Review - Scribal Skips

            Readers who keep track of recently made English New Testaments may recognize the name of the author of Scribal Skips: 1300 Words That Fell Out of the Bible:  Wayne A. Mitchell is already known as the main developer of the New Heart English Bible.

            In a three-page introduction, Mitchell summarizes a current problem in modern-day textual criticism:  the continued use of the guideline lectio brevior potior, that is, the shorter reading is stronger.  This principle – the first guideline in Griesbach’s list of guidelines, or canons, as stated back in 1796 (and, earlier, by Bengel) – was very heavily qualified, but since then it has been applied in an oversimplified manner, to the point that all that some commentators have needed to say, when offering a case against a particular reading, is that it is longer than its rival.

            As David J. Miller pointed out back in 2006 in the journal The Bible Translator in an article titled The Long and Short of Lectio Brevior Potior, research in the past 40 years has shown that measuring the length of rival textual variants is not a valid way to decide which is original.  James Royse, for example, in a detailed examination of some early papyri (P45, P46, P47, P66, P72, and P75, to be precise), determined that the copyists of those papyri made more omissions (creating shorter readings) than they made additions (creating longer readings), at a rate of 312 omissions and 127 additions – that is, at a ratio of approximately 7:3.   

            Additional research by Juan Hernández on the text of Revelation in three uncial manuscripts, and by Peter Head, in a 1990 article Observations on Early Papyri of the Synoptic Gospels, in the journal Biblica (supplemented and re-confirmed in another article in 2004), supported Royse’s findings; Head concluded his article with a statement that “If early scribes were more likely to omit words and phrases (for whatever reasons) it follows that we should not prefer the shorter reading, but rather prefer the longer reading (other factors being equal).”  Even with full consideration given to the cautionary footnote that Head added to this sentence, to the effect that “Each variant must be assessed on its merits,” at the end of the day, the point seems irresistible that a variant’s brevity is not a merit. 

            And therein lies a problem:  in the creation of the compilation of Westcott & Hort, published in 1881, the editors appear to have routinely thought that the copyists expanded the text; Hort described the tendency of copyists to expand their texts as an “almost universal tendency.”  Similarly, Eberhard Nestle, in his 1901 Introduction to the Textual Criticism of the New Testament, on page 323, stated, “It is a fundamental principle of textual criticism that the lectio brevio is to be preferred.”  And if one consults the Preface to the First Edition of the UBS Greek New Testament (on page x of the UBS GNT, 4^th ed.), the editors acknowledge that Westcott & Hort’s edition was the initial basis for the UBS Greek New Testament, and Nestle’s work is listed next.  Metzger, in his handbook The Text of the New Testament, stated (4th ed., p. 303), “In general, the shorter reading is to be preferred, except where parablepsis arising from homoeoteleuton may have occurred or where the scribe may have omitted material that he deemed to be superfluous, harsh, or contrary to pious belief, liturgical usage, or ascetical practice.”
            The first exception that Metzger mentioned – cases of possible parablepsis – does not appear to have been given adequate weight.  Many shorter readings that can be explained as results of parableptic error continue to be favored over their longer rivals. This is one reason why the Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece continues to confidently diverge from the 1881 text at fewer than 700 points.

            What would the text of the New Testament look like if shorter readings that can be accounted for as omissions caused by parablepsis – that is, simple scribal errors that happened when a copyist’s line of sight drifted from one letter (or letters) at one point to another point further along in the text where the same or similar letter (or letters) recurred – were rejected in favor of rival longer readings?  That question may be answered by a careful reading of the portion of Scribal Slips that focuses on the New Testament – that is, everything after page 77. 

            In the part of Scribal Slips that pertains to the New Testament text, each page features a straightforward presentation of two or three passages where there are (a) a shorter reading, and (b) a longer reading which can be explained as the original reading on the grounds that it was accidentally lost via scribal error.  External evidence is thoroughly listed for each reading.  A series of cases in Matthew helpfully exemplifies the kinds of readings that are covered:

            ● Omission of a word:  Matthew 19:11 – witnesses are listed for the longer reading (τον λογον τουτον) and for the shorter reading (τον λογον).  Then the verse is presented in English, with the omitted word within brackets:  “But he said to them, “Not all men can receive [this] saying, but those to whom it is given.”  The idea is that an early copyist’s line of sight drifted from the letters -ον at the end of λογον to the same letters at the end of τουτον.

