Sinaiticus and the Byzantine Text: Same Message?

A page from Codex Sinaiticus

            “A person who reads the New Testament as found in Codex Sinaiticus and applies sound exegetical methods to its text will come to the very same conclusions as anyone reading a Byzantine manuscript written a thousand years later.” – James White. (KJV-Only Controversy, p. 74)

            Seriously?  Claims such as that one unrealistically minimize the differences between the Alexandrian text and the Byzantine Text, and downplay the mistakes made by copyists.  Let’s test that claim, comparing the text that was written by the copyist of Sinaiticus (À) – before anyone came along later and made corrections – and the Byzantine Text as found in the Robinson-Pierpont compilation.  In the interest of brevity, I will limit this comparison to the text of the Gospel of Matthew (and I will not make all the comparisons that could be made).  I will add some comments, but for the most part I will let these comparisons speak for themselves.

● 1.  Was Asaph a descendant of David? (see Matthew 1:8)

            Byzantine Text:  no; Asa was a descendant of David.

            Sinaiticus:  yes. 

            To avoid attributing a bad error to Matthew, the person who uses sound exegetical methods will perceive that the Alexandrian Text actually refers to Asa but resorts to a non-standard spelling that happens to produce the same name as the name of a contemporary of David (Asaph) to whom several Psalms are attributed.

● 2.  Was Amos a descendant of David?  (see Matthew 1:10)

            Byzantine Text:  no; Amon was a descendant of David.

            Sinaiticus:  yes. 

            To avoid attributing a bad error to Matthew, the person who uses sound exegetical methods will perceive that the Alexandrian Text actually refers to Amon but resorts to a non-standard spelling that happens to produce the same name as the name of an Old Testament prophet (Amos).

● 3.  In Matthew 5:22, did Jesus prohibit being angry with a brother, unless there was a reason, or did Jesus prohibit being angry with a brother, without qualification?

            Byzantine Text:  Jesus prohibited being angry with a brother without a cause

            Sinaiticus:  Jesus prohibited being angry with a brother, without qualification.

            Inasmuch as Jesus is plainly said to be angry in Mark 3:5, those who utilize both sound exegetical methods and the Alexandrian Text are left with the task of defending the premise that Jesus was consistent with His own teachings.  Perhaps their sound exegetical methods will involve considering the nuances of the Aramaic terms for “anger” that Jesus used.

● 4..  In Matthew 5:19, did Jesus affirm that the person who does what the law says, and teaches others to do so, shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no. 

            The text of À skips the second half of the verse, very likely because the scribe of À’s line of sight drifted from the first occurrence of “in the kingdom of heaven” in the verse to its second occurrence, skipping all the words in between.

● 5.  Did Jesus instruct His disciples to pray, “For Yours is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever,” or not?  (See Matthew 6:13)

            Byzantine Text:  yes, Jesus did this.

            Sinaiticus:  no, Jesus did not do this.

● 6.  In Matthew 7:27, did Jesus mention that “the floods came”?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no

            The scribe of À accidentally skipped the phrase due to a parableptic error (when his line of sight shifted from the letters -μοι at the end of ποταμοι to the same letters at the end of ανεμοι). 

● 7.  In Matthew 8:3, did Matthew mention that the leper was cleansed immediately when Jesus touched him?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no

● 8.  Did Matthew report in 8:13 that the centurion went to his house and found that the servant had been healed?

            Byzantine Text:  no

            Sinaiticus:  yes

● 9.  Where did Matthew say that the demoniacs were encountered in 8:28?

            Byzantine Text:  the country of the Gergesenes

            Sinaiticus:  the country of the Gazarenes

            The reading in the Byzantine Text is supported by Origen in the 200s, before Sinaiticus was produced.  “Gazarenes” (Γαζαρηνων) appears exclusively in Codex Sinaiticus. 

● 10.  In Matthew 8:29, did the demoniacs address Jesus by name?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no

● 11.  In Matthew 9:15, did Jesus say, “But days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them”?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no.  

            The scribe of À carelessly skipped some text again, skipping from the first occurrence of νυμφιος in this verse to the second occurrence of the same word.

● 12.  Did Matthew report (in 9:24) that the people at the home of the young girl who had died knew that she was dead?

            Byzantine Text:  no

            Sinaiticus:  yes

● 13.  Does Matthew 9:35 say that people followed Jesus after He healed them?

            Byzantine Text:  no

            Sinaiticus:  yes

● 14.  Does Matthew 10:3 affirm that Lebbaeus was also named Thaddeus?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no 

● 15.  Did Jesus tell the apostles not to provide themselves with silver as He sent them to preach in Mathew 10:9?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no

● 16.  Does Matthew 10:12 say that Jesus told the apostles, when entering a house, to greet those within with the blessing, “Peace to this house”?

            Byzantine Text:  no

            Sinaiticus:  yes

● 17.  Did Matthew record (in 10:39) that Jesus said, “He who finds his life will lose it”?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no

● 18.  Did Jesus say, in Matthew 11:29, “Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me,” or merely “Take My yoke upon you, and learn”?

