[B-Greek] commas and periods in the original text
Ian W Scott
iscott at tyndale.ca
Mon Mar 9 16:09:47 EDT 2009
You're right, Jim, that there would have been little if any punctuation
in the manuscripts for the early centuries. If you find a photograph of
codex sinaiticus online (there's one on commons.wikimedia.org if you
search) you'll see no periods or commas, and that's in the fourth
century or so. I've been working recently with some Greek manuscripts
from the 12th century and even then there was often no distinction
between commas, periods, or semicolons. All three are marked in my ms
with a dot that is raised slightly above the line. So even into the
medieval period it would be difficult to tell, for example, whether we
are dealing with a co-ordinate clause starting with KAI (within one
sentence) or with a new sentence that is introduced with KAI. In fact,
prior to the modern standardization of punctuation it doesn't really
make that much sense to talk about sentences. It makes more sense to
talk about "main clauses" or "periods" in the sense of one independent
subject-predicate sequence, along with its dependent clauses.
Cheers,
Ian
JMonte2000 at aol.com wrote:
> Greetings all
> Were commas and periods and things like this in the original Greek text from
> the bible or added as time went on? I was told in my second year class, that
> they were added. For those who believe in the infallibility of the original
> text, are the commas and periods infallible? I'd think if they weren't in the
> original's you'd say no. I'm asking because we are studying Eph Ch 1 and
> particularly, Ch 1:3 -14 and I have heard from many, that this is the longest
> sentence in the Greek text, true?
>
> Jim Montesano
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