John 7:8: Not, Not Yet, or Nothing?

            Perhaps there is no textual contest anywhere in the New Testament in which the internal evidence and external evidence point more strongly to opposite conclusions than in John 7:8.  In the vast majority of manuscripts, when Jesus’ unbelieving brothers invite Jesus to show Himself to the world and go with them to the Feast of Tabernacles at Jerusalem, Jesus replies, “You go up to this feast.  I am not yet going up to this feast, for My time has not yet fully come.”

            In a small group of manuscripts that includes Papyrus 75, Codex Vaticanus, and codices L, N, and W, Jesus’ statement is similar, but the first occurrence of the word “this” is absent, yielding the statement, “You go up to the feast.  I am not yet going up to this feast, for My time has not yet fully come.”

             In another small group of manuscripts, including Codex Sinaiticus, Jesus’ statement is, “You go up to this feast.  I am not going up to this feast, for My time has not yet fully come.”

            In yet another small group of manuscripts (33 565 579 664 2193 – mostly members of f¹ – the phrase “I am not going up to this feast” is absent, yielding the statement, “You go up to this feast, for My time has not yet fully come.”

            And in minuscule 69 (Codex Leicestrensis), the second occurrence of “to this feast” is absent, yielding the statement, “You go up to the feast.  I am not yet going, for My time has not yet fully come.”

            We may set aside the reading in 69 as the symptom of a scribe’s dislike of what he perceived to be superfluous repetition.  Similarly, the reading in 33 565 579 664 2193 may be set aside as either the result of parableptic error – when a scribe’s line of sight drifted from either the end of εορτην (“feast”) or the end of ταύτην (“this”) to the end of εορτην ταύτην further along in the verse, accidentally omitting the letters in between – or an early copyist’s ruthless attempt to avoid a perceived difficulty.

            The contest between the presence, or absence, of ταύτην in the first part of the verse is more difficult, because while its absence is attributable to haplography (from the –την at the end of εορτην to the -την at the end of ταύτην), such an error would either have to be extremely early, or would have to occur independently in more than one transmission-line, in order to show up, as it does, in manuscripts as diverse as Papyrus 75, Codex D, Codex N, Codex Π, Codex W, and 1424.  Yet it appears in Codex À, and in the vast majority of Greek manuscripts, and was likely in the ancestry of 33 565 579 664 2193.  It is also supported by the Peshitta.  

           The variant-unit that gets the most attention in this verse is the contest between οuκ (“not”) and οupw (“not yet”).  Part of the reason for this is that the reading οuκ is capable of giving readers the impression that Jesus misled His brothers by first saying that He was not going to the Feast, and then went.  To restate the problem:  if the reading οuκ is original, then it appears that Jesus says that He is not going to the feast, but then decides to go.  The note-writer of the NET Bible considered this difficulty a point in favor of οuκ as the original reading:  “It is more likely,” the NET’s note says, “that οupw was introduced early on to harmonize with what is said two verses later.”

            However, harmonistic considerations seem to have not affected the scribes of codices K, M, and Π here; all three read οuκ.  It may be helpful to step back and look at the external evidence for each reading:

οuκ:  À D K M Π 1071 1241, with versional support from the Vulgate, the Sinaitic Syriac and Curetonian Syriac, the Armenian version, the Ethiopic version, several Old Latin copies (including a, aur, b, c, d, e, ff²), and with patristic support from Epiphanius (in Panarion, Book 2, 25:4), Chrysostom (Homily 48 on John), Cyril  of Alexandria (Comm. John 4:5), Ambrosiaster (Question 78 in his Questions on the Old and New Testaments), and Augustine (in Sermon 83) – plus a comment from Jerome (in Against the Pelagians Book 2, part 17) which implies that Porphyry – a heathen critic of the Gospels in the third century – used the text with οuκ as evidence that Jesus displayed fickleness and therefore was not divine:  “Jesus said that He would not go up, and then did what He had previously said He would not do.  Porphyry rants and accuses Him of inconsistency and indecisiveness, not knowing that all scandals must be imputed to the flesh.” (By this last phrase, Jerome seems to mean that if a passage seems problematic or puzzling to a reader, the problem is not in the text, but in the reader’s lack of illumination.)

            The UBS apparatus also lists a few lectionaries that read οuκ here:   lectionaries 672 (an uncial lectionary from the 800s), 673, 813 (from the 900s), 950, and 1223.