            Byzantine Text:  “learn of Me.”

            Sinaiticus:  “Learn.”

● 19.  In Matthew 12:13, when Matthew described how Jesus healed the man with the withered hand, did he say that the hand that had been withered became as whole as the other?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no

● 20.  Did Matthew say that one of Jesus’ disciples told Him, as He was speaking to the crowds, that His mother and brothers stood outside waiting to see Him?  Or to put it another way:  does Matthew 12:47 belong in the text?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no

● 21.  Does Matthew 13:35 say that the prophet Isaiah wrote Psalm 72?

            Byzantine Text:  no.

            Sinaiticus:  yes.

            In Matthew 13:35, Sinaiticus’ text says that Isaiah the prophet is being quoted.  The quotation that is given, however, is from Psalm 78.  Now, there is another passage – Mark 1:2 – where Isaiah’s name appears in the Alexandrian Text where it does not belong, and in that case, “sound exegetical methods” provide a sort of loophole, so that even though the first part of the quotation is from Malachi rather than Isaiah, eagle-eyed exegetes can perceive that Mark combined two prophetic passages, and only named the more prominent of the two; Malachi’s material being connected in a thematic way. 

            Here in Matthew 13:35, however, there is no such loophole, for the Psalms are not the domain of Isaiah, and are not bundled together with Isaiah’s book.  The author of Psalm 78 is explicitly identified as Asaph.  Thus the person who applies sound exegetical methods to the text faces an irreconcilable contradiction in the text of Codex Sinaiticus, and down falls the doctrine of inerrancy.  (I propose in a series of detailed posts about Mark 1:2 that a better option is to realize that some early copyists occasionally added Isaiah’s name where it didn’t belong, and that Mark 1:2 and Matthew 13:35 are two of those places.)   

● 22.  Did Jesus explain, in Matthew 13:39, that the harvest is the end of the age?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no

           

● 23.  Did Matthew record, in Matthew 13:41, that Jesus said that the angels are “His” angels?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no

            This is an interesting reading in À, because there is no readily obvious mechanism to elicit it.  Vaticanus and other Alexandrian witnesses include “his” (αυτου).

● 24.  Did Jesus immediately make His disciples get in the boat after the feeding of the five thousand, according to Matthew 14:22?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no

            Like the preceding comparison, this one shows another passage in which the scribe of À seems to have arbitrarily dropped a word that was not essential to the sense of the sentence.  Vaticanus and other Alexandrian witnesses include “immediately” (ευθεως).

● 25.  Did Jesus send the crowds away before went up a mountain to pray in Matthew 14:23?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus;  no

● 26.  In Matthew 14:30, was Peter intimidated when he saw that the wind was boisterous, or simply when he saw the wind?

            Byzantine Text:  when he saw that the wind was boisterous

            Sinaiticus:  when he saw the wind

            The Alexandrian Text’s core witnesses share a parableptic error; an early copyist’s line of sight skipped from the letters -ον in ανεμον (“wind”) to the identical letters at the end of the next word, ισχυρον (“boisterous”).

● 27.  In Matthew 15:31, did the multitudes marvel when they saw that the maimed were made whole?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  there is no mention of this (another parableptic error)

● 28.  In Matthew 16:2-3, did Jesus rebuke the Pharisees and Sadducees because they could discern the meaning of certain weather patterns, but could not discern the signs of the times?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no

● 29.  In Matthew 17:15, did the father of the boy with an unclean spirit address Jesus as “Lord”?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no

● 30.  In Matthew 17:21, did Jesus tell His disciples, “But this kind does not come out except by prayer and fasting”?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no; the entire verse is absent

● 31.  In Matthew 18:11, did Jesus say, “For the Son of Man has come to save that which was lost”?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no; the entire verse is absent

● 32.  In Matthew 18:12, in the parable of the lost sheep, does Jesus mention that the shepherd leaves the ninety-nine sheep upon the mountain when he goes to search for the lost sheep?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no; there is no mention of “upon the mountain”

● 33.  In Matthew 19:9, did Jesus say, “And whoever marries her who is divorced commits adultery”?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no.  The final sentence of the verse is absent

● 34.  In Matthew 19:18, does Jesus include “Do not commit adultery, do not steal” among the commandments that one should keep?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no

● 35.  In Matthew 19:20, does the young man say that he has kept the commandments since his youth?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no

● 36.  In Matthew 20:7, as Jesus told the parable of the laborers in the vineyard, did he repeat the master’s statement, “And what is right, you shall receive”?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no

● 37.  In Matthew 20:16, does Jesus say, “For many are called, but few are chosen”?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no

● 38.  In Matthew 20:22, does Jesus ask James and John if they are able to be baptized with the baptism with which He is baptized?  And does Jesus affirm in 20:23 that they will be baptized with the baptism with which He is baptized?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no

● 39.  In Matthew 20:30, did the two blind men at Jericho address Jesus as “Lord”?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no

● 40.  In Matthew 21:12, does Matthew refer to the temple as “the temple of God” or simply as “the temple”?

