Mark 16:9-20 - Taking It to the Streets

More than one publishing-house and more than one Christian commentator have refused to quietly correct the mistakes in their commentaries and similar books.  So I shall do so publicly:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfbSjIkCIF0

In this 48-minute video I expose some commentators' errors about Mark 16:9-20 such as the popular (but erroneous) claim about doubt-conveying asterisks and obeli.

When doing apologetics and wielding the sword of the Spirit . . . make sure its metal hasn't been weakened before going into battle. First Timothy 5:20

Proverbs 18:9

About That "Embarrassment of Riches" (and Quantities of Manuscripts)

“We have an embarrassment of riches when it comes to the evidence for the New Testament.”   Ever hear that one?  Such a claim is routinely made by Christians who fill, or appear to fill, two roles as apologists and researchers.  And they are mostly right:  the quantity of manuscripts of the Greek New Testament is staggeringly superior to the evidence for any other literary work of a comparable age.  But they are partly wrong, for at least three reasons. 

First, the relative poverty of textual support for specific readings in the works of Suetonius (to pick one ancient author) does not make other authors (such as the authors of the books of the New Testament) rich. 

Second, the New Testament did not initially circulate as a single book, but as 27 books - which were not copied and distributed evenly.  (There are over 1,600 Greek Gospels-manuscripts; there are fewer than 400 Greek MSS of Revelation.) 

Third, quantity is not necessarily quality.  Kurt & Barbara Aland (as in "Nestle-Aland compilation of Novum Testamentum Graece," the primary base-text of the New Testament in the ESV, NIV, CSB, NRSV, NLT, and NASB), after listing numerous Greek manuscripts, candidly stated in their 1981 handbook The Text of the New Testament (translated into English by Erroll F. Rhodes), “All of these minuscules exhibit a purely or predominantly Byzantine text.  And this is not a peculiarity of the minuscules, but a characteristic they share with a considerable number  of uncials.  They are all irrelevant for textual criticism, at least for establishing the original form of the text and its development in the early centuries.”

How many Greek manuscripts did Kurt and Barbara Aland consider “irrelevant” to the task of reconstructing the original New Testament text?  Looking over their list on pages 140-142 (“Table 7”), I count 887 manuscripts.  Aland & Aland, though, seem willing to put “more than 1,175 minuscules” (p. 138) into the category which they dismiss as “irrelevant.”

The number of minuscules that they did not consider “irrelevant” is given on page 138:  “a little more than 175.” 

What about uncials, a.k.a. majuscule MSS?  The total number of majuscules is easy to calculate, since each is identified by a number preceded by a zero, and we saw the addition of 0315 in 2015 – so the current total number of majuscules is just a bit higher than 315, right?  Wrong.  Some majuscule manuscripts were obtained by researchers, and were given identification numbers, after the manuscripts had been torn up.  Only later did researchers discern that they had portions of the same manuscript, with a different identification-number given to each portion. 

029 is same manuscript catalogued (in portions) as 0113, 0125, and 0139. 

070 is the same manuscript catalogued (in portions) as 0110, 0124, 0178, 0179, 0180, 0190, 0191, 0193, 0194, 0124, and 0202. 

063, according to Aland & Aland, “belongs with 0117.”

064 is the same manuscript (in portions) as 074 and 090.  (Part of this manuscript was found among the New Finds at St. Catherine’s monastery.)

073 is the same manuscript as 084.

083 is the same manuscript (in portions) as 0112 and 0235.  (Take note NET-readers; this manuscript is erroneously double-counted in the NET’s notes.)

087 is the same manuscript as 092b.

089 is the same manuscript as 092a and 0293.

0100 is the same manuscript as 0195, and neither one merits an identification-number among continuous-text uncial MSS, because each one is part of lectionary 963.

0102 is probably (according to Aland & Aland) the same manuscript as 0138.       

0129 is the same manuscript as 0203, and neither one merits an identification-number among continuous-text uncial MSS, because each one is part of lectionary 1575.

0137 is the same manuscript as 0138.

0152 is a talisman, technically not a continuous-text uncial manuscript.

0153 is an ostracon, technically not a continuous-text uncial manuscript.

0192 is lectionary 1604.

0212 is not a continuous-text uncial manuscript, and thus does not merit inclusion in the list.

A simple (perhaps too simple) count brings the total number of continuous-text majuscule (uncial) manuscripts down from 315 (in 2015) to 285.    

Uncial manuscripts that display a Byzantine text (according to Aland & Aland), and which are thus “irrelevant,” include 07, 09, 011, 013, 014, 017, 018, 021, 022, 023, 024, 026, 027, 028, 030, 031, 033, 034, 036, 039 (the same manuscript as 566 (Codex L; the text of Matthew and Mark is written in minuscule; Luke and John are written in majuscule – but it is all a single manuscript), 041, 042, 043, 045, 046, 047, 049, 052, 056, 0104, 0116, 0133, 0135, 0197, 0211, 0248, 0253, 0255, and 0257.  These forty majuscules are in the same “irrelevant” category in which Aland & Aland placed about 1,175 minuscules.

So the maximum number of continuous-text majuscule parchments that were used for the compilation of the Nestle-Aland NTG is . . . (let’s see:  285 – 40 . . . ) 245.

Most of these are not complete.  It should be kept in mind than even a tiny fragment, if it is not part of another manuscript, receives its own identification-number, and is counted as one manuscript.  A complete New Testament = one manuscript, and a fragment of a single page = one manuscript.  Without this factor constantly in mind, people who hear about the “embarrassment of riches” might tend to imagine that we have 245 relevant majuscule continuous-text copies of the New Testament.  But in real life, as I mentioned, many of the majuscules are fragmentary. 

Instead of referring to “New Testament manuscripts,” majuscule or minuscule, it would be more accurate to refer to “Gospels-manuscripts,” (about 1,800) and to manuscripts of Acts and the Epistles,  and to manuscripts of Revelation, and to manuscripts that contain the entire New Testament, whether majuscule or minuscule, are anomalies.  (I think about 70 such copies exist.)   (Manuscripts with other combinations also exist.)

Minuscules are not immune from the same (or similar) kind of double-counting that slices off the number of real continuous-text majuscule manuscripts by ten percent.  Georgi Parpulov, of the Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen, reported in 2022 in the open-access journal Fragmentology that GA 674 and GA 1284 are portions of the same manuscript.  And one minuscule, GA 2427, which was featured prominently in the apparatus of the Nestle-Aland NTG, but was proven to be a nineteenth-century forgery, has to go.  Another, GA 2795, is lectionary 2198.

Finally we come to lectionaries.  Minuscule 2795 is part of the same manuscript as lectionary 2198.  Parpulov also reported that lectionary 849 and lectionary 309 are portions of the same lectionary.   There are over 2,300 lectionaries to consider (and here again one should differentiate between Gospel-lectionaries, and lectionaries of the remaining New Testament books).  But although lectionaries have been the focus of considerable research, one would think from the apparatus in the Nestle-Aland NTG and the UBS GNT that hardly anyone is considering them.  Almost all of them display (with expansions and modifications) the Byzantine Text that Aland & Aland dismissed as irrelevant.
As Maurice Robinson has observed – as noticed by Peter Gurry in 2017 at the Evangelical Textual Criticism blog – “The resources of the pre-fourth century era unfortunately remain meager, restricted to a limited body of witnesses. Even if the text-critical evidence is extended through the eighth century, there would be only 424 documents, mostly fragmentary.”  

 Am I disturbed by individuals who, in one breath, give soothing assurance about the “embarrassment of riches,” and in the next breath endorse the Nestle-Aland compilation that was made with the working premise that over 1,175 minuscule manuscripts, and 40 majuscule manuscripts, are irrelevant?  Well, to answer that question, I must diverge from today’s main topic. 

It is disturbing that anyone would brag about our “embarrassment of riches” and then proceed to dismiss 85% of the coins in the royal treasury as counterfeit.  (Meaning:  Wallace & Co. talk about our “embarrassment of riches” but at the same time habitually reject the reading found in the vast majority of manuscripts (not just 85%, but sometimes 95% – keeping in mind that MSS should be generally divided into Gospels/Acts-Epistles/Revelation categories) when that reading disagrees with a favored reading in the Alexandrian Text.)

But this is essentially a point against bad rhetoric, bad apologetics, and bloviations (or combinations of all three), not a point against the evidence for the New Testament text, about which I am not disturbed.  I disagree with the idea that the Byzantine text, and the manuscripts supporting it, are irrelevant.  Aland & Aland’s anti-Byzantine bias is obsolete. 

