Video Lecture 15: Numerals in Greek New Testament Manuscripts

         

Lecture 15:  Numerals                 

  In Lecture 15 of my ongoing series of video-lectures on YouTube, I discuss Greek numerals, and describe several textual variants in which numerals are involved, at John 19:14, Luke 24:13, Mark 6:41, Acts 27:37, Luke 10:1 and 10:17, Acts 13:33, and Revelation 13:18.

        

               I also describe the Eusebian Canons, and mention a few points in the text where they indicate what kind of text Eusebius was using when he made them.
                (27 minutes 10 seconds) 

An excerpt:

            Before we focus the next two lectures on two major textual variants, there is one small concern that still needs to be covered:  textual variants that involve Greek numerals.  In Greek, numerals were not always written out in full; in some manuscripts, they were represented by letters of the Greek alphabet that represented specific quantities.        

            This was not some sort of secret code; this was the ordinary way of writing numerals in Greek.  This chart shows the 24 usual letters of the Greek alphabet, expanded by the inclusion of three extra letters stau (or, digamma), koppa,  and sampi.  Arranged in three rows of 9 letters, you can see the numerical value that was assigned to each letter: 

Α = 1          Ι = 10          Ρ = 100

Β = 2          Κ = 20        Σ = 200

Γ = 3          Λ = 30        Τ = 300

Δ = 4          Μ = 40       Υ = 400

Ε = 5          Ν = 50        Φ = 500

Ϝ, ϛ = 6      Ξ = 60        Χ = 600

Ζ = 7          Ο = 70        Ψ = 700

Η = 8          Π = 80        Ω, ω = 800

Θ = 9          Ϙ, Ϟ = 90   ϡ = 900

             A horizontal line was added above these letters to show that they were being used as numerals.  Using these letters to represent quantities, any sum from 1 to 999 could be written using no more than three letters.

            With a mark to the lower left of a letter, it signified an amount of thousands.  In manuscripts, large numbers sometimes appear in colophons, or notes, at the end of a book, where they refer to the year in which the manuscript was made.  The standard dating-method in colophons was not a calculation of the number of years from the birth of Christ, but a calculation of the number of years from the creation of the world, which was believed to have happened in 5,508 B.C.  So if we were to encounter a Greek manuscript with a colophon stating that the manuscript was made in the 6,508^th year of the world, we would probably feel justified if we gave it a production-date around the year 1000.

One of the earliest textual variants mentioned by a patristic writer involves the numerals in Mark 15:25 and John 19:14.  Mark 15:25 says, “Now it was the third hour when they crucified Him,” that is, about 9:00 in the morning.  But in John 19:14, John states that it was “about the sixth hour” when Pilate was yet to deliver a sentence regarding Jesus’ case, before he finally handed Jesus over to be crucified in verse 16. 

            Some interpreters have reckoned that John used a different method of hour-counting, starting at midnight, whereas for Mark,  the day have 12 hours and began at the beginning of hour #1.  Thus Pilate could be making his decision at around the sixth hour – 6:00 a.m. – and after he handed Jesus over to be crucified, some time elapsed, during which Jesus was whipped, given a crown of thorns, beaten, and mocked, and was led through the streets of Jerusalem, until, at about the third hour – 9:00 a.m. – He was crucified. 

            But a different solution was proposed by the early writer Ammonius, whose proposal was later echoed by Eusebius of Caesarea in the early 300s, and by Epiphanius of Salamis in the late 300s, and by Jerome.  Ammonius explained that whereas the letter gamma ought to be written, representing the number “three,” so as to refer to the third hour, a copyist wrote the similar-looking letter “gabex,” or digamma, so as to refer instead to the sixth hour. 

Epiphanius indicates that Clement of Alexandria and Origen endorsed this solution to the harmonization-problem.  It is also attributed to Peter of Alexandria, who was martyred in 311.  In Peter of Alexandria’s testimony, preserved in very late manuscripts as part of the Chronicon Paschale, it is stated that in the text that was written by the hand of the evangelist, which is still preserved at Ephesus, and is adored there by the faithful, the reading in John 19:14 is “about the third hour,” and this is the reading in the correct books.

 We don’t know if Peter of Alexandria was making an informed statement or not, but this is interesting evidence no matter how you slice it.  In a small number of manuscripts, the text in John 19:14 supports the reading “the third hour,” including Codex L, Codex Delta, and minuscule 72.  It is significant that in the vast majority of manuscripts, copyists did not give in to the temptation to alter a single letter, or numeral, and thus remove the apparent difficulty. 

Another interesting textual variant involving a numeral occurs in Luke 24:13:  how far was the distance between Jerusalem and Emmaus?  The reading “60 stadia” has broad and early support, and represents a distance of a little less than seven miles.  Codices Vaticanus, Alexandrinus, Bezae, Codex W, and most minuscules support this reading, along with the Vulgate, the Peshitta, and the Sahidic versions.  The copyist of Papyrus 75 wrote “60” as an overlined letter, Ξ (chi). 

