Swanson's Galatians and NA
Wieland Willker
willker at chemie.uni-bremen.de
Sun Apr 9 07:05:40 EDT 2000
At the very last I finally got my copy yesterday! Hurray!
Before I point out one criticism I want to say, that I really admire this
work and I think this is THE TOOL for all who do not have the time to
consult the originals. Excellent!
My (minor) criticism has to do with what Swanson calls "errors" in
Nestle-Aland. He finds a lot of things missing in NA, but he seems to forget
that NA is only a "hand-edition"! Swanson has 88 pages for Galatians but NA
has only 11.
In an appendix Swanson compares on 33 pages his edition with NA. Of course
he finds many differences, mainly omissions in NA.
He has 5 categories:
a) "consistenly cited witnesses" not cited for this particular reading
b) MSS never cited in NA not belonging to Maj.
c) MSS never cited in NA belonging to Maj.
d) MSS cited in error by NA
e) other variants not cited by NA
Of these only things listed under d) are really errors (c. 40 entries).
Nevertheless 4 errors per NA page (if Swanson is always correct).
b) and c) entries are no errors. The editors of NA decided not to include
these MSS in the edition. Of course one can discuss if this was a wise
decision but these are not errors.
The listings under a) are omissions. I am not sure if this is intended or by
accident. I was under the impression that "consistenly cited witnesses" are
ALWAYS cited?
All these listings are very helpful for a future edition of NA, but they are
for the most part not really errors.
I strongly recommend this volume and point you (once again) to BIBAL press,
where all volumes can be obtained at a very low price! "Galatians" is not
yet listed but available for $ 15.95.
http://www.dfscott.com/bibal%20books/Greek%20Manuscripts.asp
Best wishes
Wieland
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Wieland Willker, Bremen, Germany
mailto:willker at chemie.uni-bremen.de
http://www.uni-bremen.de/~wie/
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