A New Referee - Hand to Hand Combat in Mark 8:27-38

  

        GA 2370 is a medieval minuscule manuscript of the Gospels that resides in the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore.  It was produced in the late 1000s.  Some readers may recollect that 2370 went head-to-head against Codex D in 2019, winning a contest about which of the two manuscripts has the better text of Luke 2:1-18.  (Using NA27’s text as the standard of comparison, Codex D has 162 letters’ worth of corruption, while 2370 has 65 letters’ worth of corruption.)  2370 is fully indexed at the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts. 

          Today, 2370 once again goes up against a famous ancient manuscript:  Codex Sinaiticus.  Instead of using the 28th edition of the Nestle-Aland as the only standard of comparison, considering that its editors have adopted readings which have zero Greek manuscripts in their favor, I shall use instead a less famous compilation:  the Solid Rock Greek New Testament, which was edited by James (Joey) McCollum and Stephen  L. Brown.  The Scholar’s Edition of the Solid Rock GNT is available at Amazon and pre-orders for its digital form are being taken at Logos. 

         The text of the Solid Rock GNT is also available for free at Joey McCollum’s GitHub page.  Most readers will probably want a bit more than just the text, though, because the apparatus of the Scholar’s Edition of the Solid Rock GNT is remarkably thorough.  As Dr. Paul A. Himes has suggested, it “has a higher probability of having preserved all the original words of the apostles somewhere in its text than any other version/edition in existence.” 

Joey McCollum and Stephen Brown,
at the Museum of the Bible
in Washington, D.C.

          Its text – released into the public domain in 2018 – is very, very similar to what can be found in the Robinson-Pierpont Byzantine Textform.  Its apparatus, though, makes comparisons to Stephanus 1550, Wilbur Pickering’s family-35 archetype, Westcott & Hort’s 1881 edition, the 25th, 27th (=26th), and 28th editions of the Nestle-Aland compilation, Michael Holmes’ SBL-GNT, the base-text of the NIV (1984 and 2011 editions, which are different from one another) and, for select books, the text supported in Eadie’s commentaries on some of the Pauline epistles, the compilation of Galatians made by Stephen C. Carlson, the compilation of Philemon made by Matthew Solomon, and the compilation of Jude made by Tommy Wasserman.  Thus while the text of the Solid Rock GNT Scholar’s Edition is Byzantine, its apparatus is eclectic and up-to-date.

            Stephen Brown began his text-critical research with a reasoned eclectic approach, but he went on to favor a Byzantine Priority model.  Joey McCollum, meanwhile, respects the Byzantine Priority position but in his research he has gained an appreciation for classical stemmatic approaches, augmented by an appreciation for internal evidence.

          Now that today’s referee has been introduced, let’s see how the two combatants compare, in a famous segment of the Gospel of Mark 8:27-38.  This textual arena is famous for containing Simon Peter’s confession that Jesus is the Christ, and also Jesus’ declaration, “Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.”

          2370 has a lot of contractions and abbreviations in its text, but when they are unraveled, it looks like this:

Mark 8:27-38 – 2370 compared to the Solid Rock GNT –

Mark 8:37-9:5 in 2370.

27 – no variations

28 – does not have και after βαπτιστήν (-3)

29 – no variations

30 – has λέγουσι  instead of λέγουσιν (-1)

31 – no variations

32 – no variations

33 – has ἐπετίμησε instead of ἐπετίμησεν (-1)

34 – has εἶπε instead of εἶπεν (-1)

34 – has ελθειν instead of ἀκολουθεῖν (+2, -6)

35 – no variations

36 – no variations

37 – no variations

38 – no variations

Thus 2370 has, in Mark 8:27-38, a total of 14 letters’ worth of deviation from SRGNT – but three of those letters involve movable-ν and are thus very trivial. 

