05_Eubank_247_268 15/07/14 12:19 Pagina 253 DYING WITH POWER 253 Jesus cried out as he was dying 13. As a result, church people and scholars before the time of Westcott and Hort were largely unaware of the reading which is found in Vaticanus 14. The most striking feature of this collection of variants is the fact that, while all the corruptions seek to draw attention to Jesus’ cry, they are found in every text type except the Alexandrian and they alter the text using different wording. It appears, therefore, that numerous copyists and translators independently sought to “fix” the centurion’s confession by drawing attention to Jesus’ cry. Taken together with Matthew and Luke’s redaction of Mark, this is strong evidence that Mark’s earliest readers found 15,39 prob- lematic. Why would the anguished cry of a crucified man lead a Roman centurion to see him as the son of God? Matthew, Luke, and ancient copyists resolve this inconcinnity by shifting the cen- turion’s gaze to something magnificent. The widespread early Christian discomfort with Mark 15,39 raises another question: why were so many copyists and translators convinced that the “great cry” in 15,37 was the impetus for the con- fession? A less complicated solution would have been to borrow ta. geno,mena/to. geno,menon from Matthew and Luke, indicating that the remarkable phenomena surrounding Jesus’ crucifixion prompted the centurion’s confession. We turn now to evidence sug- gesting that Jesus’ dying yell was an important theological datum for patristic and medieval commentators, a fact which may explain why numerous scribes independently made the centurion marvel at one who died “while crying out”. 13 E.g., see the apparatus of the NA28. 14 See the Wycliffite Bible: “But the centurien that stood forn ayens siy, that he so criynge hadde diede, and seide, Verili, this man was Goddis sone”. The Douay-Rheims: “And the centurion who stood over against him, seeing that crying out in this manner he had given up the ghost, said: Indeed this man was the son of God”. The KJV: “And when the centurion, which stood over against him, saw that he so cried out, and gave up the ghost, he said, Truly this man was the Son of God”.