Haran

Perhaps I overreacted, but I appreciate specifics. However, it seemed a minor irritation to me considering that I've mentioned this fact now on a couple of other threads where the issue has come up. When one "exaggerates" by making an incorrect statement, this seems more apologetic than scholarly to me, pedantic or not...

I realize that the value of p52 is limited, though it may not seem so. However, I do believe it has more importance than the what you have assigned it several times in this thread. CX's opinion is closer to mine, though I still believe there is slightly more value in it than even he finds.

Finally, Spin, you mentioned again the many variations in the p52 again... Did you read what I wrote about these (and what CX wrote)? Even if you don't agree with what I said about these "variations", you should probably agree that whatever variations there may be do not significantly change the meaning of the text. If you think they significantly change the text, however, then I think I'll have to politely disagree and leave it at that.

Haran

[ April 19, 2002: Message edited by: Haran ]</p>

spin

Haran:
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Finally, Spin, you mentioned again the many variations in the p52 again... Did you read what I wrote about these (and what CX wrote)?
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Sure did.

Haran:
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Even if you don't agree with what I said about these "variations", you should probably agree that whatever variations there may be do not significantly change the meaning of the text. If you think they significantly change the text, however, then I think I'll have to politely disagree and leave it at that.
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It's not a matter of significance of the variations but the number of deviations from the statistical norm in the short space that I was attempting to underline.

Haran

You didn't read what I wrote then...

What is this "statistical norm" that you are talking about. As I said earlier, it seems that you are using the information found on Waltz' website (please correct me if wrong), which compares p52 to other MSS with minority readings. If you are using the "variations" that he lists, then I don't understand this "statistical norm" of which you speak... P52 varies maybe once from the modern critical texts (UBS4 & NA27) which are based on known ancient MSS, and even this one "variation" in p52 is of minor consequence and could simply have been an oversight by the scribe.

Heck, let's look at the "variations" that I think you are talking about to be more explicit (as noted on the website from which they came - these are all either idiosyncratic readings or of trivial importance, often both):


RECTO

18:32 ina o logos tou ihsou plhrwqh P52-vid P66-vid rell; W sa ac2 pbo pc ina plhrwqh o logos tou ihsou

P52 and P66, here, represent the text of the modern critical editions, which means that they were selected as best representing the "original text" along with many other MSS with the same reading. The reading simply moves "plhrwqh" ("might be fulfilled") from the end of the phrase to the location immediately after "ina" and before "o logos".

The difference in english in literal translation (my own):
p52vid, p66vid - that might be fulfilled, the word of Jesus (the "vids" mean "apparently", in other words, the full text is not visible, only assumed from what is visible and from stichometry)
W sa ac2 pbo pc - that the word of Jesus might be fulfilled (1 or a few selections out of a whole version tradition)

Woohoo...big difference.

18:32 on eipen P52-vid [Aleph] c rell; [Aleph] * omits
[i]Here, "on eipen" is omitted by the original Aleph (I don't see any others that do this), however, the scribal corrector apparently inserted it to correct the scribe's error. So, only the orignal scribe of Aleph seems to have omitted these words which seem to be found everywhere else as well as in the modern critical editions.

Here are the translations (added extra text for context):

p52, corrected Aleph - that might be fulfilled, the word of Jesus, which he said
original Aleph (alone) - that might be fulfilled, the word of Jesus [omit - which he said]

I'm still not seeing any problems or deviations from the modern critical text...

18:33 palin eis to praitwrion P52-vid P66-vid B C* Dsupp L W X D f13 579 1071 [l] 844 lat; P60-vid [Aleph] A Cc (N Y) D 087 565 700 892supp [M] eis to praitwrion palin; 33 1424 eis to praitwrion (P52 might support this reading; with palin this line is longer than it ought to be, but without it it is too short).

Ok... Tradition is somewhat split here and witnesses are are strong on two sides. P52 could possibly (as said) reflect a variant reading without "palin" which is reflected only in 33 and 1424. However, in modern critical editions of the Greek, it is listed as apparently supporting the "original" reading with p52vid. This is the verse that I was trying to get CX to look up because p52 is listed in the critical apparatus of the NA27 for this verse.

Here is what the witnesses say:

p60vid, etc. - Entering, therefore, into the praetorium again
p52vid, etc. - Entering, therefore, again into the praetorium
p52 (possibly), 33, 1424 - Entering, therefore, into the praetorium

As you can see the variants only move the word "again" around or omit it altogether.

