119 Burn or Boast? A Text Critical Analysis of 1 Cor 13:3 a text where all three verbs would have been used together, he would not have left out καυθ σομαι. This is most probably because he was unaware of such a text23. Furthermore, even from a grammatical perspective, the use of καυθ σομαι a future indicative after να in place of subjunctive is not frequent, though it does occur in Paul e.g. καταδουλ σουσιν (Gal 2:4); εκφευξ μεθα (Heb 2:3); κερδηθ σονται (1 Pe 3:1), but more in the Apocalypse24. But to make the text fall in line with the more ac- cepted grammatical usage namely, να to be followed by subjunctive, some scribal hand would have changed καυθ σομαι into καυθ σωμαι. Although Elliot opines that there are two instances of similar corrections of future indicatives into future subjunctives in some mss of Heb 2:3 and 1 Pe 3:1, recent critical editions do not speak of such variants25. If we choose καυθ σωμαι, then we run into a syntactical problem in 1 Cor 13:3 namely, what follows the construction παραδ τ σ μ μου να has no grammatical flow. For, what is naturally expected to have followed here would have been not “that I might be burnt”, but “that it [i.e. my body] might be burnt”. Perhaps, it is in response to this that the third and fourth variants καυθ and καυθ σεται were coined. In that sense, καυχ σωμαι is more smooth and seems more likely to be the original. Hence, we have to definitively eliminate the candidacy of the first variant καυθ σωμαι. So now we are left only with two candidates namely, καυχ σωμαι and καυθ σομαι. Now let us furnish some arguments to choose καυχ σωμαι in preference to καυθ σομαι. Arguments in favour of καυχ σωμαι It is only a few scholars who favour the reading καυχ σωμαι26. Their arguments are: 23 E.J. Goodspeed, Problems of New Testament Translation (Chicago 1945) 162-65; cf. also Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, n. 46, 634. 24 Lk 14:10; 20:10; Jn 7:3; Act 21:24 are other instances of the use of να with future indicative. F. Blass & A. Debrunner, A Greek Grammar of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, ed. & Incorporating of Supplementary Notes and Revision of the 9th-10th German edition by R.W. Funk (Chicago 1961) § 28, 369; cf. also A.T. Robert- son, Grammar of the Greek N. T. (London 1914) 193-94; also J.H. Moulton, W.F. Howard, N. Turner, Grammar of New Testament Greek (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1963) 3, 100. 25 Elliot, “In Favour of Kauthēsomai”, 298. 26 Metzger, A Commentary on the Greek NT, 563-64; J.H. Petzer, “Contextual Evidence in Favour of kauchēsōmai in 1 Corinthians 13.3”, NTS 35 (1989) 329-53. From among modern versions it is only the NRSV that has opted for kauchēsōmai. It read, “If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing”.