Acts 4:1-4

Acts 4:1-4

In these verses codex Bezae makes a number of modifications for reasons that are not always clear. The addition of ta. r`h,mata tau/ta in ver. Acts 4:1 was probably made in the interest of fullness of expression in accord with the Semitic love for cognate accusatives. The absence of kai. o` strathgo.j tou/ i`erou/ must be due to scribal idiosyncrasy, for other Western witnesses have the words. In ver. Acts 4:2 the modification of katagge,llein evn tw|/ VIhsou/ th.n avna,stasin th.n evk nekrw/n into avnagge,llein to.n VIhsou/n evn th|/ avnasta,sei evk nekrw/n is curious, to say the least. In ver. Acts 4:3, after altering evpe,balon into evpibalo,ntej the scribe of D, as Haenchen remarks, overlooked the need of omitting kai, before e;qento (a subsequent corrector has deleted the superfluous word). In ver. Acts 4:4 the addition of “also” in the sentence “and the number also of the men came to be about five thousand” (kai. avriqmo,j te evgenh,qh avndrw/n w`j cilia,dej e®) was probably intended to heighten the point of the statement, though it does so at the expense of good literary style.