οupw:  Papyrus 66, Papyrus 75, B E F G H L N T U W Γ Δ Θ Ψ 0105 0141 0250 (Codex Climaci Rescriptus)  Δ f¹ f¹³ 157 205 700 892 1424 Byz with versional support from the Peshitta Sahidic and Palestinian Aramaic versions.

              

            Wayne C. Kannaday offers a detailed analysis of this textual contest on pages 90-97 of his 2004 book Apologetic Discourse and the Scribal Tradition.  Kannaday concludes that οuκ is probably the original reading, largely on the grounds that when the term οupw is used in the Gospel of John, it is used formulaically to refer to Jesus’ hour, or time, i.e., the time of His passion:      

            ● 2:4:  “My hour has not yet come.”
            ● 7:6:  “My time has not yet come.”
            ● 7:8b:  “My time has not yet fully come.”

            ● 7:30:  “His hour had not yet come.”

            ● 8:20:  “His hour had not yet come.”

If οupw is original, Kannaday argues, then “nowhere else does οupw invade the prefacing remarks of Jesus,” leading to the question, “Is this the only instance in John’s narrative where he violates an otherwise carefully prescribed and consistent use of the term οupw?”

            However, the idea that John deliberately limited his use of οupw to refer to Jesus’ hour, or time, does not survive close scrutiny.  As evidence, one can simply read the following passages (using here, for convenience, the NA/UBS text):

            ● 3:24:  “For John had not yet been thrown into prison.” 

            ● 6:17:  “Jesus had not yet come to them.”

            ● 7:39:  “The Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.”  (In the NA/UBS text, the term οupw is used for the first “yet” but the term ουδέπω is used for the second “yet.”)

            ● 8:57:  “You are not yet fifty years old.”

            ● 11:30:  “Now Jesus had not yet come into the town.”

            ● 20:17:  “I have not yet ascended to My Father.”

            When all of John’s utilizations of οupw are in view, and there is no cherry-picking, the case that John’s use of οupw is limited in a “carefully prescribed and consistent” manner that refers to Jesus’ hour, or time, fades to dust; there simply is no such unique utilization of the term.

            However, the question remains:  it is easy to posit a reason why a scribe would change οuκ to οupw:  to avoid the appearance of precisely the sort of fickleness that Porphyry accused Jesus of displaying.  But why would anyone change οupw (“not yet”) to οuκ (“not”)? 

            In the search for an answer, we should notice that this is not the only example of a textual contest involving οupw. 

            In Matthew 15:17, the verse begins with οὐ in manuscripts B, D, Z, Θ, 565 33 and 579, and this is supported by Latin, Syriac, and Coptic versions.  In most manuscripts, however, including À C L W (with some Latin and Bohairic support), the verse begins with ουπω.  Here there is no apologetic motive to alter the text; yet it must have been altered, one way or the other.

            In Matthew 16:9, the reading ουπω has overwhelming support, not only from Byzantine manuscripts but also from B À D Δ etc.  Yet in family 13, the verse begins with ου.

            In Mark 4:40, a small but strong array of witnesses (including B À D L Δ f¹ f¹³) supports ουπε before εχετε πίστιν.  In most manuscripts, however (including A C K M Π, supported by the Peshitta and the Gothic version), the question at the end of the verse is πως ουκ εχετε πίστιν.

            In Mark 8:21, Codex B reads ου νοειτε, and the Byzantine Text reads ου συνίετε  – but À A C L D K M N Π W Q support (sometimes with minor orthographic variation) ουπω συνίετε.  (This is a parallel-passage to Mt. 16:9.)                 
            In Mark 11:2, the Byzantine Text, allied with D M Q 157 565 f¹ does not include the word ουπω (conveying simply that no man had sat on the colt, rather than that no man had yet sat on the colt).  But in various early manuscripts, the word ουπω is present, either before or after ανθρώπων (“man”) – B L Δ Ψ have ουπω before ανθρώπων; À, C, 579, and f¹³ have ουπω after ανθρώπων; Y K Π have ουπω before ουδεις ανθρώπων.   Minuscule 1424 rearranges the words so as to read ουδεις ανθρώπων εκάθισεν ουπω.  (Codex A, meanwhile, reads πώποτε ανθρώπων, harmonizing to Luke 19:30.) 

