Wednesday, June 27, 2018

News: Manuscripts at Saint Catherine's


For at least the past five years, reports have circulated about the contents of palimpsests (recycled manuscripts) that were discovered in 1975 at Saint Catherine’s monastery.  National Geographic, Smithsonian Magazine, The Atlantic, ScienceBlog, Ancient-Origins, and the BBC have all told readers that major research is underway that involves ancient manuscripts and expensive manuscript-reading equipment. 
            Now the Sinai Palimpsests Project has a website, and visitors can easily get some sense of the scale of the work that is being done with the (relatively) newly discovered manuscripts.  The manuscripts at Saint Catherine’s include all kinds of compositions:  ancient medicine-recipes, patristic sermons, poems, liturgical instruction-books, Old Testament books, and much more. 
Fifteen continuous-text Greek manuscripts are among the newly discovered palimpsests.  All but one of these New Testament manuscripts have been given production-dates in the 500s or earlier.
Also among the new discoveries:
● Syriac manuscripts of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, and some of the Pauline Epistles from the 400s and 500s.
● Various New Testament books (including all four Gospels) written in Christian Palestinian Aramaic (formerly known as “Jerusalem Syriac”) from 500-700.
● A substantial manuscript of the Gospel of John in Caucasian Albanian (a virtually extinct language).
● A Latin copy of Mark in insular cursive from the 700s (implying a link between some manuscripts at St. Catherine’s monastery and some manuscripts subsequently used in Ireland). 

            So many of the palimpsests have been assigned production-dates in the 500s that it is tempting to surmise that what we are looking at here is part of a library that was donated to the monastery on the occasion of its official founding by Byzantine Emperor Justinian in 530.  

            Here is a list of most of the New Testament materials that are among the texts being studied by scholars associated with the Sinai Palimpsests Project and the Early Manuscripts Electronic Library.  Some materials are from the New Finds; some have been in the monastery’s library for a long time.  In this list, a “page” = a single side of a two-sided leaf.  Dates are approximate unless based on a colophon.  Yellow-highlighted texts are Greek New Testament materials.

● Arabic 514.  The copyists who made this manuscript recycled
Six pages of the Protevangelium of James in Syriac,
54 pages of the Gospel of Matthew, 
Eight pages of Acts,
Four pages of Hebrews,
Eight pages of Colossians,
88 pages from the Gospel of John (chapters 1-8, 12, and 17-21),
Six pages from First Timothy,
Two pages from Second Thessalonians,
Two pages from Ephesians, and
Two pages from the Gospel of John (chapters 5 and 6) in Syriac. 
The texts in these recycled pages are all in Syriac, and all have been assigned to the 500s.

● Arabic 588.  The copyists who made this manuscript recycled
Eight pages from the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, in Syriac. 500s.
11 pages from the Protevangelium of James, in Syriac.  500s.

● Arabic NF 28.   The copyists who made this manuscript of the Four Gospels in Arabic (Kufic script) in 850-900 (16 folios intact) recycled
20 pages of Exodus in Greek.  500s.
12 pages of Genesis in Greek.  500s.

● Arabic NF 8.  The copyists who made this manuscript of the Four Gospels in Arabic (Kufic script) in 850-900 recycled
            18 pages from a copy of Recipes for different diseases, a Greek medical text.  400-600.
            12 pages from a copy of Hippocrates, De diaeta I-IV, a Greek medical text.  500-600.
Four pages from a copy of Hippocrates, De morbis popularibus (Epidemiae), in Greek.  500-600. 
Eight pages from a copy of Hippocrates, Letters, a Greek medical text.  500s.
56 pages from a Greek copy of the Gospel of John.  500s.
18 pages from a Greek copy of the Gospel of Matthew.  500s.
Four pages from a Greek copy of Genesis.  500s.
12 pages from a Greek copy of Exodus.  500s.
Four pages from a Greek copy of Ecclesiasticus.  500s.
13 pages from a Latin copy of the Gospel of Mark (in insular cursive minuscule script).  700s.
Two pages from a Latin copy of Revelation (in half uncial script).  500s.
One page from a Latin copy of the Gospel of Luke (in Latin majuscule).  500s.

[115v of Arabic NF8 shows Greek letter from underwriting.]
[124r of Arabic NF 8 shows Greeks letters from underwriting in blank space.]
[The last page of Arabic NF 8 shows Greek letters from underwriting in blank space.]
  
CPA NF frg. 12.  The copyists who made this manuscript of Psalms in 800-1000 (12 folios) recycled 24 pages of the book of Psalms in Christian Palestinian Aramaic (henceforth “CPA”).  500s-700s.

CPA NF frg. 13.  The copyists who made this manuscript recycled one page from a copy of the Gospel of John in CPA.  1100s.

CPA NF frg. 16. The copyists who made this manuscript recycled
Two folios from the Gospel of Luke (ch. 18) in CPA.  600s. 
Four pages from the Gospel of Luke in CPA.  400-700.
Two pages from the Gospel of Luke in Georgian.  Late 900s.

CPA NF frg. 7.  The copyists of this manuscript of John Chrysostom’s Homily on the Prodigal Son, in CPA (7 folios) recycled eight pages from the Gospel of Luke, in CPA, 500-700.

● Georgian 10.  The copyists of this Georgian Apostolos (266 folios from 1000-1100) recycled 16 pages of a lectionary (Jerusalem type) in Georgian.  800-900.

