The Date of Easter and Early Lection-Cycles

         

Constantine

  In the year 325, Roman Emperor Constantine convened the Council of Nicea.  This council, attended by 318 bishops from all over the empire, focused on the subject of the nature of Christ. (The number 318, drawn from Genesis 14:14, was considered to have a special meaning, since in Greek gematria the letters ΤΙΗ (tau, iota, eta) have a total value of 318, and are also, visually, the shape of a cross plus the first two letters in Jesus’ name.) 

The result of this council was the Nicene Creed, which declared, among other things, that Jesus was “very God of very God, begotten, not made.”  This meant that Arius – the Egyptian cleric whose controversial teachings had elicited the council – was wrong in his insistence that there was a time when the Logos did not exist.

            Something else was also addressed at the Council of Nicea.  It was not the New Testament canon, contrary to the fictitious gobbledegook that has been spread by The Da Vinci Code and similar books.  It was the date of Easter.

            When the early church first celebrated the resurrection of Christ, their celebration coincided with the Jewish Passover.  A vestige of this arrangement can still be found in the King James Version in Acts12:4:  the Passover-festival is referred to as Easter.  In this passage the KJV’s translators did not intend to convey that the Jewish ruler Herod was celebrating the Christian holy day of Easter or that he was celebrating some pagan holiday.  They simply retained the rendering that had been made almost 90 years earlier by William Tyndale, who also coined the term “Passover,” a term which eventually caught on and facilitated the recognition of the two holidays as separate events.  (Tyndale’s English version repeatedly refers to the Passover as “Easter,” even in episodes in the Gospels that precede the death and resurrection of Christ.)  

            Some Christians had a special annual celebration of the Lord’s resurrection on the same day as the Jewish Passover.  Others, though, celebrated Holy Week annually with the Lord’s resurrection always observed on a Sunday.  This difference had persisted for a long time – ever since the days of the students of the apostles.  In Ignatius’ closing comments in his Letter to the Philippians, he stated that whoever observes the Passover with the Jews or receives the emblems of their feast is a partaker with those who killed the Lord and His apostles - quite a heavy denunciation, though it is unclear if Ignatius was referring to merely celebrating the Lord’s resurrection at the same time the Jews celebrated Passover, or to participating in the Judaic Passover observance itself. 
            Hippolytus, in Book 8 of his lengthy composition Refutation of All Heresies, firmly opposed those who celebrated Easter on the 14th of the month; yet even though he called them heretics, he acknowledged that in other regards they kept the apostolic faith and traditions. 

Hippolytus

            Eusebius of Caesarea (a participant in the Council of Nicea who tended to sympathize with Arius, but not too vocally) described the controversy that arose in the 100’s, in his Ecclesiastical History, Book 5, chapters 24-25.

            Congregations in Asia (i.e., western Turkey), Eusebius reported, customarily observed a tradition that the resurrection of Christ corresponded annually with the Jewish Passover (the 14th day of the month Nisan), whether it was a Sunday or not.   But in other places, including Jerusalem and Rome, it was customary to always celebrate the resurrection of Christ on a Sunday – and the leaders of those places wrote to the churches in Asia, appealing to them to alter their custom.

               Polycrates, a leader in the Asian churches, responded with a letter – Eusebius cited it specifically and presented its contents – in which he stated that Philip the evangelist, John the apostle, Polycarp the martyr, Melito of Sardis, and others (including relatives of Polycrates) had all observed the resurrection of Christ on the 14th of the month – and he had no intention of deviating from that tradition. 

             In 193, Victor, bishop of Rome, initially resolved to excommunicate Polycrates and everyone who agreed with him.  This course of action was averted, though, by advice given by several other bishops – one of whom was none other than the renowned Irenaeus of Lyons. 

            Eusebius presented a snippet of Irenaeus’ letter, which has a remarkably conciliatory tone.  Irenaeus advised Victor of Rome that the disagreement involved not only the annual date, but also details about the length of the fast that preceded it.  To excommunicate people over such details would not look good.  In addition, Irenaeus pointed out, earlier generations of Christians had not condemned one another over this issue; their inactivity implied that they did not consider it something worth separating about:

            “This variety in its observance,” Irenaeus wrote, “has not originated in our time, but long before in that of our ancestors.  It is likely that they did not hold to strict accuracy, and thus formed a custom for their posterity according to their own simplicity and peculiar mode.  Yet all of these lived nonetheless in peace, and we also live in peace with one another.”

