Video Lecture: Hort and the Revised Version

Lecture 11:  Hort and the Revised Version

Lecture #11 in the series Introduction to NT Textual Criticism is now available to watch at YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0tb1N4_k1w .

In this 23-minute video, I describe events that led up to the 1881 Revised Version, and the theories proposed by F. J. A. Hort when, with B. F. Westcott, he produced the 1881 revision of the Greek New Testament which essentially replaced the primarily Byzantine Text of the Textus Receptus with the Alexandrian Text, represented by Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus.

Video Lecture: How To Use the Nestle-Aland Apparatus

            Now on YouTube:  the seventh lecture in the series Introduction to NT Textual Criticism!  In this 23-minute lecture, I discuss the textual apparatus in the 27th edition of the Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece and the United Bible Societies Greek New Testament, and explain many of the symbols and features found therein. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQQr2DeeTl4

(At around the 5:43 mark, the slide that refers to letters should refer instead to numbers.)

The Role of Tradition in New Testament Textual Criticism

            Yesterday, Joshua Gibbs of the Talking Christianity podcast hosted a round-table discussion on the subject of the role of tradition in New Testament textual criticism, with guests Jeff Riddle (representing a Confessional Bibliologist approach), Peter Gurry (representing a Reasoned Eclectic app, and myself (representing an Equitable Eclectic approach).  A looong discussion commenced.  Here it is in two parts.  (At one point my internet connection died, but then it got better.)

Part One:

And Part Two: 

Sit back, grab some popcorn, and enjoy!

Here is the text of my closing statement:

          In closing, I’d like to briefly consider three different approaches to the role of tradition in the compilation of the text of the New Testament. 

          One view is to look at how much agreement there is, along all transmission-lines, and conclude, “Textual variants do not matter.  Everyone agrees that you’ve got the basics of the gospel if you use the Textus Receptus.  So let’s use that, for the sake of stability.” 

          Another approach is to focus on the disagreements.  A person might say, “This is very complicated, and we just can’t tell what the original readings are.  The safest course of action is to just go on using what the church has traditionally used.” 

          If one defines “the church” in terms of what emerged from the Reformation, that approach will provoke the adoption of the Textus Receptus.  If one defines “the church” in a wider sense, the traditional Greek text is the Byzantine Text.  Ecclesiastical approval is on its side.

          But both of those approaches are basically appeals to authority:  authority in the form of tradition.  And an appeal to authority is not the same as an appeal to evidence.  A reading is authoritative because it is original – not simply because it is thought to be original.  Except for scribal blunders, practically all major readings were thought to be original by somebody; that is why they are in the manuscripts.  It takes more than being accepted by someone to vindicate a reading.

          When dogmatic statements are used instead of arguments from evidence, it’s like saying, “We have been using mumpsimus, so mumpsimus is what should be said.”  But readings do not become authoritative by being used.  An original reading is authoritative at the point of its inspired creation.   And scribal corruptions are never authoritative, because they are not inspired – no matter how many people like them.       

          There is also a third view, in which someone says, “If ecclesiastical usage is what endows a reading with authority, then all readings are valid, because they all have at least a little bit of ecclesiastical usage in their favor,” and this provokes a temptation to clutter the margins with a multitude of textual variants.  Not only does this render the text more unstable than ever, inviting readers to pick and choose, but it is the exact opposite of what textual critics are supposed to do, which is, make decisions about textual contests. 

          I suggest that tradition does have a valid role, though, in certain cases:

          ● if two competing textual variants both have strong external support, and

          ● they convey two different messages, and

          ● neither is shown by internal considerations to be non-original, and

          ● one or both readings says something that is not confirmed in other passages,

that is a situation that merits a footnote. 

          But which reading goes into the text, and which one goes into the margin?  After those qualifications are met, there is something to be said for the principle that possession is nine-tenth of the law.   If one reading consistently dominates the other, in terms of widespread and longstanding use, then, instead of having a relatively brief Council of Bishops to break the tie, we have a very long Council of Use.  This approach might not resolve every case, but it will help keep textual instability to a minimum, without giving tradition the right to veto the original text.

Abner Kneeland, Forgotten American Translator (and Apostate)

Abner Kneeland

            In Bruce Metzger’s book The Text of the New Testament, which serves as an introduction to the field of New Testament textual criticism, readers will find the names of several pioneering textual critics and translators who conducted research in the period between the publication of the KJV (1611) and the Revised Version (1881):             

           ● There’s John Fell, who issued an edition of the Textus Receptus in 1675, ΤΗΣ ΚΑΙΝΗΣ ΔΙΑΘΗΚΗΣ ΑΠΑΝΤΑ, with a textual apparatus that supplied variants from over 100 manuscripts and other ancient sources.

            ● There’s John Mill, whose edition of the Textus Receptus (published in 1707, shortly before Mill’s death) was accompanied by an extensive introduction.  This was re-issued by Ludolph Küster in 1710, 1723, and 1746.

            ● And there’s John (or Johann) Bengel, who developed a method of grouping manuscripts into what would later be called text-types.  He also developed some basic guidelines for judging textual contests.   He issued a Greek New Testament in 1734, in which he expressed his views of what variant has the better claim to be regarded as original in many textual contests.  He also wrote Gnomon Novi Testamenti, a five-volume commentary (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) on the New Testament which includes many text-critical notes.  Bengel was known for his defense of the essential reliability of the New Testament text, and of the veracity of the gospel.     

