TC Articles in the Latest Issue of NTS

From the latest issue of New Testament Studies, three articles on topics of interest to ETC readers.

P45 and the Problem of the ‘Seventy(-two)’:
A Case for the Longer Reading in Luke 10.1 and 17

Zachary J. Cole 

At Luke 10.17, most modern critical editions incorrectly cite the wording of P45 as ἑβδομήκοντα δύο (72) instead of ἑβδομήκοντα (70). As this is one of the two oldest witnesses to the verse, this revision of external evidence calls for a fresh examination of the textual problem as a whole. Previous discussions have focused almost exclusively on the perceived symbolic values of ἑβδομήκοντα (+ δύο) to identify the ‘more Lukan’ wording, but this essay argues on the basis of new transcriptional evidence that the earlier reading is more likely ἑβδομήκοντα δύο.

Postscript: A Final Note about the Origin of the Gospel of Jesus’ Wife

Andrew Bernhard

The owner of the Gospel of Jesus’ Wife provided Karen King with an interlinear translation of the text. Like the Coptic of the papyrus fragment, the English of this interlinear translation appears dependent on ‘Grondin’s Interlinear Coptic/English Translation of the Gospel of Thomas’. It shares a series of distinctive textual features with Grondin’s work and even appears to translate two Coptic words found in the Gospel of Thomas but not in the Gospel of Jesus’ Wife. Consequently, the Gospel of Jesus’ Wife seems undeniably to be a ‘patchwork’ of brief excerpts from the Gospel of Thomas created after November 2002.

Anger Issues: Mark 1.41 in Ephrem the Syrian,
the Old Latin Gospels and Codex Bezae

Nathan C. Johnson

While the vast majority of manuscripts portray Jesus in Mark 1.41 as ‘moved to compassion’ (σπλαγχνισθείς) before healing a leper, five putative witnesses in three languages depict him ‘becoming angry’ (ὀργισθείς/iratus). Following Hort’s dictum that ‘knowledge of documents should precede final judgments on readings’, this article offers the first thorough examination of the witnesses to ‘anger’, with the result that the sole putative Syriac witness is dismissed, the Old Latin witnesses are geographically isolated, and the sole Greek witness linked to the Old Latin as a Greek–Latin diglot. Since the final grounds for Jesus’ ‘anger’, that it is the lectio difficilior, also prove insubstantial, σπλαγχνισθείς is concluded to be original, with ‘anger’ originating in the Old Latin manuscript tradition.