● Georgian 49.  The copyists of this Georgian Menaion (119 folios from the 1200s) recycled
Four pages of the Gospel of Matthew, in Syriac.  500s.
Six pages of the Gospel of Mark, in Syriac.  500s.
Four pages of the Gospel of Matthew, in Syriac.  500s.
Six pages from the Life of Saint Pelagia, in Syriac.  500-700.
Ten pages from the Gospel of Mark, in Greek.  500s.
Two pages from the Gospel of John, in Greek.  500s.
Two pages from the Gospel of Luke, in Syriac.  800s.
Two pages from the Gospel of Matthew, in Syriac.  800s.

Georgian NF 13.  The copyists of this Georgian collection of saints’ biographies from the 900s-1100 (107 folios) recycled
75 pages of the Gospel of John in Caucasian Albanian.  600-800.
90 pages of a lectionary, mainly from the New Testament, in Caucasian Albanian.  600-800.
Some pages of the Pauline Epistles in Georgian (Asomtavruli script).  600s.
12 pages of the Pauline Epistles in Armenian (Erkatagit script).  700-900. 

Georgian NF 19.  The copyist who made this Georgian manuscript in 980 (61 folios) recycled
            Two pages of the Gospel of Matthew, in CPA.  500-700.
            Eight pages of a liturgy with New Testament readings, in Greek (minuscule).  800-1000.
Two pages of the Gospel of John, in Greek (majuscule).  500-600.
Two pages of the Gospel of Matthew, in Greek (majuscule).  500-600.
Two pages from the Gospel of Luke, in Greek (majuscule).  500s.
Two pages of a New Testament Lectionary, in CPA.  500-700.

[Greek lower writing is visible on 57r and 57v of Georgia NF 19.]

Georgian NF 55. The copyists who made this Georgian manuscript in the 900s (78 folios) recycled
            66 pages of the Gospel of John in Caucasian Albanian.  600-800,
            41 pages of a New Testament lectionary in Caucasian Albanian.  600-800.
            Eight pages of the Pauline Epistles, in Armenian.  700-900.
            Two pages from Hebrews, in Armenian.  800-1000.
            Four pages from the Gospel of Mark, in CPA.  600-800.

Georgian NF 71.  The copyists who made this Georgian Gospels-lectionary (8 folios) in the 900s recycled four pages of the Gospel of Matthew in CPA.  500-700.

Georgian NF 90.  The copyists who made this Georgian manuscript (38 folios) in the 1000s recycled 16 pages of the Gospel of Matthew in Georgian.  500-700. 

● Greek 2053.  The copyists who made this Greek manuscript of Excerpts from Scripture (Acts & Epistles) (34 folios) in the 1200s recycled 16 pages from a Greek Synaxarion.  800s.

● Greek 212.  The copyists who made this collection of lections from the Greek New Testament (including Resurrection-readings) in the 700s or 800s) (114 folios) recycled many pages of a Greek Psalter.  700s.

● Greek NF M 98.  The copyists who made this Greek liturgical manuscript in the 1200s (2 folios) recycled four pages of the Gospel of Luke in Greek.  975-1025.

● Greek NF MG 29.  The copyists who made this Octoechos manuscript in the 800s recycled many pages (mostly fragmentary) from the Gospel of Matthew in Greek.  550-600.

● Greek NF MG 32.  The copyists who made this Greek Martyrologion (21 folios) in the 800s recycled eight pages of a Gospels-lectionary in CPA.  400-700.

● Greek NF MG 99.  The copyists who made this Greek liturgical manuscript in the 800s recycled
            12 pages from First Corinthians, in Greek.  425-475.
Two fragments from Colossians, in Greek.  425-475.
Four fragments from Philippians, in Greek.  425-475.
Two fragments from Romans, in Greek.  425-475.

● Syriac 2A.   The copyists who made this Syriac manuscript of the Four Gospels in the 500s (180 folios) recycled
            14 pages from the Gospel of Mark, in Syriac.  425-475.
22 pages from the Gospel of Luke, in Syriac.  425-475.
Four pages from the Gospel of John, in Syriac.  425-475.

● Syriac 30.  The copyists who made this Syriac manuscript of saints’ biographies in 779 (181 folios) recycled
            Eight pages of the Gospel of John, in Greek.  500s.
            44 pages of the Gospel of Mark, in Syriac.  450-600. 
69 pages of the Gospel of Matthew, in Syriac.  450-600.
            98 pages of the Gospel of Luke, in Syriac.  450-600.
            72 pages of the Gospel of John, in Syriac.  450-600.

Syriac 5 - Something else is there! 
Syriac 5.  A Syriac manuscript of the Epistles of Paul (198 folios). 500s.

Syriac 7. St.  The copyists who made most of this Syriac lectionary in the 1000s (73 folios) recycled
            Four pages of Hebrews, in Armenian (erkatagir script).  800s.
            Four pages of the Gospel of Matthew, in Greek.  500s.

Syriac NF 11.  The copyists who made this manuscript of Cyril of Scythopolis’ Life of Sabas in Syriac (112 folios) in 850-1000 recycled
            Two pages of the Gospel of John in CPA (early script).  500-700.
            16 pages of the Gospel of Mark in CPA (early script).  500-700.
            20 pages of the Gospel of Matthew in CPA (early script).  500-700.
            18 pages of the Gospel of Luke in CPA (early script).  500-700.