            The contributions of several other scholars who made an impact on the field are briefly summarized – Bentley, Wettstein, Bowyer, Griesbach, Scholz, Lachmann – but one notable name does not appear:  Abner Kneeland (1774-1844). 

            Who was Abner Kneeland?  He was the last man convicted of blasphemy in the United States of America.  As a Unitarian preacher (ordained in 1805), Kneeland received some instruction from Hosea Ballou.  Kneeland demonstrated a visionary attitude regarding the rights of woman, and the equality of all ethnic groups.  He led congregations in New Hampshire, Massaachusetts, New York, and Philadelphia, before breaking away from Christianity altogether in 1829.  By 1830 he was openly advocating pantheism.      

            In 1833, Kneeland published an essay in which he stated, among other things, “Universalists believe in Christ, which I do not; but believe that the whole story concerning him is as much a fable and fiction as that of the god Prometheus.”  As a result, he was arrested in 1834 on the charge of blasphemy, and was found guilty; he appealed the decision, but it was affirmed by the Massachusetts Supreme Court in 1838, and, despite calls for clemency from individuals such as William Ellery Channing, Kneeland served 60 days in jail. 

            In 1839, Kneeland moved to Iowa, intending to start a sort of colony with some of his followers, called Salubria.  (One of Kneeland’s earlier associates, Frances Wright, had attempted something similar in Tennessee, the short-lived Nashoba Commune).  After Kneeland’s death there in 1844, the Salubria colony dissolved.
            And that is that.  But before all the controversy about Kneeland’s departure from Unitarianism, he made an English translation in 1823, based on the text compiled by Johann Jakob Griesbach.  Kneeland used as his model the “Improved Version” made by Thomas Belsham in 1808, which was largely dependent on the 1796 work of Anglican Archbishop William Newcome, An Attempt Toward Revising Our English Translation of the Greek Scriptures. 

            In this translation, Kneeland demonstrated how the adoption of specific variants, combined with his own translational preferences, could yield a New Testament with doctrinal content significantly different from the King James Version, so as to fit his denial of the virgin birth, his denial of the existence of demons and hell, and so forth.  In a brief preface, Kneeland relegated the books of Hebrews, James, Second Peter, Second John, Third John, Jude, and Revelation to a secondary status, calling them “Disputed Books” which are “not to be alleged as affording along sufficient proof of any doctrine.” 

            Theological liberalism was thriving in New England in the early 1800s; Kneeland’s translation shows that its progress occurred side-by-side with an embrace of text-critical revision.  Kneeland’s translation demonstrates this over and over; for example, his translation clearly departs from the Textus Receptus at the following passages:

            ● Matthew 5:44, 6:4, 17:21, 18:11, 19:16, 20:7, 21:44, 23:13-14, 24:26, 27:17 (In addition, Matthew 1:17-2:23 are italicized, on the basis of a theory that they are secondary)

            ● Mark 1:2, 3:29, 9:38, 9:44, 9:46, 14:24, 15:28, 16:9-20 (Kneeland included an erroneous note on Mark 16:9-20, stating, “Many copies omit the twelve verses of this last chapter.”)

            ● Luke 6:45, 9:23, 17:3, 17:36, 20:23, 22:43-44, 23:17, 24:51 (In addition, Luke 1:5-2:52 are italicized, on the basis of a theory that they are secondary)

            ● John 1:28, 3:13, 3:15, 5:3-4, 6:11, 7:53-8:11, 19:16

            ● Acts 3:21, 7:37, 8:37, 13:33, 13:42, 15:24, 15:34, 20:28, 21:25, 22:9, 24:6-8, 24:26.

           

            When one looks over the criticisms that some individuals have made against the NIV and other modern versions, one can very frequently interchange “NIV” and “Abner Kneeland’s 1823 translation” and the sentences will make perfect sense.  This ought to make it perfectly clear that the text-critical issues surrounding this cluster of 45 textual contests (and more in the Epistles) did not suddenly arise when Egyptian papyri were unearthed, or when Westcott and Hort produced their 1881 revision, or when Codex Sinaiticus was discovered.  All these changes to the text were already being proposed in Greek compilations, and were already adopted in Abner Kneeland’s translation in 1823.  

            Likewise, some criticisms made against the Watchtower Society’s New World Translation also apply to some of Kneeland’s renderings; most notably in John 1:1, which Kneeland rendered, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was a God,” and in Hebrews 1:8a, which Kneeland rendered, “But to the Son he saith, “God is thy throne.”  When we look at Kneeland’s systematic avoidance of the term “hell” in his translation, we see in the New World Translation (and in the NIV to a large extent) the same avoidance.

            As a simple point of history, deviations from the Textus Receptus and deviations from orthodoxy have gone hand in hand; let anyone who says otherwise take a close look at the Unitarian texts, and Unitarian teachings, of the early 1800s in New England, as exemplified by Abner Kneeland’s translation, and his subsequent total apostasy.         

            This does not mean, however, that departures from the Textus Receptus require departures from orthodoxy.  Hundreds of readings, found in the majority of Greek manuscripts, diverge from the Textus Receptus, especially in Revelation (where Erasmus initially had only one Greek manuscript from which to work); it would be difficult to argue that the adoption of these readings – including the non-inclusion of the Comma Johanneum in First John 5:7-8 – elicits a departure from orthodoxy, inasmuch as they were already the normal readings in the Greek text throughout the Middle Ages. 