Let’s see how À does:

Mark 8:27-38 – Sinaiticus compared to the Solid Rock GNT –

27 – has Καισαριας instead of Καισαρειας (-1)

27 – has αυτους instead of αυτοiς (+1, -1)

28 – has ειπαν αυτω λεγοντες οτι instead of απεκρίθησαν (+19, -9)

28 – has Ηλειαν instead of Ηλιαν (+1)

29 – has οτι εις instead of ενα (+6, -3)

29 – has επηρωτα instead of λέγει (+7, -5)

29 – has αυτους instead of αυτοiς (+1, -1)

29 – has λεγεται instead of λεγετε (+2, -1)

29 – has εινε instead of ειναι (+2, -1) 

29 – has ο υιος του Θεου after Χριστος (+12) 

30 – no variations

31 – has διδασκιν  instead of διδασκειν (-1)

31 – has αποδοκιμασθηνε instead of αποδοκιμασθηναι (+1, -2) 

31 – has υπο instead of απο (+1, -1)

32 – no variations

33 – has επιστραφις instead of επιστραφεις (-1)

33 – does not have τω before Πετρω (-2)

33 – has και after Πετρω (+3)

33 – has λεγει instead of λεγων (+2, -2)

33 – has φρονις instead of φρονεις (-1)

34 – has μαθητες instead of μαθηταις (+1, -2) 

34 – has ει τις instead of οστις (+1, -1)

34 – has ελθειν instead of ἀκολουθεῖν (+2, -6)

34 – has εαυτον instead of αυτον after σταυρον (+1)

34 – has ακολουθιτω instead of ακολουθειτω  (-1)

35 – has εαν instead of αν (+1)

36 – has ωφελι instead of ωφελησει after γαρ (+1, -4)

36 – has τον before ανθρωπον (+3)

36 – does not have εαν before κερδηση (-3)

36 – has κερδησαι instead of κερδηση (+2, -1)

36 – has ζημιωθηναι instead of ζημιωθη (+3)

37 – has δοι instead of δωσει (+2, -4)

38 – has επαισχυνθησετε instead of επαισχυνθησεται (+1, -2)

           Thus, À has 77 non-original letters, and is missing 56 original letters, for a total of 133 letters’ worth of corruptions.  If we remove from consideration the trivial orthographic variants, and errors that were probably corrected during Sinaiticus’ production, À still has 125 letters’ worth of corruption.

           The reading of 2370 in Mark 8:34 – ελθειν – is notable, since this reading agrees with À, B, A, K, Γ and Π, a formidable array of majuscules.  Meanwhile P45, D, W, Θ, family 1, and the usual Byzantine Text support ἀκολουθεῖν, as do the Peshitta, the Gothic version, the Sahidic version, and the Vulgate (Δ combines both variants with ελθειν και ακολουθιν; some Sahidic copies read similarly).  The SBLGNT reads ελθειν, as did the 1881 edition of Westcott & Hort.  But ελθειν could be a harmonization – in the midst of a passage subject to harmonization in all transmission-lines – to Matthew 16:24.

           No doubt some readers might suspect that 2370 owes its overwhelming victory over Sinaiticus to the choice of referee – and that is correct.  Using NA27 as the standard of comparison, in Mark 8:27-38, 2370 has 49 non-original letters, and is missing 66 original letters, for a total of 155 letters’ worth of corruption.  Meanwhile, Codex Sinaiticus, using NA27 as the standard of comparison, has 26 non-original letters, and is missing 21 original letters, for a total of 47 letters’ worth of corruption.

           One might suspect that in some contests in the Gospels between a manuscript that is strongly Byzantine, and a manuscript that is strongly Alexandrian, the winner is chosen when the referee is selected.

 

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

 

Video Lecture: How To Use the Nestle-Aland Apparatus

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

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

Review: Jongkind's Intro to the Tyndale House GNT

            Today, let’s take a look at An Introduction to the Greek New Testament, by Dirk Jongkind, a researcher at Cambridge (Ph.D. 2005, Cambridge).  The Greek New Testament that is referred to the Tyndale House edition of the Greek New Testament.  Very little is said about any other edition of the GNT.

