* (asterisk) in the body Text of NA27

Peter E Scott peter.scott at bell.ca
Wed Sep 25 10:22:55 EDT 2002



This is a little late . . . 

> At 10:39 AM -0700 9/18/02, c stirling bartholomew wrote:
> >In the first chapter of Mark there are several asterisks in the body text o=
> f
> >NA27.
> >
> >Consulting the key at the end of NA27 I translate the Latin (dynamic
> >equivalence) "the beginning of a new section where it does not make sense."
> 
> I don't know whether that was meant ironically or not, but I make out the
> Latin (INITIUM NOVAE SECTIONIS, UBI ID PER SE NON INTELLEGITUR as
> "beginningof a new section where that is not self-evident" and its German
> version in the inset manual of signs ("Anfang eines Abschnittes in alten
> Einteilungen {wenn n=F6tig}") to mean: "Beginning of a section in old/ancien=
> t
> text-divisions--if called for."


Not being a purist I have a copy of N-A Greek-English NT (5th ed 1990)
which uses the 7th printing of the 26th ed of NTG.  In the Introduction
p31* it reads:

"Where the beginning of an early division does not coincide with the
beginning of a verse, it follows the stronger punctuation division, and
when this is not clear, it is indicated in the test with an asterisk *."

The NTG 26th ed marks Mk 1.7,  1:13, 1:14 ktl in this manner.

> >This leaves one question unanswered. The beginning of a new section in WHAT=
> ?
> >Some ms. ? Some critical edition? The TR?
> >
> >Could someone clear this up?
> 
> Look at the Introduction (the ENGLISH introduction), p. 79 for an
> explanation of how the numbers in the INNER margins of NA27 are used with
> and without the asterisk as references to the Eusebian canon. My sense of
> what is being indicated is that where the numbers referring to the Eusebian
> canon coincide with new sections of text as printed in NA27 (and in terms
> of later chapter-and-verse-divisions), there's no need to indicate where
> that new text section begins; but where the beginning of the Eusebian
> text-division falls WITHIN a verse at a point that is not self-evident, the
> asterisk is used to indicate that point. Thus on p. 88 of NA27 there's an
> asterisk before ERCETAI hO ISCUROTEROS in Mk 1:7; the inner margine refers
> to the Eusebian table and section beginning there; similarly on p. 89
> there's an asterisk before KAI hOI AGGELOI DIHKONOUN AUTWi and the inner
> margin indicates section 7 of Eusebian canon VI.
> 
> All pretty arcane, I guess, but part of the very elaborate mechanism
> whereby NA27 means to make it possible for the reader to know all that is
> significant about the way the text was read in the ancient church,
> sometimes far more than most students of the Greek NT really want to know!
> -- 


Peter Scott



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