Syriac NF 23.  The copyists who made this Syriac Gospels-lectionary (14 folios) in 800-1000 recycled
            Eight pages of the Gospel of John, in Syriac (Old Estrangela script).  450-550. 
Eight pages of the Gospel of Luke, in Syriac (Old Estrangela script).  450-550.
One page from Ephesians, in Syriac (Estrangela script).  500s.
Two pages from First Thessalonians, in Syriac (Estrangela script).  500s.
Two pages from Titus, in Syriac (Estrangela script).  500s.
Six pages from Philemon, in Syriac (Estrangela script).  500s.
Two pages from Hebrews, in Syriac (Estrangela script).  500s.

Syriac NF 3.   The copyists who made this devotions-book in the 1200s in Syriac (Melkite script) in the 1200s (164 folios) recycled four pages from Second Corinthians, in Syriac (Estrangela script).  500s.  

Syriac NF 37.  The copyists who made this manuscript of Evagrius Ponticus’ On Prayer (6 folios) in Syriac in 850-1000 recycled
            Four pages of the Gospel of Matthew, in Syriac (Estrangela script).  500s.
            Six pages of the Gospel of Luke, in Syriac (Estrangela script).  500s.
            Two pages from the Gospel of John, in Syriac (Estrangela script).  500s. 

Syriac NF 38.  The copyists who made this Syriac manuscript of John Climacus’ The Ladder of Divine Ascent, Letter to a Shepherd (Codex Climaci rescriptus) in 800-1000 (8 folios) recycled 16 pages from First-Second Corinthians, in CPA.  500-700.

Syriac NF 39.  The copyists who made this manuscript of a composition by Diadochos of Photiki in Syriac (18 folios) in 800-1000 recycled
            Six pages of the Gospel of Matthew, in Syriac (Estrangela script).  500s.
Eight pages of the Gospel of Mark, in Syriac (Estrangela script).  500s.
18 pages of the Gospel of Luke, in Syriac (Estrangela script).  500s.
Four pages of the Gospel of John, in Syriac (Estrangela script).  500s.

Syriac NF 42.  This Syriac Gospels-lectionary in CPA (8 folios) was made in the 1100s.

Syriac NF 56.  The copyists who made this Syriac Gospels-lectionary (121 folios) in 933 recycled
            14 pages of the Gospel of Matthew in CPA.  550-700.
            66 pages of the Gospel of Mark, in CPA (calligraphic script).  550-700.

Syriac NF 64.  The copyists who made this Syriac copy of Genesis (Peshitta version) in the 800s (4 folios) recycled four pages of Hebrews, in CPA.  600-800.

Syriac NF 66.  The copyists who made this Syriac liturgical text in 800-1000 (8 folios) recycled 16 pages of Acts in Syriac (Estrangela script).  600-800.

            Stay tuned for more news about the Greek texts hiding in the lower writing of the palimpsests at Mount Sinai!



Saturday, June 23, 2018

Hand to Hand Combat: Codex D vs 2397


GA 2397 - The end of John,
with a colophon.
            In the year 1303, a copyist named Hyacinthus finished the text of a Greek manuscript of the Gospels.  Below the closing verses of the Gospel of John, he wrote a little note which went something like this:  first, in red:  “The work is completed, glory to our God, in the year 6811 [from the beginning of the world].”  And then:  “Written by the hand of Hyacinthus, sinner and writing-specialist.   Reader, pray, and curse not by the Lord that the writer has finished.  And may the Lord save you all, brothers!  Amen and amen and amen.”   

            This volume, now known as minuscule 2397, is catalogued as manuscript 135 in the Goodspeed Manuscript Collection at the University of Chicago.  It is also known as the Hyacinthus Gospels, in honor of the copyist who wrote its text.  
            Hyacinthus was, it seems, devoutly dedicated to his work.  But how good was the accuracy of the text he wrote?  Let’s take a sample of the contents of minuscule 2397 and compare it to the contents of a much older manuscript – Codex Bezae.  Researcher Dr. David Parker has assigned Codex Bezae to “about 400.”  (Other researchers have given it a production-date a century or so younger.)
            Using John 15:1-10 as printed in the Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece (27th edition) as the standard of comparison, let’s list all the differences between it and the text of 2397.  Then we will set aside differences that are usually considered minor – differences that involve vowel-exchanges, spelling, and word-order – and see how materially different the text of 2397 is from the base-text of English versions such as the ESV and CSB.  Then we will do the same kind of comparison, using the text of John 15:1-10 made by the copyist of Codex Bezae. 

2397:  Comparison to NA27
(Black diamonds signify readings that diverge from the Byzantine Textform)

1 – 2397 reads αληθηνη instead of αληθινη (+1, -1) ♦
1 – 2397 reads εστι instead of εστιν (-1) 
2 – 2397 reads φερων instead of φερον (+1, -1) ♦
2 – 2397 transposes, reading πλειονα καρπον instead of καρπον πλειονα
2 – 2397 reads φερει instead of φερη (+2, -1) ♦
3 – no variants
4 – 2397 reads μεινη instead of μένη (+2, -1)
4 – 2397 reads μεινητε instead of μένητε (+2, -1)
5 – no variants
6 – 2397 reads reads μεινη instead of μένη (+2, -1)
6 – 2397 does not have το before πυρ (-2) ♦
6 – 2397 reads βαλλουσι instead of βαλλουσιν (-1) ♦
7 – 2397 reads αιτήσασθε instead of αιτήσεσθε (+1, -1) ♦
8 – 2397 reads γενησεσθε instead of γένησθε (+2)
9 – 2397 reads ηγάπησε instead of ηγάπησεν (-1) ♦
9 – 2397 transposes, reading ηγαπησα υμας instead of υμας ηγαπησα.
10 – no variants

