Here’s the video of the podcast, which lasts a little more than an hour and 41 minutes. Hopefully Part 2 will commence early next year.
Monday, November 18, 2019
Talking Christianity Apologetics Podcast (Part 1)
Yesterday I was interviewed by Joshua Gibbs at the Talking-Christianity Apologetics podcast, for a friendly discussion about New Testament textual criticism, the early history of the New Testament text, Equitable Eclecticism, the nature of the Byzantine Text, and some questions involving Mark 16:9-20 and John 7:53-8:11. Despite a few gaffes on my part – at one point, I repeatedly called Eusebius “Erasmus,” and said “Mark” a couple times when I meant to say “John,” and momentarily forgot where the Pentecost-lection begins, and somehow put Irenaeus in the 200s instead of the 100s – I am happy with the overall result.
Here’s the video of the podcast, which lasts a little more than an hour and 41 minutes. Hopefully Part 2 will commence early next year.
Here’s the video of the podcast, which lasts a little more than an hour and 41 minutes. Hopefully Part 2 will commence early next year.
Wednesday, November 13, 2019
New Testament Manuscripts at Dumbarton Oaks
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| The beginning of Matthew in Dumbarton Oaks MS 5 (GA 678) |
In Washington , D.C.
● Dumbarton
Oaks MS 1 (Gospel Lectionary) is also known as GA Lect 2139. It contains readings from the Gospels as they
were arranged for public reading in church-services throughout the year. This manuscript can be dated precisely to a
specific place and time, thanks to an inscription stating that it was presented
by Empress Catherine Camnene to the Holy Trinity Monastery of Chalki
in the year 6571 (i.e., 1063). After the
first 42 folios, the format of the text shifts to a cruciform shape. In addition to this rare feature, the
manuscript features many small illustrations, often related to the subject of
the excerpts they accompany. Page-by-page
views of the entire manuscript can be downloaded for free, and can also be viewed
online.
● Dumbarton Oaks MS
2 is not one of the Greek manuscripts I mentioned. It was written in Georgian sometime around
the year 1000. It is a Menaion, a
liturgical book, providing the accounts of saints’ lives to read on their annual
feast-days; this Menaeon includes the saints’ testimonies for December,
January, and February.
● Dumbarton
Oaks MS 3, also known as GA 1521, contains the Psalms (with Odes), the four Gospels, Acts, the
General Epistles, the Epistles of Paul, and an assortment of prayers. Like MS 1, this manuscript
can be viewed online page-by-page, and it can be downloaded in its entirety. The book of Psalms begins on fol. 6, with a
headpiece picturing David composing songs.
Illustrations sporadically appear, and at about page 150 they begin to
occur more frequently. A portrait of
Christ appears on fol. 39r. Page 168
features an unusual illustration which combines the Annunciation with a picture
of Mary contemplating the Scriptures, accompanying the text of the
Magnificat. Some pages feature
cruciform text, such as 82r and 85r. Eusebius’
letter Ad Carpianus begins on 88r,
followed by simple red Canon-tables.
A rather
full lectionary-apparatus accompanies the Gospels-text throughout (and
continued through Acts and the Epistles).
Titloi appear in the upper
margins, at the appropriate places, written in gold or gold-like pigment.
The text of
the Gospel of Matthew begins on page 197, with a large headpiece depicting the
evangelist (framed in blue), an elaborate initial, and marginal
illustrations.
Mark begins
similarly, and with a similar format, on page 265. Luke begins on page 309, and ends on fol.
186v. The opening pages of John are not
present; according to a digitally added note they are extant in the Tretjakov Gallery in Moscow
On 214r
there is a list of the New Testament books in the rest of the manuscript: Acts, the General Epistles, and the Epistles
of Paul (Hebrews is listed between the letters to the Thessalonians and the
letters to Timothy). On 214v the summary
of the book of Acts appears in a cruciform format.
Acts begins
on 215v; Luke and his readers are depicted in a headpiece, framed in blue.
James
begins on 250r; in the headpiece James sits below a canopy, or baldachin.
On fol.