            Byzantine Text:  the temple of God

            Sinaiticus:  the temple

● 41.  Does Matthew 22:15 mention that the Pharisees plotted how they might trap Jesus in His words?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no

● 42.  In Matthew 23:4 did Jesus say that the scribes and Pharisees devised burdens that were “hard to bear”?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no

● 43.  In Matthew 23:8, did Jesus forbid His disciples to be called “Rabbi”?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no; the first part of the verse is absent.

● 44.  In Matthew 23:35, is Zechariah identified as the son of Berechiah?

            Byzantine Text: yes

            Sinaiticus:  no

            This comparison is particularly interesting, because it catches the scribe of an old witness (Sinaiticus) removing a difficulty, whereas the vast majority of Byzantine scribes left it untouched.

● 45.  In Matthew 24:7, what does Jesus say will happen before the end of the world?

            Byzantine Text:  famines, pestilences, and earthquakes

            Sinaiticus:  earthquakes and famines

● 46.  In Matthew 24:10, did Jesus say that in the last days, many will hate one another?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no.  Sinaiticus, rather uniquely, says that people will hand over one another to tribulation and then verse 11 commences.

● 47.  Did Jesus say in Matthew 24:35, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away”?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no; the verse is absent.

 

● 48.  In Matthew 24:36, did Jesus specifically acknowledge that the Son does not know the day of His return?

            Byzantine Text:  no

            Sinaiticus:  yes

● 49.  In Matthew 25:22, does the servant address his master as “Lord”?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no

● 50.  In Matthew 25:42, does the King tell the goats, “I was naked, and you did not clothe Me”?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no (another parableptic error)

  

● 51.  As Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper in Matthew 26:28, did He say, “This is My blood of the new covenant,” or “this is My blood of the covenant”?

            Byzantine Text:  new covenant

            Sinaiticus:  covenant

            Although the Byzantine Text’s reference to the “new covenant” can be accounted for as a harmonization to First Corinthians 11:25, it is a very widespread and very early reading.  The Alexandrian reading interlocks suspiciously well with Marcionite theology. 

● 52.  In Matthew 26:62, what does the high priest say to Jesus?

            Byzantine Text:  “Do You answer nothing?  What is it that these men testify against You?”

            Sinaiticus:  nothing; the second half of the verse is absent.

● 53.  In Matthew 26:63, does Matthew say that Jesus was silent when questioned by the high priest?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no; the first half of the verse is absent.  (This is the result of another parableptic error; the copyist of À accidentally skipped from “said to Him” in 26:62 to the identical phrase in 26:63, losing all the words in between).

  

● 54.  Does Matthew 27:45 specify that there was darkness “over all the land”?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no

● 55.  Does Matthew 27:49 state that Jesus was pierced with a spear before He died, and that water and blood came forth from Jesus’ body before He died?

            Byzantine Text:  no.

            Sinaiticus:  yes.

            In Matthew 27:49 – when Jesus is on the cross, and has cried out, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” – Codex Sinaiticus includes a passage which says that one of the soldiers took a spear and pierced His side, and that water and blood flowed from the wound.  After this, in Matthew 27:50, Jesus cries out again with a loud voice, and dies.  This contradicts what is stated in John 19:30-34:  John reports that Jesus died (in 19:30), and that the soldiers pierced His side afterwards, confirming that He was already dead.  A person who applies sound exegetical methods to the text of Codex Sinaiticus cannot maintain the doctrine of inerrancy, whereas a person reading the Byzantine Text can.

● 56.  Does Matthew 27:52 report that when the earth quaked and the rocks were split, the graves were opened?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no

● 57.  Does Matthew 27:56 name Mary Magdalene as one of the women who witnessed Jesus’ crucifixion from afar?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no

● 58.  In Matthew 28:6, does the angel invite the women at the empty tomb to “Come, see the place where He lay,” or, “Come, see the place where the Lord lay”?

            Byzantine Text:  Come, see where the Lord lay.

            Sinaiticus:  Come, see where He lay.

● 59.  Does Matthew 28:9 begin by mentioning that “As they went to tell His disciples,” Jesus met the women?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no

● 60.  Does Matthew 28:17 specify that when the disciples saw Jesus, they worshiped Him, or does it simply say that they worshiped?

            Byzantine Text:  they worshiped Him     

            Sinaiticus:  they worshiped

    

         It should be obvious from this comparison that the sermons of a Christian preacher in the early church using a copy of the Byzantine Text of the Gospel of Matthew certainly would not and could not be the same as the sermons prepared by a preacher who used Codex Sinaiticus, even if their methods of exegesis were identical.  Not only would they be different regarding a variety of details, but a preacher using Sinaiticus’ errant text of Matthew 13:35 and 27:49 would not reach the same conclusion about the veracity of the text as a preacher using the inerrant Byzantine text of Matthew 13:35 and 27:49.  And in passages such as Matthew 5:19, 6:13, 9:15, 10:39, 12:47, 15:31, 17:21, 18:11, 19:9, 20:16, 23:8, 24:10, 24:35, and 26:62-63, the difference between what was written by the copyist of Sinaiticus and what was written by Byzantine scribes is the difference between no text and a text.

