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No word spacing in NT texts

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Kaliko59

17 Posts

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February 24, 2025 - 11:36 pm

I understand that in classical texts words were not separated.. It was one long string of letters. Were sentences separated?. This must slow down the reading of the text. Who invented word spacing? Did it have to wait to the Middle Ages? Arguments that material was scarce does not seem convincing i.e. you can get more words on a document by stringing words together.

Colin Milton

1142 Posts

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February 25, 2025 - 12:04 am

They often began sentences with ΚΑΙ,
and ΔΕ is supposed to be the second word of a sentence. 🤷‍♂️ I’ve wondered before if the reason they did not leave spaces between words was a way to stop someone later on adding in more letters to change a Case ending or verb tense to change the meaning of the verse.

Robert

7165 Posts

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February 25, 2025 - 2:40 am

Colin Milton

1142 Posts

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February 25, 2025 - 9:17 am

The photo is John 1. I can read just a little bit. Very small bits.

Robert

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February 25, 2025 - 11:25 am

Porphyry

1881 Posts

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February 25, 2025 - 11:31 am

That is a really fun ms.

Colin Milton

1142 Posts

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February 25, 2025 - 11:57 am

Maybe the ancient scribes just wrote that way to be obnoxious and annoying.

The government didn’t care much about a fully literate society until the Victorian era.

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