Matt 8:4 Μωσης

The first vowel in Moses’s name fluctuates between -ω- and -ωυ- among witnesses not only at Matt 8:4 but wherever the name occurs in the NT (80x). In Matt 8:4, the Byzantine bulk supports Μωσης with about half of the Greek witnesses that derive mostly from the first millennium (C* E L M U V X Γ Δ 0211 f1 f35 399 461 566 1080 1143 2224), while the other half have Μωυσης (ℵ B C2 K N S W Z Θ Π Σ Ω 047 f13 33 565 892 1424 1500), which Bover, Greeven, Lachmann, Merk, Soden, Tischendorf (7th, 8th), and Vogels followed.

One might expect the editors of Greek NTs to normalize the spelling of Moses’s name, and while NA28 indeed always has -ωυ-, RP has -ω- for the Gospels and the first part of Acts (through 7:44) but -ωυ- for the second part of Acts (from 13:39) and the rest of the NT. Sometimes the alternate spelling warranted a marginal reading in RP: -ωυ- appears in the margin of Mark 12:26, Luke 20:37, and John 8:5, while -ω- makes the margin of Acts 13:39, Jude 9, Rom 5:14 and 9:15, and Heb 10:28. Evidently, Robinson and Pierpont merely printed the spelling pattern that occurs in the bulk of Byzantine MSS.

In the Gospels, the -ω- spelling has the early support of P45, A/02, and C/04 whenever they are extant (the only exceptions are Luke 5:14 and 9:30 for C), and occasionally ℵ/01 (Matt 19:7; 22:4; Luke 9:33; 16:29, 31; 20:28, 37; 24:27, 44; John 1:45; 5:46; 7:22), B/03 (Luke 16:31; John 9:28), or other early witnesses (e.g., D/05 in Luke 24:27; W/032 in Luke 16:29).

Since the scribes who preserved the dominant -ω- spelling in the Gospels and first half of Acts were the same who also preserved the dominant -ωυ- spelling in the second half of Acts and the rest of the NT, the different spellings could reflect differences in the archteypes from which most MSS descend. The -ωυ- spelling is older, but both spellings were current in the first century. Paul evidently preferred the -ωυ- spelling that is dominant in the LXX, Philo, and Josephus. But if later the Evangelists preferred the -ω- spelling, which anyway better resembles Hebrew משׁה, the transition beginning in Acts 13 from -ω- to -ωυ- for Moses’s name could derive from Luke himself, who earlier in the same chapter transitioned to using the name Paul for Saul. Regardless, the preservation of disharmony in the spelling of Moses’s name between the collections of NT books favors the general reliability and uncontrolled nature of the bulk of Byzantine MSS, since the temptation was always to normalize spelling in one direction or the other.