Author Archives: Dungadin

John 3:34 Translation Issues

John 3:34- 
ὃν γὰρ ἀπέστειλεν ὁ θεὸς τὰ ῥήματα τοῦ θεοῦ λαλεῖ, οὐ γὰρ ἐκ μέτρου δίδωσιν τὸ πνεῦμα.”
For he whom God has sent speaks the words of God; because to him God gives the Spirit without measure.”

 txt το πνευμα 𝔓³⁶ 𝔓⁶⁶ 𝔓⁷⁵ 𝔓⁸⁰ ℵ B¹ C* L Wsupp 083 it-b,e,fc,l Or-grk Cyr Vict-Pett½ SBL TH NA28 {B} ‖ ο θεος το πνευμα A C² D E 047 086 𝔐 it-a,aur,(d),f*,j,π,q,r¹ (itff² του θεου) vg syr-p,h cop arm eth geo Or-lat Did-dub Chrys Vict-Pett½ Greg-Elvvid Jer Aug TR RP ‖ ο πατηρ τω υιω αυτου syr-c,Diatess-Eph ‖ ο θεος ο πατηρ syrs ‖ omit B* ‖ lac Ν P Q T 0233

The Bible translator confronts two questions here: (1) whether to include ο θεος “God” or not; and (2), whether the verb δίδωσιν has an implied direct object, i.e., the person who is the subject being discussed, “he whom God has sent,” the Son.

On the first question, we cannot tell which text the translations are following, since they could have, like I did, even though following the Greek text not containing ο θεος, felt a need to clarify who was doing the giving, and added the word “God” anyway.  Note in the critical apparatus that indeed the Curetonian Syriac and the Diatessaron supplied τω υιω αυτου, “to his Son.”  That does not mean that their Greek exemplar contained those words.)

Following are he translations which we presume follow the UBS/NA text, which nevertheless supply the word “God” for clarification:

Weym   for God does not give the Spirit with limitations.”
CBW      for God continues to give Him the Spirit without measure.
AMP      for God gives the [gift of the] Spirit without measure [generously and boundlessly]!
CEB        because God gives the Spirit generously.
CJB         For God does not give him the Spirit in limited degree —
ERV        God gives him the Spirit fully.
EHV?     for God gives the Spirit without measure.
GW        After all, God gives him the Spirit without limit.
GNT       because God gives him the fullness of his Spirit.
ICB         . God gives him the Spirit fully.
ISV         because God does not give the Spirit in limited measure to him.
MOUNCE    for God does not give the Spirit in a limited measure.
NCB       for God gives him the Spirit without measure.
NCV       because God gives him the Spirit fully.
NIV        for God gives the Spirit without limit.
NLT        for God gives him the Spirit without limit.

On the 2nd question, whether a direct object is implied as to whom the Spirit is given without measure, the following translations supply “him” or some other stand-in for the Son:

CBW      for God continues to give Him the Spirit without measure.
Bishops       For God geueth not the spirite by measure vnto hym.
CJB         For God does not give him the Spirit in limited degree —
CEV        and he has been given the full power of God’s Spirit.
DLNT     For He does not give Him the Spirit from a measure.
ERV        God gives him the Spirit fully.
Genev  for God giveth him not the Spirit by measure.
GW        After all, God gives him the Spirit without limit.
GNT       because God gives him the fullness of his Spirit.
ICB         God gives him the Spirit fully.
ISV         because God does not give the Spirit in limited measure to him.
PHILLIPS    and there can be no measuring of the Spirit given to him!
KJV         for God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto him.
NCB       for God gives him the Spirit without measure.
NCV       because God gives him the Spirit fully.
NLT        for God gives him the Spirit without limit.

And those which do not supply an object:

Weym   for God does not give the Spirit with limitations.”
AMP      for God gives the [gift of the] Spirit without measure [generously and boundlessly]!
Tyndale     For God geveth not the sprete by measure.
ASV        for he giveth not the Spirit by measure.
CSB        since he gives the Spirit without measure.
CEB        because God gives the Spirit generously.
EHV        for God gives the Spirit without measure.
ESV        for he gives the Spirit without measure.
HCSB     since He gives the Spirit without measure.
MOUNCE    for God does not give the Spirit in a limited measure.
NAB       He does not ration his gift of the Spirit.
NASB95     for He gives the Spirit without measure.
NET        for he does not give the Spirit sparingly.
NIV        for God gives the Spirit without limit.
NKJV     for God does not give the Spirit by measure.
NRSV     for he gives the Spirit without measure.
RSV        for it is not by measure that he gives the Spirit;

Now a conclusion I make about which was the true early Greek text, is that it was the reading without ο θεος, as in the 3rd centruy 𝔓⁸⁰, and that the Byzantine text, coming out of Syria, had to acknowledge the prior popularity of all the Syriac language translations that were already popular, including the Diatessaron which was more popular than the individual Greek gospels.  The Syriac translators I say, supplied “God” or “the Father” for clarification just as many modern translations do even though their translations were based on a Greek source text that doid not include ο θεος.  Fortunately, the addition of ο θεος in the text does no harm, since that is who is doing the giving clearly from context.