The approach used to compile the New Testament base-text of the ESV, NIV, NLT, CSB, and NRSV is basically the same obsolete, never-was-valid approach that was used for the 1881 edition of Westcott & Hort.  (NA27 and WH1881 fully disagree in only 661 readings; I use “fully” to modify “disagree” because the editors of NA27 made non-decisions at multiple points and put some readings in brackets and double-brackets (a feature which I guarantee was not in the original text).  The number of tenuous disagreements is higher:  1,372, as I have explained here.) 

One doesn’t have to think about that long and hard to discern that the Nestle-Aland compilation is unstable at 711 points – not counting the 34 readings introduced in NA28, which included a conjectural emendation (based on zero Greek manuscripts).  (Many of which are trivial as far as meaning is concerned.)

That doesn’t make the Byzantine Text synonymous with the original text of the New Testament.  But it should make it a lot more than “irrelevant.”  English translations that take the Byzantine Text seriously (not the similar Textus Receptus) are already on the market.  More are coming, and I hope some major Bible-publishers will see this as an opportunity to amend the mistakes of publishers in the past 142 years.  So should English Bible-readers who desire the text in their English Bibles (not just the footnotes!) to reflect the text found in the rich manuscript-evidence that is available. 

This should not be interpreted to mean minority readings cannot be original.  Sometimes they are original (as I have repeatedly insisted), and in such cases the reading found in the majority of MSS must give way, lest scribal inventions, no matter how popular, usurp the original text.  But today’s main point should not be diminished:  talk about the “embarrassment of riches” by advocates of a New Testament compilation that is 99% Alexandrian (at points where the Alexandrian Text and Byzantine Text disagree) should stop.

Do Any Textual Variants Impact Doctrine?

           Do any textual variants in the New Testament have the potential to make a significant doctrinal impact?

          In the past, major champions of the traditional text answered that question with a simple “No.”  Robert L. Dabney wrote in 1871, that the received text – the Textus Receptus, the base-text of the KJV, while “not asserted to be above emendation,” “contains undoubtedly all the essential facts and doctrines intended to be set down by the inspired writers,” and “If it were corrected with the severest hand, by the light of the most divergent various readings found in any ancient MS or version, not a single doctrine of Christianity, nor a single cardinal fact, would be thereby expunged.”

          More recent writers have expressed similar sentiments.   D.A. Carson, for example, has written that the Westminster Confession’s affirmation that the Biblical text has been kept pure in all ages ought to be understood to mean that “nothing we believe to be doctrinally true, and nothing we are commanded to do, is in any way jeopardized by the variants.” (from p. 56 of The KJV-Only Controversy – A Plea for Realism.) 

          The view of Dan Wallace, however, is better-informed and more nuanced.  It amounts to this:  no viable and meaningful variant jeopardizes any cardinal doctrine.  The adjectives in that sentence are important, so let’s look into what they mean.  A viable variant is one which textual critics regard as potentially original; it is favored by weighty (though not necessarily decisive) evidence.  A meaningful variant is one which affects the meaning of the passage in which it occurs.  And a cardinal doctrine is one that expresses a fundamental point of the Christian faith.  

          Using this nuanced approach, a question immediately arises:  which doctrines are cardinal?  Is inerrancy a cardinal doctrine?  Looking at the website of Dallas Theological Seminary (where Dr. Wallace has taught), a statement can be seen that requires students to agree with seven beliefs; the seventh is “the authority and inerrancy of Scripture.”  And looking at the requisite Statement of Faith – “requisite” in the sense that faculty members at DTS are required to affirm it annually – one sees a statement that “We believe that the whole Bible in the originals is therefore without error.”

          Michael Kruger argued at the Ligonier website (in 2015) that the doctrine of inerrancy is essential, and that it supplies “the foundation for why we can trust and obey God’s Word.”   Don Stewart has also proposed that “inerrancy is an essential, foundational concept and its importance should not be minimized.”  Dan Wallace, meanwhile, has downplayed the centrality of inerrancy, stating in 2006 (in a post that is still online) that “inerrancy and verbal inspiration are more peripheral than core doctrines.”  In other words – if I understand him correctly – Dr. Wallace does not, and has not, for some time, regarded inerrancy as a cardinal doctrine – and so his statement to the effect that no viable and meaningful variant significantly affects cardinal doctrines should not be interpreted to mean that no viable and meaningful variants affect the doctrine of inerrancy. 

          Some apologists have followed the example of Wallace’s nuanced approach very closely; for example, in an article at Stand To Reason’s website, Tim Barnett wrote in 2016 that “No major doctrines depend on any meaningful and viable variants.” 

          However, I can think of at least two variants that jeopardize the doctrine of inerrancy, both of which occur in the first book of the New Testament:  in Matthew 13:35 and Matthew 27:49.  Only the one in Matthew 13:35 is acknowledged by a footnote in the NLT, NASB, and ESV.  (At least, this is the case in the copies that I have.  So many editions of modern versions are in circulation that it would be burdensome to keep track of them all – which might make one wonder how seriously the “Standard” part of their names should be taken.)  Neither of these variants is given a footnote in the CSB, nor in the NKJV, nor in the hyper-paraphrase known as The Message.  And the Tyndale House Greek New Testament does not have a footnote at Matthew 13:35 or at Matthew 27:49. 

          Most of the English versions I have named so far are currently ranked among the ten most-popular versions of the Bible in America.  So much for the idea that no one is hiding these variants.

          Let’s see what those variants in Matthew 13:35 and 27:49 say.  

          In Matthew 13:35, the scribe of Codex Sinaiticus, rather than writing that a prophecy was spoken by “the prophet,” wrote that it was spoken by “Isaiah the prophet.”  This reading collides with reality:  the referred-to prophecy is from Psalm 78:2 – a composition by Asaph, and not from Isaiah.  In addition to the scribe of Codex Sinaiticus, witnesses that support “Isaiah the prophet” in Mt. 13:35 include (according to the textual apparatus of UBS4) Q, f¹, f¹³, 33, and the reading was known to Jerome; Jerome wrote (in Homily 11 on Psalm 77) that “in all the ancient copies,” the prophecy is explicitly attributed to Asaph, and Jerome offers the theory that scribes who were unfamiliar with Asaph replaced his name with Isaiah’s name.  The editors of UBS4 assigned this reading a ranking of “C,” which, as they explain in their Introduction, “indicates that the Committee had difficulty in deciding which variant to place in the text.”                   

          In an earlier generation, F. J. A. Hort – who edited, with Westcott, the primary ancestor of the base-text of the New Testament used for the NIV, ESV, NLT, CSB, NASB and NRSV – argued for including “in Isaiah the prophet” in the text.  His argument ran as follows:  “It is difficult not to think Ἠσαίου genuine.  There was a strong tendency to omit it (cf. xxvii 9; Mc 1 2); and, though its insertion might be accounted for by an impulse to supply the name of the best known prophet, the evidence of the actual operation of such an impulse is much more trifling than might have been anticipated.  Out of the 5 (6) other places where the true text has simply τοῦ προφήτου, in two (Mt ii 15 [Hosea]; Acts vii 48 [Isaiah]) , besides the early interpolation in Mt xxvii 35 [Psalms], no name is inserted; in two a name is inserted on trivial evidence (Mt ii 5, Micah rightly, and Isaiah [by a] wrongly ; xxi 4, Isaiah and Zechariah both rightly [Zech by lat.vt]) ; and once (Mt i 22) Isaiah is rightly inserted on various Western evidence.  Also for the perplexing Ἰερεμίου of xxvii 9, omitted by many documents, rhe has Ἠσαίου.  Thus the erroneous introduction of Isaiah’s name is limited to two passages, and in each case to a single Latin MS.  On the other hand the authority of rushw and aeth is lessened by the (right) insertion of Ἠσαίου by one in Mt i 22, and by both in xxi 4.  The adverse testimony of B is not decisive, as it has a few widely spread wrong readings in this Gospel.”   

          Constantine von Tischendorf included Ἠσαίου in Matthew 13:35 in the 8th edition of his compilation of the Greek New Testament.  And in 1901, Eberhard Nestle wrote (on p. 251 of his Introduction to the Textual Criticism of the Greek New Testament) that διὰ Ἠσαίου τοῦ προφήτου “is certainly, therefore, original.”  Anyone using a Greek New Testament compiled by Tischendorf or Nestle today would be rather challenged if he were to attempt to maintain the doctrine of inerrancy, inasmuch as if Matthew attributed Psalm 78:2 to Isaiah, then Matthew erred.  

Mt. 27:49 in Codex L.

