1 Thessalonians 2:7

1 Thessalonians 2:7 nh,pioi {B}

From a transcriptional point of view it is difficult to decide whether nh,pioi arose by dittography after the preceding &n, or whether h;pioi arose by haplography. Likewise, considerations of what the author was more likely to have written are equally inconclusive. Thus, though Paul uses nh,pioj almost a dozen times elsewhere whereas h;pioj is found in the Greek Bible only in 2 Timothy 2:24, yet the apostle always applies nh,pioi to his converts and nowhere else refers to himself as a nh,pioj. Again, though the shift of metaphor from that of babe to that of mother-nurse is admittedly a violent one, it is characteristically Pauline and no more startling than the sudden shift of metaphor in Galatians 4:19. In the absence of any strong argument based on internal probabilities, a majority of the Committee preferred to follow what is admittedly the stronger external attestation and to adopt nh,pioi. ¹

[Despite the weight of external evidence, only h;pioi seems to suit the context, where the apostle’s gentleness makes an appropriate sequence with the arrogance disclaimed in ver. 1 Thessalonians 2:6. The choice of reading has a bearing on the punctuation; if h;pioi is adopted, a full stop should follow avpo,stoloi, a comma should follow u`mw/n, and a colon should follow te,kna. B.M.M. and A.W.]

¹ For a fuller discussion of the variants, see Metzger, The Text of the New Testament, pp. 230—33.