Mark 5:22 - Who's That Guy? (How to Spell "Jairus")

             The character known as Jairus appears on one occasion in the Gospels, in an episode described in Matthew 9:18-26, Mark 5:22-43, and Luke 8:40-56.  Matthew did not provide his name, but both Mark and Luke do so – except in Codex 05 the name is not included in the Gospel of Mark.  Usually the name “Jairus” appears as  ̓Ιάειρος.  That was the spelling in Mark 5:22 in the Textus Receptus, in the Robinson-Pierpont Byzantine Textform,  in the solid Rock Greek New Testament, in the Hodges-Farstad GNT According to the Majority Text, and in earlier printed Greek Gospels such as those issued by Tregelles, Westcott & Hort, and Baljon.  The Tyndale House GNT echoes Tregelles.  The UBS GNT has always printed ̓Ιάιρος in Mark 5:22, and so do Michael Holmes’ SBL GNT and Wayne A. Mitchell’s Greek New Testament (4^th edition).

            But why the change?   Swanson’s list of witnesses for Ιάιρος consists of merely 01 and 33, while Ιάειρος is supported by 02 03 019 032 038  and all other Greek witnesses except C (which reads Ιάερος) and 28 (which reads Ιάιαρος).  032 and 038 and 565 and 700 together support  ᾧ ὀνόμα ̓Ιάειρος, harmonizing with Luke 8:41.  Considering what a notoriously bad speller the main scribe of Sinaiticus was, the decision to print ̓Ιάιρος instead of Ιάειρος seems incredibly tenuous and arbitrary.  Future editions should adopt Ιάειρος, both in Mark 5:22 and in Luke 8:41 (a verse for which the UBS compilation has zero support, exposing its “frankentext” nature).

            Finally, a more subtle question:  was Jairus’ name originally in Mark 5:22?   It’s missing in 05 and in some Old Latin https://itseeweb.cal.bham.ac.uk/vetuslatina/GospelMSS/  copies – specifically, a (Codex Vercellensis) e (Codex Palatinus )  ff² (Codex Corbeiensis secundus) and i (Codex Vindobonensis).  Bruce Metzger spent nearly two pages on this question in his Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, and both Vincent Taylor and J. K. Elliott suspected that non-inclusion is original here.  No major English version has failed to include Jairus’ name in Mark 5:22 – a sign of ecclesiastical resistance to the idea that the mere shortness of shorter Western readings commends them as original.  Mysteries they may be, but arbitrary brevity is no more of a sign of authenticity than arbitrary verbosity.  

Notice the absence of "named Jairus"