Luke 11:36

This verse is very puzzling both critically and exegetically. As it stands in T.R. (and in W.H [105]) it appears tautological (De Wette), a fault which some have tried to surmount by punctuation, and some by properly placed emphasis on ὅλον in the protasis and on φωτεινόν in the apodosis, giving this sense: if thy body be wholly lighted, having no part dark, then will it be lighted indeed, as when the lamp with its lightning illumines thee (so Meyer). Even thus the saying seems unsatisfactory, and hardly such as Lk., not to say our Lord, could have been responsible for. The critical question thus forces itself upon us: is this really what Lk. wrote? Westcott and Hort think the passage contains “a primitive corruption,” an opinion which J. Weiss (in Meyer, p. 476, note) endorses, making at the same time an attempt to restore the true text. Such attempts are purely conjectural. The verse is omitted in [106], some Latin codd., and in Syr. Cur [107] The new Syr. Sin [108] has it in a form which Mrs. Lewis thus renders: “Therefore also thy body, when there is in it no lamp that hath shone, is dark, thus while thy lamp is shining, it gives light to thee” a sentence as dark as a lampless body.

[105] Westcott and Hort.

[106] Codex Bezae

[107]yr. Cur. Curetonian Syriac. (For Greek equivalent vide Baethgen's Evangelienfragmente.)

[108]yr. Sin. Sinaitic Syriac (recently discovered).