            ● Omission of consecutive words:  Matthew 19:29 – witnesses are listed for the longer reading (οικιας η αδελφους η αδελφας η πατερα η μητερα η γυναικα η τεκνα η αγρους) and for the shorter reading found mainly in Codex Vaticanus (οικιας η αδελφους η αδελφας η πατερα η μητερα η τεκνα η αγρους).  Then the verse is presented in English, with the omitted words in brackets:  “Everyone who has left houses, or brothers, or sisters, or father, or mother, [or wife,] or children, or lands, for my name’s sake, will receive one hundred times, and will inherit eternal life.”  The idea is that a copyist’s line of sight drifted from η to η, accidentally skipping η γυναικα.

            ● Omission of a phrase:  Matthew 20:16 – witnesses are listed for the longer reading (ουτως εσονται οι εσχατοι πρωτοι και οι πρωτοι εσχατοι πολλοι γαρ εισιν κλητοι ολιγοι δε εκλεκτοι) and for the shorter reading (ουτως εσονται οι εσχατοι πρωτοι και οι πρωτοι εσχατοι).  The idea is that a copyist’s line of sight drifted from the letters at the end of εσχατοι to the same letters at the end of εκλεκτοι.

           

            Similarly in Mark, Mitchell pin-points readings which are shorter in the NIV, ESV, and NLT than in the KJV, NKJV, and MEV, and shows how simple scribal inattentiveness – not some devious Gnostic agenda – caused the loss of some text.  Examples:

            ● Mark 2:16 – Parablepsis accounts for the loss of the words “and drinks”

            ● Mark 10:24 – Parablepsis account for the loss of the words “for those who trust in riches”

            ● Mark 11:26 – Parablepsis accounts for the loss of the entire verse

            Even though this may give readers an illuminating view at the possible impact of scribal errors upon the text, the spotlight is not as bright as it could be.  In just two chapters of Matthew (chapters 19 and 20), readers are not shown how parablepsis may be the cause of . . .
            ► the non-inclusion of οτι in 19:8 in Vaticanus and Bezae

            ► the non-inclusion of αγαθέ in 19:16 in ℵ B L D et al

            ► the non-inclusion of ει μη εις ο Θεος in 19:17 in ℵ B L D et al

            ► the non-inclusion of ου μοιχεύσεις ου κλέψεις in 19:18 in ℵ*

            ► the cause of the non-inclusion of εισελθειν in 19:24 in ℵ L f¹ 157 et al

            ► the non-inclusion of παρα ανθρώποις in 19:26 in ℵ*

            ► the non-inclusion of οτι in 20:12 in ℵ B D et al

            ► the non-inclusion of οι in C* and H in 20:12, and

            ► the non-inclusion of 20:31 (the entire verse) in GA 2* and 157. 

But if all such instances of possible parablepsis and haplography had been included, this would be a much longer book.  The samples that Mitchell has recorded should be sufficient to cause some readers to exclaim, “Leapin’ lizards; why on earth are we relying on the Alexandrian Text; it’s full of holes?!” or similar expressions of dismay.

            There is not a lot of argumentation in this book, just straightforward presentations of evidence which may or may not constitute a genuine case of a haplography-induced scribal skip at any given point.  For instance, regarding Luke 4:5, Mitchell accurately reports that À* B L 1241 et al do not have the words ο διαβολος εις ορος υψηλον, which appear in most manuscripts immediately after the words και αναγαγων αυτον.  The idea is that a copyist’s line of sight drifted from the letters -ον at the end of αυτον to the same letters at the end of υψηλον, but one could also argue that the words have been inserted here as a harmonization to the parallel-scene in Matthew 4:8.

