Readings in Acts--Codex Bezae

Edward Hobbs (EHOBBS@wellesley.edu)
Wed, 23 Apr 1997 15:54:44 -0500 (EST)

From: LUCY::EHOBBS "Edward Hobbs" 23-APR-1997 15:50:04.70
To: IN%"JOxford@easy.com"
CC: EHOBBS
Subj: RE: Acts 8.27

Jim Oxford wrote:

>>There is a variant reading to Acts 8.27 in Codex Bezae (you will not find
>>this in the NA 27 apparatus) to the relative clause "who was over all 'her'
>>treasure."
>>Codex D attests hOS HN EPI PASHS THS GAZHS 'AUTOU.' What is the antecedent
>>of AUTOU?

Any one who tackles the book of Acts in Bezae deserves all the help he can
get! (My coded explanation of why I'm responding when I have no time at
all.)

Codex Bezae (MS. D) has many, many peculiarities, of which this is only a
minor example. May I quote James Hardy Ropes, one of those truly greats at
Harvard in its prime? (These words were published in the year I was born.)

In a number of cases (some being due to the contamination
of D from a non-western text) IMPOSSIBLE READINGS, [caps supplied]
mostly cases where the correction is not at first sight
evident, have been permitted to stand in the text, but with
an obelus ([dagger/obelus symbol]). The number of such obeli
might perhaps have been made greater with advantage.

[Page cccxi, from his edition of the text of Acts, which includes
in toto both Vaticanus and Bezae:
_The Beginnings of Christianity: Part I The Acts of the
Apostles, Volume III, The Text of Acts by James Hardy Ropes_]

The word AUTOU has an obelus on both sides of it (page 81). So Ropes
regarded this reading as "impossible." He couldn't find the antecedent
either, Jim!

Edward Hobbs