is there a homoioteleuton involved in Revelation 21:4
AI Overview
Yes, there is a well-known textual variant in Revelation 21:4 that is directly attributed to homoioteleuton (omission due to similar line endings). [
1,
2]
The Textual Variant explained
The Greek text of
Revelation 21:4 contains a repetitive rhythmic structure using the negative particle
οὐκ ἔσται ἔτι (shall be no more). [
1,
2]
The full standard Greek text listing what will disappear reads like this:
- ...καὶ ὁ θάνατος οὐκ ἔσται ἔτι (and death shall be no more)
- οὔτε πένθος οὔτε κραυγὴ οὔτε πόνος οὐκ ἔσται ἔτι (neither mourning nor crying nor pain shall be no more) [1, 2, 3]
The Mechanism of the Error
Because both consecutive clauses end with the exact same phrase (
οὐκ ἔσται ἔτι), a scribe's eye easily skipped from the first instance of the phrase directly to the second instance.
- The Resulting Omission: In several notable manuscripts (such as Codex Sinaiticus), the scribe dropped the words οὔτε πένθος οὔτε κραυγὴ οὔτε πόνος entirely.
- The Glaring Typo: This left the text reading simply: "and death shall be no more... because the former things have passed away," completely erasing the comforting promise that mourning, crying, and pain would also cease. [1]
Structural Overview
| Standard Text Elements [1, 2] | Sinaiticus Omission (Homoioteleuton) |
|---|
| 1. Death shall be no more (οὐκ ἔσται ἔτι) | 1. Death shall be no more (οὐκ ἔσται ἔτι) |
| 2. Mourning, crying, pain | [Scribe's eye skips this section] |
| 3. Shall be no more (οὐκ ἔσται ἔτι) | 2. [Scribe picks back up here] |
Textual critics easily identified this error because the rhythmic listing of things passing away perfectly matches the Hebrew poetic style of the Book of Revelation, making the missing section a classic case of mechanical copying failure.
Are you examining this variant for a
translation project, or are you studying the
scribal habits of a specific manuscript like Codex Sinaiticus? Let me know so I can provide more technical details!
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AI Overview
In
Codex Sinaiticus, Revelation 21:4 contains a textual variant commonly attributed to
homoioteleuton (skipping text due to similar endings) or a related scribal error.
Where standard texts read:
"For the former things are passed away" (ὅτι τὰ πρῶτα ἀπῆλθαν),
Sinaiticus originally read: "For the sheep are passed away". In Greek, this visually appears as τ α̇ π ρ ω̃ τ α (ta prota) accidentally swapping with τ α̇ π ρ δ β α τ α (ta probata), or misreading identical prefixes/suffixes.
The original manuscript can be examined directly in the
Codex Sinaiticus Online archive.
If you are looking to explore more variant readings across early manuscripts, would you like to:
- Compare this variant to the Textus Receptus or Majority Text?
- Look into other instances of homoioteleuton in the book of Revelation?
- Trace the historical context of Codex Sinaiticus and scribal corrections?
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other instances of homoioteleuton in the book of Revelation involving Sinaiticus?
While
Codex Sinaiticus (\(\aleph \)) is the oldest complete uncial witness for the
Book of Revelation, its transmission text contains a
notoriously high frequency of scribal blunders, eye-slips, and severe omissions. In textual criticism, the book of Revelation in
Sinaiticus (copied by Scribe A) is famous for what scholars describe as a "careless" copyist prone to skipping whole lines due to
homoioteleuton (similar word endings) and
homoioarcton (similar word beginnings). [
1,
2,
3,
4
,
5]
Several prominent examples of homoioteleuton/eye-slip omissions in
Sinaiticus' text of Revelation include:
Revelation 1:8
- The Missing Text: Sinaiticus originally omitted the phrase "the Almighty" (ὁ παντοκράτωρ).
- The Cause: The scribe's eye slipped past the phrase due to the repetitive string of titles ending in similar Greek letters or grammatical markers. A later corrector (designated as \(\aleph ^{ca}\)) caught the error and added it back into the text. [1, 2, 3, 4]
Revelation 2:10
- The Missing Text: Sinaiticus omits the phrase "be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life" (γίνου πιστὸς ἄχρι θανάτου, καὶ δώσω σοι τὸν στέφανον τῆς ζωῆς).
- The Cause: The scribe was thrown off by the sequential structure of apocalyptic commands and instructions, leading to a massive text drop that leaves a gaping logical hole in the local passage.
Revelation 10:1
- The Bizarre Replacement: While not an omission of a phrase, the scribe suffered a visual eye-slip that altered words with similar letter groupings. [1
]
- The Cause: Instead of writing "and a rainbow [ἶρις] was upon his head", the scribe misread a similar grouping and wrote "and hair [θρίξ / τριχές] was upon his head". [1]
Revelation 17:4
- The Missing Text: Sinaiticus completely omits the phrase "and the filthiness of her fornication" (καὶ τὰ ἀκάθαρτα τῆς πορνείας αὐτῆς).