            Similarly, a sermon preached by a preacher using Codex Sinaiticus would differ from a sermon preached by a preacher using the Byzantine Text because the Byzantine Text does not contain the harmonizations and expansions that corrupt the text of Codex Sinaiticus in passages such as Matthew 8:13, 9:24, 9:35, 10:12, 13:35, and 27:49.  The idea that anyone, however sound their exegetical methods may be, will interpret nothing the same way he would interpret something, and draw the same conclusions, is absurd.  This is particularly true when one reading conveys an error and a rival reading does not (as is the case in Matthew 13:35 and 27:49). 

            It is not my intention today to defend in detail either the contents of Sinaiticus, or the contents of the Byzantine Text (although in most of the cases I have listed, the reading in Sinaiticus is an obvious scribal corruption, disagreeing not only with the Byzantine reading but also with the reading found in the manuscript’s Alexandrian allies).  This comparison simply shows that the text of Matthew in Codex Sinaiticus and the text of Matthew in the Byzantine Text are so different from one another that they do not elicit the “very same conclusions” from their readers.  Such a thing is not remotely possible. 

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

James White and the Ending of Mark

            In The King James Only Controversy (second edition 2006), James White discussed some external evidence about Mark 16:9-20, on pages 316-318.  He concluded that “Given the external evidence, we believe every translation should provide the passage.  However, we also believe that every translation should note that there is good reason to doubt the passage’s authenticity.”  This effectively erases the passage’s doctrinal force, as if to tell the reader, “Maybe it’s inspired and authoritative, but maybe not.” 

            Some aspects of White’s description of the external evidence need adjustment – not least of which is what White doesn’t say:  he does not mention the testimony of the second century writers Justin, Tatian, and Irenaeus.  Irenaeus specifically quoted Mark 16:19 in Against Heresies Book III, Chapter 10, paragraph 5, in about 180, over a century before the production of the two fourth-century manuscripts in which the text of Mark ends at 16:8.  White only mentions one patristic writer, Jerome – and instead of mentioning that Jerome included Mark 16:9-20 in the Vulgate, White only says, “Jerome was aware of manuscripts lacking the passage.”   Other patristic writers – Aphrahat, Ambrose, Apostolic Constitutions, and Augustine, for example – are not called to the witness stand, and the jury – White’s readers – never hears their testimony.         

            White stated that 16:9-20 is not in “some manuscripts of the Sahadic Coptic version,” by which the Sahidic version is meant.  Perhaps someone somewhere has confirmed that more than one manuscript of the Sahidic version lacks Mark 16:9-20, but as far as I know, the Sahidic codex P. Palau-Ribes Inv. Nr. 182 is the only Sahidic manuscript that fits such a description.  It is one of the three non-Greek manuscripts of Mark 16 made before the 700s in which there is no text from verses 9-20.  (The other two are the Sinaitic Syriac manuscript and the Old Latin Codex Bobbiensis – both of which White mentions by name, with no mention of the Curetonian Syriac, the Syriac Peshitta, the Gothic version, and the Old Latin manuscripts that include Mark 16:9-20.) 

            There is a detectable correlation here:  statements from patristic writers, and individual versional manuscripts, that do not support Mark 16:9-20 are mentioned; statements from patristic writers, and individual versional manuscripts, that support Mark 16:9-20 are not mentioned.  For someone who says, “The reader should be given all the information available,” White has done a remarkably poor job of presenting the evidence that supports Mark 16:9-20. 

My defense of Mark 16:9-20
is available as an e-book
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            White also perpetuated a common error about asterisks or obeli, stating, “f¹, 205 and others” include Mark 16:9-20 “along with critical marks (such as asterisks or obeli) indicating that the scribe knew of its questionable nature.”   Regarding this claim (which was spread by Bruce Metzger), see Points #3 and #4 in my 2016 post Mark 16:9-20 – Sorting Out Some Common Mistakes, and for additional details see my book, Authentic:  The Case for Mark 16:9-20.  

            White referred to “l, 1602,” among the witnesses for the double-ending (i.e., witnesses that attest to both the Shorter Ending and 16:9-20).  This is an editorial or typographical mistake.  The italicized letter “l” when standing by itself should be used to refer to the Old Latin manuscript Codex Rehdigeranus.  However, the intended reference here is not to Codex Rehdigeranus:  it should be an abbreviation for the word “lectionary,” and “1602” should be combined with it, so as to refer to just one witness:  the Greek-Sahidic fragment l1602.  For details about the unusual annotations which l1602 shares with 099, L, and 083 (indicating that their combined testimony echoes a rather narrow line of transmission), see my book.  (White’s reference to “l, 153” in his discussion of Mark 1:2 should likewise be corrected to refer to lectionary 153.)

