http://www.timeanddate.com/holidays/germany/easter-monday

This of course led me to Wikipedia on Emmaus, and I found that there
are several candidates for the site of Emmaus as mentioned in the
Bible and other sources. Strangely the most well attested candidate
site is also the one least supported by the Gospel of Luke: the site
is 160 stadia from Jerusalem, but the Gospel of Luke says that Emmaus
was 60 stadia from Jerusalem. 60 stadia are about 7 miles.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmaus#Emmaus_in_the_New_Testament
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stadia_(length)

The top candidate site is called Emmaus Nicopolis. Other leading
candidates include Al-Qubeibeh (65 stadia), Abu Ghosh (83 stadia), and
Colonia (35 stadia). When I looked at the Emmaus Nicopolis article I
found that, oddly, it conflicted with the article on Emmaus:

"This location is confirmed by ancient sources and translations of the
Gospel of Luke (e. g. Codex Sinaiticus), which give the distance
between biblical Emmaus and Jerusalem as 160 stadia."
— http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmaus_Nicopolis#Location

This sounded like it was saying either Luke said the distance is 160
stadia, or that only certain early versions of Luke said this. I
checked one of the better online translations to see what distance a
modern translation uses:

"24:13 Now that very day two of them were on their way to a village
called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem. 24:14 They were
talking to each other about all the things that had happened."
— http://net.bible.org/bible.php?book=Luk&chapter=24&mode=text

Obviously the 7 miles are the modern translation of the 60 stadia, and
indeed there is a footnote to this effect:

http://net.bible.org/bible.php?book=Luk&chapter=24#n37

So I checked an online copy of the Codex Sinaiticus to see what that said:

Via http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codex_Sinaiticus to:
http://www.codexsinaiticus.org/en/manuscript.aspx?book=35&chapter=24&lid=en&side=r&verse=13&zoomSlider=0

And there, the text for Luke 24:13 is given as:

“και ϊ δου δυο εξ αυτων εν τη αυτη ημερα ηϲαν δε πορευο μενοι ειϲ κωμη
απεχουϲαν ϲτα διουϲ εκατον ε ξηκοντα απο ϊε ρουϲαλημʼ η ονο μα
εμμαουϲ”

The official translation of this given on that page was “13 And
behold, two of them were going on the same day to a village named
Emmaus, distant from Jerusalem sixty furlongs”, but that didn't look
right because running it through Google Translate showed the word
"hundred" to be in it. After some puzzling over the odd spacing, which
are just indicative of the line breaks in the original, I realised
that these words:

“ϲταδιουϲ εκατον ε ξηκοντα”

Can be translated as:

“stadia a hundred and sixty”

So it seems that Wikipedia is right, and that the Codex Sinaiticus
version of Luke does say that Emmaus was 160 stadia from Jerusalem.
I'm not sure how many other early versions of Luke say the same, but I
presume it's a rare enough reading not to have made it to modern
translations.

On 5 Apr 2010, at 20:58, Sean B. Palmer wrote:

> And there, the text for Luke 24:13 is given as:
>
> “και ϊ δου δυο εξ αυτων εν τη αυτη ημερα ηϲαν δε πορευο μενοι ειϲ κωμη
> απεχουϲαν ϲτα διουϲ εκατον ε ξηκοντα απο ϊε ρουϲαλημʼ η ονο μα
> εμμαουϲ”
>
> The official translation of this given on that page was “13 And
> behold, two of them were going on the same day to a village named
> Emmaus, distant from Jerusalem sixty furlongs”, but that didn't look
> right because running it through Google Translate showed the word
> "hundred" to be in it. After some puzzling over the odd spacing, which
> are just indicative of the line breaks in the original, I realised
> that these words:
>
> “ϲταδιουϲ εκατον ε ξηκοντα”
>
> Can be translated as:
>
> “stadia a hundred and sixty”

Interesting! How is it also translated as 60 stadia?

On Tue, Apr 6, 2010 at 10:55 AM, Noah Slater wrote:

> How is it also translated as 60 stadia?

It's not, so the "official translation" which they provide next to the
text must just be a generic modern Bible translation, not one which
closely matches the idiosyncrasies of the Codex Sinaiticus.

--
Sean B. Palmer, http://inamidst.com/sbp/