Announcing a new upload of the Gospel according to Matthew, Byzantine edition. It has the Robinson-Pierpont Greek text alternating with my new English translation. You can download for free a PDF of this Byzantine Gospel of Matthew here, and also get a printed edition of it on Amazon.
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.”
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.
You can download my Revelation with Greek pdf here.
The word Armageddon is found only once in the Bible, in Revelation 16:16. “And He gathered them together at the place called in Hebrew Harmagedōn.”
There is a great variety of spellings of the word in the Greek and Latin manuscripts of the New Testament. But there are two main divisions of the spellings: those with just Magedon, and those with the AR in front.
The earliest Greek manuscripts have αρμαγεδων. Here is the image snipped from Codex Alexandrinus (Codex A), 5th century:
The Greek New Testament editions read as follows:
Ἁρμαγεδών Antoniades, Robinson-Pierpont, SBL, and NA28
Ἀρμαγεδών BG (Byzantine Greek), and TH (Tyndale House)
Ἀρμαγεδδών TR (Textus Receptus)
The difference between the first two spellings is the “breathing mark” in front of or above the initial vowel. The first one has a backwards apostrophe, and that is the “h” sound in Greek, so Harmagedon.” The second and third spellings have a regular-facing apostrophe and so that has no “h” sound, thus Armagedon.
John tells us that it is a Hebrew name, so the Har would be Hebrew for mountain, and Magedō would be the place called Megiddo, mentioned in 2 Chronicles 35:22 and Judges 1:27. So “Mountain of Megiddō.” This was a frequent battleground because of a strategic pass and the Megiddo plain below. You can download here the book of Revelation with a fuller accounting of the readings in the Greek manuscripts.
I have published on Amazon two editions of my translation of the gospel of Matthew. They alternate verse by verse between the Greek text and my English translation. They have 671 footnotes each. I have footnoted with critical apparatus most all the meaningful variants between the NA28 text and the Robinson-Pierpont Greek text.
Eclectic Edition of the Gospel of Matthew, with my Greek text being unique. I follow more Byzantine readings than does the Tyndale House GNT, but on the other hand there are a few times the TH follows the Byz where I do not. I have a couple readings not found in any of the above. The U.S. price on Amazon is $6.89.
The Robinson-Pierpont edition, the Gospel According to Matthew. The U.S. price on Amazon is $6.95.
As I am making my Robinson-Pierpont edition of the gospel of Matthew, I am editing my eclectic edition here and there. During this process I found a Byzantine reading that I think is the original text rather than what I previously had in my eclectic text and is found in the NA28.
Matt 21:25 παρ εαυτοις ℵ C D E W Σ Φ 0102 0233 𝔐 TR RP TH ‖ εν εαυτοις B L Z Cyr SBL NA28 {\} ‖ lac A N P 0281.
The reading with παρ has strong support. I immediately thought that since εν εαυτοις is a very common phrase in the gospels, and παρ εαυτοις is not, it is far more likely that scribes would write εν εαυτοις automatically unconsciously, than the other way around. So I changed my text to the παρ εαυτοις reading, and this was before I looked up the Tyndale House reading and saw that they follow that reading. The preposition παρα with the dative case answers the question “where.” They were “by” themselves, which implies separation for privacy; thus, “away by themselves.” You can download my eclectic edition of Matthew’s gospel here.
As I make my Byzantine edition of Matthew’s gospel, I get annoyed sometimes by the numerousness of variants that are meaningless in the Greek manuscripts and even in the editions thereof. Matthew chapter 15 verse 36 is a good example, in which there are a half dozen unimportant variants.
One that is actually amazing to me is that the word for crowd, οχλος, is plural in the NA28 but singular in the Robinson-Pierpont, yet in the previous verse, v. 35, they switch, and οχλος is singular in the NA28 and plural in the RP! Both verses are talking about the same crowd and occasion.
15:35 τοις οχλοις E F G H K L M N P S U V W X Γ Δ Π Σ Φ 0233 2 118 565 700 1071 𝔐 it-a,d,e,f,k,q syr-c,p cop-bo Hil TR RP ‖ τους οχλους C 892c 1424 ‖ τω οχλω ℵ B D Θ ƒ¹ ƒ¹³ 33 157 346 579 788 892* it-b,ff¹,f²,g¹,g²,l vg syr-h cop-sa-mss,mae,bo-mss arm eth Or SBL TH NA28 {\} ‖ lac A Q Z 0281 28 69.
15:36 τω οχλω C D E F G H N P S U W X Γ Δ Θ Σ Φ 2 118 565 1071 1424 𝔐 it> vg cop-sa-mss,mae arm Chr TR RP ‖ τοις οχλοις ℵ B K L M Π ƒ¹ ƒ¹³ 33 157 238 243 346 579 700 788 it-e,f,ff¹ syr cop-sa-ms,bo SBL TH NA28 {\} ‖ lac A Q Z 0233 0281 28 69.
I offer a few observations: 1.) The plural is maintained in both by L M Π 700 syr-c,p cop-bo. (2.) The singular is maintained in both by arm. I would not begrudge any translator rendering all these as a singular. (3.) This may demonstrate how insignificant the singular v. plural of οχλος is.