Freethought & Rationalism Archive

vid · 05-16-2010, 11:01 AM

I was wondering about the Famous picture of Codex Vaticanus on pg. 44 of Ehrman's book Misquoting Jesus (or via: amazon.co.uk), where scribe wrote a marginal note for previous scribe: "Fool and knave, leave the old reading, don't change it". Can anyone literate in Greek please say what text was changed?

I also have read online that in fact the original copyist was right - any info about this?

I'd upload picture of that page, but I am not sure if it is okay legally.

ApostateAbe · 05-16-2010, 11:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by vid

I was wondering about the Famous picture of Codex Vaticanus on pg. 44 of Ehrman's book Misquoting Jesus, where scribe wrote a marginal note for previous scribe: "Fool and knave, leave the old reading, don't change it". Can anyone literate in Greek please say what text was changed?

I also have read online that in fact the original copyist was right - any info about this?

I'd upload picture of that page, but I am not sure if it is okay legally.

Wikipedia has a little blurb on the topic, and they have an image of the page linked in high resolution, though not quite high enough to read the Greek scribble.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codex_V...table_readings

Quote:

On page 1512, next to Hebrews 1:3, the text contains an interesting marginal note, "Fool and knave, leave the old reading and do not correct it!" – "ἀμαθέστατε καὶ κακέ, ἄφες τὸν παλαιόν, μὴ μεταποίει" which may suggest that inaccurate copying, either intentional or unintentional, was a recognized problem in scriptoriums.[74] Another interpretation of the note, which criticizes a scribe for correcting an obviously wrong reading, is that the manuscript was by then only valued as a relic rather than being used as a reference.

vid · 05-16-2010, 11:22 AM

Nevermind... as I read the book further, it is explained there:

Quote:

An interesting illustration of the intentional change of a text is
found in one of our finest old manuscripts, Codex Vaticanus (so named
because it was found in the Vatican library), made in the fourth century.
In the opening of the book of Hebrews there is a passage in
which, according to most manuscripts, we are told that "Christ bears
[Greek: PHERON] all things by the word of his power" (Heb. 1:3). In
Codex Vaticanus, however, the original scribe produced a slightly different
text, with a verb that sounded similar in Greek; here the text
instead reads: "Christ manifests [Greek: PHANERON] all things by
the word of his power." Some centuries later, a second scribe read this
passage in the manuscript and decided to change the unusual word
manifests to the more common reading bears—erasing the one word
and writing in the other. Then, again some centuries later, a third
scribe read the manuscript and noticed the alteration his predecessor
had made; he, in turn, erased the word bears and rewrote the word
manifests. He then added a scribal note in the margin to indicate what
he thought of the earlier, second scribe. The note says: "Fool and
knave! Leave the old reading, don't change it!"

05-16-2010, 11:01 AM	#1
vid Regular Member Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: Myjava, Slovakia Posts: 384	Fool and knave, leave the old reading, don't change it I was wondering about the Famous picture of Codex Vaticanus on pg. 44 of Ehrman's book Misquoting Jesus (or via: amazon.co.uk), where scribe wrote a marginal note for previous scribe: "Fool and knave, leave the old reading, don't change it". Can anyone literate in Greek please say what text was changed? I also have read online that in fact the original copyist was right - any info about this? I'd upload picture of that page, but I am not sure if it is okay legally.

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