The particular Western-text readings of the Book of Acts <Article>

The aim of this essay is to introduce some of the typical Western-text variant readings of the Book of Acts in the New Testament. The Western Text is usually regarded as corrupted, paraphrased, having a lot of interpolations, as shown in my previous essay of ΠΡΟΠΥΛΑΙΑ 4 1992. In 1914 A. C. Clark, Corpus Professor of Latin in the University of Oxford, published the Greek text of the Book of Acts, which was established only by the Western-text. He challenged one of the important axioms of textual criticism that is brevior lectior potior (“The shorter readings should be preceded.”). Consequently his text of the Book of Acts is 8.5% longer than that of Westcott & Hort’s. The text of WH has 18,401 words, whereas A. C. Clark has 19,983 words. Some of the Western variant readings in the Book of Acts introduced in this essay, such as 12:10, 19:9, 20:15, 27:5 are evaluated as valid by W. Ramsay and thinks someone who traveled with Paul added precise circumstances. Admitting that there is some doubt on these Western additions and alterations of the text of the Book of Acts, these variant readings found in the Western Text are also another important tradition of the New Testament text