            In Luke 23:53, where Luke mentions that Joseph of Arimathea’s tomb was completely unused, Papyrus 75 and Codices B, A, L, 118, and 579 read ουπω – so as to say that no one had yet lain in the tomb.  But they are challenged by a diverse combination of witnesses that includes À C D K M W Q Π 157 f¹³.which all support ουδέτω – so as to say that never had anyone lain in the tomb.  The Byzantine Text (along with Δ 700 1424 is aligned with the latter group, disagreeing only in word-order (by placing ουδέτω before, rather than after, ουδεις).

            In John 6:17, Papyrus 75 and codices B, À, D, L, N, W and Ψ contain a statement that Jesus had not yet (ουπω) come to the disciples.  In most manuscripts, however, including A K M Δ Θ f¹ 157 565 700, the verse has ουκ instead of ουπω.  Here we see a disagreement similar to what we see in John 7:8:  ουκ versus ουπω. 

            In John 7:6, where almost all manuscripts read ουπω, À reads ου, and W reads ουδέτω.  Ουδέτω is also the reading of Papyrus 66 in John 7:8b, where the rest of the manuscripts support ουπω.   Likewise in John 7:30, P66 reads ουδέτω where the other manuscripts read ουπω.  This raises a question:  ουπω is clear and unobjectionable; why would anyone change it to ου as the scribe of Sinaiticus did, or change it to ουδέτω as the scribe of P66 did twice?   And why, if ουπω is original in Luke 23:53, does the Byzantine Text and its assorted allies read ουδέτω?

            Briefly leaving the text of the Gospels, for thoroughness’ sake, we find that in First Corinthians 8:2, the reading ουπω is supported by Papyrus 46, B À A 33 1175 1739, but it has rivals; ουδέτω is read by D (i.e., Claromontanus) F G Ψ, ουδεν is read by 68 330 2400, ουδεν ουδέτω is read by 1424, and ουδέτω ουδεν is read by most manuscripts.  In Philippians 3:13, where P46, B, 1739, 1881, the Byzantine Text, and the Peshitta support ου, À A 075 33 81 614 and 1175 support ουπω instead.  Here too, then, is another contest between ου and ουπω.  And in Revelation 17:12, where most copies read ουπω, Codex A and minuscule 57 read ουκ.

           

            Taking all this into consideration, it suggests that some scribes either added ουπω or substituted a different word where ουπω  belonged, not only in John 7:8, but also in Matthew 15:17, Matthew 16:9, Mark 4:40, Luke 23:53, John 6:17, and John 7:6 – plus three passages outside the Gospels (I Cor. 8:2, Phil. 3:13, Rev. 17:12).  If ουκ was introduced in John 7:8, as a substitute for ουπω, it is possible that this was elicited not by mischievousness, but by the same factor (whatever it was) that elicited the scribe of Sinaiticus to introduce ουκ into the text of John 7:6 instead of ουπω – and for the same reason that ουπω was not added to Mark 11:2 by Byzantine scribes, and for the same reason that the Byzantine Text reads ουκ instead of ουπω in John 6:17.

            However, the specific nature of such a factor is difficult to nail down.  The least complicated idea, I think, is that (a) an early Latin translator rendered the relevant phrase as ego non ascendo ad diem festum, imagining that the reference to that particular festival-day would not preclude Jesus’ future attendance, and thus imply “yet.” – and (b) subsequently the Greek text was adjusted slightly (from ουπω to ουκ) to conform to the Latin parallel.

            If Codex Bezae alone supported ουκ, or even if D and À (which has Western affinities in this portion of John) and Old Latin copies supported ουκ, that would be an adequate explanation.  But the external evidence for ουκ, though sparse in our extant manuscripts, is broader and weightier than it may first appear:  besides À (very probably made in Caesarea) and D (provenance unknown), we should posit an ancestor of family Π, and the base-text of the Vulgate, plus the Sinaitic Syriac and Curetonian Syriac, the base-text of the Armenian version, several Old Latin copies, and copies known to Epiphanius in Crete, copies read by Chrysostom in Antioch and/or Constantinople, copies used by Cyril of Alexandria, the Latin text used by Ambrosiaster, the text used by Augustine in North Africa, and the text used by Porphyry.  This is wide-ranging evidence that cannot be cavalierly dismissed.

