A Textual Commentary On The Greek NT

Acts 13:8

Instead of VElu,maj codex Bezae reads (with a lacuna of one letter) VEt@)#imaj. That it should be spelled VEtoima/j is shown by the Latin side of the manuscript, which reads Etoemas, as does also Lucifer; the manuscripts of Ambrosiaster vary between ethimas, etymas, tymas, thimas, and atrmas. Manuscripts of Pacianus read hetymam or hetym mÌaÌmÌ. Likewise in support of the reading of Bezae is the addition in some Old Latin witnesses at the end of ver. Acts 13:6, where E reads o` meqermhneu,etai VElu,maj, but where it^gig vg^mss Lucifer read paratus [i.e. {Etoimoj].

It is possible, as Harris suggested, ²⁵³ that the Western tradition of ~Etoima/j (or {Etoimoj) goes back to a source similar to the one used by Josephus when he mentions the part played by a Jewish magician who lived in Cyprus about this time and who helped the procurator Felix to win Drusilla ( Acts 24:24), the wife of king Aziz of Emesa (Antiquities, XX.vii:2). Although most of the manuscripts of Josephus call the magician Simon, one eleventh-century manuscript, supported by the Epitome of the Antiquities, give him the name Atomos (:Atomoj). ²⁵⁴

While some scholars (including Zahn, Clemen, Wellhausen, Ropes, A. C. Clark, and C. S. C. Williams) have been impressed by the parallel in Josephus, Burkitt hesitated to accept the identification and proposed the conjectural emendation of o` loimo,j, a word that occurs in Acts 24:5 and that was used by Demosthenes for a farmako,j (“sorcerer”). The passage, as Burkitt would read it, runs: avnqi,stato de. auvtoi/j o` loimo,j( o` ma,goj( ou[twj ga.r meqermhneu,etai to. o;noma auvtou/, “Now they were withstood by the pestilent fellow, the sorcerer I mean, for ‘pestilent fellow’ is the interpretation of the name.” ²⁵⁵

Despite Harris’s ingenious argument, which broadens the testimony supporting the Western reading(s), the Committee did not feel itself justified in disregarding the weight of the manuscript evidence attesting VElu,maj. ²⁵⁶

²⁵³ J. Rendel Harris, “A Curious Bezan Reading Vindicated.” Expositor, Fifth Series, V (1902), pp. 189—195.

²⁵⁴ Niese, the editor of Josephus’s works, preferred the more unusual name, since the other probably arose from conflation with the familiar cycle of stories regarding Simon Magus.

²⁵⁵ F. C. Burkitt, “The Interpretation of Bar-Jesus” Journal of Theological Studies, IV (1902—03), pp. 127—129.

²⁵⁶ For further discussion that derives VElu,maj from the Aramaic haloma (= magician), see L. Yaure, “Elymas — Nehelamite — Pethor.” Journal of Biblical Literature, LXXIX (1960), pp. 297—314.

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A Textual Commentary On The Greek NT

Acts 13:8

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