         In Matthew 27:49, major Alexandrian witnesses (Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, Codex C, Codex L), some important versional witnesses (Mae¹, Mae², the Ethiopic version, and assorted witnesses (listed by Willker as U, Γ, 5, 26, 48, 67, 115, 127, 160, 175, 364, 782, 871, 1010, 1057, 1300, 1392, 1416, 1448, 1555, 1566, 1701, 1780, 2117, 2126, 2139, 2283, 2328, 2437*, 2585, 2586, 2622, 2680, 2766, and 2787) support the reading, at the end of the verse, ἄλλος δὲ λαβών λόγχην ἔνυξεν αὐτοῦ τήν πλευράν καί ἐξῆλθεν ὕδωρ καί αἷμα.  (In the underlined witnesses the final words are αἷμα καί ὕδωρ instead of ὕδωρ καί αἷμα.)  This means:  And another [person], taking a spear, pierced his side, and out came water and blood.   Then, in Matthew 27:50, Jesus dies.

          The adoption of this reading into the text would be fatal to the doctrine of inerrancy, because the Gospel of John candidly states (in 19:34) that Jesus was pierced in His side with a spear, resulting in a flow of blood and water, after He died, and this contradicts the text of Matthew if this reading – supported by the two early manuscripts (À and B) that are the primary basis for the heading and footnote that draw into question Mark 16:9-20 in the ESV, CSB, NRSV, etc. – is adopted.

          In 2018, in a post at Evangelical Textual Criticism, Tyndale House GNT editor Dirk Jongkind acknowledged that this variant probably should have been mentioned in the apparatus of the Tyndale House GNT.  He also acknowledged that “On external evidence, the addition has definitely a very good shout” – which  – I think – is tantamount to granting that the reading is viable.  But Jongkind rejects the reading, admitting that “The ‘best and earliest manuscripts’ do not always present us with the ‘best and earliest readings.’”   Perhaps this statement should be printed in large letters alongside the ESV’s bracketed heading between Mark 16:8 and 16:9 (which reads, “Some of the earliest manuscripts do no include 16:9-20.”).

          But this reading in the most significant manuscripts representative of the Alexandrian Text certainly was treated as viable by Westcott and Hort, who included the variant, within double brackets, in their compilation.  In Westcott & Hort’s Notes on Select Readings, after analyzing the evidence pertaining to this variant, they concluded as follows:  “Two suppositions alone are compatible  with the whole evidence.  First, the words  ἄλλος δὲ κ.τ.λ. [“κ.τ.λ.” meaning “etc.”] may belong to the genuine text of the extant form of Mt, and have been early omitted (originally by the Western text) on account of the obvious difficulty.  Or, secondly, they may be a very early interpolation, absent in the first instance from the Western text only, and thus resembling the Non-Western interpolations in Luke xxii xxiv except in its failure to obtain admission into the prevalent texts of the third and fourth centuries.  The prima facie difficulty of the second supposition is lightened by the absence of the words from all the earlier versions, though the defectiveness of African Latin, Old Syriac, and Thebaic evidence somewhat weakens the force of this consideration. We have thought it on the whole right to give expression to this view by including the words within double brackets, though we did not feel justified in removing them from the text, and are not prepared to reject altogether the alternative supposition.”

          Competent textual critics – including some who laid the foundation for the compilations of the ESV, CSB, NLT, and NRSV – have treated one or two readings that convey erroneous statements as if they are viable and meaningful.  Therefore, the notion that there are no viable and meaningful textual variants in the New Testament that jeopardize any cardinal doctrine can only be maintained by those who do not consider the doctrine of inerrancy to be a “cardinal doctrine.”    

           So:  do any textual variants in the New Testament have the potential to make a significant doctrinal impact?  If you consider the doctrine of inerrancy a significant doctrine (which most evangelical Christians do), the answer is yes.        

    

 

Luke 2:22 - His, Her, or Their?

          In Luke 2:22, there is a mildly famous – or infamous – textual variant which involves the Textus Receptus, the base-text of the KJV:  did Luke write that “the days of her [that is, Mary’s] purification according to the law of Moses were accomplished”?  That is how the passage is read in the KJV.  The NKJV, MEV, the Rheims New Testament, the New Life Version, the NIrV, and the Living Bible read similarly.  The phrase is different, however – referring to the days of their purification – in the ASV, CSB,  EHV, EOB-NT, ESV, NASB, NET, NLT, NRSV, and WEB.  (The NIV inaccurately avoids saying either “her” or “their,” and simply says vaguely that “the time came for the purification rites.”  The Message hyper-paraphrase makes the same compromise, saying that “the days stipulated by Moses for purification were complete.”  Other versions that have rendered the passage imprecisely include the CEV, ERV, and GNT.)  

        The difference in English reflects a difference in Greek:  the KJV’s base-text (and the base-text of the Geneva Bible in the 1500s) says αὐτῆς, which means “her,” while the base-text of the EHV, EOB-NT, WEB, etc., reads αὐτῶν, which means “their.”  The text compiled by Erasmus in 1516, and the text printed by Stephanus in 1550, and the Nestle-Aland/UBS compilations have αὐτῶν. 

          This little difference is a big deal to some champions of the KJV, who regard the KJV’s base-text as something which was “refined seven times” (cf. Psalm 12:6) in the course of the first century of the printed Greek New Testament.  D. A. Waite wrote as if the reading αὐτῶν implies that Jesus was a sinner:  “The word her is changed to their, thus making the Lord Jesus Christ One Who needed "purification," and therefore was a sinner!” (p. 200, Defending the King James Bible, 3rd ed., Ó 2006 The Bible for Today Press)  Will Kinney, a KJV-Onlyist, has written, “The reading of HER is admittedly a minority reading, but it is the correct one.”    

 

          In 1921, William H. F. Hatch, after investigated this variant, reported in the 1921 (Vol. 14) issue of Harvard Theological Review (pp. 377-381) that “The feminine pronoun αὐτῆς is found in no Greek manuscript of the New Testament.”  Quite a few manuscripts have been discovered since 1921, but I have not found any Greek manuscripts that support αὐτῆς (though it is possible that αὐτῆς might be found in very late manuscripts made by copyists who used printed Greek New Testaments as their exemplars).        
            Hatch explained that À A B L W G D P and nearly all minuscules support αὐτῶν, and αὐτῶν is also supported by the Peshitta and by the Harklean Syriac, the Ethiopic, Armenian, and Gothic versions.  He observed that Codex Bezae (D, 05) has neither αὐτῆς nor αὐτῶν, but αὐτοῦ (“his”), and at least eight minuscules (listed in a footnote as 21, 47, 56, 61, 113, 209, 220, and 254) have this reading as well.  Also, αὐτοῦ is supported by the Sahidic version.  Latin texts are rather ambiguous on this point, whether Old Latin or Vulgate; the Latin eius can be understood as masculine or feminine (but not plural).  Hatch also noted that “A few authorities have no pronoun at all after καθαρισμοῦ,” but he did not specify which ones.

          Hatch advocated a relatively not-simple hypothesis:  that most of the first two chapters of Luke were “based on a Semitic source” and in this source, the wording in the passage meant “her” purification but “Luke, or whoever translated the source into Greek, having read in the preceding verse about the circumcision and naming of Jesus, took it as masculine, ‘his purification,’ and translated it by καθαρισμοῦ αὐτοῦ.”  Hatch proposed, further, that before the time of Origen, someone realized that αὐτοῦ could not be correct (inasmuch as the law of Moses says nothing about the purification of male offspring) and changed it to αὐτῶν.

          “Αὐτῆς,” Hatch wrote, “appeared as a learned correction, but its range was extremely limited until the appearance of the Complutensian edition in 1522.”    

          Those not willing to embrace Hatch’s hypothesis may be content to adopt what is in the text of most manuscripts, whether Alexandrian or Byzantine:  καθαρισμοῦ αὐτῶν – “their purification.”  Facing D. A. Waite’s contention that texts with “their purification” are “theologically deficient,” interpreters have at least three options:  to understand (1) that Luke’s “their purification” is a reference to the custom observed by followers of Judaism in general, or, (2) that Joseph as well as Mary participated in the purification-rites, having been in contact with Mary at Jesus’ birth, or (3) that Joseph accompanied Mary in the purification-rites even though it was not required by the Mosaic law.  In no scenario does the text imply that Jesus “therefore was a sinner,” inasmuch as the purification-rites commanded in Leviticus 12 followed ceremonial uncleanness, not sinfulness.              

          Another detail in Hatch’s 1921 essay is worth pointing out:  he insisted, in his fourth footnote, that minuscule 76 is not a witness for αὐτῆς, and referred to C. R. Gregory’s examination of 76 in 1887 as support for this.  To this day, minuscule 76 is erroneously claimed to read αὐτῆς by James R. White (The KJV-Only Controversy, p. 112 in the 2009 edition; p. 68 in the 1995 edition, both published by Bethany House Publishers) – adding to the book’s many inaccuracies – and by online apologist Matt Slick, and by James D. Price, and by the notes in the NET (Dan Wallace, Senior NT editor).  This falsehood was corrected 101 years ago.  Maybe within another hundred years, some editors will repair the works of James White and the notes in the NET, et al, so that their false claim does not continue to be spread in perpetuity.                       