253v the summary of Peter’s epistles is formatted in cruciform text beginning
with an initial E depicting Saint Luke; in the online images
one can zoom in to see its artistic details.
A digital note then informs readers that the next folio of the
manuscript resides at the Cleveland Museum of Art where it has accession number
50.154.
On 255r the
text resumes in First Peter 1:21. Second
Peter begins (after a book-summary) on 258r.
(Peter appears in the initial.) First
John begins on 261r, with John depicted in a headpiece (framed in green); John
also appears within the initial. (First
John 4:7, without the Comma Johanneum,
is in the text on 264r.) Second John begins on 264v. Third John begins and ends on 265v. 266r contains the summary of the Epistle of
Jude, in cruciform format. Jude begins
on 266v; Jude is depicted in a headpiece, framed in leafy green. Jesus Christ and Saint James make cameos in
the margin. A few pages are then used to
introduce Paul and the book of Romans before the text of Romans begins on 269v. The headpiece is exceptional; it features
Paul in the act of writing while two companions (Phoebe and Timothy?) look on. Each epistle is preface by its summary, each
of which has its own title.
First
Corinthians begins on 282v. As at the
beginning of Romans, the initial “Π” has been turned into a picture of Jesus
Christ teaching Paul; small red titles have survived to identify the figures.
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| In Dumbarton Oaks MS 3, the initial "Pi" at the start of each Pauline Epistle depicts Jesus Christ and Saint Paul. |
Second
Corinthians begins on 294v; again the initial is a depiction of Christ teaching
Paul.
Galatians
begins on 303r.
Ephesians
begins on 307r.
Philippians
begins on 311v. The initial, which
previous consisted of Jesus teaching Paul, is here a depiction of Jesus
teaching Paul and Timothy.
Colossians
begins on 315r.
First
Thessalonians begins on 318r.
Second
Thessalonians begins on 321.
First
Timothy begins on 323r.
Second Timothy begins on 326v.
Titus
begins on 329r.
Philemon
begins on 330v.
Hebrews
begins on 331v. At the center of the bottom
of the page, a small group of individuals is pictured, representing the
Hebrews.
On 341r, there is a distinct change
in the handwriting; a different scribe has written Hebrews 13:20b to the end of the book.
After the
conclusion of Hebrews, there are several pages of lectionary-related lists and
other materials.
The
Easter-tables in this manuscript begin with the year 1084, and it may be
deduced that the manuscript was made around that time.
● Dumbarton
Oaks MS 4, also known as GA 706, contains the Gospels of Luke and John, on 254
leaves. Like Dumbarton Oaks MSS 1 and 3,
this
manuscript can be viewed online and the
entire manuscript can be downloaded.
Compared to MS 3, the text of MS 4 is rather plainly presented. There are full-page miniatures of Luke (on
4v) and John (on 150v), but these might be secondary. There is no lectionary apparatus (other than
some sporadic notes by a later hand); headpieces are in plain red; initials are
also in red. There are no titloi, even the Eusebian Canon-numbers
and Section-numbers are absent. John 5:4
is on 170v. On 190v, John 7:53 follows
7:52 (και απηλθεν εκαστος . . .) and the rest of the pericope adulterae is included before 8:12.
● Dumbarton
Oaks MS 5, known as GA 678, formerly known as Phillips
MS 3886, is a well-executed Gospels-manuscript, written on single-column
pages of 20 lines each. In 2016, in Volume
70 of Dumbarton Oaks Papers, Nadezhda
Kavrus-Hoffmann described this manuscript very thoroughly in the article A Newly Acquired Gospel Manuscript at
Dumbarton Oaks (DO MS 5): Codicological and Paleographic Description and
Analysis. This article is available
at Academia.edu .
This manuscript from the 1000s has 327 leaves; each page contains 20 lines of text in single columns. The decorations for the Eusebian Canons are so ornate that one might think an Armenian artist was involved in their production. After ten pages of spectacularly embellished Canon-tables, Ad Carpianus, the kephalaia (chapters-list) for Matthew, followed by a full-page picture of Christ enthroned (somewhat damaged, perhaps by kisses), and a full-page picture of Matthew.