            But we should not let ourselves pretend that some textual variants cannot be used against orthodox doctrines.  Nor should we let ourselves be blindered by textbooks that fail to mention the Unitarian background of various text-critical scholars and translators in the late 1700s and 1800s (especially if an author of one of those textbooks, like Bruce Metzger, depended heavily on Principles of Textual Criticism written in 1848 by one of those Unitarian scholars, John Scott Porter). There was, and is, a spiritual battle going on.  As the history of Abner Kneeland’s apostasy shows, we would deceive ourselves if we were to imagine that the stakes in textual criticism are always low.

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

Maybe-Scripture-But-Maybe-Not???

            “So do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward.” – Hebrews 10:35 (EHV)

            When one version of the New Testament has a verse that is not in another version, that is something worth looking into.  When one version of the New Testament has 40 verses that another version doesn’t have, that’s definitely something worth looking into.  Textual criticism involves the investigation of those differences.  There are also hundreds of differences in manuscripts that do not involve entire verses, but involve important phrases and words.  (There are also hundreds of thousands of trivial differences which involve word-order and spelling, but non-synonymous differences in the wording of the text are the ones that tend to get the most attention.)    

            How can ordinary Christians maintain confidence that the New Testament they hold in their hands conveys the same authoritative message that was conveyed by the original documents of the New Testament books?  To an extent, that is something taken on faith:  even if there were zero variations in a reconstruction based on all external evidence, there would still be no way to scientifically prove that the earliest archetype does not vary from the contents of the autographs.  But that does not mean that one’s position about specific readings should be selected at random.  There is evidence – external evidence, and internal evidence – to carefully consider.    

            After the evidence has been carefully analysed, though, what should one do with one’s conclusions?  You might think that after scribal corruptions have been filtered out, the obvious thing for Christians to do would be to treat the reconstructed text as the Word of God, a text uniquely imbued with divine authority.  However, if one is to do something with one’s conclusions, one must first have conclusions.  

            And here we have a problem, because there is no sign that the Nestle-Aland compilation of the Greek New Testament will ever be more than provisional and tentative.  As the Introduction to its 27th edition states:  “It should naturally be understood that this text is a working text (in the sense of the century-long Nestle tradition):  it is not to be considered as definitive.”

            Anyone who wants a definitive text of the New Testament should abandon all hope of such a thing emerging from the team of scholars who produce the Nestle-Aland compilation. 

            The built-in instability of the Nestle-Aland text is understandable.  Nobody wants to say, “We are resolved to ignore any new evidence that may be discovered in the future.”  But it is also problematic:  it has caused some apologists, such as James White, to effectively nullify the authority of some parts of the New Testament.  Christians are being told that they should not have confidence about a particular verse, or a particular phrase, or a particular word, on the grounds that its presence in the Nestle-Aland compilation is tenuous.  The reading is in the text today, but the compilers might change their minds about it tomorrow, and therefore, it has been proposed, readers should not put much weight on such readings.

            For example, James White said this regarding the passage where Jesus says, ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” – “In Luke 23:34, there is a major textual variant.  And, as a result, you should be very careful about making large theological points based upon what is truly a highly questionable text.”  In another video, White said this, referring to the same passage:

            “When you have a serious textual variant, you should not, in an apologetic context, place a tremendous amount of theological weight upon a text that could be properly and fairly questioned as to its specific reading.  And so, I don’t think that you should build a theology based upon this text.”

Notice the reasoning:  it’s not, “This verse is not original, so don’t use it.”  It’s “There is a textual variant here, so do not depend on it.”  There is a clear danger in such an approach:  the danger of effectively relegating parts of genuine Scripture to a non-authoritative status merely because they have been questioned by textual critics.

Is James White aware of how much of the New Testament has been questioned by textual critics?  I could easily list over a hundred passages in the Gospels where the interpretation of a passage changes, depending on which textual variant is in the text.  I will settle for listing twenty-five:

1.  In Mt. 12:47, did someone tell Jesus His mother and brothers were outside?

2.  In Mt. 13:35, did Matthew erroneously say that Isaiah wrote Psalm 72?

3.  In Mt. 17:21, did Jesus say that prayer and fasting were needed prior to casting out a particular kind of demon?)

4.  In Mt. 19:9, is remarriage permitted after divorce?

5.  In Mt. 27:16, was the criminal Barabbas also named Jesus?

6.  In Mt. 27:49, was Jesus pierced with a spear before He died, contradicting the account in the Gospel of John?

7.  In Mark 1:1, did Mark introduce Jesus as the Son of God?

8.  In Mk. 1:41, when Jesus was asked to heal the leper, was Jesus angry, or was He filled with compassion?

9.  In Mk. 6:22, was the dancer at Herod’s court the daughter of Herodias, or the daughter of Herod?

            10.  In Mk. 10:24, did Jesus say that it is hard to enter into the kingdom of God, or that it is hard for those who trust in riches to enter the kingdom of God?

            11.  At the end of the Gospel of Mark, do the verses which mention Jesus’ bodily post-resurrection appearances, and His command to go into all the world and preach the gospel, and His ascension into heaven, belong in the Bible, or not?

            12.  In Lk. 2:14, did the angels say “Peace on earth, goodwill to men,” or “Peace on earth to men who are favored by God”?

