Input greatly desired

[Douglas]

Aune, Revelation 17-22, 1090 wrote "Since the clause interrupts the thought of the passage, it may have been an annotation added at a final stage of composition"

Beale, Book of Revelation, 1015, writes that 20:5a "is omitted by several good mss. because it was abrupt and seemed out of place or, more likely because a copyist's eye skipped from 'year' at the end of v. 4 to the following 'years' in verse 5.

The manuscripts that Beale cites are the following: Sinaiticus, 2030, 2053, 2062, 2377; also the better mss of the Majority text of the Apocalypse, the Syriac, Victorinus Petavionensis (i.e. Victor, Bishop of Pettaw, Austria quotes the passage - around 300 AD - and omits 20:5a) Finally, the Commentary on the Apocalypse written by Beatus of Liebana (Spain) in the late eighth century quotes this passage, again without 20:5a.

Duncan, The Antichrist and the 2nd coming, 376, writes "It is absent in two of the three best (Sinaiticus and 2053 do not have it, Alexandrinus does)". Also, the Syriac Philoxenian version of the NT (from the 6th century) omits 20:5a.

Duncan gives 5 main points in his book as to why he believes that 20:5a was not part of the orig. text.

1. There are no pre-Constantine manuscripts covering Rev 20 discovered yet. The only pre-Constantine evidence we have is Victorinus' commentary (ca. 300 AD). The manuscript of Vicotinus of Pettau omits 20:5a, while Jerome a century later says Vicorinus included it. Although Victorinus was a chiliast, so it is less credible that the manuscripts he saw would have contained it.
2. The oldest manuscript we possess of Rev 20 is the Sinaitic (a) of the 4th century, and it omits 20:5a, while the next oldest is the Alexandrian (A) of the 5th century, which adds it. - not stong evidence, but some.
3. There are 2 "Majority Texts" in Rev, the Koine text, MK, of the 4th or 5th century, and "Andreas-commentary text", MA, which is unlikely to precede Andreas himself, ca AD 600. The Koine omits 20:5a, while the Andreas adds it.
4. The Aecumenius-commentary text is found in two forms. The earlier represented by manuscripts 2053 and 2062), originating with Aecumenius near AD 540, omits 20:5a in the Rev text, but includes it in his commentary.
5. From the 4th to 13th century, about equal numbers of manuscripts omit and add 20:5a. in the 14th century the fraction adding it jumps to about 69%, and it rises thereafter to 100% in the 17th century.

Duncun concluded that the 5 observations reveal the historical trend towards adding the disputed 20:5a, not deleting it. Also he states that this sentence (20:5a) is found in five different forms among the manuscripts which do add it, adding to the evidence that it was not in the orig. text.

R.H. Charles, The British Academy Lectures on the Apocalypse (London: Oxford University Press, 1922), 44-45 states "Hence the words appear to be a marginal gloss incorporated in teh text. Moreover, it intervenes between two lines which should not be separated; for the second line ("This is the first resurection") defines what the first line means. Thus the first stanza should be read 20:4i "and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years; This is the first resurrection"

I am only providing information that I have read and have yet to make up my mind on the subject, but I think others wanting to learn about this might find this interesting to say the least.

Douglas

[Paidion]

Thank you, Douglas. That was very informative. I am in much the same boat as you. There doesn't seem to be enough EARLY Christian evidence to come to a definite conclusion.

[TheEditor]

Perhaps by "Ma", Doug meant "Masoretic"?