            White also states that “Some Old Church Slavonic manuscripts (from as far along as the tenth century) include only verses 9-11 of the longer ending.”  The fourth edition of the UBS Greek New Testament only lists one Old Slavonic manuscript that fits such a description.  But, whether one Old Slavonic manuscript or a dozen, how can this be construed as evidence against Mark 16:9-20?  Suppose someone falls into a pit full of hungry lions, and afterwards, only an arm is taken out of the pit.  Should we conclude that only an arm fell into the pit?  No, and likewise this Old Slavonic evidence is evidence of a damaged exemplar which, when made, contained the entire passage.

            White also attempted to use the inclusion of the Freer Logion in Codex W as evidence against the inclusion of Mark 16:9-20, but surely this is backwards:  Codex W supports the inclusion of Mark 16:9-20, and if Metzger’s estimate of the date of the Freer Logion’s creation is accepted, then it shows that 16:9-20 was in the copy used by the creator of the Freer Logion in the 100s or 200s (i.e., prior to the production of Vaticanus and Sinaiticus) – as well as in the Greek codices to which Jerome referred when (in 417, in Against the Pelagians) he mentioned the Freer Logion and said that he found it “In certain exemplars, and especially in Greek codices, near the end of the Gospel of Mark.”

            White employs a somewhat problematic approach when he states, “It is the multiplicity of readings that causes so many experts to reject the longer ending’s originality.”  Textual critics routinely encounter variant-units that involve a multiplicity of readings, without concluding that they must all be scribal corruptions.  White says, “There simply would be no need for all these different endings if verses 9 through 20 were a part of the originally written gospel.”  This is both an exaggeration and an oversimplification.

            In over 1,600 Greek manuscripts of Mark, the text flows straight from 16:8 to 16:9.  In three manuscripts (Vaticanus, Sinaiticus, and the medieval minuscule 304), the text stops at the end of 16:8.  The Shorter Ending is in a total of six Greek manuscripts (albeit just in the margin in the case of the medieval minuscule 274).  And that is all the distinct endings of Mark that exist in Greek manuscripts.  Codex W does not give us a different ending; it presents 16:9-20 with an interpolation between v. 14 and v. 15.  White’s phrase “all these different endings” is just tricky rhetoric. 

            When phrased realistically, the question “Why these three endings?” is not difficult:  though present in the autograph in Rome, Mark 16:9-20 was absent from an exemplar used in Egypt; this accounts for the form of the text in B and À.  The Shorter Ending was then composed there to compensate for the otherwise abrupt conclusion to Mark’s narrative; this accounts for the form of the Latin text in Codex Bobbiensis (k); then the usual ending began to circulate in Egypt again, and it eclipsed the Shorter Ending, sometimes being grafted to 16:8 and sometimes to the Shorter Ending; this accounts for the double-ending in Egyptian and Ethiopic sources.             

            A focused and thorough study of the evidence in this case is conducive to a conclusion in favor of Mark 16:9-20.  However, when evidence is misrepresented, and when it is hidden and silenced, it is easy to convince readers that Mark 16:9-20 should only be given a “maybe, maybe not” status.  In White’s world, to take away the authority of a reading found in 99% of the Greek manuscripts, one does not have to prove that it is spurious.  Simply (1) point out that it has a rival, and (2) inflate the importance of that rival, and voila:  the task of eroding the authority of the passage is complete; it is doomed to a bracketed existence in the land of  “Maybe, Maybe Not.”

            Now let’s briefly take a broader look at how James White misrepresents the evidence in other passages.  He has avoided sharing important evidence in the course of rejecting readings in the following passages:  Matthew 1:25, Matthew 17:21, Matthew 21:12, Matthew 23:14, Mark 1:2, Mark 10:24, Mark 11:26, Mark 15:28, Mark 16:9-20, Luke 2:14, Luke 23:17, Luke 23:34, John 1:18, John 3:13, John 5:4, and John 7:53-8:11. 

            One example may suffice.  In his list of evidence against Luke 23:34a, White lists “sy” instead of “sy^s).  This little difference is the difference between saying (a) the Peshitta, the Curetonian Syriac, the Harklean Syriac, the margin of the Harklean Syriac, the Sinaitic Syriac, and the Palestinian Aramaic  version omit this passage, or (b) the Sinaitic Syriac omits this passage.  The latter is the actual case.  Of course White does not bother to mention the Syriac evidence that supports the passage anywhere in his discussion of this textual contest.  He also avoids letting his readers know that Justin Martyr refers to this passage in the middle of the 100s. 

            Such evidence-molding is widespread in White’s descriptions of textual contests:  Irenaeus is not mentioned in his discussion of Mark 16:9-20.   The early Old Latin chapter-summaries, and Jerome’s testimony that he found the pericope adulterae in many manuscripts, both Greek and Latin, go unmentioned in White’s discussion of John 7:53-8:11.  Minuscule 1424 is listed as a witness for the non-inclusion of the pericope adulterae but White does not mention its margin-note which affirms the legitimacy of the passage.  The forgery 2427 is still listed by White (in a discussion of Mark 1:2) as if it is a legitimate witness.  And so forth.              