            Thus, in John 15:1-10, 2397 contains 13 non-original letters, and is missing 12 original letters, for a total of 25 letters’ worth of corruption.  When all movable-nu variants and normal vowel-exchanges are removed from the equation, there are just two substantial variants in 2397:  the non-inclusion of το before πυρ in verse 6, and the reading  γενησεσθε in verse 8 (a reading supported by Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Alexandrinus), yielding four letters’ worth of corruption in these 10 verses. 
            Now let’s make the same kind of comparison, using Codex Bezae’s text of John 15:1-10:

Codex D:  Comparison to NA-27
(This takes into account the text made by the scribe, not corrections that were introduced later.)

1 – no variants
2 – D reads καρπο instead of καρπον (-1)
2 – D reads φορον instead of φερον (+1, -1)
2 – D reads καθαριει instead of καθαίρει (+1, -1)
2 – D transposes, reading πλειονα καρπον instead of καρπον πλειονα
3 – D omits all of verse 3, and the first part of verse 4 up to (and including) the word φέρειν.  That is, D omits ηδη υμεις καθαροί εστε δια τον λόγον ον λελάληκα υμιν· μείνατε εν εμοι, καγω εν υμιν. Καθως το κλημα ου δύναται καρπον φέρειν (-100)
4 – D reads μεινη instead of μένη (+1)
4 – D reads μεινητε instead of μένητε (+1)
5 – D reads γαρ after εγω (+3)
5 – D does not have εν before εμοι (-2)
6 – D reads δυνασθα instead of δυνασθε (+1, -1)
6 – D does not have ουδεν at the end of the verse (-5)
6 – D reads αυτο instead of αυτα (+1, -1)
6 – D does not have το before πυρ (-2)
6 – D reads καιετε instead of καιεται (+1, -2)
7 – D reads δε after εαν (+2)
7 – D reads υμειν instead of υμιν (+1)
8 – D reads αιτησασθαι instead of αιτησασθε (+2, -1)
8 – D does not have υμιν at the end of the verse (-4)
8 – D transposes, reading πολυν καρπον instead of καρπον πολυν
8 – D reads γένησθαι instead of γένησθε (+2, -1)
8 – D reads μου instead of εμοι (+1, -2)
9 – no variants
10 – D reads καγω instead of εγω (+2, -1)

            Codex Bezae thus has 18 non-original letters in John 15:1-10, and is missing 124 original letters, for a total of 142 letters’ worth of corruption.  When all movable-nu variants and normal vowel-exchanges are removed from the equation, Codex D has 7 non-original letters in this passage, and is missing 113 letters, for a total of 120 letters’ worth of corruption. 

            So, setting the results side by side:  if we didn’t filter the variants at all, 2397 would have a total of 25 letters’ worth of corruption, compared to 142 letters’ worth of corruption in the text written by the copyist of Codex Bezae.  If normal vowel-exchanges, transpositions, and minor spelling differences in both manuscripts are set aside, then 2397 detours from the Nestle-Aland compilation’s text of John 15:1-10 at just two points, yielding four letters’ worth of corruption.  Using the same approach, Codex Bezae has 120 letters’ worth of corruption in these ten verses.  

            Now, let’s consider the reliability of the transmission-streams of these two manuscripts.  Minuscule 2397 was produced in 1303, according to its colophon.  That means that, reckoning that the Gospel of John was written in A.D. 90, 1,213 years separate the autograph from this copy.  Using raw data, the copyists in the transmission-line of the Hyacinthus Gospels contributed one letter of corruption (either adding a non-original letter, or removing an original letter) per 10 verses once every 48.5 years.  Using filtered data (i.e., without considering benign, normal vowel-exchanges, movable-nu, and similar variants), the copyists in the transmission-line of the Hyacinthus Gospels contributed one letter of corruption (either adding a non-original letter, or removing an original letter) per 10 verses once every 303 years.
            Meanwhile, if we assign a production-date of A.D. 500 to Codex Bezae, this would mean that 410 years separate the autograph from this copy.  Using raw data, the copyists in the transmission-line of Codex Bezae contributed one letter of corruption (either adding a non-original letter, or removing an original letter) per 10 verses about once every three years.  Using filtered data, the copyists in the transmission-line of Codex Bezae contributed one letter of corruption (either adding a non-original letter, or removing an original letter) per 10 verses once every 3.4 years. 
            These results show that no matter how one filters the data, the text of John 15:1-10 in Codex Hyacinthus is over six times more accurate than the text that came from the hand of the copyist of Codex Bezae.  These results (based, admittedly, on one sample passage) also indicate that the copyists in the transmission-stream of the Hyacinthus Gospels – a Byzantine transmission-stream – were about twenty times better at copying the Greek text than the copyists in Codex Bezae’s Western transmission-stream.  I note in closing that if the Robinson-Pierpont Byzantine Text had been used as the standard of comparison instead of the Nestle-Aland compilation, the results would favor the Hyacinthus Gospels even more heavily.