 

Video Lecture: John 7:53-8:11

Now on YouTube: Lecture 18 in the series Introduction to NT Textual Criticism: John 7:53-8:11.
     Here's an excerpt from this 43-minute lecture:
     Today, we are investigating one of the most famous textual variants in the New Testament: John 7:53-8:11, also known as the story of the adulteress. The textual contest involving these 12 verses is often introduced to Bible-readers by a heading, such as the one that appears in the Christian Standard Bible between John 7:52 and 7:53: “The earliest manuscripts do not include 7:53-8:11.”
     Back in 1982, when the New King James Version was published, its footnote about these verses said that they “are present in over 900 manuscripts.” More recently, Dr. Maurice Robinson has confirmed that although 270 manuscripts do not include these verses, they are supported by 1,500 manuscripts. That is a ratio of 85 to 15, in favor of the inclusion of the passage.
        But it is a well-grounded axiom that manuscripts must be weighed, not counted. Among the early manuscripts that do not include John 7:53-8:11 are Papyrus 66, Papyrus 75, Codex Sinaiticus, Codex Vaticanus, Codex Alexandrinus, Codex Ephraimi Rescriptus, Codex T, also known as 029, Codex Washingtonianus, and Codex N, also known as 022, a purple uncial from the 500s.
Most of these manuscripts represent the Alexandrian Text. The early versions based in Egypt, such as the Sahidic version, agree, along with the Ethiopic version. But some relatively early non-Coptic versions also agree: Codex Argenteus, the primary witness to the Gothic version of the Gospels, does not have the story of the adulteress. Neither does the Peshitta, which in the Gospels is frequently an ally of the Byzantine Text.
        To researchers who value the flagship manuscripts of the Alexandrian Text as if their weight is greater than all other manuscripts put together, the evidence I have just mentioned settles the question of whether John 7:53-8:11 is part of the original text of the Gospel of John. They would say that this passage is not original, and that the evidence against its genuineness is “overwhelming.” However, there is other evidence that points in the other direction. There is also a considerable amount of misinformation circulating about this passage that has to be sorted out.
        Some researchers have stated that out of the 322 majuscule manuscripts that were catalogued, as of several years ago, only three support the inclusion of John 7:53-8:11. That statement is built on a false picture of the majuscules, as if they are all majuscule manuscripts of John.
        Most of those 322 majuscule manuscripts do not have any text from chapters 7 and 8 of the Gospel of John. Using “3 out of 322 majuscules” as a frame of reference is a silly proportion; it is like combining all of the baseball games, football games, and hockey games played in 1972, and saying, “The 1972 Miami Dolphins only won 17 out of 500 games.”
        Sounds like the 1972 Dolphins weren’t very good.
        Plus, the claim that only three majuscules include John 7:53-8:11 is simply false. The uncials D, E, G, H, K, M, U, S, G, Γ, Λ, Π, Ω, 047, and 0233 support the passage. Codex F, Boreelianus, included it when the manuscript was in pristine condition. Codex Y, Macedonianus, does not have the passage, but its marginalia expresses awareness of the missing verses. In Codex Delta, and in Codex L, John 7:53-8:11 is absent, but a large blank space appears between John 7:52 and John 8:12, evidently left as memorial-space; acknowledging the copyists’ recollection of the missing verses.
I don’t want to give the impression that the way to solve textual variants is to hold a democratic election with manuscripts in the role of citizens. But since an appeal to the number of manuscripts has been attempted, we might as well improve its accuracy: The number of majuscules that have John 7-8, and include John 7:53-8:11 or part of the passage, is 16, and the number of majuscules that have John 7 and 8 that do not include John 7:53-8:11 is 18, but two of those 18 – Codex Regius and Codex Delta – leave memorial-space for the passage.
        Codex Macedonianus, already mentioned, does not include the passage but has symbols in the margin that appear to refer to it. In the case of Codex A, Codex C, and 070 – three of the 18 majuscules counted as witnesses for non-inclusion – we don’t see a text in which John 8:12 follows John 7:52; we have to depend on space-considerations. Granting that those considerations are correct, the count is 16 for inclusion, 16 for non-inclusion, and a three-vote buffer-zone that both supports a text without John 7:53-8:11 while also supporting a memory of an exemplar with John 7:53-8:11.
        In addition, a few manuscripts, such as Codex Lambda and minuscules 34 and 135, have notes that refer to the presence of the story of the adulteress in earlier copies. I will say more about this feature later in the lecture.
        What we see here are the signs of two early forms of the text of the Gospel of John: one based in the West, that included John 7:53-8:11, and one based in the East, that did not.
        The dry climate of Egypt gave an advantage to papyrus manuscripts there, allowing the writing-material to survive longer, regardless of the quality of the text that was written on it. Outside Egypt, papyrus tended to naturally experience more rapid decomposition. Partly for this reason, the heading that states that the “earliest manuscripts” do not include John 7:53-8:11 is true. But there is also early evidence in favor of the story of the adulteress.
        Jerome, writing in the early 400s, said in his composition Against the Pelagians, 2:17: “In the Gospel according to John, there is found, in many copies, Greek as well as Latin, the story of the adulteress who was accused before the Lord.”
        About 30 years earlier, in 383, Jerome had included John 7:53-8:11 in the Gospel of John in the Vulgate Gospels. In his Preface to the Gospels, Jerome wrote that he had revised the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John “by a comparison of the Greek manuscripts. Only early ones have been used.”
        In his Epistle 27, To Marcella, Jerome was more candid. He stated, “The Latin manuscripts of the Scriptures are demonstrated to be faulty by the variations which they all exhibit, and my objective has been to restore them to the form of the original Greek.” 
        So: when Jerome translated the Vulgate Gospels, he did so on the basis of “ancient Greek manuscripts” – that is, manuscripts that were already considered ancient in 383. This testimony alone goes a long way toward outweighing the early Egyptian manuscripts. We don’t know exactly how many Greek manuscripts Jerome would call “many,” but if it was more than nine, that would imply that Jerome saw as many manuscripts, made before the year 400, with the passage, as we have seen without it.
        In a composition from the 200s, called the Didascalia Apostolorum, we find the following, in Syriac, in chapter 7, after the author used King Manasseh as an example of those who have received mercy from God:
        “If you do not receive the one who repents, because you are without mercy, you shall sin against the Lord God, for you do not obey our Savior and our God, to do as He also did with her who had sinned, whom the elders set before Him, and leaving the judgment in His hands, departed. But He, the searcher of hearts, asked her and said to her, ‘Have the elders condemned you, my daughter?’ She said to Him, ‘No, Lord.’ And He said to her, ‘Go your way; neither do I condemn you.’ In Him therefore, our Savior and King and God, is your pattern, O bishops.”
        The author of the Didascalia appears to regard the scene about Jesus and this woman as if it as well-known as the many other passages that he refer to in this composition. He uses Jesus’ act of forgiveness as a precedent for Christian bishops to emulate. 