But some manuscripts, including Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Π, support the reading “160 stadia.”  This was also initially the reading in Codex N.  It is supported by the Armenian version, by the Palestinian Aramaic version, by  the Latin Codex Fuldensis, from the mid-500s, by a small number of Greek minuscules, and by a significant cluster of Arabic manuscripts, and it is endorsed by a margin-note in minuscule 34.

This reading probably reflects a belief that the city of Nicopolis and the village of Emmaus were the same place.  Nicopolis had been destroyed by forces under the Roman general Quintilius Varus in 4 B.C., and it was rebuilt after a group of citizens, led by the patristic writer Julius Africanus, successfully petitioned for its restoration in the days of the emperors Elaga-balus and Severus Alexander, in the 220s and early 230s. 

            Writing after this restoration of the city, Eusebius of Caesarea advocated the view that Nicopolis and Emmaus are the same place in his composition Onomasticon.  Jerome, who made a Latin translation of Eusebius’ Onomasticon, expressed the same view in his Epistle 108 and in his composition Lives of Illustrious Men.  However, 160 stadia is more than 18 miles.   That is a long distance for two people to cover in an afternoon, walking from Jerusalem, and then cover again in the evening, going back to Jerusalem – but it is possible. 

             The view that Nicopolis and Emmaus were synonymous was not exclusive to Caesarea, but seeing it supported in Codex Sinaiticus augments the case that Codex Sinaiticus was produced in that location.

Another interesting textual variant involving numerals appears in Mark 6:41.  The original text, with very broad support, refers specifically to the five loaves and the two fish.  But in Papyrus 45, for some reason, the copyist did not write “five” and he did not write “two” in this verse, even though his text does include the same numbers in verse 38.  Possibly in his exemplar, these words were written as numbers, and the lines above the numerals were very short, and he misunderstood them as if they were dots, that is, as if they were marks that meant, “do not write this.”

Codex Vaticanus is another important manuscript with an unusual reading involving a numeral.  In Acts 27:37, where most manuscripts state that there were 276 souls on board the ship that was about to be shipwrecked.  Codex Vaticanus, however, has “about seventy-six” written out in full.   This is also supported by the Sahidic version.  What has happened here? 

John Burgon perceived the answer:  basically, after a transposition of the words in this part of the verse, the number 276, written as a numeral, that is, as Sigma, Omicron, Stau, followed the phrase “in the ship.”   The letter omega, and the end of the word for “ship,” ploíw, was misread as if it was part of a word, hōs, meaning, “about,” and this left the overlined letters omicron, 70, and stau, six, creating the reading “about 76.”

Burgon also noted, from a common-sense perspective, “Although one might say, ‘about seventy,’ or ‘about eighty,’ is it not obvious to everyone that ‘about 76’ is an impossible expression?”  Fortunately, although Westcott and Hort adopted Vaticanus’ reading, against all other Greek evidence, Burgon’s cogent case against Vaticanus’ reading was favored by later writers, including F. F. Bruce and Bruce Metzger.

Another textual variant that involves numerals is in Luke chapter 10, in verses 1 and 17:  does the Lord sent out 70 individuals, or 72?  The Byzantine reading, 70, is supported by Codex Alexandrinus, Codex W, and almost all other Greek manuscripts.  The Western reading, 72, is supported by Codex Bezae, most of the Old Latin copies, and probably by the Sinaitic Syriac.  The Alexandrian witnesses are divided:  Sinaiticus and Codex C and Codex L support “70,” but Vaticanus and Papyrus 75 support “72.”

Papyrus 45 is not extant in Luke 10:1, but it is extant in verse 17.  Unfortunately, its testimony was misrepresented when the manuscript was first published, and the first printings of the 28^th edition of the Nestle-Aland text continued to misrepresent it, as if it supports “72.”  This mistake was only recently corrected.  In real life, Papyrus 45 supports “70,” as Bruce Metzger has observed:  the letter Omicron, representing “70,” is not followed by another numeral, but by an ordinary space-filling mark.       

The early writer Tertullian also supports “70,” and he drew a parallel to the numbers in Exodus 15:27, in his composition Against Marcion, at the beginning of chapter 24 of Book 4.  Tertullian says that the 12 springs of water at Elim correspond to the 12 apostles, and the 70 palm trees at Elim correspond to the 70 disciples.

The scope of the support for the reading “70” is sufficient to decide the question.  “72” probably originated as an allegorical representation of the Gentile nations, as listed in the Septuagint in Genesis chapter 10. 

