I discovered an error in my footnote to Revelation 1:8. I had manuscript GA 2074 reading as the Textus Receptus, omitting QEOS, but that is not correct. I have now corrected the footnote, and added the variant to my endnote Nr. 4 about singular TR readings. I have also added the readings of some very late MSS that agree with the TR. You can download the corrected Revelation PDF here, and I also corrected the Revelation printed paper and ink edition on Amazon.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I have an interesting book by an ex-Muslim terrorist who has become a Christian. In his book he puts forth a theory on what glyphs looked like which the apostle John originally wrote in Revelation 13:18 for the mark of the beast. His theory is a visual one, in which you take the Greek abbreviation for 666 found in many of the manuscripts and turn the letters on their side. So take χξς and turn the letters leftward onto their sides, and it looks quite a lot like a famous slogan in Arabic script that is central to Islam.
I am quite sure the theory is not correct, but here are snips of the four earliest Greek manuscripts of this verse that we have:
The abbreviation χ̅ξ̅ϛ̅ for 666 in Papyrus 47:
The abbreviation χ̅̅ι̅ϛ̅ for 616 in Papyrus 115:
The number 666 written out in Codex Sinaiticus (ℵ) as εξακοσιαι εξηκοντα ἕξ
The number 666 written out in Codex Alexandrinus (A) as εξακοσιοι εξήκοντα ἕξ:
I have an updated footnote on this in my Revelation PDF. Download it here.
I discovered an interesting reading in minuscule GA 2329 in the last two verses of the Revelation of John. This was prompted by the fact that the UBS5 apparatus has a “vid” next to 2329. So I looked at the photograph of the manuscript itself.
Most manuscripts say something like “Yes, come Lord Jesus. May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with all the saints. Amen.” But 2329 skips “May the grace of our Lord Jesus” and instead says ερχου κυριε ιησου χριστε μετα των αγιων σου αμην – “Come Lord Jesus Christ with your saints. Amen.”