            This volume measures just 7¾” inches tall and 5¼” wide – approximately the same dimensions as the Tyndale House edition of the Greek New Testament.  It is not long:  only 124 pages, including (at the back) acknowledgements, a glossary, and indices, and (at the front) several brief reviews, front matter, the table of contents, an analytical outline, and an illustrations-list.  The actual book, from the first page of the first chapter to the last page of the last chapter, is just 93 pages long, but considering that  pages 40, 86, and 92 are blank, and that illustrations fill parts of several pages, and that each of the book’s eight chapters begins halfway down the page, the actual amount of used pages is something like 80.  This is a short book.    

            Jongkind presents the Tyndale House edition of the GNT as a compilation which the editors consider “the most accurate edition of the Greek New Testament published so far.”  He also states (p. 35), “we do see it as our task to reflect the earliest manuscript tradition.”  Readers of the Tyndale House GNT may reasonably expect, therefore, to find a filtered form of the Alexandrian text in the pages of the Tyndale House GNT.  

            A chapter-list may shine some light on what Jongkind covers (and does not cover):

            1.  Your Greek New Testament and the Manuscripts

            2.  Practicalities [i.e., how to read the GNT apparatus]

            3.  Manuscripts

            4.  How Decisions Are Made (and Some Important Variants)
            5.  Why Not the Textus Receptus?
            6.  Why Not the Byzantine Text?

            7.  Biblical Theology and the Transmission of the Text

            8.  Where Do We Go From Here?

            As a user’s guide to the Tyndale House GNT, Jongkind’s book is an adequate manual, but as an introduction to the issues involved in the study of the text of the New Testament, it is very uneven, and Jongkind’s treatments of specific passages are so thin as to be superficial.  His presentations of evidence regarding Mark 16:9-20 and John 7:53-8:11 are terribly one-sided; there is no mention of Irenaeus’ use of Mark 16:19 in Against Heresies, and there is no mention of Jerome’s declaration that he had seen the story of the adulteress in may manuscripts, both Greek and Latin.  Jongkind’s treatment of the evidence pertaining to Luke 22:43-44 is even worse; he informs his readers that the passage is found “as early as the fourth century,” as if the abundant patristic support for Luke 22:43-44 does not exist.

            Conscious avoidance of the use of patristic testimony repeatedly mars Jongkind’s comments, just as it mars the apparatus of the Tyndale House GNT.  As Jongkind describes the apparatus of the Tyndale House GNT, one might sense that he is not so much explaining its frugality as apologizing for it.  On page 48, Jongkind acknowledges that the Tyndale GNT does not cite any lectionaries.  On the following page, he states that there is also no versional evidence mentioned in the apparatus.  And there is no patristic evidence in the apparatus either.  Thus three of the four forms of evidence for the text of the New Testament – patristic works, versions, and lectionaries – are withheld from readers of the Tyndale House GNT’s apparatus.  After explaining (on p. 66) that is is useful to detect how evidence is distributed, Jongkind offers an apparatus which is so lightweight that it guarantees that this is impossible for its readers to do.

            In the segment “Some Important Variants,” Jongkind mentions evidence from lectionaries, and evidence from patristic writings, and evidence from versions.  One should pause and wonder, if these forms of evidence do not matter, why are they factors in these arguments, and if they matter, why aren’t they in the apparatus?

            For two chapters, Jongkind detours from his main goal in order to explain why the Tyndale House edition of the GNT is not identical to the Textus Receptus or the Byzantine Text. Regarding the Textus Receptus, his reasoning will persuade the already-persuaded, but it offers very little against the argumentation of what has come to be known as a “Confessional” approach to the subject.  Regarding the Byzantine Text, Jongkind does his readers a disservice when he makes it seem as if “There are two big differences between the Byzantine Text and the Textus Receptus,” minimizing all the differences outside of Acts 8:37 and First John 5:7-8.  In real life, there are oodles of differences.   

