Page:The New Testament in the original Greek - Introduction and Appendix (1882).pdf/295

Rh texts, we lose the one approximately constant Greek neutral document: as regards Internal Evidence of Groups, we lose all the groups into which Β enters. This state of evidence occurs under three different conditions; first, in detached variations in the Pauline Epistles, where the Western element of Β has displaced its fundamental or neutral element, the absence of which is virtually equivalent to the absence of Β; secondly, in those parts of the Pauline Epistles which were contained in the lost leaves of B, but in which the relations of the other documents are to a considerable extent illustrated by facts of grouping observed in those parts of the same series of books for which Β is extant; and thirdly, in the Apocalypse, where analogies of grouping are to say the least imperfect, and the few important documents common to the rest of the New Testament present themselves in novel relations.

341. First both in order of books and in gradation come the isolated Western readings of Β in the Pauline Epistles. Where BD2G3 or BG3 with other chiefly Western documents stand alone among Pre-Syrian documents, there is no difficulty. Distinctively Western substitutions or additions attested by Β are with a few doubtful exceptions, as 1 Cor. ix 9, xiv 28,  2 Cor. viii 24, Gal. iv 28, which it is prudent to retain as alternatives, of no better character than similar distinctively Western readings not supported by B. Such readings therefore as  for  Rom. xv 13 (cf. v. 29 v.l.), xv 20,  for  xv 31,  xvi 10,  Gal. i 17, and the transposition of  and  (ancient lines) in 1 Cor. i 2 we have had no hesitation in rejecting.

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