A Textual Commentary On The Greek NT

Acts 17:28

Acts 17:28 w`j kai, tinej tw/n kaqV u`ma/j poihtw/n {A}

Codex Bezae adds to the quotation the phrase to. kaqV h`me,ran (“in him we live and move and have our being day by day”).

According to Rendel Harris this reading arose from a misread and misplaced marginal annotation. He suggests that a corrector who wished to alter tw/n kaqV u`ma/j in the next line to “some of our own poets” “indificated this in the margin in a sort of short-hand, which was misunderstood as to. kaqV h`me,ran and inserted as an expansion into the previous line.” ³²⁶ Williams, however, agrees with W. L. Knox that “a more likely explanation is that it was a ‘favourite phrase of D.’” ³²⁷

Although Clark thinks that “it would be difficult to find a more typical example of a gloss than the addition of poihtw/n,” ³²⁸ is also possible, as Lake and Cadbury remark, that the Western editor may have had some moral objection to quoting poets. At any rate, the Peshitta Syriac, the Armenian, and the Ethiopic versions read “sages” or “wise men” instead of “poets.”

Scribal confusion between u`ma/j and h`ma/j, which were pronounced alike, was common. It is scarcely likely that Paul would have represented himself as one of the Greeks.

³²⁶ Bulletin of the Bezan Club, VIII (1930). p. 6.

³²⁷ C. S. C. Williams, Alterations to the Text of the Synoptic Gospels and Acts, p. 69, n. 1.

³²⁸ The Acts of the Apostles, p. 367. Blass and Ropes also omit poihtw/n.

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A Textual Commentary On The Greek NT

Acts 17:28

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