Another textual variation:  In Acts 13:33, where almost all Greek manuscripts say that Paul is quoting from the second Psalm, Codex Bezae says that Paul quoted from the first Psalm.  Somehow this reading survived to the early 1500s in the early editions of Erasmus’ Greek New Testament, and was featured in William Tyndale’s English translation in 1526.  It is indirectly supported by some patristic writers.  When Tertullian quoted Psalm 2:7 in Against Marcion, Book 4, chapter 22, he does not describe it as part of the second Psalm; he says that he is quoting from the first Psalm. 

The minority-reading in Codex D may echo the influence of an early tradition that what we know as Psalm 1 and Psalm 2 were considered a single Psalm, with what we know as Psalm 1 being a sort of Preface.  This tradition seems to have had an effect on how the Latin text of Psalms was arranged in the text used by Tertullian in the late 100s, and by Cyprian in the mid-200s, and even as late as the Venerable Bede in the late 600s and early 700s. 

            The best-supported Greek reading is clearly “the second Psalm.”  Some early translators of Acts into Latin probably were comfortable paraphrasing Paul’s reference so as to adopt the arrangement that he expected his readers to recognize.   

Seventh, the most famous textual variant in the New Testament that involves a numeral is without doubt the one that occurs in Revelation 13:18, where the number of the beast is given as 666 in most manuscripts, including Papyrus 47.  But in a few important copies, including Codex C and Papyrus 115, the number in Revelation 13:18 is “616,” written as chi-iota-stau. 

The early patristic writer Irenaeus made a detailed comment on this passage, in what may be the first mention of a textual variant, in Against Heresies, Book Four, chapters 29-30.

            Irenaeus made several guesses about the name that is represented with the numerical value of 666:  Euanthas was one guess, Lateinos was another one, and Teitan was another one.  This last possibility, Teitan, was the option preferred by Irenaeus, but he emphasized that it was only a guess, stating that if it were necessary for people in his time to know the name, it would have been revealed in John’s vision, instead of just the number of the name. 

Irenaeus thus shows that he used the text with “666,” because in each of these names, the value of the letters adds up to a total of six hundred and sixty and six.  And as if more evidence were needed, he also compared this number to Noah’s age before the floor (600 years) and the dimensions of Nebuchadnezzar’s idol in Daniel 3:1:  60 cubits high and 6 cubits wide.

In chapter 30 of Book 5 of Against Heresies, Irenaeus’ statements get even more detailed:  he affirms that 666 is the number that is found “in all the most approved and ancient copies,” and that it is endorsed by “those men who saw John face to face.”  When we consider that when Irenaeus wrote, the book of Revelation was less than 100 years old, this is extremely weighty testimony.

            Irenaeus also stated, “I do not know how it is that some have erred following the ordinary mode of speech, and have reduced the middle number in the name, deducting the amount of fifty from it, so that instead of six tens-units,  they will have it that there is but one.”  To put it another way, Irenaeus refers to approved and ancient copies that support “666,” but he also is aware of copies that have the reading “616.”

He says, “I am inclined to think that this occurred through the fault of the copyists, as it tends to happen, since numbers also are expressed by letters; so that the Greek letter which expresses the number sixty was easily expanded into the letter iota of the Greeks.”

Irenaeus does not say precisely how the letter chi (Xi, Ξ) be accidentally changed by copyists into iota.  Iota is a straight vertical line, like the letter “I,” but chi is very different. 

            It seems unlikely that a copyist could accidentally make 616 out of 666.  It may be more likely that someone believed that John was referring to the concept of “Nero redivivus,” a sort of urban legend that the Emperor Nero, who died in the year 68, was actually still alive and would one day return, leading an army from the east.  There are some references to this belief in the composition that is known as the Sibylline Oracles, and in about the year 420, Saint Augustine, in City of God, Book 20, mentions a belief that he regarded as an audacious conjecture: 

            Commenting on Second Thessalonians 2:7, Augustine stated that some individuals believe that this verse refers to Nero, whose deeds already seemed to be as the deeds of Antichrist.  And thus, he continues, “some suppose that he shall rise again and be Antichrist.  Others, again, suppose that he is not even dead, but that he was concealed that he might be supposed to have been killed, and that he now lives in concealment, in the vigor of the same age which he had reached when he was believed to have perished, and will live until he is revealed in his own time and restored to him kingdom.”

It is unlikely that anyone encountering the text of Revelation in Greek would stray from the reading “666,” which fits a pattern in which the Antichrist mimics the true Christ; the name “Jesus” in Greek has a numerical value of 888.  But someone encountering the text in some other language might look for an alternative explanation.  If one writes “Neron Caesar” in Hebrew consonants, their value adds up to 666.  If one drops the Hebrew letter nun, so as to correspond to a Latin form of Nero’s name, the name’s value thus decreases by 50, yielding the value of 616.