            And there is more.  In the composition by Irenaeus presented by Eusebius, Irenaeus mentions that Polycarp, when he was at Rome, disagreed with Anicetus (apparently about when to celebrate Easter), and neither could persuade the other – so they agreed to disagree.

              The agreement to disagree effectively ended, though, at Nicea.  The Quartodecimanians – those who observed Easter on the 14th of the month – were summarily denounced.  The exact wording of the decree at Nicea about this is unknown, but in 341 at the the Council of Antioch, a decree was issued which, in the course of affirming the Council of Nicea, stated that bishops who observed the Lord’s resurrection at the same time as the Jews (that is, on the 14th of Nisan) were to be relieved of duty. 

            With the Quartodeciman tradition thus rejected, a consensus emerged that Easter was to be observed annually on the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after the vernal equinox.  The details of this approach were probably based on the Paschal Canon of Anatolius of Alexandria (from A.D. 270).  Alas, even this objective calculation has not resulted in uniformity among all churches, due to the effects of the different calendars that have been retained as the basis for the calculation.  This year (2018), Passover-week is March 31- April 6, and Easter Sunday is April 1 (although for the Orthodox Churches it is April 8).  (Panos Antsalkis of the University of Notre Dame explains it all in a detailed essay.)

            “Fascinating,” you may be thinking, “but what does all that have to do with the text of the New Testament?”

            The thing to see is that an annual cycle of Easter-observance emerged very early, and became entrenched very quickly, in the first half of the 100s.  It seems very likely that other annual observances spread at the same time and that this elicited the early emergence of lection-cycles.  In the case of the annual feast of Pentecost, Christian observance of Pentecost is mentioned not only in the New Testament book of Acts, but also in the anonymous second-century composition Epistula Apostolorum (which also mentions the Easter celebration). 

Tertullian, writing in Latin in North Africa in the late 100’s or early 200’s, mentioned Christians’ observance of Pentecost in chapter 23 of his composition On Prayer:  “We, however – just as we have received – only on the day of the Lord’s resurrection ought to guard not only against kneeling, but every posture and office of solicitude; deferring even our businesses lest we give any place to the devil.  Similarly, to, in the period of Pentecost, which period we distinguish by the same solemnity of exultation.”

Not only was the Day of Pentecost a special occasion from the sub-apostolic era onward, but the whole fifty-day period from Eastertime to Pentecost was considered a special period of celebration.  Evidence of this is provided in Tertullian’s allusion to Pentecost in the third chapter of his composition On the Soldier’s Crown, in the course of referring to activities which in his time were already regarded as traditional practices:  “We consider fasting or kneeling in worship on the Lord’s Day to be unlawful.  We rejoice in the same privilege also from Easter to Pentecost.” 

Slightly later, Origen mentioned Christians’ annual observance of Pentecost too, in Against Celsus, Book 8, chapter 22:

“If it be objected to us on this subject that we ourselves are accustomed to observe certain days, as for example the Lord’s Day, the Preparation, the Passover, or Pentecost, I have to answer that to the perfect Christian, who is constantly in his thoughts, words, and deeds serving his natural Lord, God the Word, all his days are the Lord’s, and he is always keeping the Lord’s Day.”

He continued in chapter 23:  “But the majority of those who are accounted believers are not of this advanced class; but because they are either unable or unwilling to keep every day in this manner, they require some sensible memorials to prevent spiritual things from passing altogether away from their minds.”

The early establishment of annual Christian festivals provided a setting in which it was almost inevitable that specific passages were assigned to be read on specific days.  This established the basic building-blocks of what eventually became annual cycles of lectionary-readings – reading-cycles that were initially independent and localized (like the manner in which Easter was observed), but which gradually became more uniform.

John Burgon, in his 1871 book The Last Twelve Verses of Mark Vindicated, pointed out some readings in early manuscripts which, he proposed, are early adaptations of the text made at the beginning or ends of lections to either introduce, or to round off, the episode.  Not all of his examples seem persuasive, but the following are interesting and suggestive:    

● Matthew 8:13.  A small assortment of manuscripts has an extra sentence attached to this verse:  “And the centurion returned to his house, and in that hour the servant was made whole.”  If these manuscripts were all medieval, this reading would likely be dismissed as a harmonization to the parallel in Luke 7:10, intended to round off a lection.  And, indeed, this verse concludes the lection for the fifth Sunday after Pentecost in the Byzantine lectionary-cycle.  But that small assortment of manuscripts includes Codex Sinaiticus (from the mid-300s) and several other uncials. 

