Last week, I was reading through the Gospel of John’s story about the washing of the disciples’ feet in Greek (chapter 13) and came across a variant I thought I would check in the original manuscript. In John 13:5, the NA28 prints νιπτῆρα as the “basin” in which Jesus pours the water with which he will wash the disciples’ feet. There is a variant here that is read, apparently, only by P.Bodmer II (P66) and a few proto-Bohairic versions: ποδονιπτῆρα (“foot-basin”). I took a look at my facsimile of P.Bodmer II and realized that there is a curious little mark interrupting the letters of the word ποδονιπτῆρα. It is graphically represented as ποδονι > πτηρα. Here is what it looks like in the actual manuscript: This looks exactly like a diple and I cannot help but wonder if the scribe is using it to signify that the reading is spurious, that there is a variant, etc. I looked a little more and realized that the scribe uses this diple-like sign several times. It became evident that the sign is most often employed where there is a variant. Here are a few examples:
1:38: αυτοις > τι variant τινα 2:7/8: ανα > και variant omit και 4:24: αλη>θια variant αληθειας 10:29: μου > ο variant omit μου 11:28: εφωνησεν > Μαριαμ variant Μαριαν By no means is this an exhaustive list of the occurrences of this critical mark in P.Bodmer II; I have taken only a cursory glance at the facsimile. My question is this: are these diple an indication that the scribe knew of a variant reading? In a few places, the diple occurs besides words where there is no variant (e.g., 10:25 εργα > α), so the answer may be that it is not used in this manner. Moreover, the insertion of it within the text is odd. Normally, diplai are inserted in the margin and are used for a variety of purposes, such as to signify a quotation, refer to a commentary, etc. But if it is not being used to signal a variant, then what is its function? It is surely not a line-filler since the scribe consistently uses apostrophe-like marks for this purpose and line-fillers occur at the end of a line—they are not inserted in the middle of the text so as to interrupt a word. I have not looked at any of the literature on P.Bodmer II for this, but does anyone else know if R. Kasser, V. Martin, G. Fee, J. Royse or others say anything about these little diplai within the text of P.Bodmer II? Surely someone has said something about these diplai and offered a reasonable explanation. I would be grateful if someone could provide a reference to a discussion of these marks.
17 Comments
5/10/2013 01:26:34 am
Mr. Jones
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5/10/2013 03:39:32 am
Dear Tim,
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pete head
5/10/2013 03:39:33 am
I've looked at these a few times from different angles and have never come up with a convincing general explanation. I don't see variant marker as particularly likely either. My default explanation isn't very convincing either - accidental inclusions of line fillers in the exemplar.
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5/10/2013 04:02:19 am
Dear Peter,
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5/10/2013 04:04:14 am
And thank you for the e-mail of your student. Perhaps we can invite him to comment here.
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5/10/2013 04:12:00 am
Mr. Jones,
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5/10/2013 04:27:30 am
Tim,
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Mike Warren
5/16/2013 09:25:56 am
Hi Brice
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5/21/2013 07:46:24 am
Thanks very much for your comments, Mike! Yes, I would love to see your paper. And I have counted more than 14 of these diplai-like marks in P.Bodmer II. Did you at all entertain the possibility that these marks were being used by the scribe to signal variants?
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5/20/2013 10:55:54 am
Thanks so much for your comments, Mike. I would love to see a copy of your paper. I have counted more than 14 occurrences of this diple-like mark in P.Bodmer II. Did you at all entertain the possibility that they were being used alongside variants?
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5/20/2013 10:59:38 am
Thanks so much for your comments, Mike. I would love to see your paper. And I have counted more than 14 of these diple-like marks in P.Bodmer II. Did you at all entertain the possibility that these marks are being used to signal variants?
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5/21/2013 07:42:54 am
Thanks very much for your comments, Mike. Yes, I would love to see your paper. And I have counted more than 14 of these diplai-like marks in P.Bodmer II. Did you at all entertain the possibility that these marks were being used by the scribe to signal variants?
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David Race
12/1/2013 03:02:12 pm
I have no professional credentials, but am interested in textual issues with respect to the text of the New Testament. I was wondering if anyone knows about the slash marks at John 7:52 (p66)? It looks like it might indicate knowledge of a variant where the word order was different.
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12/1/2013 03:37:18 pm
Hi David, those "slash marks" do indeed indicate a change in word order of the phrase εκ της γαλιλαιας ο προφητης. The middle dot that you see at the end of εγιρεται [sic] is simply marking the end of a sense unit.
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9/14/2014 02:46:37 am
Dear Brice Jones,
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9/14/2014 02:56:45 am
Thanks for the notification. And nice page photo on your blog!
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