            Some readers might initially suspect, as they observe over and over that the shorter reading is found in the flagship manuscripts of the Alexandrian text, and the longer reading is found in the Textus Receptus, that perhaps Mitchell’s presentation is a surreptitious defense of the base-text of the King James Version.  However, the tendency for the Alexandrian Text to have the shorter reading is only a tendency; the Alexandrian text is not always shorter.  Mitchell points out that the Textus Receptus appears to be missing 39 words, in passages such as John 12:19 (where P66 À B also do not include ολος after κοσμος), James 4:12 (where the Textus Receptus, like most manuscripts, does not include και κριτης (“and Judge”) after νομοθέτης (“Lawgiver”), and Jude verse 25 (where the Textus Receptus, like most manuscripts, does not include the phrase, “through Jesus Christ our Lord”).    

            In a six-page conclusion, Mitchell maximizes the implications of the data he has presented.  The texts of the manuscripts that are routinely referred to as “oldest and best” in some Bible-footnotes are by no means safe from scribal skips; Mitchell indicts P44^vid, P45, P66, P75, and À B D L et al as containing echoes of an early parableptic error in John 10:13 in which ο δε μισθωτος φευγει was accidentally skipped after σκορπίζει at the end of verse 12.  Besides proposing that the Hebrew text of the Old Testament (in the Masoretic Text) has lost 1,279 words due to haplography, he also proposes that the Greek text of the New Testament (in the Nestle-Aland compilation, 28^th edition) has lost 327 words (in addition to which 100 words are bracketed), including four entire verses (Mt. 27:35, Mark 11:26, Mark 15:28, and Luke 23:17), due to scribal skips.

            Finally, in an interesting appendix, Mitchell comments about some differences between the form of some Old Testament passages and New Testament quotations of them.  These include considerations of Genesis 11:13 (compared to Luke 3:36), Genesis 47:31 (compared to Hebrews 11:21), Exodus 2:14 (compared to Acts 7:28), Psalm 8:2 (compared to Matthew 21:16), Isaiah 28:16 (compared to First Peter 2:6), Hosea 14:2 (compared to Hebrews 13:15), and more.  Often the quotation in the New Testament is identical or similar to the reading in the Septuagint.    

            Almost certainly, Mitchell’s evidence-presentations will not be persuasive in every case.  (For example, it seems to me that the longer form of Luke 11:2-4 is explained much more easily as a harmonization to the Lord’s model prayer in Matthew 6:9-13, than the shorter form is explained as due to a series of remarkable scribal skips.)  But in many cases, Mitchell has supplied a strong basis to reject “prefer the shorter reading,” and to put in its place, “prefer the reading with the simplest explanation.”   Very often a shorter reading is explained by a scribal slip with more simplicity than a longer ending is explained as the result of conscious scribal effort. 

            It is not as Mitchell provides only vague evidence for the textual losses that he proposes have occurred.  He (or his sources) apparently sifted through the contents of 28 papyri, over 80 uncials, over 110 minuscules, at least 18 Old Latin manuscripts, four editions of the Vulgate, seven Syriac (or Aramaic) texts, eight Coptic sources, five additional versions (Armenian, Georgian, Ethiopic, Gothic, Old Church Slavonic), and the works of 62 patristic writers – all of which/whom are listed near the beginning of the book, giving readers the tools to trace the losses.  That’s far more materials than were cited in the apparatus of the Tyndale House Greek New Testament.

            Mitchell acknowledged near the end of his book that it is not exhaustive.   (A future edition could be re-titled with  “1,500” or  “1,600” in place of  “1,300.”)  First Peter 2:2, for example, could be profitably added to the list of passages where a difference among English translations may have its origin in an ancient scribe’s inattentiveness.   But Scribal Skips is already a resource which investigators of the differences among modern English translations, and their base-texts, will find highly informative and useful.

            Scribal Skips: 1,300 Words That Fell Out of the Bible is available to purchase at Amazon as a Kindle e-book for $7.99, or as a paperback for $14.99.  

 

            [Pages 1-77 of Scribal Skips cover Old Testament passages, and are not covered in this review.  But Mitchell’s h.t.-implying comparisons, which he lets speak for themselves, are often very interesting, and merit consideration from investigators of the Old Testament text, whether regarding large readings (at passages such as First Samuel 10:27-11:1 and First Samuel 14:41) or small ones (at passages such as Malachi 1:7 and 3:2).]

