Lecture 13: Challenging Hort |
In lecture 13 in the series Introduction to NT Textual Criticism, I describe some discoveries made in the 1900s that posed serious problems for the sustainability of Hort’s theory of the Lucianic recension. (32 minutes)
Here is an excerpt:
In Papyrus 45, in the
fragments of chapters 6, 7, 8, and 9 of the Gospel of Mark, there are at least 17
readings that are not supported by the leading manuscripts of the Alexandrian
Text and Western Text, but which are supported by the Byzantine Text. I will mention some of them:
① In the closing phrase of Mark 6:45, Papyrus
45 supports the Byzantine reading, disagreeing with the reading that is supported
by the Alexandrian Text and the Western text.
② In Mark 7:5, Papyrus 45 supports the Byzantine
reading that means “answering,” which is not supported by the Alexandrian and
Western Text.
③ At the beginning of Mark 7:12, Papyrus 45 supports
the Byzantine reading “And,” which is not in the flagship manuscripts of the
Alexandrian Text and Western Text.
④ In Mark 7:30, Papyrus 45 supports the
word-order in the Byzantine Text, disagreeing with the word-order in Vaticanus,
Sinaiticus, and Bezae.
⑤ In Mark 7:31, after the word “Tyre ,” Papyrus 45 supports
the Byzantine reading. Both the form and
meaning of this passage are different in Vaticanus, Sinaiticus, and Codex
Bezae.
⑥ In Mark 7:32, Papyrus 45 and the Byzantine
Text do not have the word “and,” where it appears in Vaticanus, Sinaiticus, and
Bezae.
⑦ In Mark 7:35, Papyrus 45 has the word
“immediately.” The Byzantine Text has this word here too. But the Alexandrian Text and the Western Text
do not.
⑧ In Mark 7:36, Papyrus 45 is difficult
to read but it appears to support a reading that agrees with the Byzantine Text
and disagrees with the flagship manuscripts of the Alexandrian Text and Western
Text.
⑨ In Mark 8:19, Papyrus 45 and the
Byzantine Text share the same word-order, disagreeing with the word-order in
the Alexandrian Text and also disagreeing with the word-order in Codex D.
⑩ In Mark 9:6, the wording in Papyrus 45
agrees with the Byzantine Text, disagreeing with Vaticanus, Sinaiticus, and
Bezae.
⑪ In Mark 9:20, the word-order in Papyrus
45 agrees with the Byzantine Text, disagreeing with the reading in Vaticanus
and Sinaiticus and also disagreeing with a different reading in Codex Bezae.
⑫ And, again in Mark 9:20, the Byzantine Text
has a reading that is supported by Papyrus 45 but which is not found in
Vaticanus, Sinaiticus, or Codex Bezae.
Now, this is a long way from proving
that the fully formed Byzantine Text existed in Egypt in the early 200s. But Papyrus 45 is from Egypt ; it is
not from a locale where we would expect
the Byzantine Text to be found. The
thing to see is that in the world according to Hort – a world in which the
Byzantine Text is a combination of Alexandrian and Western readings – none of these readings should exist before
the late 200s.
If Papyrus 45 had been discovered
before 1881, nobody would have dreamed of proposing a theory that the
non-Alexandrian, non-Western readings found in the Byzantine Text did not exist
before the lifetime of Lucian of Antioch.
If anyone had said that, people would look at readings such as the ones I
just listed, and say, “What about these?”
Support for distinctly Byzantine
readings in Papyrus 45 does not stop in Mark 6-9. The fragmentary pages of Papyrus 45 in Luke
10-13 have a dozen distinctly Byzantine readings. For example:
① In
Luke
10:39, Papyrus 45 agrees with the reading “Jesus,” where Vaticanus, Sinaiticus,
and Bezae have the reading “Lord.”
Papyrus 75 also reads “Jesus.”
Notice the lack of a conflation in the
Byzantine Text here. It would have been
very easy to create the reading “the Lord Jesus” if the Byzantine Text came
from someone telling himself, “When it doubt don’t throw it out.”
② In Luke 10:42, Papyrus 45 and the Byzantine Text share the
same word-order that is not supported in the flagship manuscripts of the
Alexandrian or Western forms of
the text. In addition, where there is
damage to Papyrus 45, Papyrus 75 has the Greek equivalent of the word “from”
before “her” at the end of the verse, agreeing with the Byzantine Text. “From” is not supported by Vaticanus, Sinaiticus,
or Bezae.
③ In Luke 11:12, Papyrus
45 and the Byzantine Text share the same word-order at the beginning of the
verse. The Alexandrian Text has a
different reading and the Western Text has another different reading.
④ In Luke 11:33, Papyrus 45 and the Byzantine Text have the
Greek word φέγγος instead of the word φως,
which is in Vaticanus, Sinaiticus, and Bezae.
I note that in the Society of Biblical Literature’s Greek New Testament, compiled by Michael Holmes, φέγγος has been
adopted.
⑤ In Luke 12:5, Papyrus 45 supports the same word-order
found in the Byzantine Text. Vaticanus
and Sinaiticus and Bezae have the opposite word-order.
⑥ In Luke 12:22, Papyrus 45 and the Byzantine Text include
a word that means “to you.” Vaticanus
and Sinaiticus and Bezae do not.
⑦ In Luke 12:30, Papyrus
45 has a reading that is in the Byzantine Text but Vaticanus and Sinaiticus
have a longer reading, and Codex D has a shorter reading.
⑧ In Luke 12:31, Papyrus
45 and the Byzantine Text refer to the kingdom of God . Vaticanus, Sinaiticus, and Bezae refer to “His
kingdom,” and Papyrus 75 refers to just the kingdom.
Also worth mentioning is a reading
in Luke 11:13 where the text refers to “good gifts.” Papyrus 45 and the Textus Receptus share the same word-order here. Yes; in Luke 11:13, the reading in the Textus Receptus is supported by the
oldest manuscript of the passage, against the flagship manuscripts of the
Alexandrian, Western, and Byzantine forms of the text.
These are the kinds of readings – in
manuscripts made before Lucian – that researcher Harry Sturz collected and
listed by the dozens in a dissertation in 1967, just a few years after Bruce
Metzger had written that it is a fact
that Lucian of Antioch made the Byzantine Text.
Sturz’s findings were eventually
published as a book, The Byzantine
Text-type & New Testament Textual Criticism. Sturz showed that not only Papyrus 45, but also Papyrus 46, Papyrus 66,
Papyrus 75, and others, share some readings with the Byzantine Text that are not
supported in the flagship manuscripts that represent the Alexandrian and
Western Text.
This demonstrates that it is incorrect
to assume that readings which only have Byzantine support ought to be set aside
as late readings. But this assumption is at the very foundation of the
approach used by Westcott and Hort. Hort
did not have any of these papyri. If he
had, he would not have proposed that non-Alexandrian, non-Western
readings in the Byzantine Text are no earlier than the lifetime of Lucian of
Antioch.
It is interesting to note that in lecture 13 Brother James Snapp presents evidence to disprove the idea that all Byzantine text are late and therefore of no value for text critical considerations. Brother James White makes a rather emphatic statement in one of his videos that had Dean Burgon knew of the Papyri he would have come to different conclusions in favor of the Alexandrian text, as if the discovery of the papyri is the single most important evidence AGIANST the conclusions of Dean Burgon. Both scholars can't be right, thanks brother Snapp for presenting evidence for the antiquity of the Byzantine text. Obviously more research and study is needed for scholars to come to a agreement based on all the evidence.
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