Big difference...


VERSO

18:37 egw gegennhmai P52 (or other reading omitting 5-10 letters); rell egw eis touto gegennhmai

I don't honestly understand where he gets this. If you look at the <a href="http://dreamwater.org/bccox/p52trace.jpg" target="_blank">MS piece</a> you can obviously see before the "gegennhmai", at the top left of the VERSO, a upsilon(partial though mostly there)- tau - omikron (or "uto"). This is very probably the ending of the word "touto" which most MSS read. As a matter of fact, Comfort and Barrett's reconstruction has "egw eis touto gegennhmai" here. I don't understand the reasonings for the above "ego" which is not what seems to me to appear in the upper left corner of the VERSO.

Ultimately, on this one, I see no difference and do not understand why one is seen by the author of the above website.

18:37 legei autw P52 rell; P66 legei oun autw

First, I'd like to point out that the verse here is incorrect, it should be 18:38. This is actually kind of a funny error because it reflects vividly one of the errors that ancient scribes used to make (i.e. it is similar to homoeoteleuton). Both verse 37 and verse 38 start similarly, so there was some confusion. I believe the author of the website would admit this after looking at it. Regardless, yet again, the modern critical text uses the same reading as p52 and most other MSS. The only MS listed against p52's reading is p66 which inserts "therefore".

Here are the translations:

p52 and most others - he says to him
p66 (alone) - he says, therefore, to him

P66 is also the only MS listed to vary immediately after the above as well by omitting Pilate, having "he says, therefore, to him, What is truth?" as opposed to most which have (and p52 which seems to have via stichometry) "he says to him, Pilate [does], What is truth?".

Seems to me that p66 varies more than p52 does. However, p66's variations are pretty minor as well since Pilate is mentioned earlier in p66 anyway.

Ultimately, I see only one thing that might be considered a true variation, the rest are simply comparisons made with MSS that have minority readings in these particular areas. p52, therefore, does not deviate significantly from modern critical editions of the Greek NT.

Even if p52 varies as much as you say, spin, which it doesn't, then it would definitely be of more importance than you give to it.

Man, that was fun! Hope everyone got something out of it whether they agree with me or not. Of course, I think I'm right.

Haran

[ April 20, 2002: Message edited by: Haran ]</p>

B. H. Manners

Bump it up.

CX

Quite right. Don't know how I missed it. It's right there along with P66.

CX

Well done, Haran, but one thing which needs to be pointed out is that while word order in English is fixed, this is not so in Greek. The subject, the direct object and the predicate nominative can all occur anywhere in the sentence without changing the meaning.

As an example the phrase hO LOGOS TOU IHSOU is the subject of verse 32. I can occur basically anywhere in the sentence provided the article and the gentive phrase TOU IHSOU remain with LOGOS. While in English we would usually only say "That the word of Jesus might be fulfilled", in Greek it could be rendered INA hO LOGOS TOU IHSOU PLHRWQH or INA PLHRWQH hO LOGOS TOU IHSOU without changing the meaning at all. This is often somewhat difficult to grasp for native English speakers. In other words, the two Greek phrases are basically the same.

Usually an ancient greek writer will move the subject (or the predicate nominative, direct object) to the front of a sentence to add emphasis as in GJn 1:1 KAI QEOS HN hO LOGOS. In this phrase QEOS, God, is the predicate nominative (we know that LOGOS is the subject because of the presence of the article). If English word order were used we would expect it to be rendered KAI hO LOGOS HN QEOS, "And the word was God", but AJn moves QEOS to the beginning of the phrase to emphasis his importance. Nonetheless, the meaning in English is identical.

[ April 22, 2002: Message edited by: CX ]</p>

CX

NOGO

What is really of interest to me is, can p52 be used to prove that GJohn was around in 150 BCE ?

CX

Not really, but the combination of P52, P66 and P90 is cited by scholars to put the terminus ad quem for GJn squarely in the 2nd century. I haven't ever really looked at the Patristic evidence, but I believe there is some there as well.

Haran

Thanks CX, you are correct, but my translations of the Greek into English were intentionally wooden and literal. My purpose was to recreate the actual word order, etc., for those unfamiliar with the Greek. If I was actually translating for readability, I would have worded it otherwise.

The word order in Greek was used for emphasis on a particular word, so it does make a slight difference where the word is placed. English cannot always show this emphasis because case endings have fallen out of our language, so literal translations like mine above are not always easy to read or understand.

Haran