Saturday, February 25, 2012

New Fragment of Mark Better than Codex Sinaiticus

John Bugay posted an item that led me to an interesting graphic purportedly of the new fragment of the Gospel of Mark, together with a transcript of Codex Sinaiticus.  Below, I've placed the letters found in the fragment in bold - the other letters are supplied from the transcript of Codex Sinaiticus.  Obviously, there are significant lacunae, but I've identified a single variant vis-a-vis Sinaiticus and highlighted it below.  The variant is untranslatable, because it is simply a clerical error (omission) in Sinaiticus, which we might speculate was due to the similarity in appearance between the epsilon and theta in the exemplar from which it was copied.  Since the fragment does not have error, it is better than Codex Sinaiticus.

(The starting place for the columns, especially for the first few lines, is speculative.  Mark 5:15-18 is shown.  I'm unaware of whether there is text on the opposite side of the manuscript fragment.)
καιηρχοντοπροϲτονιν
καιθεωρουϲιτονδαιμον
ιζομενονκαθημενον
ϊματιϲμενοκαιϲωφρον
ουντατονεϲχηκοτατονλ
εγιωνακαιεφοβηθηϲανκ
αιδιηγηϲαντοαυτοιϲοι
ϊδοντεϲπωϲεγενετοτω
δαιμονιζομενωκαιπερι
τωνχοιρωνκαιηρξαντο
παρακαλιναυτοαπελ
θειναποτωοριωναυτων
καιεμβαινοντοϲαυτου
ειϲτοπλοιοπαρεκαλει
αυτο

6 comments:

John Bugay said...

NA27 has ἀπελθεῖν; Codex Sinaiticus is missing the "ε", and the word in question means "to depart".

Dave Hammond said...

Did you mean a new fragment from the Gospel of Mark rather than John?

Ken said...

"purportedly of the new fragment of the Gospel of John"

I also thought it was Mark rather than John.

You got it right later in the article:

"Mark 5:15-18 is shown"

John Bugay said...

Jason Engwer has posted some comments by other scholars who are less than convinced that the photograph of the Mark fragment is an authentic one.

turretinfan said...

And in the title too ... (corrected the body of the post, with thanks).

turretinfan said...

:shrug:

Hence the need for "purportedly."