Today,
let’s look at the text on one page of a medieval lectionary and see how well it
compares to the same passage in Codex Vaticanus (the flagship manuscript of the
Alexandrian text of the Gospels) and Codex Bezae (the flagship manuscript of
the Western text of the Gospels). The
passage is Matthew 24:20-26, and the lectionary is
Lectionary
5, also known as Barocci MS 202, at the
Bodleian
Library. It was written in uncial lettering in the early 1000’s. (I have not received a response from the
Bodleian’s permissions-department, so no image of the manuscript is posted here
– but you can see the zoomable, full-color page with Matthew 24:20-26 – page-view 301 out of 316, marked as fol. 147 at the top of the page – at
the Digital Bodleian website.)
In the following comparison, the Tyndale House edition of the Greek New Testament was used as the standard of
comparison. Differences in the format of
sacred names, contractions for και, and differing forms of letters are not
counted as textual differences. The total
number of differences between the THEGNT-text and each witness will be given,
as well as the number of differences without minor vowel-exchanges (itacisms) in
the picture.
LECTIONARY 5
20 – χειμονος instead of χειμωνος
(+1, -1)
21 – omits τοτε (-4)
21 – ουδε instead of ουδ’ ου (+1,
-2)
22 – η instead of ει (+1, -2)
22 – εκολοβοθησαν instead of εκολοβωθησαν
(+1, -1)
22 – κολοβοθησονται instead of κολοβωθησονται
(+1, -1)
23 – ηπη instead of ειπη (+1,
-2)
24 – δοσουσιν instead of δωσουσιν
(+1, -1)
24 – omits μεγαλα (-6)
25 – προηρηκα instead of προειρηκα
(+1, -2)
26 – ειποσιν instead of ειπωσιν
(+1, -1)
21 – θλειψις instead of θλιψις
(+1)
23 – πιστευετε instead of πιστευσητε
(a corrector has superlinearly written η (so as to read πιστευητε) (+1, -2)
24 – ψευδοχρειστοι instead of ψευδοχριστοι (+1)
20 – προσευχεσθαι instead of προσευχεσθε (+2, -1)
21 – θλειψις instead of θλιψις
(+1)
21 – ουκ εγενετο instead of ου γεγονεν (+5, -5)
21 – does not have του before νυν (-3)
23 – υμειν instead of υμιν (+1)
23 – εκει instead of ωδε (+3, -2)
23 – πιστευσηται instead of πιστευσητε (+2, -1)
24 – ψευδοχρειστοι instead of ψευδοχριστοι (+1)
24 – πλανηθηναι instead of πλανησαι
(+3, -1)
25 – υμειν instead of υμιν (+1)
26 – υμειν instead of υμιν (+1)
26 – εξελθηται instead of εξελθητε (+2, -1)
26 – πιστευσηται instead of πιστευσητε (+2, -1)
 |
RP2005: better than
Codex Vaticanus. |
This yields the following results: Codex Vaticanus has only has five letters’
worth of corruption in this passage, and is one letter longer than the text in
THEGNT. Lectionary 5’s text contains
nine non-original letters and is missing 23 original letters. With itacisms removed from consideration, Lectionary
5’s text remains ten letters shorter than the text in Vaticanus.
Codex Bezae’s text is the least accurate of the
three: although it is about twice as old
as Lectionary 5, Codex D has 24 non-original letters and is missing 15 original
letters, for a total of 39 letters’ worth of corruption. (Lectionary 5, with 9 non-original letters
and with 23 original letters omitted, has 32 letters’ worth of corruption. Without itacisms in the picture, Lectionary 5
has 13 letters’ worth of corruption, and D has 22 letters’ worth of
corruption.)
This data may raise some
questions:
● If scribes tended to add to the text, how is it that a manuscript
from the 400’s (or 500’s) has 24 non-original letters here, and a Byzantine
manuscript from c. 1000, only has 9 non-original letters, if scribes tended to
add to the text? Apparently the scribes
in the ancestral transmission-line of Lectionary 5 never got the memo that
stated that they were supposed to gain accretions.
● The RP2005 Byzantine Textform agrees more closely in
this passage with the THEGNT and the UBS/NA compilations than Codex
Vaticanus and Codex Bezae do. Even the Textus Receptus – the base-text of the
King James Version, compiled in the 1500’s – agrees with THEGNT and NA27 more closely in
this passage than the early manuscripts Vaticanus and Bezae do. How is it that compilations based on late manuscripts, whether many or few, have the best text in this passage?
● Considering that the text of Matthew 24:20-26 in Codex B in the
300’s is longer than the text of Matthew 24:20-26 in Lectionary 5, why do some
textual critics (looking at you, Dan
Wallace) continue to teach that copyists – particularly Byzantine copyists – gradually
expanded the text? How many times and in
how many ways does the opposite need to be demonstrated before scholars and
commentators will concede that no preference should be generally assumed in
favor of the shorter reading?
