Sunday, October 16, 2022

Eldon Jay Epp, G. K. Beale, and the NET on Colossians 4:15

  

Eldon Jay Epp:

 

In Col 4:15 the name Nympha/Nymphas in a Greek accusative form can be feminine or masculine, depending on the accent. The printed text has “Give my greetings to Symphia and the church in her house,” but Pauline D-Text witnesses have “his house.” If the shift was from “her” to “him,” that would deprive a woman of being the leader of a house church. (Nestle-Aland28 and UBS4 have “her,” while those of Merk, Bover, and Bover-O’Callaghan read “his.”) (Eldon Jay Epp, “How New Testament Textual Variants Embody and Exhibit Prior Textual Traditions,” in Biblical Essays in Honor of Daniel J. Harrington, SJ, and Richard J. Clifford, SJ: Opportunity For No Little Instruction, ed. Christopher G. Frechette, Christopher R. Matthews, and Thomas D. Stegman [New York: Paulist Press, 2014], 286)

 

G. K. Beale:

 

Many commentators note the textual uncertainty over whether Νυμφαν (Νymphan) should be rendered “Nympha” as a female name or “Nymphas” as a male name . . . However, the most likely reading of the accompanying pronoun is “her” (αυτης), indicating that Νυμφαν is female think that she may have been a wealthy widow who hosted a small church in her house. Some think that Nympha is being acknowledged here as a leader of the Church in Laodicea . . . but nothing more than hosting the church in her house is being expressed. House churches were typical during the early Christian movement (see Acts 16:15; Rom. 16:5, 23; 1 Cor. 16:19; Philem. 2 . . .) (G. K. Beale, Colossians and Philemon [Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Academic, 2019], 360-61)

 

There is textual uncertainty about whether Νυμφαν (Nymphan) should be rendered “Nympha” as a female name or “Nymphas” as a male name. If the original is Νύμφαν (as in NA28) with an acute accent over the upsilon, then it refers to female; if the original is Νυμφᾶν with a circumflex over the alpha, it refers to a male. The earlier manuscripts did not have accents, so the name could have been pronounced either as a male or female. Thus the following pronoun is the only evidence of whether the name referred to a woman or a man . . . But even this manuscript evidence is mixed. Some scribes understood a woman to be the reference, which is indicated by the following reference to “her [αυτης, autēs] church (b, 0278, 6, 1739, 1881, syh, sa). Others understand it to be a male, as indicated by the reading of “his [αὐτοῦ, autou] church” (D, F, G, K. L, Ψ, 365, 630, 1241s, 1505, Û, syp.hmg) . Still other MSS have “their [αυτων, autōn] church,” while likely arose due to a scribe thinking the church of the “brothers” together with either a name Nymphas or female Nypmha was the reference in the original (א, A, C, P, 075, 33, 81, 104, 326, 1175, 2464, bo); or “their” was written because it was unclear how Νυμφαν should be accented (see the note in the NET). The female name Nympha would be the harder reading apparently because scribes would have thought that the name Nympha directly following male “brothers” would most naturally be taken as a male (i.e., one among the “brothers”). But just as naturally, Nympha as a female could be singed out from the preceding male brothers. However, many scholars believe the female name Nympha is preferable as the difficult reading because of the likelihood that a scribe would have thought a male would be the head of a church in which a church was meeting and would have been tempted to change an original female name to the male (this may explain why the reading not only of “his” but also of “their” arose . . .) Together with this, the weight of better MSS support the reading of “her” (αυτης), thus meaning a female Nympha and making it the most original reading . . .(Ibid., 365)

 

NET (1st ed.):

 

If the name Nympha is accented with a circumflex on the ultima (Νυμφᾶν, Numphan), then it refers to a man; if it receives an acute accent on the penult (Νύμφαν), the reference is to a woman. Scribes that considered Nympha to be a man's name had the corresponding masculine pronoun αὐτοῦ here (autou, "his"; so D [F G] Ψ Û), while those who saw Nympha as a woman read the feminine αὐτῆς here (autes, "her"; B 0278 6 1739[*] 1881 sa). Several MSS (א‎‏‎ A C P 075 33 81 104 326 1175 2464 bo) have αὐτῶν (auton, "their"), perhaps because of indecisiveness on the gender of Nympha, perhaps because they included ἀδελφούς (adelphous, here translated "brothers and sisters") as part of the referent. (Perhaps because accents were not part of the original text, scribes were particularly confused here.) The harder reading is certainly αὐτῆς, and thus Nympha should be considered a woman.