Subject: Re: tc-list Rev 4:11 variants

From: [email-masked] (U. Schmid)
Date: Thu, 16 Oct 1997 10:41:34 +0100

On Wed, 15 oct 1997, Larry Kruper wrote:

>Dear TC'ers,
>
>I have been looking at the variants found at Rev 4:11 with regard to
>the following : [ please be forwarned that I am new to this. ]
>
>        A. ACIOS EI [ O KURIOS KAI ] O QEOS HMWN        NA27
>        B. ACIOS EI [ KURIE ] O QEOS HMWN               AV SYh
>        C. ACIOS EI [ KURIE O KURIS KAI ] O QEOS HMWN   Aleph
>
>I consulted Nestle/Aland27 Alfords and Merk. The only other interesting
>thing I found is that reading B. uses SYh, which is supposed to
>be a very good critial edition, but that noone has done much
>work on how well it does on Revelation.

Lt's clarify just one point. Syh is an early 7th century Syriac revision of
the Philoxeniana (early 6th century Syriac version) based on Greek MSS (one
to three Greek MSS have been used depending on the various parts of the
NT). The main features of syh are 1) a very literal rendering of the Greek,
and 2) marginal notes (incl. critical signs) refering to variant readings
in the Greek as well as in the Syriac. Syh, therefore, offers a high degree
of certainty regarding its underlying Greek text(s), and displays
interesting insights into ancient "critical" editing. Thus, it may be safe
to call syh a "critical edition". However, I'm a bit reluctant to call it a
"good" critical edition, certainly not in the sense that it offers a very
old and superior text. Note, at best it gives the testimony of three Greek
MSS from the early 7th century, which, no doubt, in case of Revelation
would be more interesting than in other parts of the NT. However, in
Revelation only one Greek MS seems to have been used. And, you're right not
much work has been done in this particular field. However, you may note _A.
Vööbus, The Apocalypse in the Harklean Version, 1978 (CSCO 400)_.

>1. Internal evidence
>
>I have looked at occurences of KURIOS and KURIE in Revelation
>and my preliminary feeling is that KURIE is used each time it
>is clear that direct address is being used, and KURIOS is used
>in all other occurrences, EXCEPT for Re 4:11. Does this mean
>that the internal evidence favors KURIE ?
>
>        KURIE   Re 7:14;11:17;15:3,416:7;22:20
>        KURIOS  Re 1:8;4:8,11;11:8;17:14;18:8;19:6,16;21:22;22:5,6;

I very much sympathize with this approach. As a rule, discussions of
variant readings should not be done in isolation. Usually a lot of valuable
TC information shows up when working on similar morphological or
syntactical phenomena of the same text or author, even to the end of
complicating the whole issue. Larry, you probably realized that in Re 11:17
p47 and Aleph (!) give the variant reading (ho) KYRIOS instead of KYRIE.
What do you make of that?

>2. The longer reading to me appears to be my C. above.  I interpret
>longer as meaning the most words when all is said and done. Is this
>correct ?

Yes.

>3.  The more difficult reading. I guess for me it would be A. above
>considering how I feel about the internal evidence.
>
>4. Now the tough part for me.  I went and zeroxed the only Uncial
>manuscript that I could find which happens to be the Alexandrinus.
>
>The whole part that I need is not legible, unfortuneately. But I do
>note that the QEOS is a nomina sacra with Bar-Theta/Sigma and the
>KURI[OS | E] only has space for the two characters, so I know it is
>also a nomina sacra. I put it in [brackets] below.
>
>...........___........__.....
>ACIOS EI O [KS] KAI O QS HMWN
>.............................
>
>Now, in looking at the table of nomina sacra's provided on Bob's web
>site, I only see one nomina sacra for KURIOS - a KS.  So, how can
>one be sure if ANY occurence of KURIOS is nominitive or vocative ?
>I sure someone has a good explanation for this.

Bob Waltz and Matthew Johnson already dealt with that issue. However, I
would like to add a small remark on the use of "nomina sacra". "Nomina
sacra" is plural and, again, it is Latin. The singular is _a_ *nomen
sacrum*. Please, don't be upset when it comes to seemingly unimportant
corrections of that sort. TC, like any other scholarly enterprise, has a
certain technical "jargon" that is conventionally defined and reasonably
clear. Don't complain, it's simply business. BTW-- Medical students have to
learn much more technical "jargon" derieved from Latin.

>My conclusion:
>
>I like reading C.  It is the longest reading and from what little I
>know about TC, Aleph is a primary witness for Revelation.  Where did
>I go wrong ?  I did not come to the same conclusion as the experts !

Maybe because an argument like "I like reading C" is usually not considered
to be very decisive in scholarly discussion. The same goes for "the longest
reading" in TC, though that may be more open to discussion. Your last
argument regarding Aleph is generally true. It is a primary witness, though
with lots of peculiar features which warrant careful examination. In the
very case of Re 4:11 the reading of Aleph can be explained as either a
conflate reading (of A. and B.) or as a pious expansion in order to
complete the doxological "jargon" as, e.g., in Re 1:8 and more striking in
Re 7:10.

Ulrich Schmid,
Netherlands Institute for Advanced Studies

---

From: lakr <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 Oct 1997 15:01:06 -0700 (PDT)

> Ulrich Schmid

I've just started looking at this, and I have not looked at all
the variations for each occurence. That sounds like a good idea.
I see the similarity between 4:11 and 11:17.  The thing that bothers
me about all these variations (for KS,KE) is that we know that the original
text did not have the nomina sacra -- not even one nomen sacrum (could not 
resist).  

So, since we know for a fact that we are not looking at the original
text, is it not possible that whatever was there before was not
changed consistently by different witnesses ?

Sincerely,
Larry Kruper