[B-Greek] Too Many KAIs? Lk 23:51

George F Somsel gfsomsel at yahoo.com
Sat May 7 20:23:16 EDT 2011


You can almost always bet tonight's pizza with wine, breadsticks, salad and 
lemon ice (Tonight is Saturday, isn't it?) that the Byz Maj text will never be 
the lectio difficilior.  It tends to smooth things out grammatically and to 
gloss over perceived theological problems.  


The biggest difficulty with the καίs KAIs here is the bracketed one in v 50 and 
even there it doesn't introduce any particular problem though the 
attestation for it is slightly deficient.  The Byz Maj adds καί KAI both before 
and after προσεδέχετο PROSEDEXETO which is not in the NA27.  These do not appear 
to introduce any particular difficulty into the reading.

I would suggest that if you wish to keep the bracketed καί KAI in v 50 that the 
phrase should be understood as "both a good man and righteous."  the additional 
καίs KAIs in the Byz Maj v 51 seem to be placing a great deal of emphasis 
on the man Joseph ὃς καὶ προσεδέχετο καὶ αὐτὸς ... hOS KAI PROSEDEXETO 
KAI AUTOS "who also even himself waited for ..."
  
 george
gfsomsel 


… search for truth, hear truth, 
learn truth, love truth, speak the truth, hold the truth, 
defend the truth till death.


- Jan Hus
_________ 




________________________________
From: Richard Ghilardi <richardghilardi at att.net>
To: B-Greek List <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Sat, May 7, 2011 2:40:13 PM
Subject: [B-Greek] Too Many KAIs? Lk 23:51

Hello Folks,

Lk 23:50-51 reads in NA27:

Καί ιδού ανήρ ονόματι Ιωσήφ βουλευτής ὑπάρχων [καί] ανήρ αγαθός καί 
δίκαιος -- οὗτος ουκ ῆν συγκατατεθειμένος τῇ βουλῇ καί τῇ πράξει 
αυτῶν -- από Ἁριμαθαίας πόλεως τῶν Ιουδαίων, ὅς προσεδέχετο τήν 
βασιλείαν τοῦ θεοῦ
KAI IDOY ANHR ONOMATI IWSHF BOYLEYTHS hYPARXWN [KAI] ANHR AGAQOS KAI DIKAIOS -- 
hOYTOS OYK HN SYGKATATEQEIMENOS THi BOYLHi KAI THi PRAKSEI AYTWN -- APO 
hARIMAQAIAS POLEWS TWN IOYDAIWN, hOS PROSEDEXETO THN BASILEIAN TOY QEOY

The Byz differs at just 3 points: 1) omits bracketed [καί] [KAI], 2) smooth 
breathing for Αριμαθαίας ARIMAQAIAS and 3) the final clause, which reads:
ὅς καί προσεδέχετο καί αυτός τήν βασιλείαν τοῦ θεοῦ
hOS KAI PROSEDEXETO KAI AYTOS THN BASILEIAN TOY QEOY.

I will focus on this clause. I cannot fathom exactly what it means because I 
cannot construe both KAIs in the same clause. I suppose it could mean, "and who 
himself was also awaiting the reign of God." But then, wouldn't the first KAI 
have to be to the left of hOS? This looks like awkward Greek to me with one too 
many KAIs here. Indeed, it seems that this is a conflate reading compounded of 
two other variants found in the NA27 apparatus:

ὅς καί προσεδέχετο...
hOS KAI PROSEDEXETO...
and
ὅς προσεδέχετο καί αυτός...
hOS PROSEDEXETO KAI AYTOS...

And all 3 readings are derived from Mk 15:43 and Mt 27:57. The single KAI is 
easy to construe in the two readings above and the NA27 reading is perfectly 
plain. Does that make the Byz reading the lex difficillima? Can a conflate 
reading really be the lex difficillima? But more importantly, what does the 
double KAI mean here? Is this good Greek? The last two questions are what I 
would really like to see addressed here. The text critical questions are merely 
setup and will disappear if the Byz reading can be construed.

Yours in His grace,
Richard Ghilardi
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