116 Claude Perera are future indicatives, since in a few cases the long and short o were used indiscriminately12. Collins says that the close similarity of the sight and sound of both καυθ σωμαι and καυθ σομαι may have led to an inadvertent scribal error13. Some scribes may have thought of “boasting” as having a pejorative nuance. If that was the case, then it contradicts love. In that case, the reference to γ πην δ μ χω in 1 Cor 13:3c becomes redundant and superfluous14. For this reason as well as for not knowing whether Paul meant “boasting” or “glorying,” the scribes would have used a similar sounding word namely, καυθ σομαι to improve on the meaning15. Whether the growing phenomenon of martyrdom in the early Church compelled them all the more towards such improvements is a question to which we shall address ourselves further down. A reversal in relation to καυθ σομαι is unimaginable. If καυθ σομαι had been the original, there was no reason for it to have been replaced by the older reading namely καυχ σωμαι. For, later variants would have been created as alternatives to the unsatisfactory original one. The fact that there are several variants pertaining to the root κα ω makes us suggest that those were all traces of their struggle with its non-originality in the presence of the original καυχ σωμαι with which some scribes were not comfortable. The above considerations on the transcriptional probability explain how the scribes changed καυχ σωμαι into καυθ σωμαι or καυθ σομαι and not vice versa. This confirms our provisional conclusion of the external evidence namely, that καυχ σωμαι emerges out as the original. Now let us go into the second aspect of our inquiry namely, the internal evidence. Internal Evidence – Intrinsic Probability Here we shall examine the internal evidence from its second perspec- tive viz. intrinsic probability, where I shall go into the arguments pro and contra in relation to the two main candidates καυχ σωμαι and 12 A.T. Robertson, A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical Research (Nashville 1934) 200, 324 as quoted by R.C.H. Lenski, The Interpretation of St. Paul’s First and Second Epistles to the Corinthians (Minneapolis, MN 1963) 552-53. 13 Collins, First Corinthians, 476-77. 14 Metzger, A Commentary on the Greek NT, 564. But this reasoning is unacceptable to us because in all b parts of the verses in 1 Cor 13:1-3 the actions spoken are those done without love even when it comes to burning oneself or boasting about one’s self-giving. The only difference when it comes to boasting is that its opposition to love seems so obvious. (All this forms part of the absurdity in Petzer’s view of which we shall speak further down). 15 Ibid., 564.