Thursday, January 26, 2012

1 Thessalonians 4:3; "The" or "Every"?

How about a bit of Textual Criticism!  We will be looking at 1 Thessalonians 4:3 from Codex Sinaiticus*.  If we look carefully at the text, we will see a change.  The issue here is around ὑμᾶς ἀπὸ τῆς πορνείας (you from sexual immorality).  If we look closely, Sinaiticus has the proper reading, but a scribe/copier “corrected” the original text by altering τῆς which in English is the equivalent to “the”.  The scribe/copier added a line to the tau (Τ) and erased part of the top of the tau to try to make it into a pi (Π).  Then the scribe added AC above the now formed Π and the latter HC to give the “corrected” reading.  Therefore, the new reading is απο πασης πορνειας (from every sexual immorality).  If you look at the last line, you can see the space that the T takes up.


*Codex Sinaiticus is the oldest, complete Greek Bible in the world.  It was produced in the 4th century.


No comments:

Post a Comment