            13.  In Lk. 14:5, did Jesus refer to a donkey, or to a son, or to a sheep?

            14.  In Lk. 11:13, did Jesus refer to the gift of the Holy Spirit, or to gifts in general?

            15.  In Lk. 22:43-44, did Jesus’ body exude drops of sweat like blood?  And did an angel appear to Him in Gethsemane, strengthening Him?

            16.  In Lk. 23:34a, did Jesus ask the Father to forgive those who were responsible for crucifying Him?

            17.  In Lk. 24:6, did Luke state that the men said to the women at the tomb, “He is not here, but is risen”?

            18.  In Lk. 24:40, did the risen Jesus show His disciples His hands and His feet?)

            19.  In Lk. 24:51, did Luke say specifically that Jesus “was carried up into heaven”?

            20.  In Jn. 1:18, did John call Jesus “only begotten God” or “the only begotten Son”?

            21.  In Jn. 1:34, did John the Baptist call Jesus the Son of God, or the chosen one of God?

            22.  Did Jn. 3:13 originally end with the phrase, “the Son of Man who is in heaven”?)

            23.  Does the story about the woman caught in adultery, in Jn. 7:53-8:11, belong in the New New Testament, or not?

            24.  In John 9:38-39, did Jesus receive worship from the formerly blind man, or not?   

            25.  In John 14:14, did John depict Jesus referring to prayers offered to Him, or not?

            In these 25 passages (and many more), the decisions made on a text-critical level will decide how the text is approached at an interpretive level.   And this sort of thing is not confined to the Gospels:  it also occurs elsewhere, for example, in Acts 20:28, and First Corinthians 14:34-35, and First Timothy 3:16. 

            Does anyone think that the Holy Spirit wants Christians to answer these questions with, “Only God knows”?  All Scripture is profitable for doctrine – but it can’t be profitable for doctrine if its authority is not recognized.  And its authority cannot be recognized as long as its content is not recognized. 

            An objection might be raised:   “It is not as if those readings have been arbitrarily declared dubious; the passages you listed have been properly and fairly questioned.”

            Who says?  A horde of seminary professors who know only what they vaguely recall reading 30 years ago in Metzger’s Textual Commentary?  Didn’t Metzger routinely house his arguments in the now-demolished prefer-the-shorter-reading principle?  Didn’t most of the editors of the Nestle-Aland compilation adhere to Hort’s defunct and untenable Lucianic recension theory?  If you have read Aland & Aland’s Text of the New Testament, then you know:  that is almost exactly what they did, and they almost invariably rejected Byzantine readings accordingly. 

            But James White, instead of stepping back from their obsolete theories and biased methodology – a methodology which starkly defies the “multi-focality” that he seems to imagine that it favors – still supports their results. 
           Instability is built into their results in hundreds of passages.  Over and over and over, the advocates of the Nestle-Aland text are obligated to say, “Maybe the original reading is this, and maybe it is that, and so we cannot confidently use either one as authoritative Scripture.”  Furthermore, the direction that the Nestle-Aland compilers (and, by extension, James White) are taking the text is not toward stability; it is toward perpetual instability, and more of it.

           

            In the approach that James White currently endorses, whether he realizes it or not, the authority of a passage can be nullified if a particular group of researchers declares that they are not confident about what the original reading was.  More and more of the text will inevitably be declared unstable – and thus, unsafe to use for theological purposes – as long as this approach is used.       

           Of course it seems reasonable to say, “Don’t build theology on disputed passages.”  But it is an invitation to chaos when no one establishes parameters to answer the question, “What is the proper basis on which to dispute a passage?”.  Is a suspicion of corruption all it takes?  Is the testimony of a single manuscript, or two manuscripts, a sufficient basis to throw a reading onto James White’s Disputed-And-Thus-Not-To-Be-Used pile?  Shouldn’t researchers resolve textual contests instead of merely observe them?  

            We may think that indecision is merited when Bible-footnotes tell us that “Some” manuscripts say one thing, and “Others” say something else.  But what would we think if the evidence were brought into focus, and we saw that behind the “Some” are a few witnesses, all representing the same transmission-line, and that behind the “Others” are thousands of witnesses, including the most ancient testimony, representing a wide variety of locales and transmission-lines?  

            We might conclude that it is preposterous, or even immoral, to continue to regard readings with excellent and abundant attestation as unstable.  But as long as the Nestle-Aland editors are the ones who get to answer the question, “Should this reading be disputed?” and as long as individuals such as James White say the equivalent of, “If it’s disputed, do not treat it like Scripture,” the door will inevitably open wider and wider for more and more passages to be disputed.  And that will result in having less and less Scripture on which to build theology – that is, less and less Scripture to treat at Scripture.  

            As far as the tasks of interpreting and applying the Scriptures are concerned, the situation will be no different than if those disputed passages were not there at all.  So I feel justified when saying, in conclusion that James White’s approach to these passages, while less shocking than erasing them, will have the same effect in the long run.  If you don’t want more and more of the Bible to be thrown onto the Do-Not-Use-for-Theology pile in the future, maybe you should stop using the new Nestle-Aland compilation, and stop supporting James White’s Alpha and Omega “Ministry.”

The Myth of Tenacity

            On page 78 of The King James Only Controversy, author James White states:   “Once a variant reading appears in a manuscript, it doesn’t simply go away.  It gets copied and ends up in other manuscripts.”  To support this statement, White appealed to Kurt & Barbara Aland’s similar statement:  “Once a variant or a new reading enters the tradition it refuses to disappear, persisting (if only in a few manuscripts) and perpetuating itself through the centuries.  One of the most striking traits of the New Testament textual tradition is its tenacity.” – Aland & Aland, The Text of the New Testament, p. 56.

