A Textual Commentary On The Greek NT

Acts 8:37

Acts 8:37 omit verse {A}

Ver. Acts 8:37 is a Western addition, not found in î^{45, 74} a A B C 33 81 614 vg syr^{p, h} cop^{sa, bo} eth, but is read, with many minor variations, by E, many minuscules, it^{gig, h} vg^mss syr^{h with *} cop^G67 arm. There is no reason why scribes should have omitted the material, if it had originally stood in the text. It should be noted too that to.n VIhsou/n Cristo,n is not a Lukan expression.

The formula pisteu,w … Cristo,n was doubtless used by the early church in baptismal ceremonies, and may have been written in the margin of a copy of Acts. Its insertion into the text seems to have been due to the feeling that Philip would not have baptized the Ethiopian without securing a confession of faith, which needed to be expressed in the narrative. Although the earliest known New Testament manuscript that contains the words dates from the sixth century (ms. E), the tradition of the Ethiopian’s confession of faith in Christ was current as early as the latter part of the second century, for Irenaeus quotes part of it (Against Heresies, III.xii:8).

Although the passage does not appear in the late medieval manuscript on which Erasmus chiefly depended for his edition (ms. 2), it stands in the margin of another (ms. 4), from which he inserted it into his text because he “judged that it had been omitted by the carelessness of scribes (arbitror omissum librariorum incuria).”

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A Textual Commentary On The Greek NT

Acts 8:37

Old Testament

New Testament