Josep Rius-Camps, «The Variant Readings of the Western Text of the Acts of the Apostles (XIX) (Acts 13:13-43).», Vol. 20 (2007) 127-146
In Acts 13:13-43, Paul and Barnabas are seen continuing their missionary activity, notably in Antioch of Pisidia where Luke describes their visit to the synagogue. He recreates in some detail Paul’s first speech, which is noteworthy for the way in which he presents Jesus as the Messiah first and foremost for Israel, a perspective with which Luke is at odds in Codex Bezae. Paul’s overriding concern for his own people, the Jews, to accept his message is strongly in evidence. However, their negative reaction when he extends the message of Jesus to Gentiles causes him, together with Barnabas, to turn from the Jews to the Gentiles. In the Alexandrian text, their announcement of this fact refers to a change on a local scale within Antioch, but in the Bezan text they make a declaration that represents a radical decision and an event of momentous significance in the history of Israel: in view of the Jews’ hostility to the message of Jesus, they will no longer have privileged possession of the Word of God, the Torah that had originally been entrusted to Israel, since it is to be henceforth shared with the Gentiles. The idea of the sharing of the heritage of Israel with the Gentiles is one that will provoke opposition to Paul wherever he preaches to the Jews in future locations, and a theme that Luke will develop over the subsequent chapters.
136 Josep Rius-Camps and Jenny Read-Heimerdinger
symbol is an obvious one that does not need to be highlighted’ (J. Read-
Heimerdinger, ‘Luke’s Use of ὡϛ and ὡσεί: Comparison and Correspond-
ence as a Means to Convey his Mess-age’, in R. Pierri (ed.), Grammatica
Intellectio Scripturae: Saggi philologici di Greco biblico in onore di padre
Lino Cignelli, OFM [Studium Biblicum Franciscanum Analecta 68;
Jerusalem: Franciscan Printing Press, 2006], p. 272).
On the other hand, the comparative sense of ὡϛ is rendered less likely
by the fact that the number 40 in B03 is expressed in an adjectival phrase
qual-ifying χÏόνον. Besides this factor, Paul, within the context of his
appeal to the history of Israel, is not citing the figure as a symbolic one
but as one that was taken to be literally true. It is when Israel’s years in
the wilderness are evoked in presenting later events that the number 40
(or multiples of it) is invested with symbolic value, as it is used to flag up
the ancient paradigm.
It is unlikely, in view of the strong traditional association of 40 with
the time Israel spent in the desert, that Paul would use ὡϛ to mean ‘ap-
proximate’. It is an over-simplification, to the point of error, to say that
it is ‘more in the style of Luke when numerals are involved to understand
ὡϛ as “aboutâ€â€™ (Metz-ger, Commentary, pp. 357-358; cf. the discussion
in Read-Heimerdinger, ‘Luke’s Use of ὡϛ and ὡσεί’). While that sense is
sometimes required, it is not appropriate here where the number 40 is
fixed by tradition.
Another possibility is that ὡϛ could be an adverb meaning ‘how’, as
a resi-due of the quotation from Deut. 1:31 LXX where the description of
God caring for Israel in the desert occurs (ὡϛ á¼Ï„ÏοφοφόÏησέν σε κύÏιοϛ
ὠθεόϛ σου). This factor raises the question of a further vl in the text
of Acts concerning the verb of the quotation, whether Ï„ÏοφοφοÏέω,
‘care for’, or Ï„ÏοποφοÏέω, ‘endured’; the vl reflects similar variation
found among the Jewish scriptural texts. The MT of this verse has the
more prosaic ‘carried’ ()&n) which corresponds to Ï„ÏοποφοÏέω, but
most LXX MSS read Ï„ÏοφοφοÏέω (The vl á¼Ï„ÏοποφόÏησεν is found in one
early LXX papyrus of Deut. 1:31 as well as the Church Fathers, includ-
ing Origen [C. Dogniez and M. Harl, Le Deutéronome, in Harl (ed.), La
Bible d’Alexandrie, V, 1992), pp. 118-119]; Ï„ÏοποφοÏέω also occurs as
a vl in the future tense in the following clause (Rahlfs). As for the verb
Ï„ÏοποφόÏεω, it is attested at Deut. 1:31 for the first time in Greek; it
only occurs once more in the LXX, at 2 Macc. 7:27 of a mother nursing
her child. The sense of God caring for his people in the desert is borne out
by the targumic expression that God ‘supplied the needs’ of Israel in the
desert at Targ. Onq. Deut. 2:7; 32:10; Targ. Ps.-J. Hos. 13:5 (R.P. Gordon,
‘The Targumists as Eschatologists’, in Göttingen Congress Volume, pp.
113-130), which is brought out here by the reading of d5.
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