        Another significant early witness is found in the Old Latin chapter-summaries, or capitula. In some Old Latin copies of John, and in many Vulgate copies that preserve Old Latin supplemental material, before the text of the Gospel, there are lists of chapter-numbers, chapter-titles, and brief chapter-summaries.
        There are eleven forms of the Old Latin capitula that mention the adulteress, plus one that mentions that Jesus went to the Mount of Olives, referring to what is said in John 8:1.
        One of these forms is called the Cy form, because it is assigned to the time of Cyprian or shortly later, that is, the mid-200s or late 200s. In John’s chapter-summaries in the Cy-form of the Old Latin capitula, the summary of chapter 30 begins like this: “Wherein he dismissed the adulteress, and said that he was the light of the world.” This indicates that the story of the adulteress was in an Old Latin text in the 200s, right before John 8:12.
        Furthermore, as Hugh Houghton has confirmed, the chapter-summary in some Latin manuscripts uses a loan-word based on the Greek word for adultery. The same loan-word also appears in the text of Codex Corbeiensis, from the 400s or 500s, indicates that the Latin text here echoes a Greek text.
        The testimony of Saint Ambrose of Milan, from about the 380s, deserves attention. Although some commentators have claimed that none of the early writers used the story of the adulteress, Ambrose made several extensive quotations of the story of the adulteress. Ambrose is widely regarded as the author of Apologia David, in which, in the course of commenting on sub-title of Psalm 51, the author says, “Perhaps most people are taken aback by the title of the Psalm, which you have heard read, that Nathan the prophet came to him after he had gone in to Bathsheba. Likewise those with weak faith could be disturbed by the Gospel-reading, which has been covered, in which we see an adulteress presented to Christ and sent away without condemnation.” If the author was indeed Ambrose, this reference shows that the story of the adulteress was routinely read in Milan. If not, it shows that the passage was routinely read somewhere else.
    In his Epistle 25, To Studius, Ambrose addresses the question of whether a Christian official may pronounce a death-sentence. In the course of his comments on this question, he refers to how Jesus dealt with the adulteress. Ambrose quotes the words, “Let him that is without sin cast the first stone at her. And again He stooped down and wrote on the ground.” He continues: “When they heard this they began to go out one by one, beginning at the eldest.” And then he quotes, “So when they departed, Jesus was left alone, and lifting up His head, He said to the woman, Woman, where are those your accusers? Has no man condemned you? She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn you. Go, and sin no more.”
        In his next letter, Epistle 26, To Studius, Ambrose goes into even more detail, introducing the passage about the adulteress by saying that it is “very famous,” and once again he quotes extensively from the passage.
    Earlier than Ambrose is the writer Pacian of Barcelona, who became a bishop in 365. In his Third Epistle to Sympronian – Against the Treatise of the Novatians, in paragraph 39, Pacian writes with heavy sarcasm: “O Novatians, why do you delay to ask an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and to demand life for life? Why do you wait to renew once more the practice of circumcision and the sabbath? Kill the thief. Stone the petulant. Choose not to read in the Gospel that the Lord spared even the adulteress who confessed, when none had condemned her.”
        So it is not as if the early evidence all points one way: there is very strong evidence from the East, especially from Egypt, against the passage. And there is evidence from the West, in the Old Latin capitula, and in the quotations from Pacian and Ambrose, and in the “many manuscripts, both Greek and Latin,” mentioned by Jerome, in favor of the passage.
        Before considering what caused the difference between these two forms of the text, there are other forms of the text to consider: forms in which the story of the adulteress appears at different places. As a footnote in the Christian Standard Bible states, “Other manuscripts include all or some of the passage after John 7:36, John 7:44, John 7:52, John 21:25, or Luke 21:38.”
        This is sometimes presented as definitive proof that the passage is secondary. For example, apologist James White has commented, “Such moving about by a body of text is plain evidence of its later origin,” and these different locations of the story constitute “absolute evidence” that it is not genuine.
        In 2008, Dan Wallace similarly stated that this account “has all the earmarks of a pericope that was looking for a home. It took up permanent residence, in the ninth century, in the middle of the fourth gospel.”
        This sort of comment suggests that some researchers need to get better acquainted with the influence of early lection-cycles. What is a lection-cycle? A lection-cycle is the arrangement of specific passages of Scripture assigned to be read in church-services on specific days of the year. Eventually lectionaries were developed, in which the daily readings were arranged in the chronological order in which they were to be read, but until then, there were simply local customs about which passage was assigned to each day. Important celebrations were among the first days for which specific readings were assigned. Easter-week was a very prominent annual observance on the Christian calendar. The Quartodeciman Controversy was a serious dispute in the late 100s, about precisely when the annual celebration of the Resurrection of Christ should be observed.
        Another important annual feast-day was Pentecost, a festival inherited by the church from its earlier observance in the old covenant. The Christian church has been celebrating Pentecost ever since Acts chapter 2.
        In the Byzantine lection-cycle, the Gospels-reading assigned to Pentecost consists of John 7:37-52, plus John 8:12. Thematically, it is a natural choice: Pentecost was known as the day when the Holy Spirit came to the church, and in John 7:37-39, Jesus speaks about the coming of the Holy Spirit. The inclusion of John 8:12 forms a positive closing flourish for the lection.
When the realization is made that one of the most important annual celebrations in the early church involved reading a passage of John beginning at John 7:37, continuing to the end of 7:52, and concluding with John 8:12, several things are resolved regarding manuscripts in which John 7:53-8:11 is moved around:
        The movement of the passage to precede John 7:37, in minuscule 225, was done so that the lector (the person who read the text in the church-services) would have the Pentecost-lection all in one piece, without having to stop at the end of verse 52 to find the final verse. This kind of conformation to lectionary usage is also shown in minuscule 225 where it has John 13:3-17 in the text of Matthew, after Matthew 26:20.
        So much for the claim that the movement to John 7:37 shows that the story of the adulteress was a “floating anecdote” in the early church. But what about the manuscripts in which it appears at the end of John, after John 21:25?
        These are not a random assortment of manuscripts; they consist mainly of members of the family-1 group. In the best representatives of this group, minuscules 1 and 1582, there is a note after John 21:25 that introduces the story of the adulteress there. The note goes like this:
    “The chapter about the adulteress: in the Gospel according to John, this does not appear in the majority of copies; nor is it commented upon by the divine fathers whose interpretations have been preserved – specifically, by John Chrysostom and Cyril of Alexandria. Nor is it taken up by Theodore of Mopsuestia and the others. Therefore, it was not kept in the place where it is found in a few copies, at the beginning of the 86th chapter, following, ‘Search and see that a prophet does not arise out of Galilee.’” 

        This note states that prior to being moved to the end of John, the story of the adulteress was found in a few copies immediately following John 7:52. And although the minuscules that display this note are medieval, their common ancestor probably originated no later than the 400s. Many Armenian copies also have the story of the adulteress at the end of John; if this echoes the initial form of the Armenian text then this format goes back at least to the early 400s.
        In the Palestinian Aramaic Lectionary, only part of the story of the adulteress was transferred to the end of John. In the lection that includes John 8:2, the Palestinian Aramaic text in two manuscripts says, “The Gospel of John was completed in Greek in Ephesus,” and in one manuscript, after John 8:2, it says, “The Gospel of John was completed by the help of Christ.”
        As J. Rendel Harris deduced back in the late 1800s, this implies that the Palestinian Aramaic lectionary was initial made by individuals using a text of John in which John 8:3-11 had been transferred to the end of John. The individuals who made the Palestinian Aramaic lectionary included in the lection the subscription-note to the Gospel of John, as well as John 8:3-11. Considering that John 7:53-8:2 is in the Palestinian Aramaic text of John, this shows that the story of the adulteress was in the text of John 7 and 8 before John 8:3-11 was transferred to the end of the Gospel.
        John 8:3-11 constituted the lection for October 8, which in the Byzantine Menologion is the feast-day honoring Saint Pelagia. This bring us to the testimony of minuscule 1333, which has been very poorly described by some commentators as if it has John 7:53-8:11 after the end of Luke.
        Minuscule 1333 would be listed among the manuscripts that do not include the passage, if someone had not written John 8:3-11 on what had been a blank page between the end of Luke and the chapter-list for John. All that has happened in minuscule 1333 is that someone who wanted to read lections from this manuscript added the lection for Saint Pelagia’s Day on the blank page. Contrary to Dan Wallace’s claim that the story of the adulteress stands as “an independent pericope between Luke and John,” in minuscule 1333 the lection’s title is explicitly provided: “For Saint Pelagia, on October 8, from the Gospel of John.”
        But what about the manuscripts related to the cluster known as family-13, in which the story of the adulteress appears at the end of Luke 21? This is a later adaptation to the series of lections that honor saints in the Menologion. After John 7:53-8:11 was moved out of the text of John, the passage was transferred to a location where it would conveniently follow the previous day’s lection in the Menologion.
        Earlier in Luke 21, verses 12-19 serve as the lection for October 7, the feast-day of Saints Sergius and Bacchus. At the end of the chapter, where verse 38 refers to Jesus teaching in the temple, the text is thematically similar to John 8:1-2. So, in the family-13 manuscripts, when the Pentecost lection was turned into one block of text via the removal of the story of the adulteress, the story of the adulteress was moved to this location, so that the lection for October 8 would be near the lection for October 7. In the main members of family 13, when you look at the transplanted text of John 8:2-3, you can see that the text has been shortened to create a smoother fit with Luke 21:37-38. After “And early in the morning He came into the temple,” the text in family 13 then says, “and the scribes presented to Him.”
So with just a few minutes spent looking at the details of the case, we can see why copyists moved the story of the adulteress, from where it had previously been found after John 7:52, to a location after John 7:36, a location after John 21:25, and a location after Luke 21:38.
        But one other location has not yet been explained: the Christian Standard Bible’s footnote says that “Other manuscripts include all or some of the passage after John 7:44.”
        There are no Greek manuscripts in which the story of the adulteress appears after John 7:44. What the CSB’s footnote refers to here is a small number of Georgian copies, including Sinai Georgian MS 16. These Gospels-manuscripts generally support the Caesarean Gospels-text, like the early Armenian manuscripts and the main members of family-1.
        What has happened is that when the Georgian version was revised, the revisor was guided by the same kind of note that appears in minuscules 1 and 1582, stating that the passage had been found in the text “at the beginning of the 86th chapter. This is a reference to the 86th Eusebian Section, which begins at the beginning of John 7:45. The note that guided the Georgian revisor apparently did not get more specific than that. And so, guided by a note that stated that the story had been found at the beginning of the 86th Eusebian Section, that is where he put it.
        Thus, instead of showing that John 7:53-8:11 was floating around like a butterfly, the transmission-streams that transfer the passage also contain earlier evidence of the passage in its usual location position between John 7:52 and John 8:12.
        What about the 270 manuscripts in which the story of the adulteress is simply absent? Before addressing that question, there is another aspect of some of the early manuscripts that should be pointed out. The Caesarean form of the text had the story of the adulteress at the end of John, introduced by a note that stated that it had been found in a few copies after John 7:52. If this was where it was in some of those early manuscripts, there would be no way to tell. 