- The Cause: This classic homoioteleuton was triggered by consecutive phrases ending with the genitive feminine singular pronoun αὐτῆς ("of her"). The scribe's eye copied the first αὐτῆς (from "golden cup in her hand full of abominations..."), jumped straight past the next clause, and resumed right after the second αὐτῆς. [1]
Revelation 20:5
- The Missing Text: Sinaiticus completely leaves out the line: "But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished". [1]
- The Cause: This is a famous homoioteleuton shared with a handful of other manuscripts. The scribe's eye leaped from the phrase "the thousand years" (τὰ χίλια ἔτη) at the end of verse 4 directly to the exact same phrase, "the thousand years", at the end of verse 5, entirely deleting the sentence in between. [1
]
If you want to dig deeper into these scribal corrections, would you like to:
- Examine how later correctors (\(\aleph ^{a}\) or \(\aleph ^{ca}\)) went back and fixed these specific lines?
- Analyze how these omissions impact the Alexandrian text-type vs. the Byzantine tradition?
- Look at other oddities in Sinaiticus, such as its changing of "all things new" to "all things empty" in Revelation 21:5?
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how later correctors (\(\aleph ^{a}\) or \(\aleph ^{ca}\)) went back and fixed these specific lines?
In the study of
Codex Sinaiticus, the physical process of correcting text provides a rare look into ancient scriptorium mechanics. Because the manuscript features roughly 23,000 corrections made across several centuries, textual critics can trace exactly how different scribal hands interacted with the severe
homoioteleuton (eye-slip) errors in the Book of Revelation. [
1,
2,
3,
4,
5]
When early correctors like
\(\aleph ^{a}\) (nearly contemporary with the 4th-century production) or
\(\aleph ^{ca}\) (a prolific 7th-century corrector working to align the text closer to prevailing standard models) went back to repair these omissions, they used specialized physical and textual methods. [
1,
2,
3]
1. In-Line and Marginal Text Re-insertion
When a corrector caught a major omission (such as a full missing line or phrase), they could not simply erase and rewrite the parchment because the text blocks were tightly bound in a four-column layout. Instead, they utilized the margins: [
1]
- The Insertion Mark: The corrector placed a small sign or symbol (like a caret, arrow, or asterisk) directly into the text column at the precise point where the original scribe's eye had slipped.
- The Marginal Addition: Corresponding to that mark, the corrector wrote out the missing words in the adjacent upper, lower, or side margin.
- Fixing Rev. 1:8: For the omission of "the Almighty" (ὁ παντοκράτωρ), the corrector \(\aleph ^{ca}\) inserted a mark right after the words "who is and who was and who is to come" and squeezed the missing title into the margin or a tiny gap between lines. [1]
2. Erasures and Sub-lineal Alterations
For shorter errors or word swaps caused by eye-slip, correctors changed the text directly on the line:
- Scraping the Parchment: Because Sinaiticus is written on high-quality animal skins (vellum/parchment), a corrector could take a knife and carefully scrape away the ink of the incorrect words written by the original scribe. [1]
- Fixing Rev. 21:4 (The "Sheep" Variant): In the famous eye-slip where the scribe accidentally wrote "the sheep are passed away" (τὰ πρόβατα...) instead of "the former things are passed away" (τὰ πρῶτα...), correctors stepped in to fix the botched letters. They scraped away or wrote over the rogue letters (-ροβ-) to collapse the word back into its correct form.
- Subdots and Cancellation Marks: If they chose not to scrape the ink, a contemporary corrector like \(\aleph ^{a}\) would place tiny dots (subdots) beneath the rogue letters. In ancient scribal practice, putting dots underneath letters told the reader: "Ignore these characters; they were written in error." [1]
3. Deliberate Inaction (The Case of Rev. 20:5)
Interestingly, the way later correctors treated an error reveals whether they considered it an error at all. [
1]
- In Revelation 20:5, the original scribe omitted "But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished" because their eye jumped from one instance of "a thousand years" to the next. [1, 2]
- While \(\aleph ^{ca}\) heavily corrected other parts of Revelation, this massive omission was left completely untouched by both \(\aleph ^{a}\) and \(\aleph ^{ca}\). [1
]
- Why? In the 4th through 7th centuries, some early Egyptian and Eastern text-types completely lacked this phrase, or scribes treated it as an uninspired marginal gloss that had crept into other traditions. Because the correctors' check-manuscripts (their exemplars) also lacked the line, they left the original scribe's accidental omission alone, cementing a historic eye-slip into the text-type. [1
, 2, 3, 4]
4. Scriptorium Quality Control vs. Later Standardization
The differences between how \(\aleph ^{a}\) and \(\aleph ^{ca}\) worked highlight two entirely separate eras of editing:
- \(\aleph ^{a}\) (The Proofreader): Working in the original scriptorium, this corrector did a rapid check against the immediate source text. They mostly caught simple spelling slip-ups or small missing words right after the columns were written.
- \(\aleph ^{ca}\) (The Systemic Overhauler): Working centuries later, this scribe brought a completely different manuscript to the table—one that reflected the growing Byzantine textual tradition. When \(\aleph ^{ca}\) fixed severe omissions (like in Rev. 17:4), they weren't just guessing; they were systematically cross-referencing Sinaiticus with newer, standardized ecclesiastical texts and heavily altering the margins to make the old manuscript usable for public reading. [1, 2, 3]
If you want to look closer at the physical layout of these edits, would you like to:
- Learn how to identify different handwriting styles between the original scribe and the correctors?
- Examine specific visual examples of subdots and marginal carets used in early uncial manuscripts?
- Explore how these corrections compare to the text found in Codex Vaticanus, the other great 4th-century uncial?
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