John Chapter 3 Verse 15

I am working on publishing my Robinson-Pierpont edition of the Gospel of John. I am adding a footnote in all editions regarding John 3:15, as follows:

εν αυτω                                                     εχη           𝔓⁷⁵ B Wsupp 083 0141 SBL TH NA28
εις αυτον                                                   εχη          ℵ 086
επ αυτω                                                     εχη          𝔓⁶⁶ L
[εν αυτω]                                                   εχη          𝔓³⁶
εν αυτω       μη απωληται       αλλ          εχη          T
επ αυτον     μη απολ___         αλλ          εχη          A*
επ αυτον      μη απολητε         αλλ          εχη          A²vid
εις αυτον     μη αποληται        αλλ          εχη          𝔓⁶³ G K N U Δ Θ Π 063 TR RP
εις αυτον     μη αποληται        αλλ          εχει         E F H S Y Λ Ψ Ω 047 0211
εις αυτον     μη αποληται        αλλ          ε__           V
εις αυτον     μη απωληται       αλλ          εχη          Γ
εις αυτον     μη απωληται       αλλ          εχει         M
lac           C D P X 070 0233

In order to say “believe in him,” John usually writes εις αυτον, so εν αυτω was probably original, and scribes unconsciously wrote the familiar εις αυτον.  Now, since εν αυτω is not usual for John for “believe in him,” it is possible that the text with εν αυτω means, “so that everyone who believes, may have eternal life in him.”

Revelation Apocalypse in Print

I have published the Apocalypse of John in paper and ink:

• large size – 8.25 x 11 inches
• large font – 12 point font
• 168 pages
• 518 footnotes
• 82 endnotes
• 3 tables
• Bargain price! $7.59, €6.93

A new English translation from the ancient Greek, the English text alternating verse by verse with the Greek text; with footnotes pertaining to translation issues and pertaining to Greek textual variants.  This latter “critical apparatus” cites 86 Greek manuscripts,  6 Greek New Testament editions, as well as early versions and Fathers.  The editions collated are the NA28, SBL, TH (Tyndale House), Robinson-Pierpont, Byzantine Greek, Antoniades, and the Textus Receptus.  When the dozens of editions of the Textus Receptus disagree, this is noted.  At the end of the book are several tables, including a list of all  handwritten Greek manuscripts of the Apocalypse of John.

Hoskier and Ligature Books Published

This is a reminder that in 2010 and 2011 I published some books on Lulu, and they are still available:

“” by H. C. Hoskier, paperback, 647 pages. $21.55

“” by H. C. Hoskier, hard cover, 647 pages. $39.18

, by David Robert Palmer; paperback, 55 pages, $14.95

1 Timothy 3 Verse 16

There is a famous Greek textual variant in 1 Timothy 3:16, where the “critical text,” SBL TH NA28 reads

 Ὃς ἐφανερώθη ἐν σαρκί  “Which/who/he was manifested in the flesh.” (relative pronoun)

and the “majority text,” TR RP reads

θεὸϛ ἐφανερώθη ἐν σαρκί  “God was manifested in the flesh.”

The difference originally in the most ancient manuscripts was much less clear in appearance.  Because there was a custom of contracting or abbreviating sacred names and concepts, by shortening them to fewer letters and putting a line over the whole group of letters, as can be seen in the correction in Codex Claromontanus (D- 06).  (These contractions were called “Nomina Sacra” or NS for short.)  Observe that the two-letter NS for God ΘΕΟC, which is just ΘC with a line over it, as seen in the correction of Codex Claromontanus, looks very similar to the relative pronoun OC in Codex Sinaiticus.  Note that Sinaiticus did not have an overline originally, and a late third hand made a correction toward the majority text.

What could have contributed to the problem is that scribes such as the one for Codex A used a caligraphy type pen tip, which was wide in a down stroke and very thin in a horizontal stroke. Thus the cross-bar in the capital letter Theta, Θ, could be very faint and therefore look like a capital Omicron, Ο.