● Mark 14:3.  Codex D (05, Codex Bezae) inserts Jesus’ name.  Codex Bezae’s text includes so many little expansions that one might argue that it is a mere coincidence that this one occurs at the beginning of the lection for the seventeenth Friday after Easter.  

● Luke 7:1.  Codex D basically rewrites the verse, which happens to begin the lection for the fifth Saturday after Pentecost.

● Luke 4:16.  Codex D (and F and G and 579) insert Jesus’ name in the first part the verse; this happens to be the beginning of the lection for first Thursday after Pentecost. 

● Luke 5:17.  Codex D rewrites the verse, which happens to begin the lection for the second Saturday after Pentecost.

● Luke 16:19.  Codex D reads “And He spoke another parable,” which could be an arbitrarily made harmonization, but which interlocks snugly with Burgon’s idea that the purpose for the harmonization at this particular point was to serve as a lection-incipit, that is, one of the brief phrases with which lectors introduced the daily reading.

● John 14:1.  Codex D begins the verse with “And He said to His disciples,” which looks very much like an lection-incipit, that is, one of the brief phrases with which lectors introduced the daily reading.  As it turns out, a lection does indeed begin at this exact point; in the Byzantine lectionary John 14:1-10 is the lection for the sixth Friday after Easter.      

Lectionary 152,
       from the 900s.

Burgon also proposed, in the same book, an interesting theory about Codex Bezae’s unusual reading in Mark 14:41, το τέλος και (between ἀπέχει and ηωρα):  “Nothing else has happened here,” Burgon proposed, “but that a marginal note, designed originally to indicate the end (το τέλος) of the lesson for the third day of the second week of the Carnival, has lost its way from the end of verse 42, and got thrust into the text of verse 41.”  Burgon noted that this reading is supported by the Peshitta, by the Old Latin, and by the Philoxenian version – which would mean that this quarter of witnesses echoes a yet-earlier ancestor; Burgon proposed that such an ancestral text came from the 100s.

Willker’s Textual Commentary on the Greek Gospels confirms that το τέλος Or its non-Greek counterparts) is in the text of Mark 14:41 not only in Codex D but also in Codex W (ἀπέχει το τέλος ἰδου ηλθεν) and Codex Θ (ἀπέχητο· το τέλος ηλθεν), as well as 0233, family 13 (a small cluster of MSS that share an earlier ancestor-copy), 565, 713, 1071, lectionary 844, and the Armenian version and one Georgian copy, and that it is not only supported by the Peshitta but also by the Siniatic Syriac and the Harklean Syriac – plus several Old Latin manuscripts including Codex Vercellensis (which probably was produced in the 370s). 

Willker also observes that in the margin of Codex Vaticanus at this point there is a distigme (that is, a symbo resembling an umlaut which conveys that the person who added it was aware of a textual variant in the line of text that it accompanies – though there is some debate about the date at which this person worked) and that not only Burgon, but also Scrivener advocated the theory that το τέλος had first entered the margin to signal the end of a lection before being blended into the text of Mark 14:41, and that later copyists and translators tackled it in their own ways. 
A consultation of a footnote on page 76 of the first volume of the 1894 edition of Scrivener’s Plain Introduction confirms that Scrivener regarded Codex D’s readings in Luke 16:19 and John 14:1 as lection-incipits, and he also says that the το τέλος in Mark 14:41 “probably has the same origin.”  Yet Burgon, in chapter 12 of Causes of Corruption (written some time after his defense of Mark 16:9-20), explained the presence of το τέλος as a slight expansion, rather than as an insertion of stray marginalia, stating in a footnote that he retracted unreservedly what he had proposed in The Last Twelve Verses of Mark regarding this variant.      

Hort, in his 1881 Notes on Select Readings, proposed that το τέλος was added not as a lost lection-ending note, but as an attempted harmonization drawn from Luke 22:37, where Jesus – still in the upper room – states that the prophecies about Him are being fulfilled, that is, reaching their end (καὶ γαρ το περι εμου τελος εχει).  This seems unlikely, inasmuch as a harmonizer would have no motive to be so frugal.