            Another consideration in favor of ουκ is that orthodox copyists, facing one exemplar with ουκ and another exemplar with ουπω, would naturally prefer ουπω as the reading less likely to elicit misunderstandings of the sort that Porphyry had displayed. 

            In conclusion:  the external evidence in favor of ουπω is so abundant that compilers and translators should maintain a footnote at John 7:8 mentioning this reading, especially in light of the possibility that new evidence might come to light which accounts for interchanges between ουκ and ουπω as merely linguistic phenomena.  However, barring such a development, internal evidence strongly favors ουκ as the reading more likely to elicit ουπω, rather than the other way around, and this consideration is so weighty that even the testimony of two early papyri, Codex Sinaiticus, and over 1,500 Byzantine manuscripts cannot balance it; ουκ demands its place in the text.

            This raises a fresh question:  was Porphyry right?  Many a defender of the traditional text, or of the KJV, has proposed that to adopt the reading ουκ is to turn Jesus into a liar, on the grounds that Jesus says in verse 8 that He is not going to the feast, and yet, two verses later, He goes.  Technically, resolving this perceived difficulty is outside the purview of textual criticism; nevertheless, as an example of how the problem is resolved, with ουκ, readers may consult this video from CIRA International, this essay from Apologetics Press, or simply observe that within those two verses – that is, between Jesus’ statement, “I am not going up to this feast” and John’s record that Jesus went up to the feast – some time has elapsed, and the situation has changed:  it is true that Jesus was not going up when He said that He was not going up, when it would have involved too much publicity.   What more needs to be said?  The sentence is more perspicuous with ουπω, but that does not make the reading with ουκ incorrect, as if “I am not going” must mean “I am never going.”   

            There is an extra takeaway to consider before we leave this variant-unit.  The non-Western uncials K M Π, which read ουκ, must preserve a text here that was remarkably resistant to assimilation from competing texts – more resistant than most representatives of the Alexandrian Text, and more resistant than most representatives of the more popular Byzantine transmission-lines.  This implies that the earliest stratum of family Π, particularly when it diverges from rival Alexandrian and Byzantine readings, is especially important.  



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

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.)

Todd Friel, the KJV, and Wretched Oversimplifications

Todd Friel

            I’m not sure that Todd Friel asserted anything in his recent Wretched program in which he addressed KJV-Onlyism.  But amid all the question-raising, question-rephrasing, tangent-chasing, suggestion-making, and excerpt-taking from another video, I think Todd Friel said a few things that need to be clarified – not to promote KJV-Onlyism, but to reduce inaccuracies in how Friel’s audience might picture the manuscript-evidence as a result of some shortcomings in Friel’s descriptions of it. 

            When Friel said, “We’ve found better manuscripts than the Textus Receptus,” he was correct; the  Greek text from which the New Testament was translated in the KJV includes some words that originated with copyists rather than with the authors of the New Testament, and it also leaves out some words that were written by the authors.  It is true that we have better manuscripts today than in 1611.  So, Friel is partly right.    

            But then Friel said, “We’ve found thousands of manuscripts – which is rockin’ cool.”  That also is true – but something important went unsaid.  Most of those thousands of Greek manuscripts discovered in the past 400 years agree with the Textus Receptus far more often than with the Greek compilations on which the NIV, ESV, and CSB are based.  This is especially true regarding manuscripts of the Gospels. 

            To put this another way:  suppose we were to simultaneously read aloud the KJV’s base-text of the Gospels and one of the Greek Gospels-manuscripts discovered after 1611, making a note each time they were materially different.  And suppose that we did the same thing using the Nestle-Aland compilation (the base-text of the NIV, ESV, and CSB) and one of those Greek Gospels-manuscripts.  And suppose that we did this for every Greek Gospels-manuscript, setting aside instances where a manuscript diverged from the Textus Receptus and the Nestle-Aland compilation.  We would see that most of the Gospels-manuscripts discovered since the early 1600s agree with the KJV’s base-text far more frequently than they agree with the NIV’s base-text. 

            The impression given by Friel – that thousands of manuscripts have been found that point away from the KJV’s base-text – is not an accurate picture of what the manuscripts actually say.  Granting that some readings in the Textus Receptus are supported only by a small minority of manuscripts, the Textus Receptus is far closer to the majority text of the Gospels than the Nestle-Aland compilation is. 