            Also, White argues repeatedly that modern translations present a stronger case for the deity of Christ than the KJV does.  This proposal, however, collides with White’s other proposal:  the idea that passages which are considered dubious should not be relied upon (i.e., treated as Scripture) as the basis for a doctrine.  All arguments that a version such as the NIV presents a strong case for the deity of Christ in Mark 1:1, John 1:18, John 14:14, Acts 16:7, Acts 20:28, Romans 9:5, First Timothy 3:16 (regarding which White states on page 261 that he prefers the usual reading, “God was manifest in the flesh”), First Peter 3:14-15, Jude v. 5, et al, are undermined by White’s maxim to the effect that when you have a serious textual variant, you should not built theology upon it.                          

            In conclusion, while I have no objection to The King James Only Controversy’s protests against Ruckmanism and similar varieties of KJV-Onlyism, White has consistently molded the evidence in such a lop-sided way in his discussions about textual variants that this book really should not be considered a text-critical resource even as a last resort.  White’s approach has not only misled many readers about the evidence relevant to many textual variant-units, but it has also encouraged them to exile many passages of genuine Scripture to the land of Maybe, Maybe Not – and will continue to do so as long as it is sold.  The publisher is Bethany House, a division of the Baker Publishing Group.               

           

Mark 1:2 (Part 4) - Miscellaneous Evidence

            Today as we conclude this exploration of the evidence about Mark 1:2, let’s consider some miscellaneous questions.

How diverse is the evidence for “in the prophets”?

Codex Cyprius (K, 017),
from the 800s.

            The agreement of Codex Washingtoniensis with Codex Alexandrinus and the Byzantine Text is sometimes treated casually, but it actually is rather significant, because although the text of Codex W is primarily Byzantine in Matthew and in Luke from 8:13 onward, its text of Mark is very different.  Larry Hurtado describes it in his introduction to the volume The Freer Biblical Manuscripts:  “In Mark 1-4 Codex W agrees more closely with Codex Bezae and other “Western” witnesses.  But at some point in Mark 5, the textual affiliation shifts markedly, and throughout the rest of Mark Codex W cannot be tied to any of the major text-types.  In this main part of Mark, however, W was later shown to exhibit a very interesting alignment with the Chester Beatty Gospels codex (P45).” 

            The agreement of Codex A and Codex W demonstrates a more widespread range of attestation than the agreement of ﬡ and B, which were very likely produced in the same scriptorium, or by copyists trained in the same place.  Augmenting the case that Codex A’s transmission-line is separate from that of Codex W is the observation that they read differently at the end of Mark 1:2 (A has εμπροσθεν σου; W does not) – not to mention the insertion in Codex W of several lines of Greek text from Isaiah 40:4-8 between Mark 1:3 and 1:4.

GA 1216.

            In addition, sub-groups of manuscripts within the Byzantine transmission-line consistently support “in the prophets” in Mark 1:2.  Besides those mentioned already, 72 (a copy with some Arabic notes), 117, 128, 304 (a manuscript of Matthew and Mark, in which the text is divided into segments interspersed with commentary), 444, 492, 780, 783, 809 (a deluxe manuscript from the 1000s, with some marginal commentary), 817 (a manuscript used by Erasmus; like other manuscripts in which the text of John is accompanied by Theophylact’s commentary, it does not contain John 7:53-8:11), 826 (considered a strong representative of the f¹³ cluster), 389 (a manuscript with unusual decorations in its Canon-tables), 1216, 1342, 2483, some Armenian copies, Ethiopic copies, and the Old Slav/Glagolitic version demonstrate that the reading “in the prophets” was read in multiple locales. 

           

Why don’t we see a scribal tendency toward specificity in Matthew 27:35b?

            The scribal tendency toward specificity manifested in versional evidence at Matthew 1:22, 2:5, 2:15, 21:4, but not in Matthew 27:35b.  The reason for this is that Matthew 27:35b did not circulate as widely as the rest of the text of Matthew; it is in the Textus Receptus but it is not included in the Robinson-Pierpont Byzantine Textform, or in the archetype of f³⁵ compiled by Wilbur Pickering.

            The question about whether Matthew 27:35b is original or not may be set aside for the time being (though perhaps it should be mentioned that this verse-segment is strongly supported by Old Latin evidence, and that it ends with the same word (κλῆρον) as the verse-segment that precedes it, which would make it vulnerable to accidental loss).  The thing to see is that Matthew 27:35b escaped being the subject of the scribal tendency toward specificity by being absent from multiple transmission-lines.

What was the text of Mark 1:2 quoted by Victorinus of Pettau?    

            Victorinus of Pettau, in the late 200s, cited Mark 1:2 with “in Isaiah the prophet” in his Latin commentary on Revelation.  His text may reveal the kind of liberties that were taken by Western copyists.   Either Victorinus cited Mark 1:1-2 very loosely, or else his Latin text was radically altered; Victorinus quoted Mark 1:1-2 as follows:  “Mark, therefore, as an Evangelist, who begins, ‘The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, as it is written in Isaiah the prophet:  ‘The voice of one crying in the wilderness,’ has the likeness of a lion.” (Notice that Victorinus’ text not only omits the material from Malachi, but also lacks the phrase “the Son of God.”) 