            This is a somewhat complicated theory.  But it might be how the reading “616” was created – via an interpretation that the Antichrist –  either literally or thematically or typologically or some other way – was expected to be the Emperor Nero.

Finally, a consideration of numerals in Greek New Testament manuscripts would be incomplete without a description of the Eusebian Canons and Sections.  Technically, the Eusebian Canons and Sections are part of the para-text, or meta-text – not part of the text itself.  They are a guide to cross-references in the Gospels. 

            At the beginning of many manuscripts of the Gospels, instead of jumping right into the text, and even before a chapter-list appears, there is a composition called “Ad Carpianus,” which is Eusebius’ brief explanation of how to use his cross-reference system for the Gospels.  In a few manuscripts this material is presented within a fairly unusual frame, shaped like a quatrefoil, or a symetrical rounded cross.  The Eusebian Canons and Ad Carpianus are included in the 27^th edition of the Nestle-Aland compilation.

Eusebius began by mentioning that he got the idea for a cross-reference system for the Gospels from Ammonius the Alexandrian, who had arranged the text of the Gospel of Matthew with the parallel-passages from the other Gospels alongside it.  Eusebius wanted to keep each Gospel-account intact, and so instead of dividing up the texts of Mark, Luke, and John, he gave each pericopé its own number, and then made a ten-part chart, in which the parallel-passage were listed, by their numbers, side by side.  

            There are ten parts to this list:
            ● The first one contains the list of passages for which there are parallels in Matthew Mark, Luke, and John.

            ● The second one lists passages, or sections, for which there are parallels in Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

            ● The third one lists passages for which there are parallels in Matthew, Luke, and John.

            ● The fourth lists passages for which there are parallels in Matthew, Mark, and John.

            ● The fifth lists passages for which there are parallels in Matthew and Luke.

            ● The sixth lists passages for which there are parallels in Matthew and Mark.

            ● The seventh lists passages for which there are parallels in Matthew and John.

            ● The eighth lists passages for which there are parallels in Mark and Luke.

            ● The ninth lists passages for which there are parallels in Luke and John.

            ● The tenth lists passages that do not have parallels, but which are unique in each Gospel.           

            The same numbers are written in the margin alongside each passage.  Accompanying these numbers, called the Section-numbers, is a Canon-number, written in red, which identifies the list, one through ten, in which the passage is found.  If you see a number from 1-10 in the margin written in red below the Section-number, you will know which list to consult to find the number of the passage. 

 

             So, if you open a Gospels-book to any passage, and want to see what the other Gospel-writers wrote about the same event, then after you find the Canon-number, written in red, you can consult that list, and see the numbers of the parallel-passages in the other Gospels.  Then by finding those numbers in the margins in those Gospels, you can read the parallel-passages themselves.  

 After this introductory guide, the Canon-Tables themselves occupy several pages.  These can be very plain, or in some cases spectacularly ornate, with complex colorful golden designs, and paintings of animals, birds, and other decorations in the margins.  In some cases the artistic effort that was given to the Eusebian Canons resulted in the theft of these pages, as works of ark.  The tradition of decorating the Eusebian Canons is abundantly shown not only in Greek manuscripts but also in Latin, Ethiopic, and, especially, Armenian manuscripts.

             Although Eusebius got the idea for a cross-reference system for the Gospels from the earlier writer Ammonius of Alexandria, he clearly did not closely follow Ammonius’ Matthew-centered system.  As John Burgon pointed out in 1871, in a detailed Appendix to his book about the last 12 verses of Mark, Canon 8 and Canon 9 cannot have been part of a Matthew-centered cross-reference system.  In addition, when it is noticed that Mark has 21 unique sections, Luke has 72 unique sections, John has 97 unique sections, and 24 sections are shared by Mark and Luke, and 21 sections are shared by Luke and John, this makes a total of 225 sections which have no parallel in Matthew and thus could not be part of a Matthew-centered cross-reference system.

The Eusebian Canons also have an impact on the testimony of Eusebius regarding the last 12 verses of Mark.  Eusebius is often quoted as if he said, in the composition Ad Marinum, that Mark 16:9-20 was absent from almost all manuscripts, but in real life, his statement is much more nuanced:  he wrote that that was one of several things that something that someone might say about the passage.  Eusebius himself instructed Marinus to retain the passage, and gave instructions about how Mark 16:9 was to be read, with a pause between “Rising” and “early on the first day of the week.”  And further along in the same composition, Eusebius quoted from Mark 16:9.  So, when he wrote Ad Marinum, Eusebius appears to favor the inclusion of Mark 16:9-20.

             But according to a note that appears in some members of the textual cluster known as family-1, Mark 16:9-20 is not included in the Eusebian Canons.  Specifically, in codices 1 and 1582, although Eusebian Section-numbers appear in the margin alongside verses 9-20, these two manuscripts, along with the manuscripts 205, 2886, and 209, have a prominent note before Mark 16:9, which states, “In some copies, the Gospel comes to a close here, and so do the Canons of Eusebius of Pamphilus.  But in many, this also appears.”