            I do not mean to contend that the analysis of textual variants should be like a democratic election, with the majority always winning.  The thing to see is that when someone points out that we have “thousands of manuscripts” now, as opposed to relatively few in the 1500s, the vast majority of those manuscripts display a Byzantine Text.  Unlike the ESV, they include Matthew 12:47, Matthew 17:21, Matthew 18:11, Mark 7:16, Mark 9:44, Mark 9:46, Mark 15:28, Luke 22:43-44 (included in the ESV today, but give it time), Luke 23:34a (included in the ESV today, but give it time), and Luke 23:17.  They support the reading “firstborn” in Matthew 1:25, and the reading “in the prophets” in Mark 1:2, and they do not convey that Matthew confused king Asa with the psalmist Asaph, or that Matthew confused king Amon with the prophet Amos.  And when we survey the Gospels-manuscripts that have been discovered in the past 400 years, we see that 85% of them support the inclusion of John 7:53-8:11, and over 99% of them support the inclusion of Mark 16:9-20.

            If the differences between the KJV and modern versions were merely the differences between the Textus Receptus and the readings in the majority of Greek manuscripts, then the significant differences would not involve any of those verses.  They would involve instead the Textus Receptus’ minority readings, in passages such as Luke 2:22, Acts 8:37, Acts 9:6, Ephesians 3:9, and First John 5:7.      

            So I have three suggestions for Todd Friel’s audience.

            ● First, those who listen to Todd Friel ought to be informed – when he defends the ESV and NIV by pointing out the existence of thousands of manuscripts discovered subsequent to 1611 – that the vast majority of those manuscripts agree with the KJV (and NKJV, and MEV, and WEB, not exactly “pretty much every other translation except KJV,” contra Friel) far more often than they agree with ESV and NIV. 

            ● My second suggestion:  when Todd Friel refers to the “eclectic” text, listeners should understand that for all practical purposes he is referring to the Alexandrian Text.  The base-text that he considers superior to the Textus Receptus – and to the Byzantine Text – is “eclectic” in about the same way that a group of 19 housecats and one parakeet is a zoo.  To put it another way:  in Matthew-Jude, the so-called “eclectic” base-text of the NIV is over 95% Alexandrian in the textual contests where the Byzantine Text and the Alexandrian Text disagree. 

            ● Thirdly, I suggest that Friel’s audience should filter his appeals to older manuscripts through the sieve of knowledge about the background of those manuscripts.  When Friel appeals to older manuscripts, he refers to manuscripts found in Egypt.  Due to the especially low level of humidity in Egypt, papyrus lasts longer there than it does in other places; this is why we have so many more papyrus copies of New Testament books (and assorted other books, and letters, and receipts) from Egypt.  But it is not as if younger copies from other locales sprang up out of the ground; they had ancestor-manuscripts which have not survived.  To reject the readings in younger manuscripts merely because the material on which they are written is younger would be tantamount to letting the weather make one’s text-critical decisions. 

            Also, Friel’s audience should be aware that in many cases, the earliest manuscript disagrees with the NIV and ESV.  For example, the Textus Receptus has the word οτι in the first part of First Peter 5:8, represented in the KJV by the word “because.”  You will not find the word “because” in First Peter 5:8 in the ESV and ESV, because the word οτι is not in their Greek base-text.  Yet if you consult Papyrus 72 at the Vatican Library’s website, you will see the word οτι in its text.

John 7:8 in Papyrus 66.

            Another example:  the Textus Receptus has the word ουπω in John 7:8, where the Nestle-Aland compilation has the word ουκ.  Accordingly, in the KJV, Jesus says, “I go not up yet unto this feast,” where in the ESV, Jesus says, “I am not going up to this feast,” and in the NIV (using the same base-text as the ESV), “I am not going up to this festival.”  (Verse 10 then explains that Jesus proceeded to secretly go to the feast.)  One might think, if one believed Todd Friel, that our earliest manuscripts support the NIV’s reading, and the Textus Receptus’ reading was concocted by “some overly ambitious scribes” in the Middle Ages.  But when we consult Papyrus 66 and Papyrus 75, we find that they both support the reading ουπω.        

            Hundreds of other examples could be supplied of readings in the papyri (readings capable of impacting translation) that are not adopted in the Nestle-Aland compilation.  These include a substantial number of Byzantine readings. 

