Week 38 Acts
Even though most people don’t seem too concerned about manuscript discrepancies they’re concerning to me.
I took about 30-minutes today looking through Acts for every marginal note that mentioned alternate manuscripts. I found 33 (what I’d call) Mss. Glitches (mss. = manuscript). Examples:
some ancient mss. do not contain…
some mss. add…
many mss. do not contain…
Getting a little reminder about the uncertainty of the verse is helpful. But it’s also demanding.
Helpful: Variations tell me: “there’s an indefinite-undecidedness in this text”. For me that means I might end-up saying: “I’m not sure” (and there’s nothing wrong with I’m-not-sure).
Demanding: Variations put added pressure on me as I read. They mean I have to be careful & cautious as I go. I have to be wary about what I’m extracting & accepting & deciding & concluding. What I’m believing.
Luke tells a story about the Bereans: they received the (gospel) message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.
That second phrase is fine advice for an attentive reader.
Note: marginal notes from Acts 2:44 5:32 8:37. Quote from Acts 17:11 (NIV).
Added: I raced through my 33 mss. glitches. I wanted to see if any of them made any significant difference to the text. I didn’t find any. That’s not to say I’m okay with discrepancies. I’m not. I think they make the text untidy and make a reader uncertain. But that aside alternate mss. readings didn’t seem to change Acts in any serious way at all.