So it is possible that at some point after advising Marinus to keep Mark 16:9-20, Eusebius might have changed his mind, and decided not to include these verses in the text upon which he based the Eusebian Canons.

The Eusebian Canons occasionally have text-critical significance where they testify to the presence or absence of other specific passages.  For example, Luke 22:43-44 is not in Papyrus 75 or Codex Vaticanus or Codex Alexandrinus or Codex W, but in the 100s, Justin and Irenaeus both refer to the passage.  In the Eusebian Canons Luke 22:43-44 is included as Section #283, implying that it was in the text that was used by Eusebius.

            Mark 15:28 is not in Codex Vaticanus, or Sinaiticus, or Codex D, and is also missing in over 100 minuscules – but it is listed as Section #216 in the Eusebian Canons.

            And, by not featuring an entry for Matthew 27:49 and John 19:34 in Canon Nine, Eusebius shows that his text did not contain a parallel-passage between those two passages.  In Codex Vaticanus and in Codex Sinaiticus, Matthew 27:49 is expanded so as to create a parallel between those two verses; the Alexandrian Text of Matthew 27:49 says that before Jesus died, someone came and pierced Him in the side with a spear, and blood and water flowed from the wound. 

            By not including a reference to this reading in his cross-reference system, where it would have belonged in Canon 7, Eusebius shows that his manuscripts did not have this reading.  This is a very strong indication that Eusebius did not supervise the production of Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus.

Finally, although a little anecdote about a detail in the early Christian composition The Epistle of Barnabas is not directly related to the New Testament, it might illustrate the kind of figurative interpretations some early Christians could give to some numerals.   The Epistle of Barnabas was probably written in the early second century.  It appears in Codex Sinaiticus, after the book of Revelation. 

            In its ninth chapter, the author refers to Genesis 14:14, emphasizing the exact number of the men under Abraham’s command who went to rescue Lot, who had been captured by a foreign confederation:  three hundred and eighteen.  The number “eighteen” was written as the Greek letters Iota and Eta, the same letters at the beginning of the name “Jesus,” or “Iēsous.”  The remaining amount, 300, was written in Greek as the letter Tau, which looks like the beams of a cross.  And thus, the author of the Epistle of Barnabas implied, even in the days of Abraham, we have an abstract picture of how Jesus, on the cross, accomplished the deliverance of the captive.

Non-Alexandrian Papyri and Early Versions

            In The King James Only Controversy, author James White made two claims on pages 195-197 that invite clarification.  First, he stated on page 195, “Every papyrus manuscript we have discovered has been a representative of the Alexandrian text-type.” Second, on page 197, he wrote, “An examination of the early New Testament translations reveals they were done on the basis of Alexandrian type manuscripts.”

            Is it true that all of the papyrus manuscripts that have been discovered represent the Alexandrian text-type? No.  The low-humidity climate in parts of Egypt allowed papyrus to survive longer there than in other places, so it would not be particularly surprising if all of the papyri that were found in Egypt contained Egyptian forms of the text.    

            In other locales, papyrus was much more vulnerable to natural decay, which is why we don’t find a lot of New Testament papyri in, say, Ephesus and Athens, for the same reason that we don’t find a lot of ancient Greek sales-receipts there. 

            And yet some New Testament papyri with distinctly non-Alexandrian contents have survived.  Papyrus 45, for example – a heavily damaged manuscript that contains text from the four Gospels and Acts – is the substantial manuscript of (part of) the Gospel of Mark (the surviving portion is from Mark 4-12).  While there is general agreement that P45’s text of Acts is Alexandrian, this is not the case regarding its text of Mark.  Researcher Larry W. Hurtado, in the 2004 paper P45 and the Textual History of the Gospel of Mark, affirmed that P45’s text of Mark was neither Byzantine nor Western nor Alexandrian nor Caesarean.  Hurtado also stated that “This third-century manuscript had numerous readings that previously had been thought to be “Byzantine.””

            Here are some examples of non-Alexandrian readings in Mark in Papyrus 45:
            ● 6:16 – Byz and P45 include οτι (not included in B À).

            ● 6:22 – Byz and P45 read αρεσάσης (B À:  ηρεσεν).

