“Doubtless” was Hort’s answer in 1881. His note is a bit torpid but his verdict is clear:
“iii.10 (†) εὑρεθήσεται]
οὐχ εὐρεθήσεται syr.bod[= an obscure
Syriac version of the three Catholic Epistles not in the Syriac canon] theb
: κατακαήσεται
(? Alexandrian and) Constantinopolitan (Gr. Lat. Syr. Eg. Æth.) ; incl. A L2
lat. vg. codd Cyr.al Aug: ἀφανισθήσονται C: , ni: , the whole clause (καὶ γῆ
… κατακ.) lat. vg ppscr pplat.scr. Text ﬡBK2P227 29
66** syr.hl.mg. arm : cf. bod the. The great difficulty of text has evidently
given rise to all these variations (Introd.
§ 365). It is doubtless itself a
corruption of ῾ρυήσεται (῾ρεήσεται) or of one of its compounds.”
 |
| Second Peter 3:10 in Codex Alexandrinus |
The Byzantine text of II Peter 3:10 is: Ἥξει δὲ ἡ ἡμέρα κυ ὡς κλέπτης ἐν νυκτί ἐν ᾗ οἱ οὐρανοὶ ҅ροιζηδον παρελεύσονται στοιχεῖα δὲ καυσούμενα λυθήσονται καὶ γῆ καὶ τὰ ἐν αὐτῇ ἔργα κατακήσεται – diverging from the text of NA27 at five points, two of which are detectable in translation: the simple presence or absence of ἐν νυκτί and the final word of the sentence.
While the
shorter reading is explainable as a loss due to
parablepsis from the ἐν before νυκτί to the ἐν after it, and its longer rival
is supported by C K L 049 104 629 1751 Byz, the Byzantine reading was
assumed so readily by the editors of UBS4 to be a harmonization to First
Thessalonians 5:2 that it didn’t even receive a listing in the apparatus. The array of external against it is indeed
very impressive – P72 ﬡ A B P Ψ 048vid 0156 33 323 945 1739 Vulgate
Coptic.
It
is the textual contest at the end of the verse that has attracted the most
attention recently, because the editors of Novum
Testamentum Graece decided to print in the text a reading which is not
found in any Greek manuscript of Second Peter. The textual contest in the last word of
Second Peter 3:10 has been an issue for a long time. Not only Westcott & Hort but also
(according to NA27’s apparatus) Naber, Olivier, Mayor, and Eberhard Nestle each
proposed different conjectural emendations here – swept away, conflagrated,
removed, and judged, respectively). Normal
people might imagine that an “embarrassment of riches,” would naturally preclude
such guesses, but, no, the NET’s annotator candidly admits that this is “one of
the most difficult textual problems in the NT.”
The NET’s annotator firmly endorsed εὑρεθήσται as the original reading, arguing that the opacity of the meaning of provoked scribes to substitute a word that seemed easier to understand. This is perfectly lucid. In addition, the meaning of the text in the smattering of non-Greek witnesses enlisted to support ουχ is accounted for an a harmonization to the meaning of Revelation 20:11 (οὐχ εὐρέθη in the majority text). The conjectural emendation that currently is printed in NA28 cannot be recommended as superior – but it does serve as an interesting and obvious admission that the editors do not believe that the original text of Second Peter 3:10 has survived in any extant Greek witness. Some onlookers have assumed that the C.B.G.M. had something to do with the editors’ decision, but that seems impossible, inasmuch as there is co coherence to consider.
