3 John 15

Εἰρήνη σοι. ἀσπάζονταί σε οἱ φίλοι1. ἀσπάζου2 τοὺς φίλους3 κατ᾿ ὄνομα. 4

1. αδελφοι A 33. 81✱ al syhmg |
2. ασπασαι ℵ pc |
3. φ. σου Ψ ╎
αδελφους 630. 1505. 1611 pc syh boms |
4. αμην L 614. 1852 al vgmss |

(KJV 14b) Peace be to thee. Our friends salute thee. Greet the friends by name.
(CEV) I pray that God will bless you with peace! Your friends send their greetings. Please give a personal greeting to each of our friends.
(NASB) Peace be to you The friends greet you Greet the friends by name.
(ESV) Peace be to you. The friends greet you. Greet the friends, every one of them.
(NCV) Peace to you. The friends here greet you. Please greet each friend there by name.
(TNIV) Peace to you. The friends here send their greetings. Greet the friends there by name.
(NRSV) Peace to you. The friends send you their greetings. Greet the friends there, each by name.

This verse originally came to my attention because it is lacking in the WEB, which I use as my primary translation in Accordance. It is especially unfortunate that 3 John is not as widely studied as it should be. There’s so many issues to deal with, but I’ll mention just a couple.

The reconstruction critical text. The earliest change from “friends” to “brothers” we find is from the 5th century (A) and then attested by Harklensis in the 7th. (Do the Syriac versions reflect the Alexandrinacan tradition? Perhaps also the Bohairic and other traditions as well?) The final Amen seems superfluous, and not likely original. Using the infinitive for an imperative seems normal to Greek, and so I wonder why the few manuscripts who do use the infinitive here make the change. Perhaps faulty hearing, and I also wonder if the manuscript they were using was old (here I’m wondering if they saw -ζαι as the curve of the υ had become broken at the bottom, prompting the change of the ζ to σ).

I am curious to find out where the external, contemporary support the last sentence (“Greet the friends by name.”) comes from. What papyri is being used to support this interpretation? It seems to me that it would be tempting to understand this as saying “Greet the friends according to the (Unspeakable) Name (of God).” Compare v. 7 where the Name is mentioned explicitly. Tempting, but I at least will go along with understanding that this is a normal conclusio similar to secular letters of the ancient world.

Just some thoughts about the verse. As well this was my first attempt at trying to get Greek into Blogger. In case your wondering, you can't go from word processor to Blogger without doing some voodoo crap. So I went into Accordance for the main verse and Apparatus. But I had to change the Greek at the end of the second paragraph letter by letter. Annoying more than anything. Does anyone know a better solution for importing Greek into Blogger?