            ● 6:22 –Byz and P45 (here P45 is corrected; the scribe first wrote Herod’s name instead of “the king”) have the word-order ειπεν ο βασιλευς (B À read ο δε βασιλευς ειπεν)    
            ● 6:38 – Byz and P45 have the word-order αρτους εχετε (B L:  εχετε αρτους)  
            ● 6:41 – Byz and P45 have αυτου (not in B À L)

            ● 6:41 – Byz and P45 have παραθωσιν (B À* L have παρατιθωσιν)

            ● 6:45 – Byz and P45 have απολύση (B À L D have απολυει)

            ● 6:48 – Byz and P45 have ειδεν (B À L D have ιδων) [The letters ιδε in P45 here are tentatively reconstructed]

            ● 6:50 – Byz and P45 have -ον so as to read ειδον (B À read ειδαν; D omits)   

            ● 7:5 – Byz and P45 have the word-order οι μαθηται σου ου περιπατουσιν (B À L have a different word-order)

            ● 7:6 – Byz and P45 have αποκριθεις (B À L do not have the word)

            ● 7:6 – Byz and P45 have οτι (B À L do not have the word) 

            ● 7:10 – Byz and P45 have τιμα (B D have τειμα)

            ● 7:14 – Byz and P45 have ελεγεν (B has λέγει)

            ● 7:15 – P45 has -ν κοιν-, supporting inclusion of κοινωσαι (which B does not include)

            ● 7:29 – Byz and P45 have the word-order το δαιμονιον εκ της θυγατρός σου (B À L have a different word-order)

            ● 7:30 – Byz and P45 share the same word-order (B À L have a different word-order; so does D)

            ● 7:31 – Byz and P45 share the word-order, with ηλθεν after the reference to Tyre and Sidon.  B À L D have ηλθεν after Τύρου and before δια Σιδωνος (in B, δια Σειδωνος)

            ● 7:35– Byz and P45 include ευθέως (not included in B À)

            ● 7:35 – P45 is difficult to read but it ends the word with –χθησαν, supporting the Byzantine reading διηνοιχθησαν (B À D have ηνοιγησαν)

            ● 7:36 – P45 is difficult to read but appears to support the inclusion of αυτος (agreeing with Byz and disagreeing with B À L D.

            ● 8:13 – P45 has εις το πλοιον, agreeing with D; Byz has εις πλοιον; B À L do not have the phrase)

            ● 8:15 – P45 ends the verse with Ηρωδιανων, agreeing with the Caesarean text (W Θ 565 f¹  f¹³)

            ● 8:19 – P45 and Byz share the word-order πληρεις κλασματων ηρατε (B À L have κλασματων πληρεις ηρατε; D has κλασματων ηρατε πληρεις

            ● 8:20 – P45 and Byz have ειπον (B L have λεγουσιν αυτω; À has λεγουσιν)  

            ● 8:34 – P45 and Byz have ακολουθειν (B À L have ελθειν)

            ● 8:35 – P45 and Byz share the word-order αυτου σωσαι (B has εαυτου before ψυχην σωσαι) 

            ● 8:36 – P45 and Byz have εαν (B À L do not have the word)

            ● 8:36 – P45 and Byz have κερδηση (B À have κερδησαι)

            ● 8:37 – P45 and Byz have δωσαι (B À* have δοι; À^c has ιδω)

            ● 8:37 – P45 and Byz have αυτου (B has εαυτου)

            ● 9:2 – P45 and Byz have μεθ’ (B À L D have μετα)          

            ● 9:6 – P45 and Byz have ησαν (B À D have κφοββοι)

            ● 9:20 – P45 and Byz share the word-order ευθεως το πνευμα (B À L have το πνευμα ευθυς; D has το πνευμα.

             

            Thus, while P45 is far from a strong ally of the Byzantine Text, it is certainly not an Alexandrian manuscript in Mark chapters 8 and 9.  In addition, notice the eleven readings introduced by red dots; these readings shared by P45 and the Byzantine Text are not shared by the flagship manuscripts of the Alexandrian and Western forms of the text.  (How seriously should we take Dan Wallace’s claim – repeated by James White – that there are no more than eight uniquely Byzantine readings to be found among the papyri?  A question of methodology occurs to me:  if Dan Wallace were to take in hand the text of Mark 6-9 in the Robinson-Pierpont Byzantine Textform, would he ever find the Byzantine Text?  How many readings in Mark 6-9 are uniquely Byzantine?)    

           Papyrus 38, a single damaged leaf from a codex of the book of Acts, has been assigned to the early 200s – about the same period when P45 was made – and its text is definitely Western, not Alexandrian.  Papyrus 29 was also identified by Bruce Metger as an ally of the Western Text.

            Papyrus 48, despite being small and difficult to read, is generally regarded as having a text that is more closely allied with the Western Text than with the Alexandrian Text.    

            Papyrus 41, from the 700s, is Greek-Coptic manuscript containing a form of the Western Text of Acts (chapters 17-22).                                                     

            In addition, although the text of uncial 0176 is written on parchment rather than papyrus, that is not a valid reason to ignore it.  Here we have a miniature codex from Oxyrhynchus, made in the late 300s or 400s, with a text that is practically indistinguishable from the Byzantine Text.   

