"James, you handsome rogue," I wondered, "Regarding New Testament textual criticism, what school of thought is represented by the new guy, Nelson Hsieh, the Assistant Professor of New Testament at
New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary?" I decided to find out, so here is the first part of an interview with Dr. Hsieh on an assortment of issues.
Q: The foundational
premise of Hort’s approach, and his motive for rejecting all distinctly
Byzantine readings, was his theory of a Lucianic recension. Peter Gurry
insists that virtually nobody adheres to that theory anymore. So,
regarding the Gospels-text only, where and how did the Byzantine Text
originate?
Hsieh: I’m not fully convinced that the Lucianic
recension theory has been 100% refuted. The testimony of Jerome certainly
suggests that Lucian had some sort of editorial hand among Gospel manuscripts.
And the Lucianic recension of the Septuagint is quite well-established and the
characteristics of the Septuagint Lucianic recension certainly match many of
the characteristics of the New Testament Byzantine text; see Bruce M. Metzger,
“Lucian and the Lucianic Recension of the Greek Bible,” NTS 8 (1962):
189–203; Kurt Aland, “The Text of the Church?,” TJ 8 (1987): 131–44.
Furthermore,
we probably shouldn’t create a false dichotomy where, on one side, there is a recension
in the strict sense (a large-scale editorial effort to edit a text
according to predetermined principles) and, on the other side, there is no
editing or revision at all. Maybe Lucian made some small revisions in the
fourth century in just the Gospels (since Jerome speaks about Lucian in the
context of the Gospels), and not necessarily a large-scale recension of the
entire New Testament.
Certainly
some Byzantine readings are early as shown by Harry Sturz with alignments
between the papyri and later Byzantine readings; see Harry A. Sturz, The
Byzantine Text-Type and New Testament Textual Criticism (Nelson, 1984) and
also David Alan Black, “A Sturzian Solution to the Problem of ‘Original Text’
as Illustrated by Eph 1:1, Matt 5:22, and John 3:13,” in Can We Recover the
Original Text of the New Testament?, ed. Abidan Paul Shah and David Alan
Black (Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2023), 67–86.
The
papyri were not available to Westcott & Hort, so they obviously couldn’t see
examples of Byzantine-papyri agreements. And the church fathers often show us
that Byzantine readings are early, even if we don’t possess any early Greek
manuscript witnesses for a Byzantine reading (e.g. with the Long Ending of Mark
being found in Irenaeus). But a few isolated early Byzantine readings do not
mean that the Byzantine Text as a whole is early.
Maybe
the answer about origin is a combination of several factors: Lucian’s revisions
to the Gospels, early scribal interpolations (e.g. the Long Ending of Mark in
the second century, and Pericope of the Adulteress in the third century), and
later scribal revisions/smoothing out of the text — which eventually were
supplemented by later editorial efforts (like the Harklean Syriac version and
von Soden’s Kr group) leading to a fairly standardized late
Byzantine Majority text in the 13th century onwards (as Klaus Wachtel argues
for the Catholic Epistles). But we can’t be certain. And I don’t see why Lucian
has to be tossed out entirely; he could have had a small part in the origin of
the Byzantine Textform.
Q: Considering the
likelihood that users of Scripture in languages other than Greek would like to
observe that the the text in their language was based on Greek, when a Greek
text was used at a scriptorium as the basis for a version, did that particular
form of the Greek text get locked into place?
Hsieh: It is
hard to see why a version must have been “locked into place” by an initial
Greek exemplar. On subsequent copying, it would be unsurprising for scribes to
check against whatever Greek manuscripts were available, which could have
differed from the initial Greek exemplar.
And we
have clear examples where versions are corrected/updated against different
Greek exemplars (Old Latin vs. Vulgate, and Old Syriac vs. Peshitta). Any
“locking in” probably had more to do with liturgical use and/or ecclesiastical
authority like with the Peshitta as liturgical standard for the Syriac church,
and with the Vulgate for the Latin/Western church.
Q: In Acts 27:37, 03 and an early layer of the
Sahidic version both say that “about 76” souls were aboard the ship. F. F. Bruce, and Dean John Burgon before him,
surmised how this variant came into existence from the usual “276.” Considering
how unlikely it is that two independent scribes made the same quirky mistake,
was 03’s exemplar (or ancestor) the basis for the Sahidic version of Acts?
Hsieh: To draw
a connection between 03’s exemplar and the Sahidic version of Acts, we would
need far more evidence than a single reading, so I wouldn’t make any claim
until we could look at more instances of 03-Sahidic agreements that disagree
with the rest of the tradition. This is not something I’ve researched before,
so I can’t say anymore unless someone already has a list of such agreements.
Q: In the book of Revelation, what reading do
you consider the most unstable in the Nestle-Aland compilation?
Hsieh: Probably
Revelation 5:9: “You redeemed to God by your blood,” which follows the singular
reading in Codex Alexandrinus that omits the pronoun “us,” so there is no
object for the verb
“redeem.” ECM Revelation rightly goes with the rest of the manuscript tradition
in including the pronoun “us.” The variant occurs at the end of a column in
Codex Alexandrinus, so it is easy to understand the scribe of Alexandrinus
accidently omitting the pronoun.
