Subject: KRABBATGON vs. KRABBATON

From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 21 Feb 1997 12:22:03 -0500 (EST)

Recently Carlton Winbery and I were discussing a reading in ms. 1346 (which
Carlton is collating) at John 5:7 in which KRABBATGON  was read for
KRABBATON.  Ms. 565 has the same variant reading (which I've collated), and a
couple of other mss. are listed in Swanson as having the same reading.  In
discussing this, we postulated that perhaps the original was KRABBATION,
since LSL does not list KRABBATGON as a Greek word.  (Also, knowing the Attic
tendency to discourage diminutives, the shift from the conjectured diminutive
to KRABBATON would be understandable, if KRABBATION was considered as a
possible reading.)  

Could some of you help with the background on KRABBATGON and comment on the
possibility that this reading is the result of a scribal slip in which
someone confused an iota made with an overly long tail with a gamma.  I have
not seen any evidence of the variant in the Uncials, only minuscules, where
the confusion would be feasible.  At any rate, if KRABBATGON is not a Greek
word, an explanation for its presence in several mss. would be needed, thus
the conjecture of confusion with an original iota.  

Bill Warren
Professor of New Testament and Greek
New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary

---

From: [email-masked] (Carlton Winbery)
Date: Fri, 21 Feb 1997 12:31:54 +0400

>to KRABBATON would be understandable, if KRABBATION was considered as a
By the word "original" we meant the precursor of one or more of these Mss
that have the non-sense reading.  Often among these minuscules the scribe
will come off of a tau and make an iota by simply drawing a line straight
down from the right edge of the tau.  If he drug his pen going back to the
omicron, he would make what looks in other places as a gamma
unintentionally.  I am in the process of checking as many places where such
a mistake could have occurred.  So far the use of KRABATON/TION in John 5
is the only one I can positively identify.  Next I will check and see what
other phenomena tie these particular mss together in this part of John.

Carlton L. Winbery
114 Beall St.
Pineville, LA 71360
Fax (318) 442-4996
e-mail [email-masked]
        [email-masked]
        [email-masked]
Phone 318 487-7241 Home 448-6103