        ● Papyrus 66 is not extant after John 21:17.
        ● Papyrus 75 is not extant after John 15:10.
        ● The Lycopolitan manuscript of John is not extant after 20:27.
        ● Codex T is not extant after John chapter 8.
        ● And, in Codex Vaticanus, marks called distigmai, resembling umlauts, appear frequently in the margin alongside a line of text that has a textual variant. One such mark appears alongside the blank space after the end of John.
        I don’t think these dots are contemporary with the main scribes of Codex Vaticanus. But others disagree, and if they are correct, then this leaves an open question about whether the transfer of the story of the adulteress was known to copyists in the early 300s.
        Considering how the Pentecost lection plays a large part in the displacement of the passage, I submit this hypothesis as an explanation for the initial omission of the passage:
        I first propose that John 7:53-8:11 was in the text of John in an exemplar used by a copyist in Egypt in the mid-100’s. By the mid-100s, the churches in Egypt already had a basic lection-cycle for their major annual festivals, including Eastertime and Pentecost.
        This doesn’t mean that each congregation, or each locale, observed exactly the same series of readings on the same feast-days, or that gradual expansion and adjustments did not happen. My first point here is simply that the celebration of Pentecost was an extremely ancient practice, included among the annual feast-days mentioned in the late 300s by the pilgrim Etheria, also known as Egeria.
In order to make it clear to the lector – the individual responsible for the reading of Scripture in the church-services – what the contours of the Pentecost-reading were, a copyist in the 100s marked his copy of the Gospel of John with simple notes signifying that when he reached the end of John 7:52, he was to jump ahead and resume at chapter 8, verse 12.
        Now picture the puzzle that presented itself to a professional copyist who used that exemplar: as he copies down the text of John chapter seven, after the end of verse 52 the copyist sees in the margin the instructions, “Skip ahead.” Unaware that these instructions were meant for the lector, he interprets them as if they were meant for him, the copyist. And so he skips ahead until he finds instructions in the margin which say, Restart here.
        The copyist follows these instructions, and accordingly he does not copy John 7:53-8:11, thinking that he is faithfully following instructions.
        And the manuscript – or manuscripts, if the same copyist made several copies – which contained this mistake proceeded to affect both the main Alexandrian transmission-stream and whatever transmission-streams to which it was exported.
        This simple theory explains why the text in the East, especially the text in Egypt, tends to not have the story about the adulteress, and the text in the West does.

First John 5:7 and Greek Manuscripts

           Earlier this month over at the Evangelical Textual Criticism blog, Elijah Hixson offered an informative post which included pictures of the few Greek manuscripts which have the Comma Johanneum in the text of First John 5:7.  The earliest is GA 629, a Latin-Greek manuscript dated to 1362.  I offered some analysis of the text of First John 5:7 in GA 629 in August of 2016 (see the replica of the relevant part of 629 at this link, or a page-view of the manuscript itself at the Vatican Library’s website at this link).  The second-oldest manuscript of First John that has the Comma Johanneum in the text of 5:7 is GA 61, which was made in the early 1500s.  The third-oldest Greek manuscript with the Comma Johanneum in the text of First John 5:7 is GA 918.  Hixson, by a series of simple deductions, narrowed his estimate of its production-date to the 1570s. 

GA 641:  The Comma Johanneum is absent.

            And that’s it, unless we include GA 2473 (from 1634) and 2318 (from the 1700s) – both of which were made after printed editions of the Greek New Testament were made, and which very probably include the Comma Johanneum because their copyists used a printed Greek New Testament as an exemplar. 

            The other manuscripts do not have the Comma Johanneum in the text; the Comma Johanneum is written in the margin instead.  Hixson’s post includes pictures of the relevant portions of these manuscripts, so I will only spend a little time reviewing them here: 

            ● In GA 221, a manuscript from the 900s, the Comma Johanneum is written in the margin, but it appears that the Comma Johanneum arrived there rather recently, considering that (as Hixson reports) a description of GA 221 made in 1854 says that the manuscript does not have the Comma Johanneum, with nothing said about a margin-note. 

            ● In GA 177, the Comma Johanneum is written in the upper margin of the page and is identified by its verse-number, which means that the Comma Johanneum was placed in the margin of GA 177 sometime after 1550.  (Dan Wallace noticed the Comma Johanneum in the margin of GA 177 in 2010.)   Hixson offers a more precise date, however:  the annotator of this manuscript left his name in it:  Ignatius Hardt, who was born in 1749.  Guided by a little more data about Hardt’s career, Hixson estimates that Hardt wrote the Comma Johanneum in the margin of 177 no earlier than the 1770s.

            ● In GA 88, a manuscript from the 1100s, the Comma Johanneum appears in the margin with almost no clues about who added it or when.   Almost no clues:  as Hixson observed, whereas copyists routinely contracted sacred names such as “Father” and “Spirit,” in the margin-note in 88 these words are written out in full, which may indicate that the person writing them was using as his source a printed book, rather than a manuscript.

            ● In GA 429, a manuscript from the 1300s, the Comma Johanneum is written in the margin, and it matches up with the text of the Comma Johanneum printed in Erasmus’ third edition – because, as Hixson explains, Erasmus’ third edition was its source.

            ● In GA 636, a manuscript from the 1400s, the Comma Johanneum is written in the margin, and is missing the articles, which is consistent with a scenario in which it was translated from Latin. 

                       

            Let’s review the implications of this evidence:  First, there is no Greek manuscript made before the 1500s in which the Comma Johanneum appears in the text of First John in a form which does not appear to be derived from Latin; strictly speaking, the exact text of the Comma Johanneum that appears in the Textus Receptus does not appear in the text of any Greek manuscript made before the 1500s.  Second, in the Greek manuscripts in which the Comma Johanneum appears in the margin, it either appears to be derived from Latin, or else it appears to have been copied from a printed source. 

           

            Now let’s look on the other side of the equation.  Here, from researcher Timothy Berg, is a list of the Greek manuscripts that contain First John but do not have the Comma Johanneum in the text:

Manuscripts Produced Before the 700s:  01, 03, 02, 048, 0296

Manuscripts Produced in the 700s-800s:  018, 020, 025, 049, 0142, 1424, 1862, 1895, 2464

Manuscripts Assigned to the 900s:  044, 056, 82, 93, 175, 181, 221, 307, 326, 398, 450, 454, 456, 457, 602, 605, 619, 627, 832, 920, 1066, 1175, 1720, 1739, 1829, 1836, 1837, 1841, 1845, 1851, 1871, 1874, 1875, 1880, 1891, 2125, 2147,     

Manuscripts Assigned to the 1000s:  35, 36, 2, 42, 43, 81, 104, 131, 133, 142, 177, 250, 302, 325, 312, 314, 424, 436, 451, 458, 459,   462, 464, 465, 466, 491, 506, 517, 547, 606, 607, 617, 623, 624, 635, 638, 639, 641, 699, 796,   901, 910, 919, 945, 1162, 1243, 1244, 1270, 1311, 1384, 1521, 1668, 1724, 1730, 1735, 1738, 1828, 1835, 1838, 1846, 1847, 1849, 1854, 1870, 1888, 2138, 2191, 2344, 2475, 2587, 2723,   2746     

Manuscripts Assigned to the 1100s:  3, 38, 1, 57, 88, 94, 97, 103, 105, 110, 180, 203, 226, 256, 319, 321, 323, 330, 337, 365, 431, 440, 442, 452, 618, 620, 622, 625, 632, 637, 656, 720, 876, 917, 922, 927, 1058, 1115, 1127, 1241, 1245, 1315, 1319, 1359, 1360, 1448, 1490, 1505, 1573, 1611, 1646, 1673, 1718, 1737, 1740, 1743, 1752, 1754, 1850, 1853, 1863, 1867, 1868, 1872, 1885, 1889, 1893, 1894, 1897, 2127, 2143, 2186, 2194, 2289, 2298, 2401, 2412, 2541, 2625, 2712, 2718, 2736, 2805     

