Her Body Healed: IATAI in Mark 5:29

Abstract

This article revives an accentuation of ιαται present in a number of medieval minuscules that has been neglected by most critical editions of the Greek New Testament since Erasmus. It argues that there is good external and internal evidence for reading ιαται in Mark 5:29 as the present tense-form (ἰᾶται) rather than the universally accepted perfect tense-form (ἴαται). The accentuation in medieval Greek witnesses provides both the present and the perfect as viable interpretations. Although the perfect ἴαται occurs dramatically less often than the present tense-form, the Markan text’s use of present tense-form verbs for indirect internal discourse strongly supports reading ιαται in Mark 5:29 as ἰᾶται, a reading that the Old Latin versions confirm. In light of the lexical semantics of ἰᾶται in ancient Greek literature and the OG, as well as the grammatical subject implied by ἰᾶται in Mark 5:29 (which the author argues to be the woman’s body), one should understand the verb as a passive middle.