            So:  when Friel appeals to quantities of manuscripts, keep in mind that that manuscript-mountain affirms the KJV’s readings much more than it opposes them (and that that manuscript-mountain opposes the NIV’s readings much more than it affirms them).  And when Friel appeals to older manuscripts, keep in mind that this is frequently not the case; the Nestle-Aland compilation still depends heavily on Codex Vaticanus, which is younger than witnesses such as Papyrus 66, Papyrus 45, Papyrus 46, Papyrus 75, and patristic testimony from authors such as Irenaeus, Tertullian, Hippolytus, Cyprian, and Origen.  I am not arguing here that this means that Vaticanus’ text is inferior to the others; the thing to see is that it is an oversimplification to assume that quantity and age are assured measurements of quality.  Without that wretched oversimplification, Friel’s case against the KJV is just an assertion, or a suggestion – not anything remotely close to a real case.

 

John 3:13: The Son of Man Who is in Heaven

            Today we shall look into the question of whether or not the phrase “who is in heaven” was in the original text of John 3:13.

            In two recently published translations of the New Testament – the Evangelical Heritage Version and the Modern English Version – John 3:13 ends with the phrase, “who is in heaven.”  This is also the reading of the King James Version.  It is supported by the vast majority (over 95%) of Greek manuscripts, as well as the Old Latin, the Vulgate, the Peshitta, the Ethiopic version, and a wide variety of early patristic writers. 

Manuscript 0141, in which the text of John is
interspersed with extracts from patristic commentaries, has
an unusual difficulty-relieving variant in John 3:13.

            The NIV and ESV, however, do not include this phrase, following instead the shorter Alexandrian text that is displayed in Papyrus 66, Papyrus 75, Vaticanus, Sinaiticus, some Egyptian versions, and some patristic writers. 

            The late Bruce Metzger, in his Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, defended the decision of the compilers of the United Bible Societies’ printed Greek New Testament to reject this phrase:  “The majority of the Committee, impressed by the quality of the external attestation supporting the shorter reading, regarded the words ὁ ὢν ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ as an interpretive gloss, reflecting later Christological development.” 

            Against this theory of “later” – but earlier than Hippolytus, who cited John 3:13 with the phrase “who is in heaven” in Against Noetus – expansion, Wieland Willker responded effectively:  “Internally the longer reading is clearly the harder reading and there is no reason why the words should have been added.  Metzger says it could be an “interpretive gloss, reflecting later Christological development”, but is this probable?  It seems more probable that scribes omitted the difficult words or changed them as 0141, Sy-S [the Sinaitic Syriac] and e [Old Latin codex Palatinus, from the mid-400s], Sy-C [the Curetonian Syriac] did.” 

            Willker was referring to alterations in the text of Old Latin codex Palatinus (from the mid-400s) and the Curetonian Syriac that yield the meaning of “was in heaven” and in the Sinaitic Syriac manuscript that yields the meaning of “is from heaven.”

            This textual variant overlaps with an interpretive question:  writing in ancient Greek with no (or only minimal) punctuation, did John intend to report that Jesus told Nicodemus, at the time of their conversation, that the Son of Man was in heaven?  Or, if the phrase is assumed to be original, was it intended to be understood, not as part of Jesus’ words, but as a parenthetical phrase made by John? 

            As Willker noticed, it is not hard to see why early copyists would consider the phrase puzzling:  if the phrase is not understood as a parenthetical comment by John, then Jesus seems to say that the Son of Man is in heaven, while He is right there on the scene talking to Nicodemus.  Internal considerations thus weigh in heavily against the shorter reading:  to remove this phrase would be to reduce the risk of misinterpretation, whereas a copyist who added this phrase would be adding an interpretive difficulty where there previously was none.    

The phrase “ὁ ὢν ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ” is far more likely to be part of the original text, excised in the Alexandrian text-stream by a copyist prone to relieve perceived difficulties, that it is to have originated as a scribal expansion.  The absence of this phrase in the fifth edition of the UBS/Biblica Greek New Testament, and in the 28th edition of the Nestle-Aland Novum Testatementum Graece, is an echo of previous compilers’ reliance upon poorly represented data combined with a preference for manuscripts that happened to be stored in a dry climate.  In the Sinaitic Syriac and the Curetonian Syriac and the Old Latin Codex Palatinus (and in the uncial 0141, in which the closing phrase states that the Son of Man is from heaven) we see copyists surrendering to the temptation to alter the text in order to resolve a perceived difficulty; the manuscripts that lack the phrase echo the work of an early scribe who took things a little further.  

