Subject: Re: John 5:4

From: Jean VALENTIN <[email-masked]>
Date: Mar, 17 Jun 97 22:06:33 +0200

>       The overwhelming majority of early Greek mss omit John 5:4.  Do the
>versions (particularly the Syriac and Arabic) contain this verse?

As you already have answers about the Syriac versions, I will pass 
directly to the Arabic versions.

I don't have copies of the Gospel of John in all the Sinai Arabic 
manuscripts for the moment: these copies are expensive for the moment and 
I'm gathering progressively. So my answer will be fragmentary. here are 
the datas I can give you concerning Arabic:

(1) Sinai Arabic 71 (Xth cent.), as you already know from my previous 
posts, lacks this Gospel. The apparented lectionary Sin. Arb. 133 (1102 
A.D.) has both the second part of v.3 and v.4.
As I mentioned, this lectionary, compared with Sin. Arb. 71, is probably 
revised from the Peshitto. As these verses are present also in the 
peshitto, we can't know whether they were already present in Sin. Arb. 71 
or were imported from the peshitto. We can presume though, as the text is 
present in codex Koridethi, that most chances are that Sin. Arb. 71 had 
it also.

(2) The Alexandrian vulgate of the XIIIth century, as edited by Paul de 
lagarde from a Vienna manuscript, has this text. But it has critical 
notices, the one at the beginning of v.3 saying that "this is not in the 
coptic, neither in the greek", the second one before v.4, saying that it 
is not in the coptic.

(3) Sin. Arb. 112 (dated 1259) which follows syp in the beginning of Mt, 
greek texts in other parts (and I've not explored it enough to say 
something about John) has also the whole verses 3 and 4.

(4) Sin. Arb. 69, the oldest (in Sinai) representative of the official 
melkite version of the XIth century, mixing syriac and greek elements, 
has also the whole text.

That's all I can say for the moment concerning Arabic! Specially, I 
couldn't verify the text in the earliest version, that of Sin. Arb. 74 
and 72, for the reasons I already mentioned.

-----------------

Turning to the Georgian versions, we find that (1) both the version of 
the Adysh codex (according to some probably translated from an old, lost 
Armenian version) and the versions of codices ABDE (from a Cesarean Greek 
text) have the whole verse 3, but not verse 4, and (2) the later georgian 
vulgate (revision of ABDE following byzantine texts) has both verses 3 
and 4.

The armenian version as edited by Zohrab has the whole text of v. 3 and 4.

All three mss of the syropalestinian lectionary have also the whole text 
of v.3 and 4.

_________________________________________________
Jean Valentin - Bruxelles - Belgique
e-mail: [email-masked] /// netmail: 2:291/780.103
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"Ce qui est trop simple est faux, ce qui est trop complexe est 
inutilisable"
"What's too simple is wrong, what's too complex is unusable"
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