See how long/large/tall letters .. Gal 6:11
Posted: Thu May 01, 2014 4:40 pm
If I may troll a little...
ἴδετε (π)ηλἰκοις ὑμῖν γράμμασιν ἔγραψα τῆ ἐμῆ χειρί
see how ____ you letters write my own hand
Case 1: (unlikely)
Suppose it is letters as in messages on pieces of papyrus. Explanation A: Paul wrote several long and emotional letters to the Galatians, of which only the last was preserved. Problem: Then, why does it seem like he used a scribe for most letters while here it says he writes them with his own hand? Maybe Paul was more comfortable writing semitic languages in square script. So he did that at the beginning but changed to Greek when more Greek-speakers joined the ecclesia?
Case 2:
Suppose it is letters as in A/alpha/aleph/alap. Then it would say nothing about how many letters he sent to the Galatians and we would have three explanations. Explanation A: He was visually impaired and needed to write the whole epistle with large characters. Explanation B: He still used a scribe but had to sign it with large letters so he could see them. Explanation C: He expressed confidence in his understanding of the law- and circumcision issues by writing very long tails on the lamed-letters.
I picked some of the cases from here:
http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek/test-arch ... 22918.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
I have a faint memory of reading that uncial greek manuscripts had two guiding lines and that the scribe tried to make all characters the same height by fitting them between the lines, but all I can find now is this from Wikipedia:
ἴδετε (π)ηλἰκοις ὑμῖν γράμμασιν ἔγραψα τῆ ἐμῆ χειρί
see how ____ you letters write my own hand
Case 1: (unlikely)
Suppose it is letters as in messages on pieces of papyrus. Explanation A: Paul wrote several long and emotional letters to the Galatians, of which only the last was preserved. Problem: Then, why does it seem like he used a scribe for most letters while here it says he writes them with his own hand? Maybe Paul was more comfortable writing semitic languages in square script. So he did that at the beginning but changed to Greek when more Greek-speakers joined the ecclesia?
Case 2:
Suppose it is letters as in A/alpha/aleph/alap. Then it would say nothing about how many letters he sent to the Galatians and we would have three explanations. Explanation A: He was visually impaired and needed to write the whole epistle with large characters. Explanation B: He still used a scribe but had to sign it with large letters so he could see them. Explanation C: He expressed confidence in his understanding of the law- and circumcision issues by writing very long tails on the lamed-letters.
I picked some of the cases from here:
http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek/test-arch ... 22918.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
I have a faint memory of reading that uncial greek manuscripts had two guiding lines and that the scribe tried to make all characters the same height by fitting them between the lines, but all I can find now is this from Wikipedia:
That should make it hard to express emotions by letter-size. Are there any more explanations? Is 2C likely? If it is, it would totally explain the different vocabulary in Galatians, when compared to Paul's other letters, most of which should have been written in Greek.The uncial letters were a consistent height between the baseline and the cap height, while the minuscule letters had ascenders and descenders that moved past the baseline and cap height. -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_manuscript" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;