            Aland & Aland, however, only provided three examples of this “tenacity” – and two of the three are very poorly attested among later Greek manuscripts.  Their first example is the abrupt ending of the Gospel of Mark (i.e., the ending at 16:8); among extant Greek manuscripts, it is supported by exactly one later copy (304).  In addition, 304’s text of Mark is 90% Byzantine; there is a very real possibility that 304’s exemplar contained Mark 16:9-20; like 2386 and 1420 (both of which used to be cited – erroneously – as support for the abrupt ending), 304’s support for the abrupt ending of Mark may turn out to be merely a quirk. 

            What about Aland & Aland’s other two demonstrations of tenacity?  They are found in Matthew 13:57 and Mark 1:16:

            Regarding Matthew 13:57:  Aland and Aland point out that whereas some manuscripts (B D Θ 33 700) simply present Jesus saying that a prophet is without honor in [his] homeland (πατριδι), and some manuscripts (À f¹³) present Jesus saying that a prophet is without honor in his own homeland (ἰδία πατριδι), and some manuscripts (L Byz K N W) present Jesus saying that a prophet is without honor in his homeland (πατριδι αὐτοῦ), the scribe of Codex C conflated two readings, so as to write ἰδία πατριδι αὐτοῦ.  “This is typical,” Aland and Aland say – “a scribe familiar with both readings will combine them, reasoning that by preserving both texts the right text will be preserved.”

            The obvious problem with the Alands’ proposal is that Codex C’s reading in this passage is anything but “typical;” C’s reading is singular – that is, it is the only Greek manuscript that has this reading!  Far from being “tenacious,” this reading burst into existence with the scribe of C, and then went extinct.  We may have here a tenacious page of parchment, but not a tenacious reading.

            The example in Mark 1:16 is better, where it can be argued that the majority reading is a combination, or conflation, of the reading in Codex A (του Σίμωνος) and the reading in Codex D G W Θ and the Textus Receptus (αὐτου), producing the longer reading αὐτου του Σίμωνος.  Although a counter-argument can be made, let’s step back at this point and survey the evidence that has been collected to illustrate the proposal that once a reading (whether part of the original text, or the creation of a scribe) appears in a manuscript, it does not go away:

            ● The presence of the abrupt ending of Mark in minuscule 304.

            ● The reading ἰδία πατριδι αὐτοῦ in Codex C (a singular reading), and

            ● The reading αὐτου του Σίμωνος in the Byzantine Text of Mark 1:16.  

            Now consider the mass of evidence against the concept of tenacity:  the hundreds of singular readings that appears in ancient manuscripts, but of which there is no trace in later manuscripts.  How many such readings are there?  Greg Paulson wrote his 2013 thesis on singular readings in the codices Vaticanus (B), Sinaiticus (À), Bezae (D), Ephraemi Rescriptus (C), and Washingtonianus (W) in the Gospel of Matthew, and he mentioned how many singular readings – i.e., readings that do not recur in any other Greek manuscript – each one of these codices has in its text of Matthew.  Paulson’s data:
            Vaticanus:  97.

            Sinaiticus:  Scribe A:  163. 

            Bezae:  259.

            Ephraemi Rescriptus:  75

            Washingtonianus:  112.

            I emphasize that these numbers – showing that five important early manuscripts combine to produce a total of 706 singular readings – only take the text of Matthew into consideration.  If one were to extrapolate, so as to maintain a proportion of 25 singular readings per chapter of the Gospels, then we could reasonably expect that a study of all the singular readings in these five manuscripts throughout the four Gospels would total about 2,225.  Well, there we would have 1,500 non-tenacious readings – never seen before or after the one time they appear – versus the three submitted by Aland & Aland.  Suppose that two-thirds of these were nonsense-readings which scribes could reasonably be expected to regard as mistakes.  That would leave 500 non-tenacious, non-nonsense readings, just in the Gospels, just in these five manuscripts.

            And what if we consider some earlier manuscripts?   A single quotation from James Royse (from p. 246 of Scribal Tendencies in the Transmission of the Text of the New Testament, chapter 15 of The Text of the New Testament in Contemporary Research, © 1995 Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., Ehrman and Holmes, editors) may serve to tell us:  Royse provides a chart which conveys that Papyrus 45 has 222 significant singular readings; Papyrus 46 has 471 significant singular readings; Papyrus 47 has 51 significant singular readings; Papyrus 66 has 107 significant singular readings; Papyrus 72 has 98 significant singular readings; Papyrus 75 has 119 significant singular readings.  (In a footnote, Royse helpfully defines “significant singular readings” as “those singular readings that remain after exclusion of nonsense-readings and orthographic variants.”)  

            Hundreds of readings refute the Alands’ claim about tenacity.  (Over a thousand in just six papyri.)  There is no evidence that these readings were ever perpetuated after they entered the transmission-stream precisely once.  Here the case might rest, Q.E.D. 

  

            But let’s also consider a few peripheral pieces of evidence.             

            ● Origen and Luke 1:46.  Bruce Metzger pointed out (in his essay References in Origen to Variant Readings) that Origen, in his commentary on Matthew, mentioned that in some copies, the Magnificat is said to be sung by Mary, while according to other copies, Elizabeth is the singer.  Presently, no Greek manuscripts say that Elizabeth was the singer. 

