Scribal Habits in Greek New Testament Manuscripts 125 • In Mark 3,21 W reads εξηρτηνται αυτου, “they are his adherents” instead of εξεστη, “he is mad”. W’s reading provides no explana- tion for why his relatives should try to lay hold of him, nor does it provide any conclusion to the story. The reading is platitudinous. It is a harder reading, providing a less logically coherent storyline than the reading “he is mad”. It is more likely that the scribe of W has created a salvage-reading out of one of the variant readings of D* (εξεσταται αυτους), Dc (εξεσται αυτους), or Θ, 565 and family 13 (εξεσταται). • In Mark 8,14, instead of the disciples forgetting (επελαθοντο) to take bread, W says that they went off (απελθοντες) to get bread. The reading is harder, for the boat had already departed for the other side (see verse 13). How were the disciples to go and get bread if they were travelling across a lake in a boat? • In Mark 9,24 W changes the “father” of the child to the “spirit” of the child (πατηρ to πνευμα). Hurtado argues that “perhaps the scribe felt that the anguished cry seemed more likely to have come from the troubled boy”. However, an evil spirit would be unlikely to cry out, “I believe, help my unbelief”. Further, verse 17 tells us that the boy is indwelt by a dumb spirit, which would make it difficult for him to cry out. Therefore, the reading “spirit” is more difficult than the reading “father”. • The closest Hurtado’s list comes to a singular that improves the sense is in Mark 9,49, where W changes the word αλισθησεται (“salted”) to αλισγηθησεται (“polluted”). The problem with the reading in W is that “polluted with fire” is nearly as obscure as “salted with fire”. Further, the references to salt (three times) in the following verse (50) make αλισθησεται more contextually ap- propriate. If this reading is an improvement, it is hardly much of one, for the result is clumsy. • In Mark 13:33, W inserts ει μη ο πατηρ και ο υιος (“except the Father and the Son”) after ουκ οιδατε γαρ (in the expression “for you do not know when the time is”). However, the previous verse (32) says that “of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father” (verse 32). As Hurtado himself remarks, the addition, which tells us that the Son knows the time of the end, therefore contradicts verse 32. It is a harder reading. Hurtado’s singulars thus provide confirmation that scribes often cre- ate harder, not easier, readings. We may agree with Hurtado that these alterations appear to be the result of deliberate editorial activity (for the