out to sow’.

I don’t know that we could reasonably have done anything else.

To make the point, I’ll just paste a series of pictures of manuscripts below with brief comments.

Vaticanus, fourth century, marks the new paragraph with the paragraphos above ιδου (credit Vatican Library).

Sinaiticus, fourth century, leaves space to the end of the line after ακουετε and has ekthesis before ιδου (credit British Library).

Alexandrinus, fifth century, ends the column with ακουετε and begins a new page with ιδου beginning with a littera notabilior (credit British Library).

Ephraemi Rescriptus, fifth century, does not use ekthesis with ιδου. Though ιδου does begin a line this is probably just a result of where it naturally falls within the paragraph. This manuscript therefore goes against the trend of the others (credit Bibliothèque Nationale de Paris)

Codex Bezae, fifth century, ends a line with ακουετε when there’s plenty of space for more. It then has ekthesis with ιδου (credit Cambridge University Library).

1424, 9th-10th century, is included here as illustrative of a later manuscript. There’s now a gap before ακουετε and another between ακουετε and ιδου. It’s a sort of intermediate form evolving from the earlier pattern of paragraphing to the more recent system of having the main break before ακουετε (credit CSNTM.org).

Of course the beauty of the old system, restored now in the THGNT, is that it separates the command to use one’s hearing from the command to use one’s imagination (or mind’s eye).

‘Listen up’

‘Now imagine you can see ...’