            Also, analysis of the text of several other papyri is inconclusive as far as the task of categorizing the text’s type is concerned, usually because the papyrus is a small fragment, or because its text is hard to read, or because its contents are limited mainly to a passage where there are not a lot of textual contests.  These include Papyrus 17, Papyrus 19, Papyrus 69, Papyrus 70, Papyrus 98, Papyrus 107, Papyrus 108, Papyrus 109, Papyrus 110, Papyrus 111, Papyrus 113, Papyrus 114, Papyrus 115, Papyrus 116, Papyrus 118, Papyrus 121, Papyrus 122, and Papyrus 126.

            Papyrus 37, containing text from Matthew 26, has a non-Alexandrian text.    

            Papyrus 72 is basically Alexandrian in First Peter and Second Peter, but in Jude its text is definitely not Alexandrian.

            Papyrus 2 is probably not a continuous-text manuscript; assigned to the 600s, it contains text from Luke 7 and John 12, in a Western form. 

            Papyrus 3 is also probably the remains of a lectionary; it is assigned to the 500s or 600s and contains a non-Alexandrian form of Luke 7:36-45 and Luke 10:38-42.

            Papyrus 104, though very small, betrays non-Alexandrian influence via the non-inclusion of Matthew 21:44.

                         
            And that, I think, is sufficient to demonstrate that the claim that all of the papyri support the Alexandrian Text is false. 

           

            Is the claim that the early New Testament translations were done on the basis of Alexandrian type manuscripts any better?  No.  Certainly the affinities of the Old Latin version(s) favor the Western Text far more than the Alexandrian Text.  The Gothic version has long been regarded as a strong ally of the Byzantine Text, and although research by Roger Gryson may yield a slight adjustment of that assessment, it is not a drastic reappraisal.  The Sinaitic Syriac and the Curetonian Syriac are both characterized as Western, and the Peshitta agrees with the Byzantine Text about 80% of the time.  The Gospels-text of the Armenian version, and the Old Georgian version which echoes an early form of it, are Caesarean rather than Alexandrian.

            Only in Egypt is there clear evidence that early translators were aware of the existence of the Alexandrian Text.  To different degrees, the Egyptian languages (or dialects) of Sahidic, Bohairic, Achmimic, and Middle Egyptian reflect a primarily Alexandrian base-text.  The earliest strata of the Sahidic version is aligned closely with the text of Codex Vaticanus.  This relationship is demonstrated succinctly and effectively by evidence from their texts of Acts 27:37, where Luke mentions (in the Nestle-Aland compilation) that there were 276 souls aboard the ship.  In both Codex Vaticanus and in the Sahidic version, the text says that “about 76” souls were on board.

            F. F. Bruce, in his commentary on Acts, offered a compelling explanation for the reading in B and the Sahidic version – an explanation that had already been offered by John Burgon in his book The Revision Revised.  It may be worthwhile to present a full extract from Burgon:

            “Whereas the Church has hitherto supposed that S. Paul’s company ‘were in all in the ship two hundred threescore and sixteen souls’ (Acts xxvii. 37), Drs. Westcott and Hort (relying on the authority of B and the Sahidic version) insist that what S. Luke actually wrote was ‘about seventy-six.’  In other words, instead of διακόσιαι ἑβδομηκονταέξ, we are invited to read ὩΣ ἑβδομηκονταέξ.  What can have given rise to so formidable a discrepancy?  Mere accident, we answer.  First, whereas S. Luke certainly wrote ἧμεν δέ ἐν τῷ πλοίῳ αἱ πᾶσαι ψυχαί, his last six words at some very early period underwent the familiar process of Transposition, and became, αἱ πᾶσαι ψυχαί ἐν τῷ πλοίῳ ; whereby the word πλοίῳ and the numbers διακόσιαι ἑβδομηκονταέξ were brought into close proximity.   (It is thus that Lachmann, Tischendorf, Tregelles, &c., wrongly exhibit the place.)  But since “276” when represented in Greek numerals is СΟϛ, the inevitable consequence was that the words (written in uncials) ran thus:  ΨΥΧΑΙΕΝΤΩΠΛΟΙΩϹΟϛ.  Behold, the secret is out!  Who sees not what has happened?  There has been no intentional falsification of the text.  There has been no critical disinclination to believe that ‘a corn-ship, presumably heavily laden, would contain so many souls,’ – as an excellent judge supposes.  The discrepancy has been the result of sheer accident:  is the merest blunder.  Some IInd-century copyist connected the last letter of ΠΛΟΙΩ with the next ensuing numeral, which stands for 200 (viz. Ϲ); and made an independent word of it, viz. ὡς – i.e., ‘about.’  But when Ϲ (i.e., 200) has been taken away from ϹΟϛ (i.e., 276), 76 is perforce all that remains.”