[Readers are welcome to double-check the data and calculations in this post.]

Tuesday, June 19, 2018

Sinai Gr. 212: The Most Important Manuscript You Never Heard Of

Mark 16:9-20 in Sinai Gr. 212.
            Among the manuscripts in the Sinai Palimpsests Project’s collection of newly photographed manuscripts, Greek 212 stands out as one which has New Testament texts as its primary upper writing.  This early Greek lectionary manuscript was made from recycled parchment pages which had previously contained a Greek Psalter.  This manuscript deserves much more attention than it has received.
     
            Let’s take a closer look at the excerpts from the New Testament that this manuscript contains.  There are 30 excerpts in all, all but one of which are preceded by a rubric (a note written in red) that identifies the purpose or occasion for each lection, and/or the book from which the lection is taken.  I have given extra details here for only a few of the rubrics.   
            The first eight lections form an eight-part series of lections about Jesus’ post-resurrection appearances:  (1)  Matthew 28:1-9.  (2)  Mark 16:1-8.  (3)  Luke 24:1-12.  (4)  John 20:1-18.  (5)  Matthew 28:9b-20.  (6)  Mark 16:9-20.  [27v-32v]  (7)  Luke 24:13-35.  (8)  John 21:1-14. [44v].  (This eight-part series, which resembles the 11-part Heothina series in the Byzantine Lectionary, represents a feature in an ancient lection-cycle used at Jerusalem.)
           The rest of the excerpts are:
 Luke 10:38-42.
      Matthew 16:13-20
      Matthew 5:17-24 (without εικη in 5:22)
      Matthew 10:1-15 (For the Apostles) [62v]
      Matthew 10:16-22
      Matthew 10:24-33
      John 12:24-26 (For Saint Stephen) [78r]
      Matthew 5:13-16
      Matthew 25:1-13
      Matthew 5:1-12a
      John 10:11-16
      Matthew 16:24b-27 (For the Archangels) [92v]
      John 5:19b-24 (For the Sleepers)
      Matthew 11:25-30
      Hebrews 13:10-16
      Hebrews 1:13-2:4
      First Corinthians 4:9-15 (For the Apostles)
      First Corinthians 12:27-13:3 (reading καυθήσωμαι in 13:3)
      Romans 5:1-5.  [105v]  (reading εχομεν in 5:1)
      Second Corinthians 4:7-12.
      Hebrews 4:14-5:6.
      First Thessalonians 4:13-18.  (The rubric for this lection is missing, an unartistic secondary hand has added From Thessalonians in black ink.)


            Additional information about the rubrics and marginalia in Sin. Gr. 212 can be found in Daniel Galadza’s informative article Two Greek, Ninth-century Sources of the Jerusalem Lectionary:  Sinai Gr. 212 and Sinai Gr. N.E. ΜΓ 11, in Bollettino Della Badia Greca De Grottaferrata (2014). 


            When microfilm-pictures were taken of Sinai Gr. 212 in 1950, the manuscript was assigned a production-date in the 600s.  However, considering the breathing-marks and accents that accompany the text, the main upper Greek writing’s production-date should probably be assigned to the late 700s or early 800s.  The text of a Greek Psalter that was sacrificed to provide writing-material for the lectionary-text (which is particularly apparent in the new photographs at the Sinai Palimpsests Project website) may date to the 500s.    
            This is just one manuscript – and yet, its discovery is like discovering fragments from nine New Testament books, all older than 90% of our extant New Testament manuscripts.  (Actually, ten New Testament books, inasmuch as what appears to be a sort of tightly written heading on the first page is the contents of Acts 5:38b-39.)

What type of text does this witness display?  Although one should not extrapolate too much from one scoop out of the ice-cream bucket, the following comparison in Matthew 28 is instructive:

2 – σισμος, agreeing with À.
2 – και before προσελθων, agreeing with B À.
2 – απο της θύρας but not του μνημείου, agreeing with A C K M Δ Π W Y.  A supplemental hand has supplied του μνημείου.
3 – ως instead of ωσει, agreeing with B À* D K Π.
4 – ως instead of ωσει, agreeing with B À D A L W.
6 – does not have ὁ Κς at the end of the verse, agreeing with B À Θ 33.
8 – απελθουσαι instead of εξελθουσαι, agreeing with B À C L Θ. 
9 – does not have the first part of the verse (up to αυτου), agreeing with B À D W Θ.
9 – before Ις, agreeing with D L W Y Θ.
9 – υπηντησεν instead of απηντησεν, agreeing with B À* C Π Υ Θ.
10 – μαθηταις instead of αδελφοις, agreeing with 157.
10 – κακει instead of και εκει, agreeing with B D L M.
14 – does not have αυτον after πείσομεν, agreeing with Β À Θ 33.
17 – does not have αυτω after προσεκύνησαν, agreeing with Β À D 33.
19 – ουν after Πορευθέντες, agreeing with B W Δ Θ Π.
20 – does not have Αμην at the end of the verse, agreeing with B À A* D W.

Thus, in Matthew 28, Sin. Gr. 212 is a strong Alexandrian witness.  It should be a consistently cited witness of the first order.



[Readers are encouraged to explore the embedded links in this post to find additional study-materials.]





