Tag Archives: Editio Critica Major

ECM Revelation

I have been using my printed ECM of Revelation for some time now, and I inform you that you need both the printed and the online editions. For example, a footnote I worked on today is πληρωσωσιν in 6:11. πληρωσωσιν is the Majority and the ECM reading, πληρωθωσιν is the NA28 reading, and the TR reading is πληρωσονται. However, the printed edition does not list the witnesses supporting the majority for this variant, but only those supporting the minority readings. The online edition, however, does list those. The problem is that Hoskier lists GA2256 as supporting the TR, but if you had only the printed edition of the ECM, you would not know that the online edition lists 2256r as supporting πληρωσωσιν. The small letter “r” after a MS number means that though it is misspelled or misformed, it supports the reading it is listed with. I looked at the fine image of 2256 online, and Hoskier is incorrect. GA2256 reads πληρώσοσιν, which most certainly does not support the TR. That leaves the TR reading with support only from 296 and 2049, which are handwritten copies of the TR itself.

But I have also found places where Hoskier was correct and the NA28 apparatus was wrong, like Revelation 5:9, where Hoskier correctly shows that GA2329 omits τω θεω ημας εν τω αιματι σου εκ πασης φυλης και γλωσσης και λαου και εθνους, but the NA28 and UBS5 list it as supporting the Majority.

Download free my critical edition of Revelation as PDF here.

Ambiguity of No Spaces

A Greek textual variant in Revelation 17:3 shows the ambiguity of ancient manuscripts having no spaces between words. This particular variant has caused the Editio Critica Major (ECM) to change its reading away from the NA28 text to that of the Robinson-Pierpont.

txt γεμοντα ονοματα Avid P 2053 2062 2329 SBL TH NA28 (γεμον[τα]) {\} ‖ γεμον ονοματα ℵ² 046 93 911 922 1611vid 1678 1734 1778 1828 2070 2814 2846 AN HF RP ECM ‖ γεμων ονοματα 469 792 1006 1852 ‖ γεμον ονοματων 051 2074 2344 2723 Hipp TR BG ‖ γεμον τα ονοματα ℵ* ‖ lac C 2050 2080.  The ECM says the MSS that I show reading γεμοντα ονοματα read instead γεμον τα ονοματα with ℵ*, and then shows no MSS support for the SBL/TH reading.  (We know Sinaiticus reads γεμον because it uses a high line, which is a final form of NU. And the dots above the letters TA indicate a corrector saying “delete.”)  As for Codex A, it certainly had room for γεμοντα τα ονοματα.  It would make sense in Textual Criticism that when there are two τα in a row, one would get accidentally dropped.

Codex Alexandrinus (GA 02):

GA 2053:

GA 2062:

GA 2329:

Codex Sinaiticus (GA 01):

Current Activities August 2024

In the Gospel of Mark, I added the diamonded variant readings indicated in the Tyndale House Greek New Testament (the diamond meaning another variant of equal weight as the one printed in the main text), plus a half dozen new TC footnotes, and a few updates from the Editio Critica Major (ECM). So this is essentially a 3rd edition of Mark, which you can download here, or purchase a Mark printed edition here.

I recently purchased the ECM of Revelation, so am in the process of updating the Apocalypse of John textual criticism footnotes, including also adding the diamonded readings from the Tyndale House GNT.

I also purchased the ECM of the Acts of the Apostles, and am still creating the TC footnotes for Acts.

The Catholic Letters

Announcing a new upload of a PDF, and also an Amazon printed version of same. It is the General Epistles (also known as the Catholic Letters) translated from an eclectic Greek Text; alternating verse by verse with a new English Translation by David Robert Palmer; with the readings of 7 Greek New Testament editions and Greek manuscript variant readings given in the footnotes. The editions cited are the Scrivener TR, the Antoniades 1904 Greek Patriarchal edition, the Byzantine Greek NT (family 35) edition, The Robinson-Pierpont Byzantine Text Stream edition, the SBL edition, the Tyndale House GNT, and the NA28 (or ECM2– Editio Critica Major). This PDF file contains the epistles of James, 1 Peter, 2 Peter, 1 John, 2 John, 3 John, and Jude; eclectic Greek text source; free download; 3.74 MB. The printed edition on Amazon is here.

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Mark’s Gospel 2nd Edition ECM-NA29

Gospel of Mark, 2nd Editions are uploaded.  I have updated my editions of Mark’s gospel to reflect the Editio Critica Major (ECM) data in my footnotes about textual variants.  I also made a few changes to my translation and endnotes. Thus my footnotes give the readings of the ECM, like this one for Mark 9:29:

9:29 txt προσευχῇ καὶ νηστείᾳ “prayer and fasting” ℵ² A C* D E F G H K L N W X Δ (τῇ νηστείᾳ) Θ Π Σ Φ Ψ ƒ¹ ƒ¹³ 28 33 118 157 180 205 565 579 597 700 892 1006 1009 1010 1071* 1079 1195 1216 1230 1241 1242 1243 1253 1292 1342 1344 1365 1424 1505 1546 1646 2148 2174 𝔐 Lect it-a,aur,b,c,d,f,ff²,i,l,q,r¹ vg syr-h cop-sa,bo goth geo2 slav Diatessarona,p Basil TR RP TH ECM= ‖ νηστείᾳ καὶ προσευχῇ “fasting and prayer” (cf. I Cor. 7:5) syr-s,p,pal cop-boms arm eth ‖ προσευχῇ “prayer” ℵ* B 0274 it-k geo¹ Clement SBL ECM= ‖ lac 𝔓⁴⁵ P 067 0233.

Note that there are two readings that are supported by ECM=.  The = sign means that the ECM editors give it a “split primary line” or, that they consider those two readings of equal weight.

Unfortunately, there was an error in my first edition of Byzantine Mark.  In the verse above, I had failed to change the English text in that I failed to add “and fasting” to the English translation.  This is now corrected in both the electronic and printed versions.  And as I said above, there are also a few changes in the translation and in the endnotes.

The printed Robinson-Pierpont 2nd edition of Mark may be purchased here.  And its Kindle version. The Eclectic Gospel of Mark printed 2nd edition may be purchased here. The PDF of the 2nd edition of Byzantine Mark may be downloaded here.