Metzger resorted to the guess that a copyist was puzzled by the somewhat rare ἀπέχει (or thought that the readers of their manuscripts would be puzzled) and added το τέλος to add clarity – but it seems to me that this would be far down any clarity-prioritizing copyist’s list of options. 

The presence of such phenomena in Codex Bezae and in the Old Latin copies is especially interesting because these particular witnesses tend to echo the Western text that circulated widely in the latter half of the 100s.  The case that the variants in the list just given show the influence of early lection-cycles might not be irresistible, but it is strong, and the inference from this is that the influence of basic lection-cycles involving the main annual Christian feasts should not be casually dismissed as a possible cause of textual variants that emerged as early as the 100s, when the bishop of Rome, until cooler heads prevailed, was willing to excommunicate fellow Christians because they would not celebrate Easter at the same time he did. 
            C. R. Gregory – the scholar whose name is recalled whenever textual critics refer to manuscripts by their Gregory-Aland numbers – theorized that specific passages were assigned for Sundays “at an extremely early date.”  Although it was a matter of centuries before lections were collected into  separate volumes, nothing precludes the idea that on the major Christian feasts, and particularly for the period from the beginning of Easter-week to Pentecost, specific passages were assigned to specific days.  (This may have even been the custom in the time of Justin Martyr, who mentioned in the 67th chapter of his First Apology that Christians gathered on the day called Sunday and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets were read, as long as time permitted, before a sermon and the observance of the Lord’s Supper.)    
This factor – the influence of lection-cycles – should be considered not only when evaluating the variant-units mentioned earlier, but also some other variant-units, including Luke 22:43-44 and John 7:53-8:11.


[Readers are encouraged to explore the embedded links in this essay which lead to additional resources.]

Michael Brown and the Elephant in the Room

[Note for newcomers:  I am most definitely NOT a KJV-Onlyist.]

  

            Recently, Dr. Michael Brown, on The Line of Fire radio show, made an episode which, at first, targeted King-James-Onlyism, but which quickly shifted so as to target the King James Version itself.  His primary objection against the KJV was that its language is unfamiliar to people nowadays.  He stated, “What may have been an accurate translation then will not convey the same thing today.”  Of course that is true, where archaic terms and obsolete grammar is concerned – but that is an effect of the natural development of the English language in the past 400 years; it does not reflect upon the quality of the translation itself. 

            To illustrate:  if someone were to read about dissolving political bands in the Declaration of Independence and conclude that U2 was breaking up, the Declaration of Independence would not be to blame.  When readers approach a 400-year old text, it is their responsibility to take its age into consideration when interpreting it.  The chronological distance between 1611 and 2017 makes the King James Version more difficult to understand, but it does not necessarily make it erroneous.

            The accuracy of the KJV can only be measured fairly when it is measured in light of the meaning of words in 1611, and in light of the text upon which it was based.  Dr. Brown seemed to grant this when he provided two examples of terms in the KJV that meant one thing in 1611, but which mean something else in 2017:  the term “meat” – which could refer to food in general, including grains and fruits – and the term “study,” which was intended, just as Dr. Brown said, to mean, “Do your best,” or to exercise diligence when pursuing a particular goal. 

            So, when someone interprets the term “meat offerings” as if the cooked flesh of an animal must be involved, and when someone interprets “study” as if the word necessarily involves peering into a book, the error does not emanate from the KJV.  The error emanates from the reader’s failure to perceive what those particular words meant in 1611.  A simple glossary of the KJV’s archaic terms can greatly lower the risk of this sort of misimpression. 

            When Dr. Brown turned to the King James Version’s use of the word “Easter” in Acts 12:4, he called it an error.  However, a careful investigation shows that the term “Easter,” in the early 1600’s, was synonymous with “Passover.”  Dr. Brown said, “The Greek does not say ‘Easter.’  The Greek says ‘The Passover.’” 

            The term “Passover” was an invention of William Tyndale.  If you were to take in hand Tyndale’s translation of the New Testament, you would see that he freely interchanged the term “Easter” and his own new word “Passover.”  One example should suffice:  in Matthew 26:18-19, in Tyndale’s translation, Jesus tells His disciples to go into the city and deliver the message “I will kepe Myne ester at thy housse with my disciples,” – “and the disciples did as Iesus had apoynted them, and made redy the ester-lambe.” [Bold print added to make the reference super effective.] 