This manuscript from the 1000s has 327 leaves; each page contains 20 lines of text in single columns. The decorations for the Eusebian Canons are so ornate that one might think an Armenian artist was involved in their production. After ten pages of spectacularly embellished Canon-tables, Ad Carpianus, the kephalaia (chapters-list) for Matthew, followed by a full-page picture of Christ enthroned (somewhat damaged, perhaps by kisses), and a full-page picture of Matthew.
The text of
the Gospel of Matthew begins on 14r, with a sumptuously ornate headpiece. Titloi
appear at the tops of pages, and a lectionary-apparatus (in red) appears above
that, supplemented by notes, symbols and other markings in the text and
margins. Occasionally the lectionary
apparatus appears at the foot of the page.
Section-numbers and Canon-numbers appear in the side-margins (always on
the left of the text). There are a few
corrections to the text. On 99r, a lozenge-dot
symbol (⁘) accompanies the beginning
of Matthew 28:8 in the text, probably to signify the beginning of a
Resurrection Morning reading.
Mark’s text
begins (with an elaborate headpiece) on 103r.
Another ⁘ appears midway
through Mark 1:13, denoting a lection-break, and again at 3:28. On 126v, an asterisk-like mark (like ※ but empty in the center) appears at
the beginning of chapter 8; there appears to have been another asterisk to the
left of the text too, but it has been smudged.
On 129r, the scribe somehow wrote και μετα παρρησια in Mark 8:21b; a
later correction appears in the margin, introduced by the symbol ⁜ which also appears in the text where
the supplies words should be added.
The ⁘ symbol appears at Mark 9:10 (on
130v), at Mark 9:28 (on 132r), in Mark 9:34 (on 132v), in 10:11 (on 134v),
10:31 (at the first line on 136v), in 12:44 (on 144r), at 12:40 (on 144v), in
14:1 (on 147v), in 14:27 (on 149v), in 14:38 (on 150v), at 14:43 and 14:44
(both on 151r; the second ⁘ is
accompanied by another ⁘ in the left
margin), at 14:57 (on 152r), in 15:1 (on the last line of 153r), at 15:2 (with
another ⁘ in the side-margin) and at
15:7 (both on 153v), at 15:12 and 15:14 (on 154r), in 15:20 and 15:23 and 15:24
(on 154v), etc., etc. (I trust that future
researchers will avoid assuming, if they see a ⁘ before Mark 16:9, that this
signifies anything other than a lection-break or the beginning of a chapter.)
After
Luke’s kephalaia and full-page
portrait, the text of Luke begins on 162r. On 210v, asterisk-like marks (like ※
but empty in the center), one in the margin and one in the text, precede
12:16. Luke 22:43-44 is in the text, on
244v. The text of Luke ends on 254v.
After
John’s kephalaia and full-page
portrait, the text of John begins on 257r.
On 282r, an asterisk-like mark (like ※ but empty in the center) precedes
John 7:37, the lection for Pentecost-day.
On 283r, John 7:53 follows 7:52, with a “Jump ahead” symbol (ϒΠ) in
between. The pericope adulterae is in the text (και απηλθεν εκαστος . . . and
with μη προσποιούμενος in verse 6 and προτος in verse 7 and κατακρινω in verse
11); in verse 11 απο του νυν (“from now on”) is added above the line.
A large
asterisk-like mark (like ※ but empty in the center) appears in the margin on
302r, and another such mark appears in the text, before 13:1. This is the beginning of an Easter-time
sequence of lections for Good Friday. In
19:11, on 308v, the scribe did not write the word ουδεμιαν; it is supplied in
the side-margin, accompanied by ⁒ which appears in the margin and in the
text. John’s text ends on 326r.
● GA 669,
known as the Benton
Gospels, now also known as Dumbarton Oaks MS 6, is assigned to the 900s. It is missing almost all of the Gospel of
Matthew, but most of Mark (which begins with an interesting illustration – the
title of the Gospel of Mark sits like a king under a baldachin – serving as a
headpiece), Luke, and John have survived. Digital photographs of the pages of this
manuscript can be accessed at the Center for the Study of New
Testament Manuscripts. This
manuscript has traveled quite far; after being brought to the United States in
1844, it eventually found a home in Texas in the collection of Charles C. Ryrie, until
Dumbarton Oaks purchased it in 2016.