            ● Tertullian and John 1:13.  All Greek manuscripts of John 1 support the use of a plural in this verse, so as to understand it as a generalization about all genuine believers.  Tertullian, however, seems to have been convinced that the original reading here was singular, and that Valentinian heretics were responsible for changing it to a plural form.  (Denis S. Kulandaisamy has written a 300-page book on this little subject.)   

            ● Epiphanius and Matthew 2:11.  The apologist Epiphanius of Salamis, in the late 300s, mentioned that the wise men opened their “wallets” (πήρας), and noted that some manuscripts – like all Greek manuscripts extant today – referred instead to their “treasures” (θησαυροὺς).  No known manuscript today has the reading πήρας.  

            ● Jerome, Isidore, Theodore of Mopsuestia, and Ephesians 5:14.  Several significant patristic writers drew attention to a textual variant in Ephesians 5:14, where instead of “And Christ will shine on you,” some manuscripts in their day read “And Christ will touch you.”  John Chrysostom seems to have alluded to this variant, too, although he did not go into detail about it.  If it is extant in any Greek manuscripts, there is no mention of them in the Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece. 

            ● Origen and Matthew 4:17.  Origen says plainly that some manuscripts do not have the word “Repent” in this verse.  All of our Greek manuscripts, however, presently support the inclusion of “Repent” in this verse; only in the Old Syriac copies and in the Old Latin Codex Bobbiensis is it missing.     

            ● Jerome and Matthew 13:35.  Jerome firmly asserts that all of the ancient copies state that these things were done to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet Asaph.  No manuscripts of Matthew today have this reading, and Jerome mentions that by his own time, the text had been altered; one alteration had yielded the erroneous reading “Isaiah the prophet.” 

            If you take in hand Amy Donaldson’s two-part dissertation Explicit References to New Testament Variant Readings Among Greek and Latin Church Fathers, you will find details about these readings, and others, which were cited by early patristic writers but which now are never or only rarely found.

            Finally, the myth of tenacity is not only refuted by empirical evidence; it is rendered superfluous by logic.  For if a reading were to enter the transmission-stream, and then fall into oblivion, and the manuscript containing it did not survive, and no one referred to it in patristic writings, how would we know?  Even if we did not have the empirical evidence that thoroughly refutes the theory of tenacity, the theory could only ever be an assumption, not a verifiable thing.

                         

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

Want to Learn New Testament Greek?

            There are many free resources available online for people who wish to gain the ability to read the New Testament in the language in which it was written.  Here are some resources that should be considered by those who want to learn (or re-learn) how to read the Greek New Testament.

(1)  Dr. Bill Mounce offers many resources for learning New Testament Greek.  These range from Kids’ Greek to a 35-part introductory course.

(2)  Daily Dose of Greek, overseen by Dr. Rob Plummer of Southern Seminary (Louisville Kentucky), offers a 26-part course of videos about New Testament Greek, plus additional videos on related subjects. 

(3)  LearnGreekFree is a 13-part video-course taught by D. Eric Williams.

Dr. Ted Hildebrandt
of Gordon College.

(4)  Mastering New Testament Greek with Ted Hildebrandt offers 28 introductory lessons, supplemented by PowerPoint presentations, audio files, and more.   

   

(5)  Morling College (in Sydney, Australia) offers a free online course in New Testament Greek. 

(6)  Rick Aschmann’s Greek Charts – all 56 pages of them! – illustrating Greek vocabulary, grammar, etc., are very informative. 

(7)  The late Rod Decker (founder of the NT Resources website) prepared a simple list of Greek words every student should learn.  The first 28 pages of his book Reading Koine Greek are also available online.

(8) The Online Greek Bible makes available several compilations – not only the Nestle-Aland text but also the Textus Receptus, the compilations of Tischendorf and Westcott & Hort, and the Robinson-Pierpont Byzantine Textform.  The Byzantine Textform is also available in print in a special edition for beginning readers.

(9)  Learn Koine Greek consists of a series of 43 lessons with audio files, compiled by Roy Davison.   

(10)  LaParola offers multiple editions of the Greek New Testament (including the Byzantine Textform), and has some useful search-features.

BOOKS: 

The Robinson-Pierpont
Byzantine Textform
is available in print
and in multiple
online venues.

(11)  H. P. V. Nunn’s Elements of New Testament Greek, published in 1914, remains an excellent introduction.  An answer-key to the exercises in Nunn’s primer is also available. 

(12)  Harold Greenlee’s A Concise Exegetical Grammar of New Testament Greek is available as a free download from Asbury Seminary’s website.

(13)  J. Gresham Machen’s New Testament Greek for Beginners, published in 1923, is still a very useful textbook.  It is among the resources made available by the International College of the Bible.

(14) Alexander Souter’s A Pocket Lexicon to the Greek New Testament, published in 1917, is very handy.  Souter, a textual critic, included some terms that are found in textual variants in the Western Text. 

The Tyndale House Greek New Testament

             The newly published Tyndale House edition of the Greek New Testament (THEGNT) is a primarily Alexandrian text, with some cautious deviations from the Nestle-Aland compilation, and with improved spelling.  Before describing its text in more detail, let’s look at its physical features.  The volume published by Crossway is five and a half inches wide, eight inches tall, and slightly more than one inch thick.  That’s practically identical to the dimensions of the ESV Reader’s Gospels (also published by Crossway).  The THEGNT is a Smyth-sewn black hardcover with a single ribbon, and comes in a slip-case.  It rests well-balanced in one hand.

