Re. 20:5 genuine?

[Bluefalcon]

Re. 20:5 (KJV): "But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection."

Some MSS, including Codex Sinaiticus and what the Nestle-Aland 27th ed. calls the Koine tradition proper, omit the sentence, "But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished." The Robinson-Pierpont Byzantine GNT includes the passage, I guess on the authority of the large number of MSS with the commentary on Revelation by Andreas of Caesarea.

It seems homoioteleuton (h.t.) error could have produced the omission (from CILIA ETH of 20:4 to CILIA ETH of 20:5), and this would mean a bulk of Byzantine MSS perpetuated and multiplied the error without correction. Nevertheless, many MSS apparently were unaffected by the possibility of h.t. error here and transmitted the original text.

This kind of situation lends credence to the idea that Byzantine scribes did not go about fixing and correcting and adding to the text, but rather copied the text that appeared before them, warts and all.

Yours,

Bluefalcon

 

[Dr. Bob]

By the time the Eastern Rite Catholics got around to copying the text, it was terribly damaged. Their conflation to it is obvious in hundreds of places.

But you knew I'd say that since I do not believe in Byzantine priority of inferior texts. And praise God for monasteries and libraries that God used to preserve His Word for us today.

 

[Dr. Bob]

As to the question, I am amazed at those who accept the Eastern Rite Catholic texts which then must skew normal doctrine.

Think of this text - is this the "first" resurrection? Nope. I know an awful lot of born again believers who will be zipped up to meet the Lord at the REAL "first" resurrection at the rapture of the church.

Think of the added ending to Mark and the snake handlers and the 'believe-and-be-baptized' conflated sections.

If we just didn't have those conflated (added, not in originals) texts we would not have to go around the barn trying to preach around those poorly worded additions.

 

[Ziggy]

Since apparently *every* printed Greek NT edition retains the words, it seems obvious that all NT editors consider the longer reading original at this point (Metzger does not even comment on the verse in his Textual Commentary). For the record, according to Hoskier's collation data, only 35% of the MSS of Revelation omit the phrase, while 65% retain it.

I suspect the homoioteleuton explanation is correct for at least some of the omitting MSS -- but why would 35% of the Byzantine tradition omit the phrase?

Certainly this branch (the so-called "MK tradition" per NA27) *could* be reflecting their common archetype, and thus perpetuating an early omission, as BF suggests. But why then would it not be corrected over time, and move toward the more "standard" Byzantine text, as the various "process" views suggest?

However -- and I throw this out only as a suggestion -- is it possible that the phrase *may* have been omitted *deliberately*, perhaps due to interpretative problems regarding the nature of the nations deceived into joining the satanic rebellion at the end of the thousand years, which nations might appear to have coexisted with the believers and the millennial reign of Christ?

The text (regardless of MS) does *not* say "When the thousand years are ended, Satan will be loosed from his prison, along with the unbelieving dead", but instead, "Satan will be loosed...and will come out to deceive the [existing] nations".

I know that one's interpretative position on Revelation will be a factor here, but remember that in the early centuries up through the renaissance period there also were many peculiar interpretations of this book and its eschatology. I suggest only that *some* scribes may have had problems fitting the phrase into their interpretation, and may have deliberately omitted it. If so, it clearly becomes a case of the "more difficult reading" having been omitted.

 

[Ziggy]

DrBob: "Think of this text - is this the "first" resurrection? Nope."

Except, DrBob, the phrase, "This is the first resurrection" in Re 20:5 is *not* in dispute.

Only the *first half* of the verse is omitted in some MSS ("But the rest of the dead did not live until the thousand years were ended").

There is *no* textual problem regarding the comment about the "first resurrection", which is present in *all* texts.

Methinks you allowed a certain anti-Eastern Orthodox bias to drive your commentation.

 

[Bluefalcon]

So, Dr. Bob, you take it that Re. 20:5 is a "poorly worded" addition? I don't know any English versions that omit it, and my only point was that not a few Byzantine type MSS actually omit part of 20:5, against their so-called "nature" of adding text everywhere, perhaps due either to an early archetypal h.t. error or intentional excision. Afterward, however, there remains no trace that the scribes of the many Byzantine descendants of this error corrected the text or added back the original text. The Byzantine scribes whose texts omitted the passage faithfully transmitted the omitted text, and facts of this kind must give modern critical scholars gastrointestinal pains!

Yours,

Bluefalcon