ana translation

INTRODUCTION
xxxix
readings, dSiKov/zevoi and KO/XIOV/ACVOI, dyctTrcus and aTrarais), or iii. 10
(where some authorities give /caTUKa^crcrai for cvpe^ereTcu) or as the
passage Jude 22, 23, with the complicated variations recorded on it.
For it is on such passages that the hand of the reviser, guided by
his auxiliary Greek copy, is most likely to have operated. The only
trustworthy method is to select for examination a fairly complete
list of passages in which textual variations, great or small, affecting
the sense, ,are recorded in critical editions of the Greek. If on a
scrutiny it proves that in their reading of a large number of such
passages the Versions agree, that fact will outweigh
affinity the counter-fact that they diverge
conspicuous passages.
as evidence of
in a limited number of
a. Sho'ivn by frequency of agreement.
In forming such a list it will, of course, be proper to disregard
variations so petty as to be attributable to accident, and those in
which the intention of the translator is doubtful. Putting
aside all
such, and confining ourselves to the textual variations attested by
the Greek uncials only,
it will be found that the Apparatus attached
to
our Greek Text records more than one hundred places where there
exists textual variation of such nature as to show itself in the Syriac
translation. It would take up too much space to print the list of
these passages here in full, and it would be needless, inasmuch as for
the purpose of our present inquiry the question is of the amount of
agreement on the whole, not of the importance
of each individual instance.
It suffices to state as the result that, of the hundred instances,
in about two-thirds the Versions coincide in the reading they represent
;
in one-third they differ. The amount of agreement thus shown
is evidently greater than would probably be found to exist between two
Versions made independently by two translators, neither of whom had
knowledge of the work of the other, directly
from two distinct and
unrelated Greek exemplars. This result is such as might reasonably
be expected when of the two Versions compared
one is a revision
of the other, made with the help of a fresh Greek text ;
and it is
therefore consistent with our hypothesis as to the two Versions under
consideration. It confirms us in the view that ours is the previous
Version on which Thomas of Hark el based his; and it gives us a
measure of the extent of his textual alterations, showing how far he