Acts 17:26

Acts 17:26 evx e`no,j {B}

The Western text, with the support of a wide range of early versions and patristic witnesses, adds ai[matoj after e`no,j. This reading passed into the Textus Receptus and lies behind the AV. In support of the longer text is the palaeographical consideration that ai[matoj may have been accidentally omitted because it ends in the same letters as the preceding e`no,j. It is also possible, though perhaps not probable, that someone deliberately deleted the word, since it appears to contradict the statement in Genesis that God made man from dust — not blood ( Genesis 2:7). Likewise, there is some force in the consideration that ai[matoj is not a very natural gloss on e`no,j — for that one would have expected avnqrw,pou or something similar.

On the other hand, a majority of the Committee was impressed by the external evidence supporting the shorter text, and judged that ai[matoj was a typical expansion so characteristic of the Western reviser.