       
            So it should be plain as day that the KJV’s “Easter” in Acts 12:4 is not an error; it means the same thing that the versions which refer to the end of the Passover-feast mean:  that Herod intended to wait until after the last day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread before having Peter executed.  Dr. Brown said, “To say ‘Easter’ is 100% inaccurate and misleading.  It’s a mistake.”  However, what he has perceived as an error is really just another case of obsolete language.

            Likewise, Dr. Brown charged the KJV with error because the term didaskalos” is translated in the KJV as “Master,” rather than as “Teacher,” apparently unaware that in 1611, the term “master” was entirely capable of referring to a teacher.  (An echo of this usage is still retained in the term “schoolmaster.”)

            What were the other prime examples of errors in the KJV?  Dr. Brown said that instead of referring to “devils,” the KJV should refer to “demons.”  But does anyone imagine that the KJV’s use of the word “devils” is really confusing?  As confusing as using four English Bibles translated from four base-texts using four different translation-techniques?    

            A few of Dr. Brown’s other examples are more convincing:

            ● Readers could be spared some confusion if the King James Version’s translators had not used the term “unicorn.”  However, the KJV’s preface (The Translators to the Reader) specifically cautions readers against putting too much weight on their renderings of rare terms for animals, plants, and minerals.  Plus, the precise meaning of the Hebrew term re’em that is often translated as “wild ox” is still a matter of debate – it might be a wild ox, or the extinct buffalo-like animal known as the aurochs, or the rhinoceros.  From before the time of Christ, this term has been translated as if it refers to a one-horned animal (a real one, not a mythical bearded goat-horse thing), and the KJV’s translators deferred to the traditional understanding of the term, cautioning their readers not to treat this rendering dogmatically.

            ● Dr. Brown’s objection against the KJV’s artificially plural term “cherubims” seems entirely valid. 

            ● The text of First Kings 18:37 in the KJV could be made more literal by reading “Answer me” rather than “Hear me.” 

            ● Another inaccuracy in the KJV, Dr. Brown said, is found in Psalm 84:  “Psalm 84:  one of the verses that I grew up loving was, ‘Blessed be the Lord our God, who daily loadeth us with benefits’ in the King James.”  Dr. Brown was recollecting Psalm 68:19, not anything in Psalm 84.  His point (minus the mistaken reference) seems valid; more recent versions render the Hebrew phrase as “who bears our burdens,” or “who bears us up.”

            Dr. Brown put a microscope to the text, symbolically speaking, and found an error in how the KJV treats the Greek word exousian in Luke 10:19.  He also objected against translating the word ekklesia as “church.”  Another “major example” of errors he has found in the KJV is its use of two different words (“weakness” and “infirmities”) to represent the same Greek word in Second Corinthians 12:9.  

            In these cases, he may have a technical point, but it’s like watching an archer hit the bullseye, and having a referee say that the arrow didn’t hit the very center of the bullseye, so it’s not close enough and the archer might as well have missed the whole target.   If one were to put such a yardstick alongside the NASB, NIV, ESV, etc., then one could identify hundreds of such “errors,” every time there is no distinction between the singular and plural pronouns, and every time the word και (and) is not represented, and every time a proper name is put in place of a pronoun, and so forth.
            Dr. Brown also proposed that if a team of the King James version’s scholars had been able to sit down to improve the translation 20 years after its initial publication, they would have changed passages such as Acts 12:4 and Luke 10:19.  History stands in the way of Dr. Brown’s theory:  in 1638, some scholars who had served on the KJV’s translation-committees (John Bois and Samuel Ward) did tidy up the text of the KJV – and they did not change those passages. 

            And then . . . 

THE ELEPHANT ENTERS THE ROOM

            About 21 minutes into his presentation, Dr. Brown brought up manuscript-related issues, even though initially he had said that he would set that sort of thing aside.  