            In addition, on pages 98-99, Jongkind seems to contradict himself regarding the date of the earliest evidence for the Byzantine Text:  at first he asserts that in the fourth century (i.e., the 300s), “none of the individual pieces of evidence suggest the existence of anything like the Byzantine Text.”  Yet in the very next paragraph he says, “It is only from the late fourth century onward that the Byzantine Text appears in citations from the church fathers, and from the fifth century onward, we see the first real manuscripts, though limited to the Gospels at first.”  Which is it:  is there “nothing like the Byzantine Text” in the 300s, or does the Byzantine Text appear in patristic writings in the 300s?
            Those familiar with the textual affinities of the text used by Gregory of Nyssa (335-395) need not wonder.  “Virtually all of the evidence,” wrote James Brooks in 1991, “indicates that Gregory’s quotations from the NT have their greatest affinity with the Byzantine type of text” (p. 264, The New Testament Text of Gregory of Nyssa).  Bruce Metzger stated that Wulfilas, in the mid-300s, translated the Gothic version from “the early Koine [i.e., Byzantine] type of text” (p. 82, The Text of the New Testament).  How can this be harmonized with Jongkind’s claim that there is nothing in the 300s to suggest the existence of anything like the Byzantine Text?  

            In addition, while Jongkind’s question about why the Byzantine Text does not appear in second-century and third-century manuscripts is a valid question, there is a valid answer:  papyrus rots.  The manuscripts that circulated throughout Greece, Turkey, and Syria in the 100s and 200s cannot be reasonably expected to do impossible things such as survive in high-humidity locales.  But when patristic writings and copies of Scripture in that territory began to be preserved on parchment (in the mid-late 300s), we see an essentially Byzantine form of the Gospels dominating the landscape there – not because the Byzantine text was new, but because, thanks to the use of parchment codices, the materials on which it was written were suddenly much more durable.       

            Another shortcoming:  the Byzantine Text is not consistently cited in the apparatus.  The expansions and harmonizations in the Byzantine Text that Jongkind briefly describes may justify avoiding the adoption of the Byzantine Text in toto, but the same kind of expansions and harmonizations can be identified in Alexandrian manuscripts (see the post Challenging the Expansion of Piety Theory).   Yet the Alexandrian manuscripts, despite the steady stream of non-original readings they contain, appear in the apparatus constantly.  The Byzantine Text is frequently not mentioned, and this prevents readers from easily discerning how Byzantine or non-Byzantine the text in the Tyndale House GNT tends to be.  Why was the testimony of the Byzantine Text hidden? 

            Also, Jongkind did not adequately impress readers with the minimalistic nature of the apparatus in the Tyndale House GNT.  The apparatus not only avoids telling readers about lectionary evidence and patristic evidence and versional evidence, but very frequently has no entry whatsoever where significant textual variants exist in Greek manuscripts.  Consider Luke 17:36:  this verse is not in the text and there is no entry about it in the apparatus.  Consider Luke 24:53:  instead of addressing the “blessing and praising” variant, famous as one of Hort’s proposed conflations, the apparatus only covers the question of whether “Amen” should be included.  Consider John 7:39:  only part of the textual evidence is covered; the apparatus avoids mentioning B’s testimony.  Consider Acts 13:33:  no textual variant is mentioned.  Many more examples could be supplied in which major translatable variants receive no attention whatsoever in the Tyndale House GNT’s apparatus.    

            When one turns to the Introduction to the Tyndale House GNT that appears as an appendix in the GNT itself, one finds a statement that “the limited apparatus is designed primarily to illustrate the decision-making process.”  Jongkind should have emphasized this point more often and more adamantly than he did, perhaps via repeated statements such as “It should constantly be kept in mind that the apparatus, besides saying absolutely nothing about patristic evidence, versional evidence, and lectionary evidence, is extremely incomplete,” or, “Readers should keep in mind that most textual contests in which the majority of manuscripts disagree with a relatively small cluster of manuscripts are not mentioned at all in the apparatus.”

            Perhaps someday this fault will be repaired by the emergence of a textual commentary which, instead of only covering a sparse representative sample of variant-units, will provide more adequate treatment.  Until then, what one has in Jongkind’s Introduction and the Tyndale House GNT, compared to past Introductions and GNTs, is less, not more.

           

Points of note:

● On p. 18, Jongkind states that the Greek New Testament has been published “since the invention of the printing press.”  However, inasmuch as the printing press was invented in the 1450s and the first GNT to be printed appeared over 50 years later, this is not quite right.