Manuscripts Assigned to the 1200s:  4, 5, 6, 51, 204, 206, 172, 141, 218, 234, 263, 327, 328, 378, 383, 384, 390, 460, 468, 469, 479, 483, 496, 592, 601, 614, 643, 665, 757, 912, 914, 915, 941, 999, 1069, 1070, 1072, 1094, 1103, 1107, 1149, 1161, 1242, 1251, 1292, 1297, 1352, 1398, 1400, 1404, 1456, 1501, 1509, 1523, 1563, 1594, 1595, 1597, 1609, 1642, 1719, 1722, 1727, 1728, 1731, 1736, 1758, 1780, 1827, 1839, 1842, 1843, 1852, 1855, 1857, 1858, 1860, 1864, 1865, 1873, 2180, 2374, 2400, 2404, 2423, 2483, 2502, 2558, 2627, 2696       

Manuscripts Assigned to the 1300s:  18, 62, 76, 189, 201, 209, 216, 223, 254, 308, 363, 367, 386, 393, 394, 404, 421, 425, 429, 453,  489, 498, 582, 603, 604, 608, 621, 628, 630, 633, 634, 680, 743, 794, 808, 824, 913, 921, 928, 935, 959, 986, 996, 1022, 1040, 1067, 1075, 1099, 1100, 1102, 1106, 1248, 1249, 1354, 1390, 1409, 1482, 1495, 1503, 1524, 1548, 1598, 1599, 1610, 1618, 1619, 1622, 1637, 1643, 1661, 1678, 1717, 1723, 1725, 1726, 1732, 1733, 1741, 1742, 1744, 1746, 1747, 1753, 1761, 1762, 1765, 1769, 1831, 1832, 1856, 1859, 1866, 1877, 1881, 1882, 1886, 1890, 1892, 1899, 1902, 2080, 2085, 2086,  2197, 2200, 2261, 2279, 2356, 2431, 2466, 2484, 2492, 2494, 2508, 2511, 2527, 2626, 2675, 2705, 2716, 2774, 2777

Manuscripts Assigned to the 1400s:  69, 102, 149, 205, 322, 368, 385, 400, 432, 444, 467, 615, 616, 631, 636, 664, 801, 1003, 1105, 1247, 1250, 1367, 1405, 1508, 1626, 1628, 1636, 1649, 1656, 1729, 1745, 1750, 1751, 1757, 1763, 1767, 1830, 1876, 1896, 2131, 2221, 2288, 2352, 2495, 2523, 2554, 2652, 2653, 2691, 2704

Manuscripts Assigned to the 1500s and Later:  90, 296, 522, 1702, 1704, 1749, 1768, 1840, 1844, 1861, 2130, 2218, 2255, 2378, 2501, 2516, 2544, 1101, 1721, 1748, 1869, 1903, 2243, 2674, 2776, 2473, 1104

            With this data in mind, let’s consider a few extracts from a defense of the Comma Johanneum recently offered by Taylor DeSoto of Agros Reformed Baptist Church in Arizona: 
            ► “There is manuscript evidence for it.”  True, but as Hixson’s analysis shows, the Greek manuscript evidence for the Comma Johanneum is sparse, late, and shows clear signs of being derived either from Latin or from a printed text.   

            ► “It has more manuscript evidence support than let’s just say, the Gospel of Mark without 16:9-20.”  That is not quite the case; there are three Greek manuscripts in which Mark 16 ends at 16:8 (À, B, and 304 – all with other anomalous features), so technically, the quantities are equal.  But it would be foolish to use simple quantities to frame this evidence, because B and À are the two earliest manuscripts of Mark 16 known to exist, while GA 629 is from the mid-1300s, 61 is from the early 1500s, and 918 is from the 1570s, and the rest, as Hixson’s data shows, are either dependent on Latin, or else extremely late.  

            As a defender of the genuineness of Mark 16:9-20, I do not grant to B and À the level of weight that was given to them by Westcott and Hort (and which continues, in some circles, to be assumed).  But it is not just the testimony of B and À which we ought to consider.  It is also the testimony of 02, 048, 0296, 018, 020, 025, 049, 0142, 1424, 1862, 1895, 2464, 044, 056, 82, 93, 175, 181, 221, 307, 326, 398, 450, 454, 456, 457, 602, 605, 619, 627, 832, 920, 1066, 1175, 1720, 1739, 1829, 1836, 1837, 1841, 1845, 1851, 1871, 1874, 1875, 1880, 1891, 2125, 2147, 35, 36, 2, 42, 43, 81, 104, 131, 133, 142, 177, 250, 302, 325, 312, 314, 424, 436, 451, 458, 459,   462, 464, 465, 466, 491, 506, 517, 547, 606, 607, 617, 623, 624, 635, 638, 639, 641, 699, 796,   901, 910, 919, 945, 1162, 1243, 1244, 1270, 1311, 1384, 1521, 1668, 1724, 1730, 1735, 1738, 1828, 1835, 1838, 1846, 1847, 1849, 1854, 1870, 1888, 2138, 2191, 2344, 2475, 2587, 2723, 2746, 3, 38, 1, 57, 88, 94, 97, 103, 105, 110, 180, 203, 226, 256, 319, 321, 323, 330, 337, 365, 431, 440, 442, 452, 618, 620, 622, 625, 632, 637, 656, 720, 876, 917, 922, 927, 1058, 1115, 1127, 1241, 1245, 1315, 1319, 1359, 1360, 1448, 1490, 1505, 1573, 1611, 1646, 1673, 1718, 1737, 1740, 1743, 1752, 1754, 1850, 1853, 1863, 1867, 1868, 1872, 1885, 1889, 1893, 1894, 1897, 2127, 2143, 2186, 2194, 2289, 2298, 2401, 2412, 2541, 2625, 2712, 2718, 2736, 2805, and so forth. 

            ► “Those who attack the authenticity of this reading appeal to the assumption that it was introduced from a Latin manuscript.”  Mr. DeSoto writes as if there is no basis for this “assumption.”  However, it is not an assumption; it is a deduction from evidence:  in the Old Latin text of First John 5:8 (as I have explained already in an earlier post), the nouns are typically transposed to the order water-blood-spirit, which is conducive to a figurative interpretation in which the water represents the Father, the blood represents the Son, and the Spirit represents, of course, the Holy Spirit.  And that interpretation is the Comma Johanneum – an interpretive gloss that was inserted into the Old Latin text (and from there into the later medieval Vulgate text).  Its origin is linked to the transposition:  in evidence uninfluenced by Latin, where the transposition is absent, the Comma Johanneum is absent as well.

            ► “Can 1 John 5:7 be said to have been definitively introduced from the Latin, as though it were never found in a Greek manuscript?”  Yes, it can.  All one needs to do is observe the evidence and think it through:  everything is completely consistent with precisely that scenario.  Just look at the Latin text that runs parallel to the Greek text in 629, and look at the absence of the articles, and look at the absence of the Comma Johanneum in 02, 048, 0296, 018, 020, 025, 049, 0142, 1424, 1862, 1895, 2464, 044, 056, 82, 93, 175, 181, 221, 307, 326, 398, 450, 454, 456, 457, 602, 605, 619, 627, 832, 920, 1066, 1175, 1720, 1739, 1829, 1836, 1837, 1841, 1845, 1851, 1871, 1874, 1875, 1880, 1891, 2125, 2147, 35, 36, 2, 42, 43, 81, 104, 131, 133, 142, 177, 250, 302, 325, 312, 314, 424, 436, 451, 458, 459, 462, 464, 465, 466, 491, 506, 517, 547, 606, 607, 617, 623, 624, 635, 638, 639, 641, 699, 796, 901, 910, 919, 945, 1162, 1243, 1244, 1270, 1311, 1384, 1521, 1668, 1724, 1730, 1735, 1738, 1828, 1835, 1838, 1846, 1847, 1849, 1854, 1870, 1888, 2138, 2191, 2344, 2475, 2587, 2723, 2746, 3, 38, 1, 57, 88, 94, 97, 103, 105, 110, 180, 203, 226, 256, 319, 321, 323, 330, 337, 365, 431, 440, 442, 452, 618, 620, 622, 625, 632, 637, 656, 720, 876, 917, 922, 927, 1058, 1115, 1127, 1241, 1245, 1315, 1319, 1359, 1360, 1448, 1490, 1505, 1573, 1611, 1646, 1673, 1718, 1737, 1740, 1743, 1752, 1754, 1850, 1853, 1863, 1867, 1868, 1872, 1885, 1889, 1893, 1894, 1897, 2127, 2143, 2186, 2194, 2289, 2298, 2401, 2412, 2541, 2625, 2712, 2718, 2736, 2805, and so forth.  Then ask, what more could I possibly ask for, if I were asking for evidence that the Comma Johanneum drifted into a few Greek manuscripts due to the actions of copyists who wanted to make their Greek copies conform more precisely to the meaning of their Latin copies? 

