Ulan wrote: ↑Wed Sep 12, 2018 9:37 amYou would need an additional two whole lines of space for 8:37 to fit. Those two lines are obviously not there.
It's so painfully obvious that I'm not sure whether you are pulling my leg here.
Correct. Verse 37 would take up
nearly 2 whole lines.
In one last attempt to restore sanity, here is a section of the relevant text with individual letters, all in a vertical line (or as close as I can get them), underlined in red:
- P45 Redux.png (352.18 KiB) Viewed 12393 times
Each "line," for counting purposes, will start at an underlined letter and end at the letter before the underlined letter one line below it. (If the edges of the manuscript were intact, we could just use the manuscript's own lines more easily. But that is not the case, so our lines will have to run from fixed points instead of from the margins.)
And here is the relevant text of Acts with those same letters rubricated. I am using continuous text, not even trying to reproduce the lines of the manuscript, since we will be counting the letters one by one to get the exact number of letters per line:
Acts 8.34-40 (NA27): 34 ἀποκριθεὶς δὲ ὁ εὐνοῦχος τῷ Φιλίππῳ εἶπεν· δέομαί σου, περὶ τίνος ὁ προφήτης λέγει τοῦτο; περὶ ἑαυτοῦ ἢ περὶ ἑτέρου τινός; 35 ἀνοίξας δὲ ὁ Φίλιππος τὸ στόμα αὐτοῦ καὶ ἀρξάμενος ἀπὸ τῆς γραφῆς ταύτης εὐηγγελίσατο αὐτῷ τὸν Ἰησοῦν. 36 ὡς δὲ ἐπορεύοντο κατὰ τὴν ὁδόν, ἦλθον ἐπί τι ὕδωρ, καί φησιν ὁ εὐνοῦχος· ἰδοὺ ὕδωρ, τί κωλύει με βαπτισθῆναι; 37 - 38 καὶ ἐκέλευσεν στῆναι τὸ ἅρμα καὶ κατέβησαν ἀμφότεροι εἰς τὸ ὕδωρ, ὅ τε Φίλιππος καὶ ὁ εὐνοῦχος, καὶ ἐβάπτισεν αὐτόν. 39 ὅτε δὲ ἀνέβησαν ἐκ τοῦ ὕδατος, πνεῦμα κυρίου ἥρπασεν τὸν Φίλιππον καὶ οὐκ εἶδεν αὐτὸν οὐκέτι ὁ εὐνοῦχος, ἐπορεύετο γὰρ τὴν ὁδὸν αὐτοῦ χαίρων. 40 Φίλιππος δὲ εὑρέθη εἰς Ἄζωτον· καὶ διερχόμενος εὐηγγελίζετο τὰς πόλεις πάσας ἕως τοῦ ἐλθεῖν αὐτὸν εἰς Καισάρειαν.
Spaces in the text will not count, since the manuscript itself does not leave spaces between words. Nor will the modern verse numbers or punctuation, obviously. Only the letters will be counted. Also, the underlined words above are actually nomina sacra in the text, counting for only 2 and 3 letters each, respectively:
Line 1: 57 letters.
Line 2: 55 letters.
Line 3: 49 letters.
Line 4: 58 letters.
Line 5: 50 letters.
Line 6: 49 letters.
Line 7: 53 letters.
Line 8: 53 letters.
Line 9: 51 letters.
Total: 475 letters.
Average: 52.78 letters per line.
Verse 37 (not included above because it does not fit: εἶπε δὲ ὁ Φίλιππος, Εἰ πιστεύεις ἐξ ὅλης τῆς καρδίας, ἔξεστιν ἀποκριθεὶς δὲ εἶπε, Πιστεύω τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ Θεοῦ εἶναι τὸν Ἰησοῦν Χριστόν) has 96 letters in Scrivener, assuming that the usual words (Θεοῦ, Ἰησοῦν Χριστόν) have been rendered as
nomina sacra. So it would take up about 1.82 lines at the above average of 52.78 letters per line. Obviously, since the line counts make sense without it, and since no part of that verse appears in the text of the manuscript, fitting it in is impossible without simply assuming that it was written away from the column of text, in the margin somewhere. If it
were in the text, it would have to fall on line 4 (which contains part of verse 36), before line 5 even starts (which begins already three words into verse 38):
Line 1: 57 letters.
Line 2: 55 letters.
Line 3: 49 letters.
Line 4: 154 letters.
Line 5: 50 letters.
Line 6: 49 letters.
Line 7: 53 letters.
Line 8: 53 letters.
Line 9: 51 letters.
Can you spot the line that does not belong?
Verse 37 obviously held no place in the column of text on this page of Ƿ
45. It is not even a close call.
ETA: Fixed an error. Verse 37 cannot be divided up between any two lines of the text; its entirety has to fall on line 4, which contains part of verse 36, since line 5 already starts with part of verse 38.