It is not
every day that one can come into the possession of a digital replica of a Greek
New Testament manuscript – and the stewards of Dumbarton Oaks have provided us
with the means to view and download four of them! Thank you, Gudrun Bühl, James Carder, Jan
Ziolkowski, Susan Boyd, John Duffy, and the many others who had a role in
making these resources available. May these resources reap a harvest of new and revived
interest in the text of the New Testament on the part of everyone who studies
them.
Here are
some additional links to acquaint readers with the multi-faceted blessings a Dumbarton
Oaks:
Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection is the copyright holder for the manuscripts’ page-views and derivatives of them.
Readers are invited to double-check the data in this post.
Saturday, November 9, 2019
Matthew 28:19 - Baptism In Whose Name?
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| Matthew 28:19-20a in Codex F, beside part of the chapter-list for Mark. |
“This is
perhaps a case of late interpolation.” That
was liberal scholar Rudolph
Bultmann’s opinion of the words “in
the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit” in Matthew
28:19.
Earlier, in
1902, Frederick C. Conybeare – who might be considered the Bart Ehrman of his
day – claimed in a
detailed essay in The Hibbert Journal
(and in 1901 in Zeitschrift
fur Neutestamentlich Wissenschaft, pp. 275-288) that he had found
patristic evidence against the genuineness of this phrase “so weighty that in [the] future the most
conservative of divines will shrink from resting on it any dogmatic fabric at
all.”
At this very moment, there are some
in the Oneness Pentecostal denomination who similarly regard the threefold
formula “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit” as an
early scribal corruption. The
theological impetus for this position is not hard to find: throughout the book of Acts, Luke reports
that the early Christians baptized “in the name of Jesus Christ” (2:38), or “in
the name of the Lord Jesus” (8:16), or “in the name of the Lord” (10:48); the
use of a threefold declaration at baptism is never mentioned by Luke.
Some Oneness Pentecostals have
attempted to resolve this apparent discrepancy by taking a theological step
that is not far from – and perhaps indistinguishable from – the early heresy of
modalism: they baptize without such a
threefold formula, and insist that the name “Jesus” is the name of the Father,
and the name of the Son, and the name of the Holy Spirit. Others, while theologically greatly distanced
from Bultmann and Conybeare, share with them a rejection of the authority of
Matthew 28:19 on the grounds that the phrase “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit”
is not authentic. Some Islamic groups similarly reject the
genuineness of this phrase.
Usually when a reading has the support of every Greek
manuscript in existence in which a passage is extant – as is the case here at the end of Matthew – there is
no text-critical issue and it is accepted as genuine, as a matter of
course. Even Bart
Ehrman – who has proposed (like Gordon Fee before him) that First
Corinthians 14:34-35, despite having enormous manuscript support, contains a
lengthy interpolation – recently wrote, “It is usually thought that Matt.
28:19-20 is referring to the practice in
Matthew’s own community, some 50 years after Jesus’ death, not to the words
Jesus himself actually spoke.” (Readers
of such comments should understand that when Ehrman employs phrases such as “It
is usually thought,” he means, “It is usually thought among my colleagues who deny supernatural events in general.”) Regarding those who, instead,
claim to reject the phrase on text-critical grounds: what are their grounds?
Their go-to
source is Eusebius
of Caesarea, the influential and not-entirely-orthodox historian of the
early 300s, best-known for his composition Ecclesiastical
History. As Conybeare documented,
Eusebius utilized Matthew 28:19 seventeen times in ways that indicate that his
text of the verse read πορευθέντες μαθητεύσατε πάντα τὰ ἔθνη ἐν τῷ ὀνόματί μου,
that is, “As you go, make disciples of all nations in My name.” Part of Conybeare’s argument that this
reading should be given exceptional weight is that Eusebius was stationed in
Caesarea, where in the previous generation Origen had enlarged the library with
his own manuscripts; thus, it may be reasonably thought that among the
manuscripts accessible to Eusebius in the early 300s were some copies from the
early 200s, earlier than any existing copies of Matthew 28:19.