            Nevertheless Mr. DeSoto states, “I have yet to see a scholar actually produce a manuscript, or historical source from antiquity which demonstrates that this verse was added from the Latin.”   It seems to me that he is simply resisting the plain implications of the evidence. 

            In addition. Mr. DeSoto resorts to a grammatical argument (offered in a past generation by commentator Robert Dabney) as evidence for the genuineness of the Comma Johanneum – and then states, “The only people I have seen stand against this grammatical argument are people who self-admittedly are rusty in Greek.”  However, this whole approach is a nothingburger, as demonstrated already by Dr. Barry Hofstetter in the 2018 post, The Comma Johanneum and Greek Grammar. 

            Furthermore, Mr. DeSoto misrepresents the evidence when he states that “Jerome and Nazianzes comment on it.”  By “Jerome” he appears to mean the author of the Preface to the Canonical Epistles – an author who (as I have already pointed out) used the transposed form of First John 5:8.  And by saying that “Gregory of Nazianzes comments on it,” he seems to be referring to the statement by Gregory of Nazianzus where, after stating that John says “that there are three that bear witness, the Spirit and the water and the blood” – as we find verse 8 in most manuscripts, without the phrase “on earth” – he bring up a frivolous objection from a posited grammarian only in order to tear it down, stating “You see how completely your argument from con-numeration has completely broken down, and is refuted by all these instances,” and he goes on from there – not once citing any part of the Comma Johanneum.  

            It is simply false to claim that Gregory of Nazianzus commented on the Comma Johanneum.  He did not do so.   Furthermore, in the very next chapter of his composition, Gregory of Nazianzus refers to the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, without referencing the Comma Johanneum.

            Mr. DeSoto did not leave that falsehood without company.  He also claimed, “The Comma Johanneum was seated at 1 John 5:7 until evangelical textual critics began deconstructing the Scriptures.”  As long as one ignores the testimony of 02, 048, 0296, 018, 020, 025, 049, 0142, 1424, 1862, 1895, 2464, 044, 056, 82, 93, 175, 181, 221, 307, 326, 398, 450, 454, 456, 457, 602, 605, 619, 627, 832, 920, 1066, 1175, 1720, 1739, 1829, 1836, 1837, 1841, 1845, 1851, 1871, 1874, 1875, 1880, 1891, 2125, 2147, 35, 36, 2, 42, 43, 81, 104, 131, 133, 142, 177, 250, 302, 325, 312, 314, 424, 436, 451, 458, 459, 462, 464, 465, 466, 491, 506, 517, 547, 606, 607, 617, 623, 624, 635, 638, 639, 641, 699, 796, 901, 910, 919, 945, 1162, 1243, 1244, 1270, 1311, 1384, 1521, 1668, 1724, 1730, 1735, 1738, 1828, 1835, 1838, 1846, 1847, 1849, 1854, 1870, 1888, 2138, 2191, 2344, 2475, 2587, 2723, 2746, 3, 38, 1, 57, 88, 94, 97, 103, 105, 110, 180, 203, 226, 256, 319, 321, 323, 330, 337, 365, 431, 440, 442, 452, 618, 620, 622, 625, 632, 637, 656, 720, 876, 917, 922, 927, 1058, 1115, 1127, 1241, 1245, 1315, 1319, 1359, 1360, 1448, 1490, 1505, 1573, 1611, 1646, 1673, 1718, 1737, 1740, 1743, 1752, 1754, 1850, 1853, 1863, 1867, 1868, 1872, 1885, 1889, 1893, 1894, 1897, 2127, 2143, 2186, 2194, 2289, 2298, 2401, 2412, 2541, 2625, 2712, 2718, 2736, 2805, and so forth, that is something that can be honestly said.  Yes, if you resolve to be blind to these Greek manuscripts, and focus instead, like a horse wearing blinders, upon interpolated and transposed Latin texts, and on a few late manuscripts influenced by them, then you can say that you have a basis for keeping the Comma Johanneum in your text of First John.  But if you are going to say that it was a good thing that at some point in the past, the Latin text was on the throne, and that the Greek text was usurped and pushed to the side, and that such ought to be the case today, then you thus are not actually recognizing the authority of the original text.      

            Finally, after asking a series of rhetorical questions, Mr. DeSoto asks, “Do we gain anything by removing this passage?”  To which I say, first, that this is a trick question, because when we look at 02, 048, 0296, 018, 020, 025, 049, 0142, 1424, 1862, 1895, 2464, 044, 056, 82, 93, 175, 181, 221, 307, 326, 398, 450, 454, 456, 457, 602, 605, 619, 627, 832, 920, 1066, 1175, 1720, 1739, 1829, 1836, 1837, 1841, 1845, 1851, 1871, 1874, 1875, 1880, 1891, 2125, 2147, 35, 36, 2, 42, 43, 81, 104, 131, 133, 142, 177, 250, 302, 325, 312, 314, 424, 436, 451, 458, 459, 462, 464, 465, 466, 491, 506, 517, 547, 606, 607, 617, 623, 624, 635, 638, 639, 641, 699, 796, 901, 910, 919, 945, 1162, 1243, 1244, 1270, 1311, 1384, 1521, 1668, 1724, 1730, 1735, 1738, 1828, 1835, 1838, 1846, 1847, 1849, 1854, 1870, 1888, 2138, 2191, 2344, 2475, 2587, 2723, 2746, 3, 38, 1, 57, 88, 94, 97, 103, 105, 110, 180, 203, 226, 256, 319, 321, 323, 330, 337, 365, 431, 440, 442, 452, 618, 620, 622, 625, 632, 637, 656, 720, 876, 917, 922, 927, 1058, 1115, 1127, 1241, 1245, 1315, 1319, 1359, 1360, 1448, 1490, 1505, 1573, 1611, 1646, 1673, 1718, 1737, 1740, 1743, 1752, 1754, 1850, 1853, 1863, 1867, 1868, 1872, 1885, 1889, 1893, 1894, 1897, 2127, 2143, 2186, 2194, 2289, 2298, 2401, 2412, 2541, 2625, 2712, 2718, 2736, 2805, and so forth, nobody is removing the passage; it is not there to begin with. 

            But taking the question as it stands:  yes we certainly do gain something.  First, we gain a purer, less corrupted text, which more closely resembles the original inspired text.  Mr. DeSoto recently stated in another post, “We need to receive the text as it has been passed down.”  I point out again that in the text of First John 5:7-8 that has been passed down in 99.2% of the handed-down Greek manuscripts, the Comma Johanneum is unsupported.  I point out again that the non-inclusion of the Comma Johanneum is supported.  I point out again that at this particular point, the Textus Receptus does not represent the text-that-was-handed-down, or the Byzantine Text, or the “Antiochan line.”  Yet this fact seems to have no effect on Mr. DeSoto’s position.  It seems abundantly clear that his goal is neither to defend the original text nor the text that has been handed down in Greek manuscripts; his agenda is to defend the contents of the Textus Receptus.

            (In addition, one must ask, “Which text that has been passed down?”, because the manuscripts that have survived to the present day do not always agree.  When asking, “Is this reading authoritative?” the decisive sub-question is not, Is it popular?, or “Is it familiar to a particular group of people?” (such as English readers of the KJV, or formulators of a particular creed from the 1600s), but, “Is it original?.)    

            Second, we lose the stigma of desperation which is the inevitable consequence of treating an interpolation as if deserves to be a foundation for Christian doctrine, as if the Textus Receptus must be right, and all those other manuscripts must be wrong.  It is morally wrong and strategically unwise to employ falsehoods – such as the false claim that John wrote the Comma Johanneum – in the service of the truth.  To continue to do so is to run the risk that onlookers will conclude that the orthodox view of the Trinity is so weak that its defenders must adopt non-original readings in order to defend it.  I would point out that few early theologians were as Trinitarian as Gregory of Nazianzus and Cyril of Alexandria – yet they did not use the Comma Johanneum, because it was not the Greek texts that they used. 

            Third, we gain the time that would otherwise be wasted continuing to discuss a textual variant which ought to be easily recognized as an interpolation.

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