Q: There is a longstanding philosophical debate
that overlaps with the text-critical contest between the Byzantine Textform and
the Nestle-Aland compilation, orbiting the question, To what is the ordinary Christian obligated to submit to: the
text as issued by the initial producers of each book of the New Testament, or
the text as approved and disseminated by the church?. Which side do
you favor?
Hsieh: Of
course, we don’t have the initial/original text regardless of whether one is a
Byzantine Textform or critical text advocate, so it’s not possible for an
ordinary Christian to submit to a text that we do not possess. We only have an approximation
of the initial/original text (whether Byzantine Textform or critical text –
both are approximations). I am an evangelical and a Baptist, so obviously I
wouldn’t favor a Roman Catholic approach where the biblical text is approved
and disseminated by the “church.”
I would
say that the ordinary Christian submits to the Word of God that (in God’s
providence) is available to them. So a tenth century monk who only has
access to one Byzantine text manuscript submits to the biblical text available
to him, while a Christian in the twenty-first century submits to the biblical
text available – whether a translation, or a Greek critical text.
But
more important is how significant the differences are between the Nestle-Aland
editions and the Byzantine Textform. I have looked at all the differences
between Robinson & Pierpont’s Byzantine Textform and Nestle-Aland 27 (in
RP’s lower apparatus), and I will say that there is not really any textual
difference that would significantly affect doctrine or practice for the
ordinary Christian. For example, the Byzantine text has four more references to
fasting (1 Cor 7:5; Matt 17:21; Mark 9:29; Acts 10:30) than NA27, but I doubt
that this would increase (or decrease) the practice of fasting among ordinary
Christians. A person’s theological beliefs or denomination would probably have
more influence on one’s practice of fasting than which biblical text was
used.
Johannes
Karavidopoulos, the only Eastern Orthodox scholar on the UBS4/NA27 editorial
committee, said during committee meetings: “I fought especially for New
Testament verses which are very familiar to the Greek Orthodox audience because
of their liturgical use (e.g., Mark 9:29) . . . But I did not succeed in many
cases.” (see Peter J. Gurry, “ETC Interview with John Karavidopoulos,” Evangelical
Textual Criticism (blog), September 22, 2015, http://evangelicaltextualcriticism.blogspot.com/2015/09/etc-interview-with-john-karavidopoulos.html). Karavidopoulos has passed away, but he would probably
be pleased to see the THGNT and ECM Mark (and therefore NA29) adopting the
Byzantine reading with fasting in Mark 9:29.
Other
examples – the doctrine of the Trinity does not need the Johannine Comma to be
supported and believed. Without the Pericope of the Adulteress, we do lose a
beautiful story about Jesus’s mercy towards a marginalized woman and his
critique of the religious leaders – but such themes are prevalent throughout
the rest of the Gospels. Without Luke 23:34a (“Father, forgive them, for they
do not know what they are doing”), we do lose a magnificent saying of Jesus
from the cross. But other passages in the New Testament teach about loving our
enemies (Matt 5:44; Luke 6:35) and about the ignorance of the Jews in condemning
Jesus to death (Acts 3:17; 13:27), so the essential teaching of Luke 23:34a is
still found elsewhere in the New Testament, even if the text is judged to be a
later interpolation.
Q: The conjectural
emendation in NA28 in Second Peter 3:10 that effectively reverses the meaning
of the sentence printed in previous edition: do you support it?
Hsieh: No, I
disagree with the NA28’s conjecture – although I suppose it hinges more on the
meaning of εὑρεθήσεται (can it mean “exposed” in ESV or “laid bare” in
NIV-1984?). Metzger and others cannot make sense of εὑρεθήσεται – how can the
earth “be found” after the eschatological burning up of all
things?
But an
intelligible meaning is possible: Jörg Frey suggests that in the context of
apocalyptic literature, the verb can have the sense of “being brought to
judgment,” so that there is no need for a conjecture (what Frey calls “an act
of desperation” on the part of the ECM). See Jörg Frey, The Letter of Jude
and the Second Letter of Peter, trans. Kathleen Ess (Baylor University
Press, 2018), 409-11.
And
there is an additional argument in favor of viewing εὑρεθήσεται as judgment:
it’s not only the physical earth (γῆ) being exposed, but the earth and
its works (τὰ ἐν αὐτῇ ἔργα) being exposed, so that mankind is in
view and not just the physical earth.
NA27 /
THGNT’s reading εὑρεθήσεται seems to best represent the original text. The
external evidence is early and good (01, 03, 025, 1739txt; P72 indirectly) and
it’s easier to understand a change from εὑρεθήσεται to κατακαήσεται based on
harmonization than the other way around. In other words, I think that the
Byzantine reading κατακαήσεται (“be burned up”) is probably a harmonization to
earlier in the verse: στοιχεῖα δὲ καυσούμενα λυθήσεται (“the elements being
burned up will be dissolved”) and verse 12 also: στοιχεῖα καυσούμενα τήκεται
(“the elements being burned up will melt”).