Conybeare’s quotations from Eusebius
may have initially appeared to justify his confident assertions, but he was
quickly answered by J. R. Wilkinson in The
Hibbert Journal in 1902, in the second part of an article titled, Mr. Conybeare’s Textual Theories
(beginning on p. 96 of the journal issued in October of 1902, and on p. 571 of
the digitally archived copy). Wilkinson granted
that Eusebius used a text in which “in My name” was in the first part of
Matthew 28:19, referring to disciple-making, but he reasoned that this does not
imply that “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit”
was absent from the second part of the verse, referring to baptism. The
textual critic Frederick Chase also wrote a response against Conybeare’s
approach in 1905 in the Journal of Theological
Studies (beginning on p. 481).
A comprehensive,
and decisive, answer against Conybeare’s proposal appeared in 1923 in Bernard
Henry Cuneo’s published dissertation, The
Lord’s Command to Baptise: An
Historico-Critical Investigation With Special Reference to the Works of
Eusebius of Caesarea. Cuneo
For
example, Cuneo examples Eusebius’ statement in Ecclesiastical History 3:5 and considers the development of
Eusebius’ argument in which the quotation occurs: Eusebius quoted Matthew 28:19a, not to say something about baptism,
but to confirm a parenthetical point; in the course of describing the Roman
siege of Jerusalem, he writes:
“. . . because the Jews continued to
persecute His disciples, by stoning Stephen, beheading James the brother of
John, and putting to death James the bishop of Jerusalem; and because they
afflicted the other apostles so severely that they fled from Palestine and
began to preach the Gospel to all the nations – imbued with the power of Christ
who had said to them, “Going, make disciples of all the nations in my name” –
and when all the Christians had left Jerusalem and fled to Pella, then the
divine vengeance visited upon Jerusalem the crimes of which that city had been
guilty against Christ and his disciples.”
In Demonstration
of the Gospel 1:6, Eusebius wrote, “Our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Son
of God, said to His disciples after His resurrection, ‘Go and make disciples of
all the nations,’ and added, ‘Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I
have commanded you.’” Here we do not see
the middle of verse 19 because it is not pertinent to Eusebius’ present
subject, whereas the beginning and end are pertinent.
Although
this frugality may seem strange nowadays – that is, modern readers may
understandably ask, “Why not just quote the whole verse?” – we ought to
remember that nobody quoted from the New Testament in terms of
chapter-and-verse divisions as we know them until the mid-1500s. Quoting only what needed to be quoted in
order to support a particular point was common in ancient times; Eusebius shows
the same tendency toward brevity in his quotations of Matthew 11:27, 16:18, etc.
● Didache, chapter 7 (early 100s): “Concerning baptism, baptize thus: having first rehearsed all these things,
baptize in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, in
running water. But if you have no
running water, baptize in other water, and if you cannot in cold, then in
warm. But if you have neither, pour
water three times on the head ‘in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost.’”
● Irenaeus, Against
Heresies, Book 3, part 17 (c.
180): concluding a series of proof-texts
supporting his contention that it was not a Christ-persona, but the Holy
Spirit, who descended upon Jesus: “He
said to them, Go and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”
● Tertullian, De
Baptismo, ch. 13 (c. 200): “The law of baptism was enjoined and its ritual
prescribed. ‘Go,’ He says, ‘teach the
nations, baptizing them in the name of Father and Son and Holy Spirit.’
The addition to this law of the regulation: ‘Except one be born again of
water and spirit, he shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven,’ bound
faith to the necessity of baptism. Consequently
from that time all believers were baptized.”
● Tertullian, De
Praescriptione Haereticorum ch. 20 (c. 200): “He commanded the eleven others, on His
departure to the Father, to go and teach all nations, who were
to be baptized into the Father, and into the Son, and into the Holy
Ghost.”
