Luke 3:33

tou Aminadab (of Aminadab) & tou Aram (of Aram) - A, E, G, K, N, U, D, P, Y, 047, 0211 (D,Q)+7unc, 33, Byz, Lect, lat, syrp,h

tou Aminadab (of Aminadab), tou Admin (of Admin), & tou Arni (of Arni)

tou Admein, tou Arnei - B
tou Adam, tou Arni?- syrs
tou Adam, tou Admin, tou Arnei - 01*
tou Adam, tou Admein, tou Arnei - copsa
tou Admein, tou Admin, tou Arni - copbo
tou Aminadab, tou Admin, tou Arnei - 01c
tou Aminadab, tou Admin, tou Arhi - f13
tou Aminadab tou Admh, tou Arni - X
tou Aminadab tou Admein, tou Arni - L
tou Aminadab tou Admein, tou Aram 0102 (P4?)

Problem: The fictitious "Admin" and "Arni" have been intruded into Christ's genealogy.

Discussion: UBS has misrepresented the evidence in its apparatus so as to hide the fact that no Greek MS has the precise text it has printed - a text which is a veritable "patchwork quilt". In Metzger's presentation of the UBS Committee's reasoning, he writes, "the Committee adopted what seems to be the least unsatisfactory form of text" (p.136). The UBS editors concoct their own reading and proclaim it "the least unsatisfactory"! What is so "unsatisfactory" about the reading of the vast majority of the MSS except that it doesn't introduce any difficulties?

There is complete confusion in the Egyptian camp. That confusion must have commenced in the second century, resulting from several easy transcriptional errors, simple copying mistakes. "ARAM" to "ARNI" is very easy (in the early centuries only upper case letters were used); with a scratchy quill the cross strokes in the "A" and "M" could be light, and a subsequent copyist could mistake the left leg of the "M" as going with the "K" to make "N", and the right leg of the "M" would become "I".

Very early Aminadab was misspelled as Aminadam, which survives in some 25% of the extant MSS. The "Adam" of A, syrs and copsa arose through an easy instance of homoioarcton (the eye of a copyist went from the first "A" in "Aminadam" to the second, dropping "Amin" and leaving "Adam"). "A" and "D" are easily confused, especially when written by hand.

"Admin" presumably came from "AMINadab", though the process was more complicated. The "i" of "Admin" and "Arni" is corrupted to "ei" in Codex B (a frequent occurrence in that MS). Codex A conflated the ancestor that produced "Adam" with the one that produced "Admin", etc. The total confusion in Egypt should not surprise us, but how shall we account for the text and apparatus of UBS3 in this instance? And whatever possessed the editors of NASB, RSV, TEV, LB, Berkeley, etc. to embrace such an outrageous error?1 Not one MSS has this reading!

1 Luke 3:33 offers yet another related textual difficulty. The H-F Majority Text (not the TR) has been misled by von Soden and inserts Joram between Aram and Hezron. Out of 26 extant uncials only nine read Joram; 17 do not, and they are supported by the three earliest Versions. Joram was probably an early corruption of Aram that was subsequently conflated with it; the conflation survives in a large segment of the Byzantine tradition, which is seriously divided here. It is possible that defenders of the eclectic text will appeal to the case of Cainan in verse 36 as being analogous to "Admin" and "Arni". Cainan as son of Arphaxad does not occur in the Masoretic Text, but does in the Septuagint. Any analogy must be denied as "Cainan" is attested by all texts, whereas the UBS reading in verse 33 is the creation of the editors, based on the complete hodgepodge among the "Egyptian" witnesses.

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