[P.S.  Another man named Mitchell, Jonathan Mitchell, has also made an English New Testament, using a super-amplified technique.  Wayne A, Mitchell is not the same person.]

Mark 11:26 - How It Disappeared

            Homoioteleuton (also spelled as homeoteleuton) – a term which means “same ending” – was something that the copyists of New Testament manuscripts had to vigilantly guard against.  It was not unusual for the lines of the text in their master-copies to end with similar letters, and if a copyist didn’t pay attention, he might accidentally lose his place.  Usually if this happened, it would turn the sentence he was writing into nonsense, and a proof-reader would catch the mistake.  (When text is skipped in this way, the cause of the mistake is called parablepsis.)  But sometimes, when a parableptic error did not result in a nonsense-reading, words or phrases and even entire sentences could disappear without notice. 

            The copyist of Codex Vaticanus made a parableptic error in John 17:15; where the copyist should have written the Greek equivalent of, “I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one,” he skipped seven words, as his line of sight drifted from one occurrence of the word αυτους (“them”) to the recurrence of it later in the sentence, and thus wrote, “I do not pray that You should take them from the evil one.”  Fortunately someone caught the mistake later on.

            In Mark 11:26, something similar happened which caused the entire verse to disappear in the Alexandrian Text, and the same mistake occurs in some other manuscripts as well.  The Greek text of Mark 11:25 ends with τα παραπτώματα ὑμων (“your trespasses”) and 11:26 ends with exactly the same words.  A copyist whose line of sight drifted from the end of verse 25 to the end of verse 26 could skip the entire verse without realizing it, and, since the sentence would still make sense, the mistake could slip by a proofreader who was not very familiar with the text of Mark.               

Codex Bezae (D) has the passage,
with the last word of verse 25 missing.

            Relatively few manuscripts fail to include Mark 11:26, but two of the ones that lack the verse are Vaticanus and Sinaiticus, which were the primary sources of the base-text of the 1881 Revised Version, and which are still the main basis of the Nestle-Aland/UBS compilation.  That is why, in the NIV, NLT, and ESV, this verse is not in the text.  (The HCSB and NASB currently retain the verse in the text, within brackets.  The KJV, NKJV, MEV, and WEB have it in the text without brackets.)  
          However, Codices Alexandrinus (A) and Bezae (D), which are only slightly later, both include Mark 11:26 – and because Codex D has the passage with some minor variations and unusual spelling (and for other reasons), it is clear that these two manuscripts are a considerable distance apart from each other in terms of their textual relationship, while À and B are historically very close to one another.  (So much so that in the margins of the book of Acts, they share a unique form of chapter-numbers that almost certainly was transcribed from the same source.) 

Mark 11:24b-27a in the Peshitta
(Syriac).

          Other witnesses that attest to a fourth-century text also weigh in with support for the inclusion of Mark 11:26:  Codex Argenteus, made in the 500’s, is the main witness to the Gothic version which was translated by Wulfilas in the mid-300’s, at about the same time Codex Sinaiticus was being made.  Codex Argenteus includes the verse.  The Peshitta (Syriac) version, probably made in the late 300’s, includes the verse.  The Latin Vulgate, made in 383 by Jerome, who stated that he consulted ancient Greek manuscripts to ensure that the text was well-grounded, includes the verse.  Almost all Old Latin manuscripts, the descendants of Latin manuscripts made before the Vulgate dominated the Latin copying-tradition, include the verse as well.
          In addition, although Vaticanus and Sinaiticus are old, they are not as old as the manuscripts that were used by Cyprian.  Cyprian served as bishop of Carthage, in North Africa, from about 249 until he was martyred in 258 during the persecution that happened there during the reign of Valerian.  Thus his manuscripts of Mark were at least 75 years older than Vaticanus, and at least 100 years older than Sinaiticus (using the generally accepted production-dates for each, c. 325 for Vaticanus and c. 350 for Sinaiticus).  In Cyprian’s Treatise XII, Book 3, in chapter 22, Cyprian briefly undertakes the task of demonstrating from Scripture that when Christians are wronged, we must pardon and forgive.  He gets right to the point:

          

Cyprian of Carthage.

