In I Cor. 2.4, there is some question as to what the text actual was that Paul wrote. I was doing this for a sermon and thought the world might as well benefit as much as my church, that and I am going against NA27's decision (the most scholarly text on the Greek NT today).
NA27 gives several possibilities. Let’s look first at the external evidence.
Reading | Attestation | Possible Explanations | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ΠΕΙΘΟΙΣ ΑΝΘΡΩΠΙΝΗΣ ΣΟΦΙΑΣ ΛΟΓΟΙΣ |
| Although it has the backing of a number of 1st order mss, it is a not a super early reading, and its geographic diversity is rather low, really only Alex. and Byz. mss are supporting it. Further, it is a longer reading. But most importantly, the are clearly clarifying additions. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ΠΕΙΘΟΙ ΑΝΘΡΩΠΙΝΗΣ ΣΟΦΙΑΣ ΛΟΓΟΙΣ |
| What it is interesting about this is that a group of late, byz. mss read πειθοι, not πειθοις, which seems to indicate that it is not accidental | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ΠΕΙΘΟΙΣ ΑΝΘΡΩΠΙΝΗΣ ΣΟΦΙΑΣΚΑΙΛΟΓΟΙΣ |
| This ms is clearly added upon for clarification. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ΠΕΙΘΟΙΣ ΑΝΘΡΩΠΙΝΗΣ ΣΟΦΙΑΣ |
| What is important here is that ΛΟΓΟΙΣ is missing, indicating it might be an addition, since it’s late. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ΠΕΙΘΟΙΣΟΦΙΑΣ ΑΝΘΡΩΠΙΝΟΙΣ ΛΟΓΟΙΣ |
| The important things to note here are the πειθοι and the conforming of ανθρωπινοισ to match λογοισ | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ΠΕΙΘΟΙΣ ΣΟΦΙΑΣ ΛΟΓΟΙΣ |
| Although it has a number of 1st order mss and decent geographic diversity, it is a later reading, However, it lacks the clearly added ΑΝΘΡΩΠΙΝΗΣ. However, it still has λογοισ, which is missing in some mss. And it still has πειθοις and not πειθοι which is also found in some mss. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ΠΕΙΘΟΙΣ ΣΟΦΙΑΣ ΛΟΓΟΣ |
| Supposedly, in support of the previous entry, but actually it indicates that λογοισ is clarification. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ΠΕΙΘΟΙΣ ΣΟΦΙΑΣ |
| Actually has the earliest attestation, and decent geographic spread, except it is a very western reading. However, it is the shortest and certainly explains all the options before it, but the difficult issue is the last option, with no attestation. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ΠΕΙΘΟΙ ΣΟΦΙΑΣ | No Attestation | A possibility from the editors. |
The last two options are the closest to the original. The last option is what we know to have been in the text for sure. The question is just whether there was another sigma or not. This is difficult to decide, because even as I was writing the second to last option I missed typing the second sigma, but that goes to show how easy it is to lose that letter. Also, ΠΕΙΘΟΙ is a hapax legomenon, where as ΠΕΙΘΟΙΣ occurs moderated frequently in other literature (although still a hapax for the NT). The scribes are likely to have changed it to something they recognized or missed writing one of the sigma’s. Although it is also possible they double up on the sigma’s by accident. However, the fact that only a handful of mss, and most of them later mss, lack a double sigma, may indicate error more than faithfulness considering the sheer number of other mss. Thus, it is more like for the minorly attested reading to be the genuine rather than the unattested suggestion. Also the piece of information that could go either way is the possibility of mishearing the rector, since when spoken somewhat quickly ΠΕΙΘΟΙΣΣΟΦΙΑΣ would be very hard to distinguish from ΠΕΙΘΟΙΣΟΦΙΑΣ and vice versa. So for now I will go with the attested options, and lest people think me uninterested with unattested options, I just want to know I also do quite a bit of OT textual criticism, which is a way of saying I obviously have no problem with textual emendations.
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