Sunday, June 17, 2018

An Interview with Stephen Carlson: Cladistics and the Text of Galatians

Dr. Stephen C. Carlson

Joining us today is Dr. Stephen C. Carlson, a professor at the Australian Catholic University. A former lawyer, in 2012 Dr. Carlson received a Ph. D. at Duke University; his dissertation consisted of an attempt to reconstruct the transmission-history of the text of Galatians, using principles from the biological field of cladistics.  In the process, Carlson produced new collations of the of the text of Galatians in Papyrus 46, ℵ, B, A, C, D, F, G, and several minuscules, including 1780 (Codex Branscombius, from c. 1200) which is housed at Duke University.
His investigation involved the testimony of 94 witnesses across 1,624 textual contests.  He also made a new compilation of the entire book, disagreeing with NA27 thirteen times.  Let’s ask him some questions about all that.

(1) Dr. Carlson, thanks for taking the time for this interview. What was the most surprising thing you learned in the course of researching the text of Galatians?

Carlson: Thanks for taking the trouble to read my work carefully and propose such well thought-out and intelligent questions. There were a lot of little surprises but nothing really big. I suppose the most surprising thing is how few times I ended up disagreeing with the critical text. (Also how little evidence of theologically motivated changes there was, particularly in the road up to the Byzantine text.) The biggest differences were Gal 2:12 (“when he came” vs. “when they came”) and Gal 2:20 (“faith of/in God and Christ” and “faith of/on the Son of God”).  Almost everything else involved word-order and word-choice variants.

(2) What is cladistics?      

Carlson:  Cladistics is a method for inferring a family tree for a group of entities that were generated by a genealogical process.  If we have a way of judging which of two different proposed family trees fit the data better (i.e., a family tree of manuscripts that puts very similar manuscripts together is better than one does not), then the method of cladistics says that we should try as many of the possible genealogies that we can until we find the “best” one. Moreover, cladistics proposes a metric for identifying good family trees:  they’re the ones that minimize the number of scribal errors that must have happened throughout the transmission history.  This is called “maximum parsimony.”

(3) A lot of attention has been given lately to the Coherence-Based Genealogical Method.  Your approach seems to involve less data-manipulation, and fewer initial steps that steer  results.  What can you tell us briefly about (a) what an unoriented stemma is, (b) how you made the unoriented stemma for Galatians, and (c) how cladistics guides the process of starting with an unoriented stemma and ending up with an oriented stemma?

Carlson:  Good question. We ordinarily think of a stemma or family tree as having a chronological direction. It starts with the original, proceeds to its copies, and then to copies of the copies. In cladistics, we favor the stemma that minimizes the number of scribal errors, but this begs the question as to what is a scribal error and what is the “authorial” reading (also known as the “true” or “original” reading).
The CBGM, as I understand it, is a development of Kurt Aland’s local genealogical principle that there are places in the text where we can definitely tell which readings are errors and build from there.  The CBGM is a more rigorous application of this principle, identifying “potential ancestors” based on how many locally genealogically prior readings a manuscript has in relation to the other.  Of course, the value of this approach depends on making good judgments about the priority of one reading to another – although there is some provision for feedback and updating one’s judgments about genealogical priority.
My approach defers the question of priority to the back end of the process.  The fundamental insight for this is in fact 50 years old; it is this:  you don’t need to know which variant is more likely to be a scribal error in order to determine the basic shape of the stemma. Regardless of which reading you think is older than another, the stemma will have the same shape, that is, it will identify the same manuscripts as being close (or distant) relatives as before.
The only difference is that the stemmas will have different orientations.  A textual critic that likes the Western text and thinks its readings are prior to those of non-Western manuscripts will orient the stemma in such a way that the Western manuscripts will at the top, while a textual critical who likes 1739’s readings a lot can orient the stemma in such a way that 1739 and its relatives will be at the top.  However you orient the stemma, there is only one “unoriented stemma” that most efficiently arranges the manuscripts with respect to one another.
It turns out that finding this unoriented stemma is something that computers are very good at, and it does not need any judgments about which reading is better or more prior than another.  Once the best unoriented stemma has been found (of those looked at), the textual critic can move in and identify the best way to the orient the stemma based on the critic’s understanding of which readings are more likely authorial or scribal.
            So to answer your specific questions: (a) the unoriented stemma is the stemma that most efficiently accounts for the patterns of readings (but not their priority) among all the manuscripts that you’re looking at; (b) I made the unoriented stemma by creating a matrix of manuscripts and variation units that describe what the variants readings are and fed it to a program I wrote for finding the stemma that most efficiently accounts for the distribution of the variant readings; (c) the cladistics procedure ends with discovery of the best-found unoriented stemma: the rest is old fashioned text critical work dependent on the critical judgment of the textual critic.

(4) For a long time, textual critics have been comfortable working on the premise that community of error implies community of origin. Does a stemmatic approach confirm that principle, or should that principle be modified? Or to put it another way, did you find a significant amount of accidental or coincidental agreements among essentially unrelated witnesses?

Carlson:  I would say that a stemmatic approach implements this principle. Cladistics does recognize that there can be a large amount of accidental coincidences among relatively unrelated witnesses, but as long as these coincidences are not patterned more strongly than genetic agreements, the maximum parsimony principle still works. I would say that within the medieval transmission of the Byzantine text, most of the coincidences in non-Byzantine readings are in fact accidental and the result we get in the stemma is not so much in falsely identifying close relatives when they are not but rather an inability to identify close relatives at all.