However,
I do look forward to hearing Peter Gurry’s paper on this issue at SBL in
November 2026, where he still insists that conjecture is still necessary. In his SBL paper abstract,
he says: “a near consensus has developed among modern commentators and
translators that the original text is εὑρεθήσεται (“will be found”). This shift
relies on a lexical interpretation where the verb means “laid bare” (NIV) or
“disclosed” (NRSVue). This paper challenges this consensus based on a survey of
over 850 uses of the verb, demonstrating that it cannot sustain such a meaning
in this context. Consequently, conjectural emendation remains a legitimate and
even necessary solution.”
Q: Michael Holmes’
benign conjectural emendation in the SBL-GNT in First Corinthians 6:5: do
you support it?
Hsieh: On
principle, I am against conjectural emendations, but they are certainly
interesting in revealing exegetical difficulties and attempts to solve such
difficulties. Erasmus (in his Annotations on 1 Corinthians) noticed the
grammatical difficulty in 1 Cor 6:5 (διακρῖναι ἀνὰ μέσον τοῦ ἀδελφοῦ
αὐτοῦ) – how is it possible to judge between one brother? We would either
expect the plural ἀδελφῶν (“judge between brothers”), or an additional phrase
like καὶ ἀδελφοῦ αὐτοῦ (“judge between a brother and a brother”), but no
Greek manuscript attests to either possibility. According to the INTF’s
Database of Conjectures, Theodore Beza conjectures the plural ἀδελφῶν, while
Zuntz, Weiss, and Grotius conjecture various additional phrases that add a
second individual. Also see Jan Krans, Beyond What Is Written: Erasmus and Beza
as Conjectural Critics of the New Testament, ed. Bruce M. Metzger and Bart
D. Ehrman, NTTS 35 (Brill, 2006), 180-81, and Jeffrey Kloha, “1 Corinthians
6:5: A Proposal,” NovT 46 (2004): 132-42.
The
Latin Book of Armagh (Vetus Latina 61; Oxford Vulgate D) supports Beza’s
conjecture of the plural “brothers.” [“Ad verecundiam vestram dico. Sic non est inter vos sapiens quisquam qui possit iudicare inter fratrem suum?” - JSJ] The second type of conjecture adding an
additional phrase is supported by the Syriac Peshitta and five Latin
manuscripts – Codices Augiensis, Boernerianus, Sarisburiensis, a recent
addition to Toletanus, and a correction to Ulmensis, but the evidence is not so
easy to interpret; see the discussion of these Latin manuscripts in Gunther
Zuntz, “The Critic Correcting the Author,” Philologus 99 (1955):
295-303. On patristic evidence for either the plural or a longer reading, see
Kloha, 139-41.
Holmes
and the SBLGNT’s conjecture at 1 Cor 6:5 are almost certainly dependent on
Zuntz, who suggests that these versional witnesses do not go back to the
original text of 1 Corinthians, but are conjectures/variants arising within the
Syriac and Latin tradition, demonstrating attempts to make the text more clear
and “correct.” Zuntz also suggests that the omission of an additional phrase
(καὶ ἀδελφοῦ αὐτοῦ) arose in Paul’s autograph since no Greek manuscript
attests to an addition, and the omission was not a scribal error in copying.
To
avoid conjecture, one could also better explain the grammar of 1 Cor 6:5.
Johannes Weiss (Der erste Korintherbrief [Ruprecht: 1910], 150) and
BDAG, 57, provide some examples to alleviate the grammatical difficulty by
suggesting Paul is using an abbreviated expression (Gen 16:5,
ἀνὰμέσον ἐμοῦ καὶ σοῦ; Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum (SEG) IX.8.64,
ἀνὰμέσον Ἑλλήνων; JosAs 28:6, ἀνὰμέσον ἐμοῦ καὶ ὑμῶν; Sir 25:18). But
only Sirach 25:18 is a true parallel to 1 Cor 6:5 with a singular object of the
preposition: ἀνὰ μέσον τῶν (v.l. τοῦ) πλησίον αὐτοῦ, although there is a
variant with the article τῶν. If τῶν is the original text (as adopted in the
Göttingen Septuagint), then it is not a true parallel to 1 Cor 6:5. The other
examples demonstrate that two objects are needed (Gen 16:5; JosAs 28:6), or a
plural (SEG IX.8.64).
On the
whole – I would agree with Zuntz that the Latin and Syriac readings were
probably conjectures/variants that arose within those versions rather than
witnesses to a Greek variant or to the original Greek text. It is especially
revealing that Codices Boernerianus and Augiensis are both Greek-Latin diglots,
yet the Greek sides do not match the additional text on the Latin sides in 1
Cor 6:5. However, I’m not so comfortable with Zuntz’s conjecture and
explanation; perhaps additional grammatical study will yield more and better
examples that can alleviate the grammatical difficulty in 1 Cor 6:5.
Continued soon in Part Two!