● Jongkind repeatedly states (p. 20, p. 24) that modern chapter and verse-numbers originated in the sixteenth century; however, while this is true of verse-numbers, the chapter-numbers originated in the early 1200s with Stephen Langton.

● A table (2.2, on page 34) states that replacement-pages are given a special sigla:  “Such sections are indicated as coming from a supplement.  However, in Jongkind’s discussion of Mark 16:9-20, when ℵ is mentioned, there is no indication of the fact that its pages containing Mark 15:54-Luke 1:76 are replacement-pages.  Possibly the editors did not consider replacement-pages added in the initial production-process to be truly replacement-pages; if so, however, this should have been mentioned.

● A footnote on page 68 says that “about nine other late manuscripts” have the extra Alexandrian material in Matthew 27:49 (which inexplicably and somewhat shockingly is not mentioned in the apparatus!); a simple consultation of Willker’s Textual Commentary on the Greek Gospels would have shown that the number of late Greek manuscripts that support this reading is closer to 34.

Dr. Dirk Jongkind

● Jongkind seems sympathetic to the redating of three important manuscripts: P66 may be as late as the early 300s; P75 may be as late as the early 300s, and Codex W might have been produced in the 500s.  However, as recently as 2017, Jongkind described P66 and P75 as third-century manuscripts.  What is the basis for this shift?  The only evidence or argumentation that Jongkind mentions:  “voices have argued” for the later dates.  That’s all:  voices.  Footnotes should have been provided in order to give readers the means to test the bases for the new proposals.

You can find more materials from Dr. Jongkind online:

A lecture on the GNT delivered by Dr. Jongkind (55 minutes)

Greg Pritchard interviews Dirk Jongkind on New Testament textual criticism (45 minutes)

Dirk Jongkind describes the Tyndale House GNT (under 5 minutes)

Dirk Jongkind describes the earliest evidence for the NT text (21 minutes)

Dirk Jongkind reviews some of the major uncial manuscripts of the NT (23 minutes)

Production Notes for the Tyndale House GNT
Errata List for the Tyndale House GNT

Bill Mounce versus Reality

 

Dr. Bill Mounce

           In the course of a recent review of the Tyndale House Greek New Testament, Dr. Bill Mounce stated the following:

            “The number one thing that they’re doing that I really like is that they’re giving primary weight to the ancient, the oldest manuscripts – Sinaiticus, and Vaticanus, and some of those older manuscripts.  We all know, in text-critical circles, that those manuscripts are by default more accurate.  They’re closer to the event; there’s been less time for them to be changed; the editors showed less of a propensity to change.  And when I’m reading this, I feel like I’m one step closer to those oldest and most reliable manuscripts.”

            A clearer expression of the axiom, “Older is better” could scarcely be found.

            But is that true?  Today, let’s take a passage from the Gospels – John 2:1-11, which records Jesus’ miracle of water to wine at the wedding-feast in Cana of Galilee – and see whether or not an ancient manuscript is more accurate than a younger manuscript.  Since the Tyndale House GNT happens to be in view, I shall use its text as the basis of comparison.  We let’s compare this passage as it is reconstructed in the Tyndale House edition of the Greek New Testament, and Codex Sinaiticus, and a medieval lectionary – specifically, Lectionary 1963 (the Symeon Stylites Lectionary), which is about 1000 years old.

            As we look at John 2:1-11, keep in mind the difference in the ages of these two manuscripts:  reckoning that the Gospel of John was written around A.D. 90, the copyists in the transmission-line of Codex Sinaiticus had only about 260 years in which mistakes could be made, accretions could be added, lines or phrases could be carelessly dropped, and so forth.  Whereas if Lectionary 1963 was produced around 1100, the copyists in its transmission-stream had about 1000 years in which the same sort of thing could occur.

            By Mounce’s logic, we should expect Codex Sinaiticus to have a far superior form of the text.  We all know this . . . right?  The copyists of Sinaiticus had “less of a propensity to change” – right?  And compared to Lectionary 1963, the copyists in the transmission-stream of Codex Sinaiticus only had a third as much time for changes to occur.  Plus, the copyists of Lectionary 1963 were producing a form of the text deliberately altered and adjusted for medieval church-services.  Surely there is no need to wonder which one contains the more accurate text . . . right?