(5) (Long question.) A normal principle in textual criticism is, “Prefer the reading that best explains its rivals.”  But sometimes plausible explanations can be given for two rival variants. In those cases, some textual critics have resorted to making decisions based on the character of groups, preferring the reading supported by witnesses that tend to have readings that best explain their rivals. Metzger’s Textual Commentary seems to frequently describe that resort being taken; Alexandrian readings are often preferred because they are Alexandrian, which is a little frustrating, because at some point the assumption of the relative degrees of reliability of witnesses ends up confirming itself. But what alternative is there?  Can cladistics contribute something to the resolution of finely-balanced contests?

Carlson:  Well, normally in textual criticism there are two kinds of evidence, internal and external. Where the internal evidence is not decisive we need to look at the external evidence (and vice versa).  A thorough-going eclectic might eschew external evidence, but I don’t know that the alternative is besides giving up.  If we knew the history of the text, we should use it. Metzger and other “reasoned eclectics” would claim that the reason that Alexandrian readings are preferred in these cases is that in other cases Alexandrian readings seem to be good.  What I think cladistics/stemmatics can contribute is being consistent in the use of external evidence, which doesn’t always happen.  In addition, there can be variants where contests are finely balanced both internally and externally.  Those I think we should try the best we can.

(6) When measuring the relative degrees to which one witness’ contents are related to other witnesses’ contents, how did you handle the problem of gaps in the materials, such as missing pages in manuscripts, incomplete quotations in patristic writings, or the inability of some versional evidence to express distinctions between rival readings that appear in Greek?

Carlson:  The method does allow for gaps in the witness, which can be coded as “missing.”  It doesn’t really affect the algorithm or the maximum parsimony principle, but with less data the result will be less precise.

(7) In the most recent N-A/UBS compilation, the testimony of minuscules 1739 and 1175 seems to have been given more weight, and thus had more impact, than one might have expected in the General Epistles. Would that be justified in Galatians, too?

Carlson:  In my research for Galatians, they’re of secondary weight.  1739 turns out to be as close to the archetype as A but not as close as 01 (Sinaiticus) or 33.  It is an important manuscript with an early text, but not as good as Zuntz claimed for Paul (results could differ in other letters).  1175 turned out to be a mixed manuscript:  one source is related to 33 and the other source is Byzantine.

(8) The text produced by Westcott and Hort in 1881 has been criticized for being based on a genealogical method that lacked a real-life genealogy. Do we now have a real-life genealogy for the text of Galatians?

Carlson:  Having a genealogy for Galatians is indeed my claim. Of course, it is not “real-life” but a proposal based on the evidence of 92 witnesses. The difference over Hort is that it is more precise and less hand-wavy than the vague groups that Hort predicted.

(9) Tell me about parsimony.  Did you find the “expense” of a particular family-tree of witnesses consistently the same across different segments of the text? Also, inasmuch as, as you acknowledged in the dissertation, “history can be messy,” can parsimony ever give us anything more than a vague that-a-way wave of the hand?

Carlson:  My impression is that the text of Galatians is less stable (and hence would have a higher “expense”) in the first two chapters than in the last four.  As for parsimony, it is like Occam’s Razor: all other things equal, we go for the simplest, not because it is more likely to be true but because we don’t really know or have a justified basis in claiming how the true reality is specifically more complicated.

(10) What did you find out about minuscule 1854 that was interesting?

Carlson:  Out of the 92 witnesses of Galatians I studied, a full two-thirds of them were Byzantine, and most of these had scribal errors that differed from the Byzantine prototype in about a dozen or so places. 1854 is interesting in that it only deviated in four (and in some of those four, the Byzantine Text itself is divided).  Since 1854 is an eleventh-century text much younger than some uncial Byzantines of the 800s, it suggests that some important and early exemplars of the Byzantine were still available to be copied centuries after they were made.

(11) Sifting through the textual commentary on select variant-units embedded in the dissertation, I noticed that you occasionally favored a Byzantine reading over the reading of Vaticanus. Do you think this trend would continue if a cladistics-based approach were applied to the entire Pauline corpus?

Carlson:  Those cases are mainly based on how I evaluated the internal evidence, while cladistics helps me the external. I do think that the critical text over-values Vaticanus when it omits short words.

(12) What are our top three Greek manuscripts of Galatians?

Carlson:  Sinaiticus (01), Vaticanus (B), and Claromontanus (D), but I think in terms of good combinations of manuscripts instead of good manuscripts.  Choose any one manuscript from {D, F, G}, one from {B, P46}, and one from {01 33 A 1739 1611 1854 (Byz)}, and adopt the reading supported by at least two of the three.  That will give you a very good approximation of the archetype just from those three.  The three closest are B 01 33, but since 01 and 33 are too closely related, you will need a Western (or even a Byzantine because of its readings shared among Westerns) instead of 01 or 33 to get a better text than what the combination of B, 01, 33 alone can give you.
(13) In Galatians 2:16 you rejected the Byzantine non-inclusion of δε even though the Byzantine reading is supported by 1739, the Harklean group, and Papyrus 46.  Do you still have the same view, and if so, could you briefly walk us through your reasoning for that?

