Gregory Hartzler-Miller wrote:In Codex Siniaticus, (available online in the link below) we see that an editor inserted τὸν after ὑμῶν in Galatians 4:14 -- καὶ τὸν πειρασμὸν ὑμῶν [τὸν] ἐν τῇ σαρκί μου
http://codexsinaiticus.org/en/manuscript.aspx?=Submit
What does τὸν add here in terms of meaning and translation. Why would someone want to add it.
Thanks in advance for your help.
Galatians 4:14 wrote:καὶ τὸν πειρασμὸν ὑμῶν ἐν τῇ σαρκί μου οὐκ ἐξουθενήσατε οὐδὲ ἐξεπτύσατε, ἀλλὰ ὡς ἄγγελον θεοῦ ἐδέξασθέ με, ὡς Χριστὸν Ἰησοῦν.
On the face of it, the effect of inserting
τὸν is to set forth the prepositional phrase -
ἐν τῇ σαρκί μου - more clearly as an attributive modifying
τὸν πειρασμὸν ὑμῶν. To my eye, at least, the inserted
τὸν ‘advertises’
ἐν τῇ σαρκί μου as a tidy symmetrical 2nd position attributive – “
your ‘in
my flesh’ trial”.
I don’t see that there is a change in meaning, but the difficulty of “
your trial in
my flesh” may have something to do with the insertion. As Metzger (
A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, 1994, pg 527) notes, the variants where
πειρασμὸν ὑμῶν is replaced by
πειρασμὸν μου, are likely tryng to cope with that strange phrase.
In that case, I would guess that the inserted
τὸν would be seen to more clearly underline and affirm the unexpected
ὑμῶν … μου statement. Or, perhaps setting off the phrase as an obvious 2nd position attributive made the unusual wording read more smoothly to the scribe.