            Nevertheless let us proceed with the comparison.  The usual ground rules for “Hand to Hand Combat” (used in some earlier posts) will be in play here:  all textual differences will be initially noted.  First-hand readings in the text are the focus.  Variants are “scored” in simple mathematical terms:  one point (+) shall be given for each non-original letter, and one point (-) shall be given for the absence of each original letter.  Movable-nu variants are noted.  Contractions of sacred names, and similar abbreviations, will not be counted as variants.  Transpositions will be mentioned but not counted as variants if there is no other difference.  Also, because one of the witnesses being compared is a lectionary, we shall only begin the comparison after the introductory phrase in verse 1.  After an initial score is tallied, each text will be rescored with itacisms and movable-nu readings removed from consideration. 

Now let’s consider Lectionary 1963’s text of John 2:1-11: 

2:1 – no variations

2:2 – no variations

2:3 – no variations

2:4 – no variations

2:5 – Lect 1963 has legei instead of legh (+2, -1)

2:6 – Lect 1963 transposes to udriai liqinai

2:6 – Lect 1963 transposes (after ex) to keimenai kata ton kaqarismon twn Ioudaiwn

2:6 – Lect 1963 has metritas instead of metrhtas (+1, -1)

2:7 – Lect 1963 has gemhsate instead of gemisate (+1, -1)

2:7 – Lect 1963 has egemhsan instead of egemisan (+1, -1)

2:8 – Lect 1963 has arcitriklinw instead of arcitrikleinw (-1)

2:8 – Lect 1963 has kai instead of oi de (+3, -4)

2:9 – Lect 1963 has arcitriklinos instead of arcitrikleinos (+1, -1)

2:9 – Lect 1963 has eidh instead of hdei (+3, -3)

2:9 – Lect 1963 has fwnh instead of fwnei (+1, -2)

2:9 – Lect 1963 has arcitriklinos instead of arcitrikleinos (+1, -1)

2:10 – Lect 1963 has tote after mequsqwsin (+4)

2:11 – Lect 1963 has epoihse instead of epoihsen (-1)

2:11 – Lect 1963 has thn before archn (+3)

2:11 – Lect 1963 has efanerwse instead of efanerwsen (-1)

            Thus in John 2:1-12, Lect 1963 has a rough score of +21 and -18, yielding a total of 39 letters’ worth of deviation from the original text as represented in the THEGNT.  Most of these differences are trivial.  When itacisms and movable-nu variants are removed from the equation, three deviations remain:

2:8 – Lect 1963 has kai instead of oi de (+3, -4)

2:10 – Lect 1963 has tote after mequsqwsin (+4)

2:11 – Lect 1963 has thn before archn (+3)

            The amount of non-trivial variation in John 2:1-11 in Lectionary 1963 consists of a total of 14 letters’ worth of deviation (i.e., 10 non-original letters are present, and four original letters are absent) compared to THEGNT.  Not one of these readings is a medieval novelty.  Codex A (from the 400s) also has kai instead of oi de in 2:8, and Codex A also has tote in 2:10. (Both of those readings are found in the majority of Greek manuscripts.)  Meanwhile Codex Sinaiticus (À) shares thn before archn in 2:11.  (This, too, is the reading of the majority of Greek manuscripts.)   

            Now let’s look at John 2:1-11 in Codex Sinaiticus.  This famous manuscript is one which Dr. Mounce described as “by default more accurate” and as one of the “oldest and most reliable manuscripts.”   In his view, Codex Sinaiticus is a “wonderful, wonderful manuscript – the most important copy of the Bible that we have.”