(Those who would object, “But we should follow the oldest manuscripts” are advised to notice that Papyrus 75 reads πιστεύετε (not πιστεύσετε) at the end of 3:12, and in nearby 3:31, the scribe of papyrus 66 initially omitted the word ἐρχόμενος, and also in 3:31, the scribes of Papyrus 75 and Sinaiticus both did not include the final phrase ἐπάνω πάντων ἐστίν; the compilers of the UBS/NA texts obviously felt no obligation to follow the oldest manuscripts unthinkingly.  Nor should we.)

The recently published Tyndale House edition of the Greek New Testament likewise omits the phrase; the pitiable brevity of its apparatus prevents the reader from seeing the early patristic evidence.  Had the editors accepted the judgment of Samuel Tregelles, the scholar from the 1800s whose work laid the foundation for the THEGNT, this phrase would have been retained.  (But at least they mention the variant; the New American Standard does not even do that.)

Those who wish to read more about this variant-unit may wish to consult Dr. David Alan Black’s article (from Grace Theological Journal, 1985) on the subject.

P.S.  A comparison of the treatment of John 3:13 in different editions of the UBS Greek New Testament does not build confidence in the reliability of the resources upon which the Committee-members depended, or in the consistency of their presentations of the evidence.  In the first edition (1966), the Ethiopic version was listed as a witness for the non-inclusion of “who is in heaven.”  The Arabic Diatessaron was listed as a witness for the inclusion of the phrase.  The Georgian version was listed in support of the longer reading.  Didymus was listed as a witness for both readings.  In the fourth edition (1993), part of the Georgian evidence was listed as support for the shorter reading, the Diatessaron was only listed for the shorter reading, Didymus was listed only as support for the shorter reading, and the Ethiopic version switched sides, favoring the inclusion of the phrase.  And the certainty-rate varied from A (“the text is certain”) to C (“the Committee had difficulty”) to B (“the text is almost certain”).   

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

  

Meet Lectionary 261

          In 1753, a French ambassador whose last name was Desalleurs – and who had been stationed at Constantinople – presented a gift to King Louis XV:  a Greek Gospels-lectionary, now known as Lectionary 261.  (At the National Library of France, where it resides, it is known as Supplemental Greek manuscript 37.)  This is no ordinary lectionary; it is finely illustrated, not only with headpieces for each Evangelist, but with many other small illustrations in the margins.  It contains Gospels-lections for both the Synaxarion – the calendar that is annually reset at Easter – and for the Menologion – the feast-days that are affixed to specific unchanging days of the calendar.  According to Scrivener’s Plain Introduction, fourth edition (1894), its pages measure 13 inches high and 10 and 7/8ths inches wide.

A headpiece in Lectionary 261,
featuring the Evangelist Luke.

            Lectionary 261 has been assigned a production-date in the 1000’s or 1100’s (see, however, the detail about its colophon).  Its text, written in two columns on each page, appears to be an excellent representative of the Byzantine Text.  To give some idea of the quality of its text, let’s have a quick round of hand-to-hand combat! – Lectionary 261 versus Papyrus 75 in John 2:14-22; go! 

Papyrus 75 deviates from the Nestle-Aland compilation at the following points in Luke 2:14-22:

● 2:14 – P75 has τας before βοας (+3)

● 2:15 – P75 has ως after ποιησας (+2)

● 2:15 – P75 has τα κερματα instead of το κερμα (+3, -1)

● 2:15  P75 has ανεστρεψεν (+1)

● 2:  P75 has οτι (+3)

● 2:  P75 does not have υμιν (-4)

● 2:  P75 uses an underlined μ as a numeral instead of writing out τεσσερακοντα.

            Setting aside the use of a numeral, that means that in John 2:14-22, Papyrus 75 has 12 non-original letters, and is missing 5 original letters, for a total of 17 letters’ worth of textual corruption.  (If we were to penalize P75 for using a numeral, its total deviation from NA27’s text would consist of 30 letters’ worth of corruption.  But we won’t.) 

