5 - Conclusion

Summary

The most significant observation that can be made regarding the Greek text of the Ape. is that there appears to be no manuscript or family of manuscripts which preserves a relatively higher number of more Semitised readings affecting verbs and clauses than any other manuscript. Research has failed here, as it has with previous studies, to turn up anything equivalent to the Western text of the Gospels and Acts with its greater number of Semitisms. Another fact, noted by previous researchers, has been observed again here as well, that the relative antiquity of the individual witnesses to the text of the Ape. has little to do with the number of Semitisms preserved by them. Of the Semitic constructions discussed in this study, which are preserved in fewer than five extant witnesses, the third-century p⁴⁷ gives the more Semitised form in five places, but in four places the Semitism has been smoothed over. This hardly differs from a fifteenth-century minuscule, 2067, which alone, or with just a few others, has preserved in three places the more Semitised reading. From this it is evident that the reconstruction of the primitive text of the Ape. must proceed from a broad textual basis, not overlooking the testimony of any witness.