How do patristic writers of the mid-late 300s – Serapion of Thmuis, Basil of Caesarea, and Epiphanius of Salamis – quote Mark 1:1-2?

            I do not possess critically edited editions of the works of Serapion of Thmuis, or of Titus of Bostra, or of Basil of Caesarea, or of Epiphanius (who have all been cited as support for “in Isaiah the prophet”) – and so I have resorted to the comments of John Burgon, in the form in which they were collected by Edward Miller for the book called The Causes of Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels, published in 1896.  I rephrased some wording and changed the syntax slightly in the following quasi-quotation from page 113: 

            “Serapion, Titus, and Basil merely borrow from Origen; and, with his argument, reproduce his corrupt text of St. Mark 1:2.  Basil, however, saves his reputation by leaving out the quotation from Malachi, passing directly from the mention of Isaiah to the actual words of that prophet.  Epiphanius (and Jerome, too, on one occasion) does the same thing.”            Those who wish to test Burgon’s claims, if they have the resources, may wish to consult Serapion of Thmuis’ Against the Manichees, 25, 37, and Basil of Caesarea’s Against Eunomius, 2:15, and Epiphanius’ Panarion 51:6:4, and see if their compositions run parallel to the contents of Origen’s comments in Book 2 of Contra Celsus, which run as follows:   

            “Even one of the Evangelists, Mark, says, ‘The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, as it is written in the prophet Isaiah, Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who shall prepare your way before you.’  This shows that the beginning of the gospel is connected with the Jewish writings.  What, then, is the force in Celsus’ Jew’s objection [Celsus had pictured a Jew objecting that Christians were merely a sect of Judaism] seeing that if anyone was to predict to us that the Son of God would visit mankind, it would be one of our prophets, and the prophet of our God?  Or how is it a charge against Christianity to point out that John, who baptized Jesus, was a Jew?”

 

            Similarly, in Chromatius’ use of Mark 1:2 with “in Isaiah the prophet” in Prologues to Sermons on Matthew, Chromatius seems to have recycled the material that one sees in Irenaeus’ Against Heresies 3:11:9. 

Do Byzantine copyists elsewhere display willingness to remove a prophet’s name from the text if it appears problematic?

            Such willingness is assumed by many commentators, as exemplified by Bruce Terry in his online A Student’s Guide to Textual Variants:  “The quotation in verses 2 and 3 is from two scriptures:  the first part is from Malachi 3:1 and the second part is from Isaiah 40:3.  Thus it is likely that copyists changed the reference to make it more general.”

            Robert Waltz provides another example:  “The quotation is not from Isaiah alone, but from Malachi and Isaiah.  The attribution to Isaiah is an error, and scribes would obviously have been tempted to correct it.”

            The same assumption is expressed by Metzger in A Textual Commentary:  “The quotation in verses 2 and 3 is composite, the first part being from Mal 3.1 and the second part from Is 40.3.  It is easy to see, therefore, why copyists would have altered the words “in Isaiah the prophet” . . . . to the more comprehensive introductory formula, “in the prophets.””

            However reasonable that may sound, when we turn to Matthew 27:9 – where readers could understandably imagine that Matthew attributed to Jeremiah a paraphrase of Zechariah 11:12-13 – the Byzantine text adamantly reads “Jeremiah” nevertheless.

            Meanwhile, when we look at representatives of the transmission-lines where “in Isaiah the prophet” was read in Mark 1:2, it is precisely there that we see a willingness to mess with the text of Matthew 27:9.  A consultation of the first volume of Willker’s Textual Commentary on the Greek Gospels will show that Origen, Eusebius, and Jerome all expressed a suspicion that there was a scribal error in the manuscripts that read “Jeremiah” in Matthew 27:9.  Augustine (in The Harmony of the Gospels, Book 3, chapter 7, written in A.D. 400), shows that by his time, some Latin copyists had removed the name “Jeremiah” to relieve readers of the burden of investigating the text:

            “If anyone finds a difficulty in the circumstance that this passage is not found in the writings of the prophet Jeremiah, and thinks that this damages the credibility of the Evangelist, let him first take notice of the fact that the ascription of the passage to Jeremiah is not contained in all the codices of the Gospels, and that some of them state simply that it was spoken “by the prophet.” 

