A text-critical note to Ezekiel 1

Abstract

"A convention of modern Biblical textual criticism is that a short reading of a given text is normally to be preferred over a longer variant. This convention was given classic expression by its originator, Johann Jakob Griesbach (1745-1812), as follows:' The shorter reading (unless it lacks entirely the authority of the ancient and weighty witnesses) is to be preferred to the more verbose, for scribes were much more prone to add than to omit. They scarcely ever deliberately omitted anything, but they added many things . . . through errors of the eye, ear, memory, imagina- tion, and judgment"