“In the Gospel, in the daily prayer:  'Forgive us our debts, even as we forgive our debtors.’  Also according to Mark:  ‘And when you stand for prayer, forgive, if you have ought against any one; that also your Father who is in heaven may forgive you your sins. But if you do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive you your sins.’  Also in the same place:  ‘In what measure you mete, in that shall it be measured to you again.’”

          When Cyprian refers to “the daily prayer,” he is of course referring to Matthew 6:12.  But if he had intended to quote Matthew 6:15 (which follows the gist of Mark 11:26), there would have been no need for him to then say, “Also according to Mark.”  Although Cyprian immediately jumps back to the Sermon on the Mount (i.e., to Matthew 7:2), there seems to be no reason for any conclusion other than that Cyprian was quoting from Mark 11:25-26 in this part of his composition.  

            Bruce Metzger, representing the editors of the UBS compilation in which Mark 11:26 is absent, claimed that “the words were inserted by copyists in imitation of Mt. 6.15.”  However, the wording in Matthew 6:15 is discernibly different in the UBS text:  Εαν δε μη αφητε τοις ανθρώπους, ουδε ὁ πατηρ υμων αφησει τα παραπτωματα υμων.  Compare this to Mark 11:26:  Ει δε υμεις ουκ αφίετε, ουδε ὁ πατηρ υμων ὁ εν τοις ουρανοις αφήσει τα παραπτωματα υμων.  It would take a special kind of copyist to introduce a harmonization that contained non-harmonious readings. Metzger’s rationale for the Alexandrian reading did not persuade J. K. Elliott, a British specialist in New Testament textual criticism, who maintained that in this particular case, the Textus Receptus (along with over 95% of the Greek manuscripts of Mark) has the original reading.  The absence of the verse in a smattering of later Byzantine manuscripts demonstrates its vulnerability to the kind of homoioteleuton-induced loss which could be overlooked by early copyists as easily as it could be overlooked by later ones. 

           In addition, the Byzantine Text of Matthew 6:15 is not what we see in Mark 11:26 either; it reads Εαν δε μη αφητε τοις ανθρώπους τα παραπτωματα υμων, ουδε ὁ πατηρ υμων αφήσει τα παραπτωματα υμων.  Seven out of Mark 11:26’s seventeen words are not in Matthew 6:15, and seven out of Matthew 6:15’s seventeen words are not in Mark 11:26.  This is more naturally explained as one of numerous original parallel passages than as a copyist’s attempt to introduce a harmonization, considering that it does not add much to the verbal harmony of the passage.

Mark 11:25-27a in Codex Alexandrinus.
Notice the two lines (underlined in yellow) which begin identically.

          Two small observations may be worth mentioning.  First:  Codex A’s format shows exactly how verse 26 could be accidentally skipped; τα παραπτωματα υμων appears at the beginning of two nearby lines.  Second:  in Codex D, the word υμων is missing at the end of verse 25.  This may be a deliberate omission on the part of a copyist who, having seen that the repetition of the exact phrase τα παραπτωματα υμων made the text vulnerable to loss, decided that the loss of one word was worth a reduction of the risk that a future copyist using Codex D as an exemplar would skip an entire verse.

            So, although Mark 11:26 is not found in our two oldest Greek manuscripts of the surrounding verses, earlier evidence from Cyprian confirms the presence of the verse in North Africa in the mid-200’s.  Further evidence from Codex A, Codex D, the Peshitta, the Gothic version, the Vulgate, and the Old Latin shows that Mark 11:36 was in widespread use in the late 300’s.  The presence of the verse in these branches implies its presence in the trunk, so to speak.       

            One must posit a deliberate corruption by a non-harmonious harmonizer if one is to regard Mark 11:26 as non-original.  The alternative is that an early copyist made a careless mistake.  In such a contest of competing hypotheses, Heinlein’s Axiom should be in play:  do not insist on villainy to account for what can be explained by incompetence.