            Augustine, for his part, proceeded to reject the non-inclusion of Jeremiah’s name – because, he explained, most of the codices contain Jeremiah’s name, and because “those critics who have studied the Gospel with more than usual care in the Greek copies report that they have found that the more ancient Greek exemplars include it,” and so forth.  But not all copyists shared his insight – which is why, in minuscules 33 and 157 (33 being one of the few minuscules that read “in Isaiah the prophet” in Mark 1:2) – there is no proper name in Matthew 27:9, and, turning to versional evidence, there is likewise no proper name there in the Peshitta, nor in VL 3 (both of which support “in Isaiah the prophet” in Mark 1:2).  In minuscule 22 and in the margin of the Harklean Syriac version, Zechariah’s name is placed there, and in the Old Latin Codex Rehdigeranus (VL 11, from the first half of the 700s) not only is Jeremiah’s name absent, but Isaiah’s name has been put into the text.

            Codex D’s text also displays scribal willingness to simply delete a proper name that seemed problematic in Matthew 14:3; Philip’s name is missing.  And in Mark 6:3, Codex D does not include Jairus’ name, apparently merely to bring the Marcan text into closer conformity to the Matthean parallel.

            Codex ﬡ’s text similarly resolves a perceived difficulty in Matthew 23:35 via the removal of the words υἱοῦ Βαραχίου.

            Meanwhile, the Byzantine Text in these passages retains the proper names which were considered problematic – so problematic that they were removed or replaced – in various Western, Caesarean, and Alexandrian manuscripts.  This evidence ought to lead one to suspect that the witnesses which contain a text in which names were inserted or removed – Codex Bezae (D), Codex Sinaiticus (ﬡ), Codex Koridethi (Θ), the Old Latin witnesses (especially VL 3), the Peshita, 33, and f¹ – should not be trusted very much where a variant involves the presence or absence of a name, such as in Mark 1:2.  To remove those witnesses from the picture would be to remove over half of the Greek manuscript-support cited in the UBS apparatus for “in Isaiah the prophet” in Mark 1:2.

Was Mark more likely to write “in Isaiah the prophet,” or “in the prophets”? 

            Two other New Testament authors – Matthew and Paul – occasionally blend together two citations from the Old Testament, using one as a sort of thematic cross-reference for the other.  Matthew appears to do this in 21:4-5, focusing on Zechariah 9:9 with a dash of Isaiah 62:11.  And in 27:9, Matthew appears to use verbiage from Zechariah to frame the scene in Jeremiah 32:6-9 – unless, as some suspect (as Origen and Jerome did), Matthew refers here to an entirely different and non-canonical composition by Jeremiah, consisting of Hebrew source-material used in “The Prophecy of Jeremiah to Passhur.”  (See Willker, Vol. 1, TVU #377, for details.)  Likewise Paul, in Romans 3, does not meticulously separate his quotations which are united by a common theme. 

            Mark, however, was not like Matthew and Paul.  Matthew repeatedly quotes from the Old Testament, expecting his readers to know their Scriptures.  Paul, trained as a Pharisee, quoted from the Old Testament frequently.  Mark, in contrast, seems to have felt a stronger obligation to explain coinage-values (cf. 12:42) than to specify which Old Testament prophecies were fulfilled by Jesus.   

            Turning, then, to the other passages in Mark where material from Isaiah is used – 4:12 (Isaiah 6:9), 7:6-7 (Isaiah 29:13), 9:44, 9:46, 9:48 (Isaiah 66:24 – 9:44 and 9:46 are absent from the Nestle-Aland compilation), 11:17 (Isaiah 56:7), and, in the Byzantine text, 15:28 (Isaiah 53:12) – what stylistic pattern do we see?  Except for 7:6, it is one of non-specificity.     

                  

            The cumulative weight of these points favors “in the prophets” as the original reading of Mark 1:2.  The reading “in Isaiah the prophet” is likely to have arisen in both the early Alexandrian and Western transmission streams independently, due to a widespread scribal tendency to add specificity to the text. 

POSTSCRIPT

            I do not intend for this postscript to be considered an integral part of the case for “in the prophets,” but some readers may enjoy pondering it.  The Alexandrian Text of the Gospels (particularly the text of Codex Vaticanus) is well-aligned with the earliest stratum of the Sahidic version, and the Western Text of the Gospels is likewise well-aligned with the Old Latin version.  Could translators have introduced proper names into their local translations?  And, subsequently, could the Greek texts in the locales where these translations were in use have been adjusted to conform to the translation?

            We see a tendency toward specificity in some modern English paraphrases.  In Matthew 1:22, The Amplified Bible includes Isaiah’s name, bracketed, in the text; The Voice includes it in italics.  In Matthew 2:5, the Living Bible, the Voice translation, and Eugene Peterson’s “The Message” all include Micah’s name.  The Voice includes Zechariah’s name in Matthew 21:4.  The Message also inserts Amos’ name in Acts 7:42, and Isaiah’s name in Acts 7:48.

            The people who made these paraphrases did not consider what they did to be reckless and unnecessary tampering when they inserted proper names into these passages.  They regarded this step as a helpful amplification of the specific meaning of the text.  Some translators of early versions (particularly the Sahidic, Old Latin, and Syriac) – and some early copyists who prepared Greek manuscripts to be read to congregations – had the same intention.

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Note:

All four posts in this series can be downloaded as a single file at my Academia.edu page, and also among the files on Facebook in the NT Textual Criticism group.