James White, February 19, 2019

            This faulty reading in the text of B and the Sahidic version requires such a special set of circumstances to come into existence that it suggests that the Sahidic version not only is related to the Alexandrian Text in general but also to Codex Vaticanus specifically.                       

            In conclusion:  the claims that have been tested here are not just wrong; they are horribly, catastrophically wrong.  One might say that they are laughably wrong, but considering that they continue to mislead readers of The King James Only Controversy (published by Bethany House), this is no laughing matter. 



Readers are invited to double-check the data in this post.

Acts 27:37 - 276 Souls, or About 76?

Let's briefly leave the Gospels to explore an interesting variant in Acts 27:37.  Did the ship on which Paul and his friends were traveling in Acts 27:37 contain 276 souls, or only about 76?

The Byzantine Text says that a total of 276 souls were aboard the ship: 

HMEQA DE AI PASAI YUCAI EN TW PLOIW DIAKOSIAI EBDOMHKONTA EX.

Codex A says HMEQA DE PASAI YUCAI EN TW PLOIW DIAKOSIAI EBDOMHKONTA PENTE.  (Thus, 275 souls.  The amount is spelled out, not abbreviated.)

According to the apparatus in UBS4, Lectionary 1156 says that the number of souls was 216. 

Vaticanus and the Sahidic version say that a total of “about 76” souls were on board, finishing the verse with WS EBDOMHKONTA EX.

The NET’s editors saw fit to mention this variant, with the note, “One early ms (B) and an early version (sa) read “about seventy-six.”  For discussion of how this variant probably arose, see F. F. Bruce, The Acts of the Apostles, 465.”

When I take in hand – onscreen – F. F. Bruce’s commentary on Acts, on pages 525-526 (the difference is surely only due to different formatting in different editions) I find: 

“The reading of B could be a miscopying of the larger number; PLOIWWSOF [with the OF overlined] for PLOIWSOF [with the OF overlined – although this is an error; the sigma in PLOIWSOF should have been overlined too].  There is no improbability in the larger number (which included the soldiers under the centurion’s command); the ship on which Josephus was bound for Rome in A.D. 63 had about 600 on board (Vita 15).”

Déjà vu.  I’ve read something like that before, in John Burgon’s 1883 book The Revision Revised, on pages 51-53.  Burgon is more verbose than Bruce, but the solution is exactly the same:  “Some II-century copyist connected the last letter of PLOIW with the next ensuing numeral, which stands for 200 (viz. S)); and made an independent word of it, viz. WS – i.e., ‘about.’  But when S (i.e. 200) has been taken away from SOF (i.e. 276), 76 is perforce all that remains.”  And notice the footnote on p. 52 of the same page:  “The number is not excessive.  There were about 600 persons aboard the ship in which Josephus traverses the same waters.  (Life, c. III).” 

I find five interesting features here:

First, it’s interesting to observe how Bruce happened to reach the same conclusion as Burgon, and even use the same example from Josephus, apparently without reading Burgon (whose name, if my electronic search, courtesy of Amazon, is correct, appears nowhere in Bruce’s commentary).  That’s just incredible!  (Naturally, the NET’s note on Acts 27:37 refers readers to Bruce, not to Burgon.) 

Second, it’s interesting to see the close alignment of the base-text of the Sahidic version of Acts to the text of Acts in B.  The replacement of PLOIW_SOF_ with PLOIWWS_OF_ is not the sort of thing that would happen often; this variant is an important genetic marker.

Third, it’s interesting, inasmuch as the UBS4’s apparatus gives this a “B” rating, that someone on the committee must have favored B’s reading, apparently against all other Greek MSS, despite the ease with which B’s reading is accounted for.

Fourth, it’s interesting to see that Lectionary 1156 (Waltz’s data says that it’s from the 1300’s) was even noticed and cited, considering how often readings with continuous-MS-support are completely ignored in the UBS4 apparatus.          

 

Fifth, it’s interesting that UBS4 stretched the evidence beyond its breaking point in an attempt to buttress the testimony of B.  Carroll D. Osburn stated the following in The Text of the Apostolos in Epiphanius of Salamis (2004) in a footnote in Appendix II (page 269) – “Epiphanius is listed in UBS4 as reading “WS EBDOMHKONTA EX Epiphanius ½ (Epiphanius ½ om EX).”  This is misleading.  In one quotation, Epiphanius reads WS EBDOMHKONYA, but in the other WS OGDOHKONTA.  So, Epiphanius reads “70” or “80” souls, but in neither reference does he read WS EBDOMHKONTA EX, as UBS4 indicates.” (Osburn’s work does not build confidence in the UBS4-compilers’ database of citations as far as Epiphanius’ testimony to the text of Acts is concerned.  Osburn lists four corrections to UBS4’s citations of Epiphanius in Acts, one useful addition, and only three correct citations.)