● Hippolytus, Contra Noetum, ch. 14
(early 200s): “The Father’s Word,
therefore, knowing the economy (i.e., disposition) and the will of the Father,
that is, that the Father seeks to be worshipped in no other way than this, gave
this charge to the disciples after He rose from the dead: ‘Go and teach all nations, baptizing them in
the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.’ And by this He showed that whosoever omitted
any one of these, failed in glorifying God perfectly.”
● Acts of Thomas 9:4
(early 200s): “And the apostle, having
taken oil, and poured it over their head, and salved and anointed them, began
to say, ‘Come, holy name of Christ, which is above every name; come, power of
the Most High . . . come, Holy Spirit, and purify their reins and heart,
and seal them in the name of Father, and Son, and Holy Spirit.’”
● Participants at the Seventh
Council of Carthage (257), which was focused on the subject of baptism,
included
Lucius of Castra Galbae, who quoted
Christ’s words from Matthew 28:18-19, including “Go and teach all nations,
baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy
Spirit.”
Munnulus of Girba, who stated, “our
Lord says, “Go ye and baptize the nations, in the name of the Father, of the
Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”
Euchratius of Thence, who said that
Jesus Christ, teaching the apostles with His own mouth, “has entirely completed
our faith, and the grace of baptism, and the rule of the ecclesiastical law,
saying, “Go ye and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father,
and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”
Vincentius of Thibaris, who, in
addition to alluding to Mark 16:15-18, said that the Lord said, in another
place, “Go ye and teach the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father,
of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”
Cuneo
also spent several pages showing that Eusebius of Caesarea was indeed the
author of Against Marcellus
(336/337) and A Letter to the Caesareans
Concerning the Council of Nicea.
In the second composition, Eusebius introduces and repeats his own
creed, which, he says, was read at the Council of Nicea in the presence of
Emperor Constantine:
“As we have received from the bishops who preceded us, and in our first catechisms, and when we received the holy laver [i.e., at baptism], and as we have learned from the divine Scriptures, and as we believed and taught in the presbytery, and in the episcopate itself, so believing also at the time present, we report to you our faith, and it is this:
“As we have received from the bishops who preceded us, and in our first catechisms, and when we received the holy laver [i.e., at baptism], and as we have learned from the divine Scriptures, and as we believed and taught in the presbytery, and in the episcopate itself, so believing also at the time present, we report to you our faith, and it is this:
“We believe in
One God, the Father Almighty, the Maker of all things visible and
invisible. And in One Lord Jesus
Christ, the Word of God, God from God, Light from Light, Life from
Life, Son Only-begotten, first-born of every creature, before all the
ages, begotten from the Father, by Whom also all things were made; Who for
our salvation was made flesh, and lived among men, and suffered,
and rose again the third day, and ascended to the Father, and will come
again in glory to judge the quick and dead. And
we believe also in One Holy Ghost.”
This is
followed by an addition affirmation:
“Believing each of these to be and to exist,
the Father truly Father, and the Son truly Son, and
the Holy Ghost truly Holy Ghost, as also our Lord, sending forth His disciples for the
preaching, said, ‘Go teach all nations, baptizing them in the name
of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.’ Concerning
whom we confidently affirm that so we hold, and so we think, and so we have
held previously, and we maintain this faith unto the death, condemning
every godless heresy.”
In another
composition, the rarely cited Syriac
Theophania, Eusebius of Caesarea made a full quotation of Matthew 28:17-20
in Book
IV, chapter 8: “After His resurrection from the dead, all
of them [i.e., the eleven apostles], being together as they had been commanded,
went to Galilee, as He had said to them. But, when they saw Him, some
worshipped Him, but others doubted. But
He drew near to them, spoke with them, and said, ‘All power in heaven and earth, is given to me of my Father. Go ye
and make disciples of all nations, and baptize them in the name of the Father,
and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. And teach them to observe all that I
have commanded you. And, behold! I am with you always even to the end of the
world.’ Observe now, in these things, the consideration and
caution evinced by the disciples . . . .”
