New Testament textual criticism lays considerable stress upon the ways that scribes altered the text. Singular readings provide the most objective and reliable guide to the sorts of errors scribes produced. This paper reports on a study of 4200 singular readings from 33 chapters of the New Testament, providing new insights into scribal habits and the history of the text.
This paper examines the issue of the variant readings of the names of Aminadab and Aram in the genealogy of Jesus, presenting the hypothesis that the reading Adam-Admin-Arni may illuminate the pretextual stages of Luke, when we consider the manner in which ancient writers worked. Proceeding from the OT, in the hypomnemata of Luke or his source the list from Adam to David was probably written down in columns, with the names one under the other, following the hereditary line, as is the usual form of genealogies. In this list, Aminadam and Arni proceed from Aminadab and Aram, a mistake that is paleographically justifiable, taking cursive script into account. Being a longer name, Aminadam would have been divided into two lines. As Luke’s genealogy is in ascending order, Aminadam would have generated two names, Adam and Amim. Admin proceeds from the latter, through the dittography of triangular letters in an uncial script.
In Acts 16, Paul sets out again on his missionary journey but without Barnabas, Instead he is accompanied by Silas and Timothy, and in part by a group of companions referred to by Luke in the 1st person. His itinerary follows the leading given by successive divine interventions designed to move him westwards, towards Rome. Most of the action takes place in Philippi, his first stopping place after leaving Asia where he had worked previously. On his arrival there, Paul first seeks out the Jewish community. However, a conflictual encounter with local people leads to his imprisonment, when the jailor provides him with the opportunity to speak about the gospel to Gentiles. Paul’s failure to make the most of this opportunity occasions implicit ciriticism from the narrator of Codex Bezae.