The Ambush "ACTS 20:28 partII

[conciencia]

ANother Rican I hope you are reading!!!


This Verse also has an interesting textual history. The authorities for the reading (ten ekklesian tou theou, "the congregation of God") and (ten ekklesian tou kyriou," the congregation of the Lord ") are "singularly balanced." Ezra abbot surveys great deal of the evidence for both readings, and concludes that "the evidence of manuscripts, ancient versions, and the early Christians writers, when fairly weighted, decidedly preponderates in favor of the reading [kyriou]." However, other favor (theou), while some believe it is "impossible to decide between the the two main variants on the basis of external evidence."

Luego sigo.

[conciencia]

Looks like Another Rican is gone or lost...perhaps speechless, anyways Jibaro is still around and seems that he needs more information...well Jibaro I have some time...


Acts 20:28 the followup:

Internal evidence is sometimess seen as favoring "theou". Thus, Robert Countess states that "Paul's epistles contain eleven instances of the phrase, 'the church of God' and none to 'the church of the Lord.' "He then concludes, "Hence, at the outset Pauline usage favors the reading 'the church of God.' "However, nearly a century earlier, Abbot noted how such figures are "strangely misapprehended." He goes on to observe that the "the church of God" appears eight times in the singular, and three in plural, and asks, Has any respectable commentator in any one of these passages understood him [Paul] to mean "Christ" by "theou" Abbot continues:

"So far, then as the phrase in question is concerned, the appeal to the usage of Paul shows that it is extremely improbable that he would have employed it here to describe the church as belonging to "Christ".
Let us look a little further. What is the usage of Paul in the rest of this discourse? Examine the use of the words "kupios and theos" in vv.19, 21, 24, 25 [variant], 27,32,35; note especially vv. 21 and 24. Is it not clear, without argument, that the usage of the Apostle "here" favors the supposition that he would employ "kupiou" rather than "theou" to denote Christ in ver. 28?"

In this light, it may very well be the case that a scribe replace "kyriou with theou" in order to conform more closely with Pauline usage in reference to the Father. Whatever reading is accepted, it will not affect our view of this passage, for we are more concerned with the meaning of "tou idiou", to which we will return shortly. But the discussion of the variants is needed here, for a critical question that must be addressed involves the two main textual variants. First, through, other objections to "kyriou" being the more primitive reading will be considered.

Will continue later.....

[conciencia]

As you can see by this time you were long gone!