Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Yitzhak Sapir" <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>]

On Sun, Jun 15, 2008 at 2:42 AM, Yitzhak Sapir wrote:

> In the latter, it seems the comment about Majority Text goes into your
> personal theory, which in light of the evidence above for both Nazareth and
> Maththaion, is weak.  I would appreciate it if you could elaborate on the
> author's speculation regarding the p/f of Capernaum that you mention and
> dismiss, without letting us know what he suggests.

Incidentally, I looked up my own notes which I constructed from archives of
the article in Google, with very poor transcriptions, but probably
sufficient for this:
"From what has been already said two deductions are clear. First, there is one
serious variant, not two, viz. Ka<f>ap- or Ka-n-tp-: it is not a
question of mere
itacism, whether of consonant or vowel. In the second place, if we consider 
the
case on its merits apart from general theories about the text, there
is an impressive
case in favour of Capharnaum in all Four Gospels. The Latin and
Egyptian evidence
is consistently on that side, so are the two oldest Greek MSS. Further, Ka(
f>apvaov/x is the form consistently used by Origen, both when quoting
Scripture and
when referring to the town in his own words. It is also the reading of
Eusebius, in his
work on the topographical names of Palestine, both in referring to
th'e place itself
(Lagarde, 0 5 273**) and in referring to Chorazin, which he says is at
the twelfth
milestone from Capharnaum (Lagarde, OS 303"). Another witness for 
Ka<f>apvaovfi
is Epiphanius 136 {Hatr 30), where he is writing about Count Joseph, and 
naming
places in Galilee. On the side of ' Capernaum' there is no ancient
version, except the
revised Latin represented by q. In other words, a-n-tpvaovfi belongs
to the Byzantine
text and to that alone : there is no sign of its existence before the
4th century [1].
>From this point of view, viz. that of the assured originality of
'Capharnaum', the
evidence of the inconsistent witnesses to that spelling is instructive."

I would hardly say that the above can be summarized as:
"When I looked up the article, none of the evidence that the
author presented for either spelling is from a Galilean source prior
to the 4th century. Further, he has only speculation with an admission
that neither he nor his colleagues knew as to where the "p" instead of
"f" in Capernaum/Caphernaum comes from."

In fact, Origen and Eusebius are both from Caesarea.  While not
Galilean, they date
to the 2nd-4th centuries CE in Samaria.  Your comment may be rephrased as
"The author presented impressive evidence showing that all ancient evidence,
including evidence from 2nd-4th century C Caesarea, pointed at Capharnaum, but
I wanted evidence from a purely Galilean source prior to the 4th
century CE.  The
author has speculation as to where the very late Capernaum came from."

Yitzhak Sapir