            In the fourth segment of the presentation, the manuscript-base of the KJV’s New Testament text came up again when Charles from Tennessee called the show and pointed out that “The bigger issue is actually the textual issue,” and that modern translations treat Mark 16:9-20 in ways that call it into question.  Charles also alluded to the enormous amount of manuscript-evidence in favor of Mark 16:9-20, and to the features in Vaticanus and Sinaiticus which indicate that their copyists were aware of Mark 16:9-20 “and willingly omitted it.”  Finally, Charles asked Dr. Brown, “Would you recommend any version that brackets or negates the ending of a Gospel, that basically removes the resurrection-account of Christ?”

            In reply, Dr. Brown first said that if one feels a certain way about the manuscripts, one should use the NKJV or MEV – but then he said (referring to Mark 16:9-20), “We know that that was not the original ending of Mark.  The vocabulary is totally different.”

            Charles responded that he had read Burgon’s book on the last 12 verses of Mark.

            Dr. Brown responded that Burgon’s book “has been refuted many times over.”  Yet he failed to name any specific refutation of Burgon’s book; instead, he recommended reading D. A. Carson’s book (The King James Version Debate: A Plea for Realism) and James White’s book (The King James Only Controversy), too – “They’ll help you there.”  Those who have read Carson’s book may wonder what Brown was talking about, since Carson specifically says in A Plea for Realism, on page 65, “I am not here arguing for or against the authenticity of Mark 16:9-20.”  White’s book is also remarkably unhelpful for people looking for accurate information about the external evidence pertinent to the ending of Mark – and concludes its discussion of Mark 16:9-20 with the affirmation that “Every translation should provide the passage” as well as mention “that there is good reason to doubt the authenticity of the passage as well.”  Well, that clears things up, eh.  (I contend in my book Authentic:  The Case for Mark 16:9-20 that with patristic support for Mark 16:9-20 from the 100’s, and with over 99.9% of the Greek manuscript-evidence supporting the inclusion of the passage, across all text-types and across many locales, such a definite maybe is not the best we can do.)  

           

            Dr. Brown then reaffirmed, “We don’t have the original ending to Mark’s Gospel.”  But he added that Mark 16:9-20 was “received by the church, and I personally am happy to use it.”

            Wait, WHAT?!  Dr. Brown just said that Mark 16:9-20 is not part of the original text, but he is happy to use it.  Happy to use it as what?  As if it is Scripture, or as if it is the work of some non-inspired person in the second century? 

            Dr. Brown recommended reading good commentaries on Mark to get the details about the ending; unfortunately he did not name any specific commentaries.  Then, after mentioning First John 5:7 again, he reminded himself that he had said that he wouldn’t be debating about the manuscripts – and again told his listeners that if they are at home with the Textus Receptus, “then by all means use the New King James, or the Modern English Version.”  (This seems a little inconsistent, since the NKJV has some of the same features – in Psalm 68:19 and Second Corinthians 12:9, for example – that Dr. Brown called errors.)

            Thirty-four minutes into the show’s video, Dr. Brown tried to reframe the narrative after Charles’ lively contribution to the discussion – but manuscripts were clearly still on his mind:  at one point he started a sentence with “Putting the manuscript debate aside” but continued, “don’t we want a translation . . . that has better manuscript evidence?”. 

           

            I don’t think that there is much of a chance that Dr. Brown will persuade any King-James-Onlyists that they are on the wrong track, as long as he pretends that the textual matters do not matter.  Most people who are willing to learn the archaic language of the KJV are not the sort of people who are going to be satisfied knowing that they have acquired the basic doctrinal message of the Bible; they want the full counsel of God, with no adulteration.  Few and far between are those individuals who would abandon the status of the KJV, the textual stability of the KJV, and the familiarity of the KJV, in order to be rid of the trivial inaccuracies listed by Dr. Brown.  One might as well invite people to kill their Cocker Spaniel in order to get rid of a few fleas.

            There are still some KJV-Onlyists who insist that the KJV’s translators themselves were as inspired as the apostles and prophets, but that is not where the momentum of the KJV-Only movement is going.  Increasingly, KJV-Onlyists (such as Samuel Gipp and David Sorenson) are making textual issues the centerpiece of their case.  To insist that all the essential doctrine is still there in the Alexandrian base-text of the NIV, ESV, NLT, etc., and that that makes it okay to select either the Textus Receptus or the Nestle-Aland compilation with as much consideration as one uses to select ice cream flavors, while it is spectacularly obvious that the differences between the two yield dozens of interpretive differences, is to insult the intelligence of one’s listeners.