            The brief preface – in which Dirk Jongkind and Peter J. Williams, unlike the authors of the Foreword of the Nestle-Aland-27 edition, did not forget to mention God – is followed immediately by the beginning of Matthew.  (A more detailed Introduction is at the end of the book.)  The text is printed in a legible Greek font, in one column per page, on pages of no more than 36 lines (usually less, depending on how much space is occupied by the apparatus).    

            As the editors explain in the Introduction, they desired to arrange the text in a format somewhat reminiscent of ancient Greek manuscripts.  This is why, instead of indenting paragraphs, the first letter of each paragraph is drawn into the left margin (a feature called ekthesis).  Although accents are present, capitalization and punctuation are significantly less than in the NA/UBS texts.  The precedent of (most) Greek manuscripts that contain all 27 books of the New Testament, regarding the order of the books, has been mostly followed:  Gospels, Acts, General Epistles, Pauline Letters, and Revelation.  Hebrews, however, has been placed at the end of the Pauline Epistles.   

            Unlike the format in Papyrus 75 (in which John follows Luke on the same page), each book in the THEGNT begins at the top of the recto of a page (the recto, when a Greek book is opened and lying flat, is the page to the right); consequently there are several blank pages where the preceding book ended on a recto-page.  

            The text is mercifully free of clutter:  there are no English headings, no punctuation-related footnotes, no special treatment of Old Testament quotations, and no cross-references.  On the other hand, there are no indications of the beginnings of ancient chapter-divisions (kephalaia); in the Gospels the Eusebian Sections are not indicated, and the Euthalian Apparatus is absent in Acts and the Epistles.  Yet modern chapter-divisions and verse-divisions are present.  Unlike what is observed in ancient manuscripts, the nomina sacra (sacred names such as God, Lord, Jesus, Christ, Son, and Spirit) are not contracted.  Brackets have been eschewed, although black diamonds (♦) in the apparatus convey that a textual contest is especially close.

            The simple format (and good quality paper) contributes to an appealing reading experience for those who wish to read a Greek New Testament that is slightly less Alexandrian than the Nestle-Aland/UBS compilations.

            As a study-tool, however, the Tyndale House edition of the Greek New Testament is only minimally useful to those who already have a Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece, a United Bible Societies/Biblica Greek New Testament, or a New Testament in the Original Greek – Byzantine Textform.  Very many significant textual variants have been overlooked, and very many important witnesses receive no attention:  no versional evidence is cited and no patristic evidence is cited.  It is not infrequent to meet a small and trivial contest in the apparatus near an important and translation-impacting variant-unit that is not covered at all.  In First John, eight lines of the apparatus are spent on the Comma Johanneum; meanwhile no notice is taken of the Byzantine non-inclusion of καί ἐσμεν in John 3:1, or of the contest between ποιῶμεν and τηρῶμεν in 5:2.      

            A few examples may convey how the textual apparatus invites frustration: 

            ● Matthew 17:21 is not included in the text, and the apparatus lists only ﬡ* B Θ as the basis for non-inclusion.  The witnesses listed for inclusion are “À² (εκβαλλεται for εκπορευεται) C D K L W Δ 1424.”  The earliest witnesses (patristic writings, including Origen’s Commentary on Matthew) are thus ignored.  It is as if the editors have embraced the advances that have been made since the days of Tregelles where manuscript discoveries are concerned, but deliberately avoided making use of the progress that has been made in versional and patristic studies – not necessarily when they themselves made text-critical decisions, but certainly when showing readers the basis for those decisions.

            ● At the end of Mark 9:29, the words καὶ νηστείᾳ (“and fasting”) are included in the text.  (The adoption of this reading collides with the UBS editors’ judgment, even accompanied by a black diamond.)  The apparatus lists À² A C D K L W Δ (και τη) Θ Ψ 69 1424 as support for the inclusion of the words, and, for non-inclusion, ﬡ* Β 0274.  Where is Papyrus 45^vid?!  

            ● Luke 17:36 is not in the text – and there is no footnote about it.         

            ● At Luke 22:43-44, the verses are included in the text (again colliding with the UBS editors’ judgment, and again with a black diamond in the apparatus).  The evidence for non-inclusion is listed as P75 À^2a A B W 69(and insert after Matthew 26:39).  Minuscule 69 (produced in the 1400’s) is listed for non-inclusion in the same apparatus in which 0171 (produced c. 300) is not listed for inclusion?!  That seems downright negligent.

            ● At John 7:52, the entire pericope adulterae is relegated to the apparatus, where the witnesses listed for its inclusion are D K 1424^marg.  Yet the text of the pericope adulterae in the apparatus does not correspond to the contents of any of those three manuscripts. The confirmatory note in 1424’s margin is not mentioned.  An apparatus this incomplete and imprecise is worse than no apparatus at all. 

            ● At Romans 1:16, there is an apparatus-entry mentioning Codex B’s non-inclusion of πρῶτον, but nothing to explain the non-inclusion of τοῦ Χριστοῦ earlier in the verse.

            ● At Ephesians 3:9, there is an apparatus-entry mentioning the non-inclusion of πάντας by ﬡ* A, but the other variant-units in the verse are not addressed.

            ● In First Peter 5:7, Papyrus 72, 020, 1241, 1505 1739 et al include οτι, but the word is not in the text, and its absence is not addressed in the apparatus.

