Slide 22 of 22
Notes:
Examine the example from Luke 24:53 given in the Textual Criticism handout with alternative readings, manuscript support for each, and the text-type information listed.
The division between readings that are early, middle, and late is absolutely clear. Our earliest and best manuscripts read "blessing." A later Western tradition has the alternative "praising." The latest Byzantine tradition has a combination of the two: "praising and blessing."
"Blessing" is clearly most likely the original.
The clear suggestion here is that the reading "praising and blessing" is a conflation of the other two readings "blessing" and "praising." Given the habit of scribes to expand or add together, and supplemented by the principle of the shorter reading being the preferable, it seems likely that as some point a scribe found the two alternatives in different traditions and incorporated them together into a manuscript in the process of copying.
Thus on the basis of internal considerations, the "praising and blessing" reading seems late.
On the basis of both external and internal considerations, the decision of Nestle-Aland to adopt "blessing" is supported.
