Dittography

Dittography is the accidental, erroneous act of repeating a letter, word, phrase or combination of letters by a scribe or copyist.^[1] The term is used in the field of textual criticism. The opposite phenomenon, in which a copyist omits text by skipping from a word or phrase to a similar word or phrase further on, is known as haplography.

Example

${\mathfrak {P}}$⁹⁸ in Rev 1:13 has περιεζωσμμενον instead of περιεζωσμενον (doubled μ). Codex Vaticanus in John 13:14 word διδασκαλος is repeated twice. In Codex Vaticanus in Acts, a book of the Bible, verse 19:34, the phrase "Great is Artemis of the Ephesians" appears twice while it only appears once in other manuscripts.^[2]

References

1. Paul D. Wegner, A student's guide to textual criticism of the Bible: its history, methods, and results, InterVarsity Press, 2006, p. 48.
2. Dittography—earlham.edu/~seidti