            The text of the Gospels in the THEGNT is generally Alexandrian, but the editors seem to have put Vaticanus on a diet, so to speak, allowing other Alexandrian manuscripts to tip the scales when they disagree with B.  The editors also maintained (except in Revelation) a principle that every reading in the text must be supported by at least two early manuscripts. 

            As a result, compared to NA28, the THEGNT has fewer readings with uber-meager support:  Mathew 12:47 is in the text; Matthew 13:35 does not receive any attention in the apparatus; Matthew 16:2-3 is in the text (without Ὑποκριταί); in Matthew 27:16-17 Barabbas is simply Barabbas; the interpolation of ﬡ and B in Matthew 27:49 is not even mentioned in the apparatus; Mark 1:41 reads σπλαγχνισθεὶς (not ὀργισθεὶς); Mark 13:33 includes καὶ προσεύχεσθε; Mark 16:9-20 is included in the text (with an annotation found in the core members of family-1 interrupting the text between Mark 16:8 and 16:9); Luke 23:34a is in the text; John 1:18 reads ὁ μονογενὴς υἱὸς (“the only-begotten Son”), John 7:8 reads οὔπω instead of οὐκ, and Luke 24:47 reads καί instead of εἰς (“repentance and forgiveness”). 

            The apparatus in Luke 24 offers a clear view of its inconsistency:  an entry is given in verse 19 about a relatively minor variant-unit; meanwhile the short readings of Codex D in verses 3, 6, 12, 17, 36, and 40 are not mentioned.  There is no mention of the reading of Sinaiticus in 24:13 either.          

            Turning to the General Epistles (the only part of the Nestle-Aland compilation that has been re-compiled in the past 40 years), it must be observed that the THEGNT fails to consistently cite 1739 and 1505 (both representatives of ancient text-forms) in its apparatus.  (1739 is only cited at Hebrews 2:9.  Why not at Acts 8:37? Why not throughout Acts and the Epistles?)  This is inexplicable, especially considering that 1424 and 69 are abundantly cited.  

            Even where the editors have made an impressive textual decision (as in Jude verse 22, where Tregelles’ text is retained), the miserly selection of witnesses very often prevents readers from obtaining a sense of the reasons for the decision.  In addition, it is not rare to encounter readings in the text that are not in NA27, nor in RP2005, which receive no attention in the apparatus.  The best thing about this textual apparatus is that it can be easily ignored; the text contains no footnote-numbers or text-critical symbols.

           

            As an example of the quality of the THEGNT’s text and apparatus, consider the treatment of the Epistle of Jude.  The Tyndale House text disagrees with RP2005 in 17 textual contests, five of which the reader is informed about in the apparatus.  (The Byzantine non-inclusion of the phrase “through Jesus Christ our Lord” in verse 24 is not covered in the apparatus.  To give you some idea of how sparse the apparatus is:  the Christian Standard Bible has more textual footnotes in Jude than the Tyndale House GNT has apparatus-entries.)  Yet there are also four disagreements with NA28:     

            v. 5 – ἃπαξ πάντα instead of ὑμᾶς ἃπαξ πάντα,

            v. 15 – πάντας τοὺς ἀσεβεῖς instead of πᾶσαν ψυχὴν,

            v. 16 – αὐτῶν instead of ἑαυτῶν after ἐπιθυμίας (agreeing with RP2005),

            v. 22 – ἐλέγχετε instead of ἐλεᾶτε (yielding “Refute” rather than “Have mercy on”).

Of these four disagreements, the one in verse 16 is not mentioned in the apparatus.  Byzantine readings are not the only ones overlooked in the apparatus; some readings in the Nestle-Aland compilation are also silently rejected. 

            The Introduction at the end of the book includes a list of the witnesses which were used by the compilers.  Sixty-nine papyri are listed; a note states that “all available papyri” were consulted but does not specify how many that was.  No amulets or talismans are in the list.  Sixty-six other manuscripts are also listed (not including 021, 022, 023, 034, 043, et al) as cited witnesses.  Nine other manuscripts were used exclusively at Hebrews 2:9 or First John 5:7.  In addition, 65 other manuscripts were consulted.  Thus one could say that 209 manuscripts were used to make the Tyndale House text, of which 144 are cited at least once.           

           

            In conclusion:  I am glad to see this ten-year project come to fruition.  I admire the devout intentions of its creators – not just Jongkind and Williams, but a team of scholars (named in an Acknowledgements section after the Introduction at the back of the book).  The Tyndale House edition of the Greek New Testament has some features which can only be regarded as advances.  Yet it could have been much better if the editors had accepted the sensible advice given long ago (by Scrivener, I think) to the effect that text-compilers ought to seek help wherever it can be found. 

            By insisting on selecting readings exclusively from ancient Greek manuscripts (but strangely overlooking the purple uncials N O Σ Φ), the editors have amplified the voices of manuscripts stored in Egypt (where the low humidity-level allows papyrus to survive longer than elsewhere), while muting the voices of early patristic writers, early versions, and later manuscripts, as if later manuscripts (not only of hundreds of Byzantine copies but also 700, 1582, et al) came full-grown from scriptoriums like soldiers from dragon’s teeth, rather than as echoes of their ancestors.  The resultant presentation is simple – but far too simple to be useful for much more than reading.  Fortunately, reading the Word of God, even a localized Egyptian form of it, is a blessing.