(In the
same composition, which its translator, Samuel
Lee, translated from a Syriac manuscript which had been obtained by Henry
Tattam at the Monastery of the Blessed Virgin in the Nitrian Desert – a
manuscript which Lee assigned to a period no later than the 400s – Eusebius explicitly
quotes Matthew 28:19a with “in My name” as part of the text, saying in Book 5
chapter 46, “It was not that He commanded
them, simply and indiscriminately, to go and make disciples of all nations, but
with this excellent addition which He delivered, specifically, ‘in My name.’”)
In addition
to demolishing Conybeare’s case against the phrase “in the name of the Father,
and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,” Cuneo offered an explanation for the
presence of the words “in My name” in Eusebius’ text of Matthew 28:19a: it is a simple harmonization drawn from Luke
24:47.
This introduces a fresh subject: the abundance of alterations, harmonistic or otherwise, that are clustered in the Gospels’ accounts of Jesus’ post-resurrection appearances. These passages were among the most-used parts of the Gospels in early church-services, and were thus especially vulnerable to early liturgical influence. Here are a few examples:
● In the Peshitta version of Matthew, Matthew 28:18 features an insertion drawn from John 20:21; after the usual words of the verse, the Peshitta adds, “As the Father sent Me, so also I send you.” (Codex Θ also has this feature.)
This introduces a fresh subject: the abundance of alterations, harmonistic or otherwise, that are clustered in the Gospels’ accounts of Jesus’ post-resurrection appearances. These passages were among the most-used parts of the Gospels in early church-services, and were thus especially vulnerable to early liturgical influence. Here are a few examples:
● In the Peshitta version of Matthew, Matthew 28:18 features an insertion drawn from John 20:21; after the usual words of the verse, the Peshitta adds, “As the Father sent Me, so also I send you.” (Codex Θ also has this feature.)
● In the
Alexandrian text of Luke 24:42, there is no mention of honeycomb. The words και απο μελσσίου κηριου could have
been accidentally skipped due to early scribal inattentiveness; και follows
κηριου in the next sentence. But another
possibility is that these words – supported by Tertullian, the vast majority of
Greek manuscripts, the Vulgate, the Armenian version, etc. – were removed
intentionally to avoid incorporating honey into annual Easter-time
worship-services.
 |
| Extra words appear in the text of Luke 24:43 in Codex K. |
● In Luke
24:36, after Jesus’ appearance in the midst of the disciples, He says to them,
“Peace to you!” In a small number of
Greek manuscripts (including uncials G and P), and in the Vulgate, Jesus says a
bit more; He goes on to say, “It is I; do not be afraid.” These extra words – drawn from John 6:20 –
are supported, according to the UBS apparatus, by the Vulgate, the Peshitta,
the Harklean Syriac, the Armenian version, and by Ambrose and Augustine (in Contra Felicem Manichaeum). In
addition, in Codex W,
“It is I; do not be afraid” appears before
“Peace to you.”
All these
witnesses may echo early Easter-time liturgical arrangements of the
blended-together Gospel-accounts. An
early attempt to remove the intruding words appears to have gone too far; in several
Old Latin manuscripts and in Codex Bezae, the entire phrase – “and said to
them, “Peace to you” – is missing. (This
is one of the “Western Non-interpolations” which appear in Luke 24.) Another possibility is that the phrase was
skipped by accident.
The
worship-services of the early churches had a detectable impact upon the text of
the New Testament. But the impact of the
text of the New Testament upon the early churches was far greater. As far as the use of the words, “in the name
of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,” are concerned, there
was one reason for the early Christians to use these words: they were attributed to Christ in every copy
of the Gospel of Matthew.
Readers are invited to double-check the data in this post.
Monday, November 4, 2019
A Surprise in Athens
In
2015-2016, a team of researchers from the Center for the Study of
New Testament Manuscripts visited the National Library of Greece and
brought to light 21 manuscripts in the collection there in Athens
This sheet
of parchment, glued to the cover of another, later lectionary, is from an
uncial Gospels-lectionary that was probably produced in the 900s. The reverse side cannot presently be viewed,
since it is glued down. On the side that
is viewable, portions of two pages (on a single parchment sheet) with text can
be seen.
