Acts 19:9

Acts 19:9 Tura,nnou {B}

The interesting addition in the Western text (“[Paul] argued daily in the hall of Tyrannus from the fifth hour to the tenth” [i.e. from 11:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.]) may represent an accurate piece of information, preserved in oral tradition before being incorporated into the text of certain manuscripts. Were it present in the original text, there is no good reason why it should have been deleted. (Instead of “to the tenth” two Latin manuscripts of the Vulgate read “to the ninth” (G), “to the ninth and tenth” (D).)

Acts 19:14, Acts 19:16

The Western text (codex Bezae and, in part, î³⁸ it^gig syr^hmg Ephraem) rewrites ver. Acts 19:14 as follows: evn oi-j kai. ui`oi. [+ e`pta, syr^hmg] Skeua/ tinoj i`ere,wj hvqe,lhsan to. auvto. poih/sai $e;qoj ei=can tou.j toiou,touj evxorki,zein%( kai. eivselqo,ntej pro.j to.n daimonizo,menon h;rxanto evpikalei/sqai to. o;noma le,gontej( Paragge,llome,n soi evn VIhsou/ o]n Pau/loj evxelqei/n khru,ssei (“In this connection also [seven] sons of a certain priest named Sceva wished to do the same thing (they were accustomed to exorcize such persons). And they entered into the one who was demon-possessed and began to invoke the Name, saying, ‘We command you, by Jesus whom Paul preaches, to come out’”).

Some have felt a difficulty that e`pta, in ver. Acts 19:14 changes in ver. Acts 19:16 to “two” (avmfo,teroi, though occasionally in substandard Greek avmfo,teroi has the meaning “all”). Codex Gigas emends e`pta, to duo; others (D it⁵⁷) omit the numeral entirely. In ver. Acts 19:16 ms. E omits avmfo,teroi and others (including H L P S al, followed by the Textus Receptus) replace it with auvtw/n.

Among modern proposals, Moulton reports a conjecture of J. B. Shipley, that e`pta, has arisen from a gloss, in which the name Skeua/ was taken to be the Hebrew [bv, which can be read as the numeral seven (e`pta,). ³⁴⁹

A. C. Clark argued that by mistake a marginal note of interrogation z (= zh,tei), meaning “query,” being taken as the numeral seven, was erroneously incorporated into the text. ³⁵⁰ Torrey, following Overbeck, conjectured that the error of “seven” for “two” arose because in the first century the Greek b (= 2) and z (= 7) were made very much alike. ³⁵¹ Finally, it may be reported that at the end of the last century the Dutch classical scholar Naber proposed that avmfo,teroi be emended to a;fnw “suddenly,” ³⁵² a reading that J. M. S. Baljon adopted in his edition (1898).

The difficulty of reconciling e`pta, with avmfo,teroi, however, is not so great as to render the text that includes both an impossible text. On the other hand, however, the difficulty is so troublesome that it is hard to explain how e`pta, came into the text, and was perpetuated, if it were not original, whereas, in view of avmfo,teroi, it is easy to see how it might have been omitted by certain witnesses.

³⁴⁹ J. H. Moulton, Prolegomena, p. 246; compare Moulton and Milligan, Vocabulary, p. 577, col. a. On the other hand, Robert Eisler conjectured that “ckeua might be a misreading of cke'ai, ‘investigate’ ‘look up!’, wedged between uioi and duo,” Bulletin of the Bezan Club, XII (1937), p. 78; compare H. A. Sanders, ibid., XI (1936), p. 14.

³⁵⁰ The Acts of the Apostles, pp. 371—373.

³⁵¹ Anglican Theological Review, XXVI (1944), pp. 253—255.

³⁵² Mnemosyne, XXIX (1881), p. 289.