Page:The New Testament in the original Greek - Introduction and Appendix (1882).pdf/296

258 The internal evidence is not so clear with respect to distinctively Western omissions, and for the present at least it is safest to indicate doubt about words omitted by this group. But where other documents not clearly Western form part of the attestation, interpretation of the evidence is often difficult, if the rival reading is well attested. We can have no security in these cases that Β derived its reading from its neutral element: and, if it derived it from its Western element, then two alternatives are possible: either the accessory documents are really Non-Western, in which case the rival reading is often Alexandrian; or they are mixed (usually Syrian) and have adopted a Western reading, in which case the rival reading is more likely to be simply Non-Western, although its attestation is consistent with its being Alexandrian. In these cases we have exactly the state of things, as far as regards extant attestation, which Griesbach assumed to have from early times existed everywhere (see § 251), an attestation which might easily be only Western opposed to an attestation which might easily be only Alexandrian. If however these variations are examined together. Internal Evidence is generally favourable to the apparently Non-Western readings: but in not a few cases the other reading must be retained as an alternative, or even appears to be the more probable of the two.

342. Since in the Pauline Epistles Β (as well as, A, and C) sometimes supports distinctively Western readings, so that they gain, for instance, the attestation BD2G3 as well as D2G3, AD2G3, and (more rarely) CD2G3 and even ACD2G3 and occasionally ACD2G3, it might be asked what security we have that BD2G3, or even the same group with other uncials added, do not make a Western combination. As a matter of attestation