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Being Pedantic

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If there is one occupational hazard that threatens a good number of the text-critical guild, it is that of being pedantic. Squabbling over commas, dots in the margin, spelling, and one another's work (or lack thereof), we have seen it all.

I caught myself out when looking at these words in Rev 18:18 (as in the current Nestle Aland edition):
ἀστραπαὶ καὶ φωναὶ καὶ βρονταί
[lightning and sounds and thunder]

Regardless of the question of the correct word order (and I thing P47 and the koine Byzantine branch have a strong shout here), I noticed how the word order variants are listed in the apparatus of NA28:

1 4 5 2 3
5 4 1–3
1 4 5
1–3


And I thought, Is this tendentious? Why is the first one not listed as 1 2 5 4 3, with just the final two nouns swapped? Or the second as 5 2 1 4 3? Actually, the possibilities are quite numerous. Perhaps the last one should be 1 4 3? And by then I caught myself sinking down in the morass of pedanticism and tried to repent immediately ...

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