            In comparison, the text of Lectionary 261 has the following deviations from NA27:

● 2:15 – Lect 261 has ανεστρεψεν (+1)

● 2:16 – Lect 261 has πολουσι instead of πολουσιν (-1)

● 2:16 – Lect 261 has ποιητε instead of ποιετε (+1, -1)

● 2:17 – Lect 261 has δε after εμνήσθησαν (+2)

● 2:18 – Lect 261 has ειπον instead of ειπαν (+1, -1)

● 2:20 – Lect 261 has ειπον instead of ειπαν (+1, -1)

● 2:20 – Lect 261 has τεσσαρακοντα instead of τεσσερακοντα (+1, -1)

● 2:20 – Lect 261 has ωικοδομήθη instead of οικοδομήθη (+1, -1)

● 2:22 – Lect 261 has ω instead of ον (+1, -2)

            Thus Lectionary 261 has 9 non-original letters in John 2:14-22, and is missing 8 original letters, for a total of 17 letters’ worth of textual corruption – even when the orthographic variation involving τεσσαρακοντα is included (which isn’t quite fair to Lectionary 261, because P75’s scribe did not spell out the word).  This means that in this particular passage, the text of Lectionary 261 is as accurate as the text of Papyrus 75.  In addition, while in Lectionary 261’s transmission-line the word δε was added in verse 17, and ω was substituted for ον in verse 22, the alterations in the text of Papyrus 75 included the insertion of three words, and the omission of one word.  Or to put it another way:  based on this small sample, the text from the ancient Egyptian papyrus looks like it has been edited, whereas the text from the medieval lectionary looks like it has only been subjected to very minor orthographical and grammatical tweaking.          

In John 2:15, P75 agrees
with the Byzantine Text and
disagrees with Codex Vaticanus.

            Another thing worth noticing:  the Byzantine reading at the end of verse 15 – ανεστρεψεν – is supported not only by Lectionary 261 but also by Papyrus 75.  Is this ancient vindication of the Byzantine reading making an impact on critically edited texts of the New Testament?  A little:  ἀνέστρεψεν was adopted by Michael Holmes for the SBLGNT, but the recently released Tyndale House GNT still reads ἀνέτρεψεν, and this must have been deliberate, since the starting-point for the Tyndale House edition was the compilation made in the 1800’s by Samuel Tregelles, who adopted ἀνέστρεψεν. 

            Lectionary 261 does not have the story of the adulteress in its Synaxarion-section; the lection for Pentecost flows without interruption from the end of John 7:53 to the beginning of John 8:12, with which it concludes.  That is not unusual.  In the Menologion-section, however, the lection for Saint Pelagia’s day (October 8) is present, as John 8:3-11, with κατείληπται in verse 4, and with Και at the beginning of verse 5, and with ειπον εκπειράζοντες and εγραφεν in verse 6, and other unusual readings.  Mark 16:9-20 is included as the third of eleven readings in the Heothina-series, pertaining to Christ’s resurrection.  Luke 22:43-44 is not only included but is accompanied by a small illustration depicting Christ praying and being visited by the angel.

            After the last page of the Menologion, which is sloppily expanded by a later hand, a different scribe has added a lection from Matthew 14:1-13.  This is followed by several lines of some sort of colophon, with a date which someone seems to have calculated as 1232.

In a passage from Matthew 25,
Christ teaches about readiness.

          Lectionary 261’s text is by no means its only noteworthy feature.  Artistically, it is far above average.  Its copyist’s minuscule script is a model of efficiency and neatness; corrections in the margin are rare (one occurs in the text of Luke 8:47 where the copyist accidentally skipped from one αὐτῷ to the same word further along in the verse).  Occasionally (and especially in titles in the Menologion) a half-uncial script is used.  Many of the lection-headings appear to be written in gold, and in the first lection after the lection for Pentecost, following a large headpiece featuring the Evangelist Matthew, Matthew 18:10, 8:11, and 8:12a are written in gold before the rest of the lection continues on the next page.

            The Samaritan woman, Lazarus, Zacchaeus, the wise and foolish virgins, and the rich young ruler are among the many characters who appear in small illustrations in the margins throughout the Synaxarion-portion.  Occasionally the colorful initials are transformed into portraits of Christ.  Some Bible-readers prefer their text to be unadorned, and yet these bright initials brings to mind a happy closing thought – that what began as letters on a page may, when welcomed, implanted, and applied, end up as Christ in you. 

[A PDF of Lectionary 261 can be downloaded at the Gallica website.]