Luke 10v1 - 70 or 72?

Byzantine/TR says 70 (septuaginta) along with Aleph and several other uncials.

72 (septuaginta duo) - p75, Vaticanus, Itala, Vulgate, several other ancient witnesses, Douay-Rheims (Polish translation is probably influenced by the Vulgate).

HankD

 

The "two" (DUO) of seventy two and the two of "two by two" (ANA DUO) is the same Greek word, and parablebsis on the part of a scribe could have allowed the DUO at the end or beginning of one line to creep into the line before it, thus inflating the text and creating an error by changing the seventy to seventy two. Were the conditions for parablepsis not so ripe, seventy two would perhaps be the more difficult reading. But as it stands, there's little transcriptional reason for the DUO to drop out, especially as so many witnesses apparently never had it, and an extremely common scribal reason to account for its accidental inclusion, and thus the word appears in brackets as doubtful in the NA27 critical edition, even with the agreement of P75 and Codex Vaticanus in including the apparent scribal blunder.

Yours,

Bluefalcon

 

I lean toward "72" because Jesus sent them out in pairs. Jesus did many things according to certain numbers; had He sent them out singly or in bands of seven, I'd lean toward 70. However, 70 makes 35 pairs, and nowhere do I see Jesus doing 35 of anything. OTOH, 72 is a very divisible number that has 12 & 3 among its divisors.

This is just an "edjukatid guess" on my part.

 

The number 70 was a favorite number among the Jews.
- The family of Jacob that came into Egypt consisted of 70 - Gen 46:27.
- The number of elders that Moses appointed to aid him was 70 - Num 11:16,25.
- The number which composed the Sanhedrin, or council of the nation, was 70.

It is likely that Jesus appointed this number with reference to the fact that it so often occurred among the Jews, or after the example of Moses, who appointed 70 to aid him in his work.

 

bf: The "two" (DUO) of seventy two and the two of "two by two" (ANA DUO) is the same Greek word, and parablebsis on the part of a scribe could have allowed the DUO at the end or beginning of one line to creep into the line before it...

But in this case, BF, the variant is *not* accidental, since the *same* issue recurs in Lk 10:1 and 10:17 at the end of the mission, and at the latter occurrence the transcriptional possibility from parallel influence is nil.

Also, nearly the same witnesses in *both* places read 72, while the opposite MSS in both places read 70.

There is definite recensional activity on one side or the other, and the matter devolves into the *very* slimly supported partial-Alexandrian/partial-Western reading versus the Byzantine-Caesarean-partial Western-partial Alexandrian reading (the latter having the wider attestation).

I suspect 72 is more likely secondary, specifically because it allows the *very* neat arrangement of 3 pairs (6 persons total) to be sent out under the authority of each of the 12 apostles. On the contrary, the reading of 70 makes for some more awkward arrangement (maybe Judas only got to send out 4 people?), and is therefore the "more difficult" reading.

 

Wow! And so the witnesses that read 72, since they could not have come to read that by accident in both places (Lk. 10:1, 17), really amount to one and only one archetypal witness, and that an edited one, and so wherever any of these MSS support a defector reading elsewhere, we should immediately cast aside their witness as secondary.

Yours,

Bluefalcon

 

I believe it comes down to the differences between witnesses. This is a very small discrepancy when compared to the differences in versions of "The Lord's Prayer" as found between Matthew and Luke.