If we look
at the manuscript and begin to read the third column (to the right of where the
sheet was once vertically folded), we encounter text from Matthew 27:6,
beginning with εξεστιν at the end of the first tattered line, followed by βαλειν
αυτὰ on the next line. The text of this
column continues to the beginning of Matthew 27:9, where διὰ Ιερεμίου is the
last line of the column.
Shifting
our focus to the first column of the manuscript (first, that is, in its present
glued-down state), we see text from Matthew 27:53, beginning with –λθον at the
end of the tattered upper edge of the parchment. The text continues to the end of Matthew 27:54,
and then – in the same line on which Mt. 27:54 ends – the text switches immediately
to the beginning of John 19:31 with οι ουν Ιουδαιοι, continuing to the words τω
σαβββάτῳ which constitute the last line of the column. At the top of the second column, the first
extant line is Πιλάτον ινα. The middle
of John 19:31 occupied the non-extant portion of the column (the descender of the
ρ in ηρώτησαν has survived). The text
continues to the first part of John 19:34; the last line is αλλ’ εις των στρα–.
Thus, in
this single-sheet manuscript fragment, we have (1) Matthew’s account of the purchase of the Field of Blood, (2) Matthew’s account of the centurion’s
confession, “Truly this was the Son of God,” and (3) John’s report that when the soldiers came to Jesus to break His
legs, they found Him already dead.
Here is a complete transcript, column by
column, along with a more or less line-by-line English translation. Bracketed letters in the transcription are not visible in the photographs. Red letters
are variations from the text of the passage as found in the Robinson-Pierpont
Byzantine Textform. Red crosses are
features of the manuscript.
 |
| Lectionary 2012, in English. |
Matthew 27:6-9a:
[ε]ξεστ[ιν]
βαλ[ε]ιν αυτα ·
εις τον κορβαν[αν]
επει τιμη αί
ματος εστιν +
συμβούλιον δ[ε]
λαβόντες η[γό]
ρασαν εξ αυτ[ων]
τον αγρον του
κεραμέως · εις τα
φην τοις ξένοι[ς]
διο εκλήθη · ο α
γρος εκεινος · α
γρος αιματος ·
εως της σήμερ[ον]
τοτε επληρώ
θη τω ρηθεν
δια Ϊερεμίου
Matthew 27:53b-54 + John 19:31a:
–ηλθον
εις τὴν αγίαν πό
λην καὶ ενεφα
νησθησαν πολλοις +
Ο δε εκατόνταρ
χος και οι μετ’ αυ
του · τηρουντες
τον Ιν ·
ϊδοντες
τον σεισμον και
τα γενόμενα ·
εφοβήθησαν σφό
δρα + λέγοντες
·
αληθως Θυ Υς ην
ουτος + οι ουν
Ϊου
δαιοι · ϊνα μὴ μεί
νη επι του στρου
·
τα σώματα εν
τω σαββάτω ·
John 19:31c-34a:
Πιλάτον ίνα
κατεαγωσιν αυ
των τὰ σκέλει
και αρθωσιν +
ηλθον ουν οι στρα
τιωται + και του
μεν πρώτου
κατέαξαν τὰ
σκέλει καὶ του
αλλου του συσταυ
ρωθέν τος αυ
τω + επι δε τὸν
Ιν ελθόντες ως
ειδον αυτον η
δη τεθνηκότα
ου κατέαξαν αυ
του τὰ σκέλη +
αλλ’ εις των στρα
The extant text of this fragment differs from the Robinson-Pierpont Byzantine Textform only in matters of spelling; for all practical purposes, the two are identical. This leads me to suspect that the writers who are responsible for spreading the claim that “No two New Testament manuscripts have the same text” have not examined very many fragmentary lectionaries.
It would be
interesting to examine this fragment with Multi-Spectral Imaging at the
National Library of Greece (where it is kept as Collection-item
2460 ) to see the text on the other side.
It is interesting to see how this lection combined text from Matthew and
John; perhaps a closer analysis of this kind of Good Friday lectionary-cycle could explain why the
Alexandrian Text (in some of what are often called the “oldest and best”
manuscripts) has a reading that resembles John 19:34 after Matthew 27:49.
Readers are invited to double-check the data in this post.
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