Codex Claromontanus (D – 06) below:

Codex Sinaiticus (01) below:

Codex Alexandrinus (02) below:

Comparing Transcriptions

In the process of finalizing my Revelation with Greek document for publishing, I am searching for every ? in the footnotes, in order to determine a more definite conclusion for the critical apparatus if possible, and eliminate the ?.  There was a ? after a reading of MS GA 1888 in Revelation 2:13.  This is an 11th century minuscule residing in Jerusalem, with the reference number 181 in Hoskier’s collation in Volume 2 of “Concerning the Text of the Apocalypse.”  As you can see in the attached image snips, Hoskier says 181* (original hand) reads αντειπασ and then notes that the word και following was erased.

Whereas the Münster transcription site says the MS reads ἀντίπας, with no indication of a corrector regarding that. The blue text shows that και is the original hand, and a java script mouse-over window shows that a corrector erased και.

But here is a snip of the actual manuscript, GA1888:

I think Hoskier is correct that there is a correction regarding αντιπας. I am told that what looks like a circumflex accent above it may be some kind of indicator from the scribe to read a marginal note about a correction.  So, I still have an unanswered question.  Which is the original reading of 1888- ἀντίπας or ἀντεῖπας?  I certainly understand why Hoskier left a ? after it.  For comparison to the uncials, ℵ* C P 046 RP TH read Αντιπας, and ℵ² A SBL NA28 read Αντειπας.  Would the correction be more likely to have moved toward 046 and the RP majority text?  (Note that the Tyndale House ed. differs from the SBL and NA28.) This variant is not treated in the footnotes of the NA28 nor of the UBS5.  However, there is a footnote in the Tyndale House edition that does reference Antipas, and it states that Codex A reads Αντιπας, whereas Codex A definitely reads Αντειπας.  See image of Codex A below, where Antipas is the last word in the image.  Perhaps the Münster and Tyndale House editors are considering ἀντίπας versus ἀντεῖπας as a trivial difference in spelling of the same word, and not worth noting.  (Except that elsewhere, the Münster site does note this kind of difference.)   One problem with Codex A is that its Π, Pi, usually has a very faint or even invisible top crossbar, and so, for example, here with Antipas, it looks like three Iotas in a row and then AC.

You can download my Revelation with Greek pdf here.

Singular Textus Receptus Readings

There are twenty-four or so textual variants in the Textus Receptus text of the Revelation of John which have extremely slim or zero Greek manuscript support.  Usually, two handwritten Greek manuscripts agree with these readings.  These MSS are 296 and 2049.  They used to be known as 57 and 141 respectively.

However, H. C. Hoskier, who did a two-volume investigation of all the manuscripts of the Apocalypse of John, says this about them in Text 2, p. 156, lines 26,27: “This MS 187 with 57 and 141 must not be accorded any weight whatsoever.  They are brought into the record because of their very connection with the printed text.”   See also Text 2, p. 156, lines 26,27, where he says “… 57 et 141 ex ed. typ. exscripti.”  The Latin means “copied from printed edition(s).”

In their own pages which describe each, Hoskier had this to say.  About 296 (old 57) he says in Text 1, p. 179, “I suppose I ought to eliminate 57 from the list altogether.”  And on p. 180 Hoskier says, “So 57 becomes Colinaeus.”

About 2049, (old 141) he says in Text 1, p. 474, that MS 2049 is most like Erasmus’ 4th Edition, because the whole manuscript is word for word to it, except for one word, in 22:21, ἡμῶν for ὑμῶν.  Which could easily have been an error made by the copyist when copying Erasmus.  This exact variant is one of the most common mistakes scribes made throughout the Greek New Testament.  There are a few uses of contractions, which differs from Erasmus not adding up to a word of difference, but that is to be expected from a scribe who was hand copying such a large document.  It is reasonable to conclude that 2049 is a handwritten copy of Erasmus’ 4th edition (1527).

Below are snips from his book.  I have also added these images to my Revelation with Greek document which you can download here.

July 21 update

Hello brothers and sisters, here is what has been happening in the last two weeks.

Roughly a dozen people in China, using the search engine Baidu, downloaded the PDF of 1 Peter with Greek. In the last few months it is apparent that China loosened their Internet censorship somewhat, because for years I got no traffic from Baidu. It opens up only intermittently. Anyway, there must have been a co-ordinated study of the First Epistle of Peter going on there.

There were several downloads of the gospel of Luke in north African countries. Speaking of Luke, that is the favorite Bible book in the country of Iran, judging by the history of downloads from my site.

I started a Facebook page for Bibletranslation.ws. Please visit it and “like it” if you will.

The document I am hard at work on is the Revelation with Greek file. I am perfecting the table of manuscripts of Revelation, and have expanded the footnotes. UPDATE: This now published in paper and ink in paperback form on Amazon. I tell you, my free PDF of this document which you can download, represents a tremendous amount of work over the years that you are getting for free. You should download it while you can.