Asterisks (within yellow circles) in the lectionary-apparatus of Codex M. |
● About eight minutes into the lecture, Dr. Wallace brought
up the subject of asterisks. He stated,
“What an asterisk indicates – this goes back to Alexandrian scribal habits – is, ‘I have doubts about whether this passage is authentic.’” In some cases, that is true. However, asterisks in Byzantine manuscripts are also capable of
serving as all-purpose symbols to catch the eye of the reader. They can also be incorporated into the lectionary-apparatus, as Maurice Robinson has described, and as I mentioned in my research-book.
(Pictured here are a few examples of asterisks used in the lectionary-apparatus
of Codex M.)
If Dr. Wallace believes that asterisks are never used in the lectionary-apparatus,
then he needs to explain why, in 130 manuscripts (not just “several”),
asterisks or special marks of some sort accompany John 8:3-11, and not John
7:53-8:2. Robinson’s model explains that: in the Byzantine lectionary, John 8:3-11
constituted a distinct lection (namely, the reading for Saint Pelagia’s Day,
October 8), embedded within the lection for Pentecost. Wallace’s approach, meanwhile, seems to
require that the scribes of these manuscripts accepted John 7:53-8:2, but
rejected John 8:3-11.
● In the ninth minute of the lecture, Wallace asserts that
the pericope adulterae is a “floating
text.” This is somewhat surprising,
because elsewhere in the lecture he mentions the work of Dr. Chris Keith which shows
that the pericope adulterae’s location
(following John 7:52 ) was secure long
before the production of the Greek witnesses which have it elsewhere. Equally surprising is Wallace’s omission of some
important details in his descriptions of the manuscripts that have the story of
the adulteress displaced from its usual location. And even more surprising is how effectively
these details smash up the theory that the pericope adulterae was ever a “floating text.”
Wallace stated, “In some
manuscripts, it appears as a separate pericope at the end of all four Gospels,
just tacked on at the very end.” The important detail that Wallace fails to mention here involves a note that accompanies the pericope
adulterae in the flagship-manuscripts of the group of manuscripts that have it after the
end of John 21 (minuscules 1 and 1582). The note specifies that the passage was moved from where it had
been found in the text, after the words “a prophet does not arise” in 7:52 . To
restate: the note specifically says that the
transplantation of the passage was subsequent to its location after 7:52 .
Only by avoiding this detail can Wallace use this dislocation
to sustain the idea that the pericope
adulterae was a “floating text.”
Wallace also stated: “In some
manuscripts, it stands as an independent pericope between Luke and John.” That is just not true.
Only one manuscript comes close to fitting that description: minuscule 1333, which does not have the entire
passage between Luke and John – only John 8:3-11. Furthermore, 1333 features a rubric that
identifies the passage as an excerpt from the Gospel of John. Only when these details go unmentioned can
listeners get the impression that John 7:53-8:11
floated its way into this location as a previously freestanding text. When the details are known, it is obvious
that all that has happened in minuscule 1333 is that after this manuscript was written (without the story of the adulteress), someone wrote the lection for
Saint Pelagia’s Day on what had previously been a blank page between Luke and
John.
● In the tenth minute of the lecture, Wallace mentioned
manuscript 115, describing it as “the only manuscript I know of” in which the pericope adulterae appears after 8:12 , and is also followed by 8:12 . Wallace
then proposed that the scribe of 115, after writing John 8:12 , noticed that his exemplar was missing the story
about the adulteress, found a different exemplar that contained it, and then
added it after 8:12 .
Regarding the other evidence that Wallace misinterprets as
if it implies that the story of the adulteress was a “floating text,” see my video from last year.
● In the fourteenth minute of the lecture, Wallace mentions
manuscript 1424, which has the PA in the margin. Wallace states that asterisks which accompany
the PA in 1424 were meant by scribes to convey that the PA is “not actually
authentic, or that they have doubts about it.”
He restates the same idea: the
asterisks “are the scribe telling us he has doubts about the
authenticity.”
It does not do justice to the evidence when one mentions only the asterisks
that accompany the PA in the margin of 1424, and describes them as if they must convey scribal doubt
about the passage, while failing to mention the note that states that the
passage was found in ancient copies, and which expresses confidence in the
legitimacy of the passage. (Another factor worth noticing is the use of an asterisk-like mark in 1424 alongside John 20:19.)
Are its materials reliable? |
In conclusion: the Credo Course lecture about John
7 comments:
Thanks James for again heralding the truth. I will pray that one day you and Dr. Wallace will be given the opportunity to debate some of these matters in a public forum so the Body of Christ can discern the truth. When a person of Dr Wallaces stature and position makes these type of assertions and truth-challenged statements it sad because the Body of Christ suffers.
Thank you again for taking a stand for the Truth of the Gospel.
Blessings,
Ken Ganskie
Mr. Snapp, of course the PA is not an interesting Textual Criticism question to a Skeptic but out of curiosity, is there any other Greek reading with the lack of early Greek Manuscripts that the PA has, that you think is original?
I'm looking at microfilm of Codex Basilensis (E 07, dated VII-IX, consensus early VIII) on the csntm.org website, and the PA is on folios 276 and 277. E is mentioned by critics as one of the mss that mark the PA with asterisks, and sure enough it does--but not in the way Wallace claims--which comes as no surprise to anyone who has actually gone to the work of examining the evidence.
John 7:52 in E 07 ends with a raised dot, followed by a Pi/Upsilon lexical symbol in the line; then "the PA" begins, with no asterisk for the first three lines. The first asterisk (an x with a dot in each angle) on the verso of folio 276 is alongside the line where John 8:1 ends and 8:2 begins (about midway in the line, marked by a raised dot). Then each line has an asterisk in the left margin, continuing onto the verso of folio 277, where the last asterisk is to the left of the line containing the next-to-the-last word of 8:11. Thus the first three lines and last line of text containing "the PA" have no asterisk marking them. Furthermore, right where 8:11 ends there is a raised dot, then an arche-symbol (Xi/Alpha Rho) in the line of text, followed by 8:12. The next line of 8:12 has an arche-symbol in the margin, two lines down from the last asterisk.
In conclusion, the asterisks in E go along with the lexical symbols in the text to clearly mark out a portion to be skipped over in public reading--which is very important, as John 7:53-8:11 contains a lection-within-a-lection and needs to be marked boldly to keep the lector from missing his cues and stumbling around in front of the congregation looking for the rest of the Pentecost lection.
These lexical markings have nothing to do with casting doubt on the authenticity of the passage. It is a mark of at the least brash ignorance, and at the most shrewd duplicity, to call upon them to exercise that function in support of omitting it from the authentic Gospel of John.
I found another website with color images, http://ntvmr.uni-muenster.de/manuscript-workspace?docID=20007&pageID=5520
You can see that the asterisks and lexical marks are rubricated, and that the asterisks are rather sloppily rendered, as if the scribe were in a hurry to draw them in and be done with it. He may have even made the exes first and gone back later to put in all the dots.
Correction on the lectionary symbols: the symbol before παλιν is the αρξου 'resume' symbol and the symbol pointing to right after λεγων is the ἀρχή 'begin' symbol. Also, the symbol at the beginning of 7:53 is the υπερβα 'skip' symbol. This indicates the beginning of another short lection encompassing only the rest of 8:12, at the end of which is the τέλος 'end' symbol. I suspect that there is more to this than what I'm seeing, but I'm not sure what it is. Suffice it to say that the interplay of the symbols is confusing enough to account for the various states of disarray the PA finds itself in!
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