Carlson:  This is a very close case in my opinion.  In favor of the inclusion of δέ we have D*FG d b vg; B; 01; C 1241S, and Chrysostom.  For non-inclusion of δέ we have P46, 33 1175, AP, 1739 Ψ hark Byz.  In terms of external evidence, aside from the Westerns (DFG), every other group is split, so there’s slight weight on the inclusion.  Transcriptionally, the omission of the connective particle δέ looks harder than its inclusion, but as Royse has shown, the omission of such little words was fairly common in the earliest period.  Intrinsically, i.e., in terms of what Paul meant, the best interpretation of the non-inclusion is the same as one with the inclusion of δέ, so that’s not much help.  I ended up favoring the slight external evidence for the inclusion, thinking that its omission would have been more common in the early period.  But it’s not a judgment I would bet the farm on.

(14) Regarding a reading in Galatians 5:21, you claimed that a deliberate insertion (of φóνοι, “murders”) was more likely than its accidental omission via simple parablepsis. Could you elaborate on the basis for your reasoning there?

Carlson:  I think both possibilities did happen in the transmission of the text. On my stemma, it was inserted twice and omitted twice.  Ultimately, I went for the intrinsic evidence, what I think fits Paul’s argument the best, and the sin of “murders” seemed somewhat out of place compared with the other sins of the Galatians.  But, yeah, another variant I’m not betting the farm on.

(15) Robert Waltz, the custodian of the Encyclopedia of New Testament Textual Criticism website, has finished a compilation of the text of Galatians, and although his approach employed different principles from yours, I think he would concur that the text of 4:25a is “all over the map.”  You gave this passage some attention back in 2014.  Should the phrase “Sinai is a mountain in Arabia” be considered an interpolation?  Or is that conclusion a case of cutting the knot rather than untying it?

Carlson:  I’ve argued that it came from a marginal note in an early (second-century) authoritative edition of Paul’s letters.  Textual critics are by and large skeptical of such solutions.  I suppose it is cutting the knot (if any reading is original, I would favor that one starts with τὸ γὰρ Σινᾶ) rather than untying it, but maybe the existence of the knot in the first place is because of such a marginal note.

Thanks, Dr. Carlson, for sharing your research with our readers.





Thursday, June 14, 2018

What's New at Robert Waltz's ENTTC

For online introductions to the materials involved in New Testament Textual Criticism, few sites can compete with Robert Waltz’s Encyclopedia of NewTestament Textual Criticism.  It was updated relatively recently, which seems to have had the effect of pushing together the words that used to be at the ends and beginning of many adjacent lines of text.  That’s bad.  But on the positive side, several valuable new entries have been made since 2016.  Let’s take a look at some of the more important ones!

● In a new essay, Archetypes and Autographs, Waltz raises some questions about potential problems involved in the question for the earliest text of a composition.

● Waltz has offered a thoughtful critique of the “Assured Results” of scholarship, cautioning against casually accepting a scholarly consensus.  A handy supplement:  Waltz’s essay on Some Sample Variants and how critics have attempted their resolution.  (Even readers who do not agree with Waltz’s conclusions (I certainly disagree with several of them) may benefit from this display of how some “pat answers” have been created for some common text-critical questions.)

● A new page provides biographies of over 30 individuals who have made contributions of one kind or another to the field of New Testament textual criticism, from Kurt Aland to Francisco Ximénes. (Alas; the full scope of the alphabet could be reached had Nicholas Zegers been mentioned, but so far, no entry for Zegers).  The selection of detail might be nitpicked – A.E. Housman receives 27 paragraphs; Bruce Metzger got nine lines – but all the biographies are interesting.

● An informative essay on the history of Books and Bookmaking.

● A review of Canons of Textual Criticism, in which Waltz mentions that the rule That reading found in the majority of early text-types is best is his favorite rule regarding external evidence.

● An entry on Chemistry and Physics and their significance in the study of ancient manuscripts – especially in the identification of various pigments in illustrations, and in the detection of forgeries.

● An essay on methods of Collation.

● A brief consideration of Conjectural Emendations, including one in First Corinthians 6:5 that was adopted in Michael Holmes’ SBL-GNT.

● A collection of profiles of various Critical Editions (including the work of Reuben Swanson).

● A review of important Manuscript Libraries, facilitating the easy realization of which library is meant by which Latin or Latinized name.

Neumes – musical notations – are described.

Nomina Sacra and Other Contractions are listed and described.

Old Testament Textual Criticism is summarized in an entry that covers a variety of sub-topics, ranging from the Septuagint to the Dead Sea Scrolls.

● The entry on palimpsests has been revised, and is likely to be expanded again as more and more researchers gain access to new findings yielded by the use of multi-spectral imaging.

● The entry on Versions of the New Testament has been revised.

Writing-materials receive plenty of attention in an entry that discusses not only papyrus, parchment, and paper but also inks and pens.

Those are just some of the new and newly expanded materials that await the studious visitor to the Encyclopedia of New Testament Textual Criticism site.   
            Other works by Robert Waltz include a presentation of the text of Philippians with a concise apparatus and textual commentary, and a compilation of the text of Galatians with a running apparatus for select variant-units.   He has also prepared a webpage to address some technical concerns (and how to resolve them) related to the ENTTC site.
            A presentation of a 2013 version of the contents of the ENTTC site can be downloaded as a PDF.  Features of special note in this document include Appendix II, a Manuscript-Number Conversion Table (especially helpful for those who consult the work of Tischendorf, von Soden, etc.).  Its “Appendix IX” lists variant-units which have tended to be magnets of disagreement among compilers; it also features a rudimentary appendix for those variant-units.