Thursday, December 10, 2009

It’s funny when you notice things that scribes noticed as well.

I was reading through Acts and came across Acts 9.23-25:

23 When many days had passed, the Jews plotted to kill him, 24 but their plot became known to Saul. They were watching the gates day and night in order to kill him, 25 but his disciples took him by night and let him down through an opening in the wall, lowering him in a basket.  (Acts 9:23–25, ESV)

I thought, “huh. Didn’t realize Saul had disciples.” Here’s the Greek of v. 25:

25 λαβόντες δὲ οἱ μαθηταὶ αὐτοῦ νυκτὸς διὰ τοῦ τείχους καθῆκαν αὐτὸν χαλάσαντες ἐν σπυρίδι. (Ac 9.25, NA27)

Then I looked at the NA27 apparatus to see if there were variants here. Other people have thought the same thing I did, and figured they needed to fix it.

Some MSS simply remove αὐτοῦ thus removing the issue with “his” (“and the disciples took him by night”). Others change οἱ μαθηταὶ αὐτοῦ to αυτον οἱ μαθηταὶ, thus making explicit the formerly implicit object “him” in “took him by night” and removing the “his” from “his disciples”). Note that the text behind the KJV follows this latter option: “Then the disciples took him by night”.

Ain’t this fun?

Post Author: rico
Thursday, December 10, 2009 6:14:53 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00) 

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