2:1 – no variations

2:2 – no variations

2:2 – À has oinon ouk eicon, oti cunetelesqh o oinos tou gamou eita instead of usterhsantos oinou (+41, -13)

2:3 – À has oinos instead of oinon (+1, -1)

2:3 – À has estin instead of exousin (+2, -4)

2:4 – no variations

2:5 – no variations

2:6 – À does not have keimenai (-8) (The word is added above the line)

2:7 – À has kai at the beginning of the verse (+3)

2:8 – À has arcitriklinw instead of arcitrikleinw (-1)

2:9 – À has arcitliklinos instead of arcitrikleinos (+2, -2)

2:9 – À has arcitriklinos instead of arcitrikleinos (+1, -1)

2:10 – À does not have autw (-4)

2:10 – À has de after su (+2)

2:10 – À has thn before archn (+3)

2:11 – À has prwthn after Galilaias (+6)

2:11 – À does not have autou after docan (-5)

2:11 – À transposes to oi maqhtai autou eis auton

            Thus in John 2:1-11, Codex Sinaiticus has a rough score of +61 (i.e., 60 non-original letters are in the text) and -39 (i.e., 39 original letters are not in the text), for a total of 100 letters’ worth of deviation compared to the THEGNT.  When itacisms and transpositions are removed from the equation, ten variants remain:

2:2 – Sinaiticus has oinon ouk eicon, oti cunetelesqh o oinos tou gamou eita instead of usterhsantos oinou (+41, -13)

2:3 – Sinaiticus has oinos instead of oinon (+1, -1)

2:3 – Sinaiticus has estin instead of exousin (+2, -4)

2:6 – Sinaiticus does not have keimenai (-8) (The word is added above the line)

2:7 – Sinaiticus has kai at the beginning of the verse (+3)

2:10 – Sinaiticus does not have autw (-4)

2:10 – Sinaiticus has de after su (+2)

2:10 – Sinaiticus has thn before archn (+3)

2:11 – Sinaiticus has prwthn after Galilaias (+6)

2:11 – Sinaiticus does not have autou after docan (-5)

            Thus the amount of non-trivial variation in John 2:1-11 in À consists of a total of 93 letters’ worth of deviation (i.e., 58 non-original letters are present, and 35 original letters are absent) compared to the THEGNT. 

            To restate:  when we consider all variants, even trivial ones, Lectionary 1963 has 39 letters’ worth of deviation from the THEGNT.  With trivial variants set aside, Lectionary 1963 has 14 letters’ worth of deviation compared to the THEGNT.  Meanwhile, the text from the copyist of Codex Sinaiticus has 100 letters’ worth of deviation compared to the THEGNT if trivial variants are considered, and if trivial variants are set aside, Codex Sinaiticus has 93 letters’ worth of deviation from the THEGNT. 

            An additional consideration:  tote in verse 10 is widely attested, and could easily be skipped by accident if a copyist’s line of sight shifted to the following to- in the next word, ton.  If tote is regarded as original, then the amount of non-trivial deviation in Lectionary 1963 drops to 10 letters, and the amount of non-trivial deviation in Sinaiticus rises to 97 letters.  No matter how you slice it, John 2:1-11 in Codex Sinaiticus has more than five times as much corruption than Lectionary 1963.

            Dr. Mounce’s notion that the age of a manuscript is a sure measure of the accuracy of its text, however reasonable it sounds, is manifestly untrue. 

            Readers who rely on the Tyndale House edition of the Greek New Testament for their knowledge of textual variants, however, will be blissfully unaware of the embarrassing plethora of scribal corruptions in the “earliest and most reliable” manuscripts.  In John 2:1-11, the textual apparatus of the THEGNT has exactly zero variant-units.  The apparatus of the THEGNT quotes no patristic writings, no ancient versions, and no lectionaries.  (Based on the list of witnesses in the introduction to the THEGNT, it appears that lectionaries were not even consulted during its compilation.)

            A more detailed apparatus could make difficult for Dr. Mounce to maintain his claim.  Specifically, a more detailed apparatus could include enough information to challenge the claim that the text of John 2:1-11 in Sinaiticus is “most reliable,” and “wonderful,” and accurate by default, and demonstrate instead that in John 2:1-11, the copyists in its transmission-stream had introduced five times the amount of corruptions, in a third of the time, compared to the text in an ordinary medieval lectionary. 

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

The Tyndale House Greek New Testament

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

           

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

           

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

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

Some Shortcomings of the Nestle-Aland Apparatus

          “It is certain that the original wording is found either in the text or in the apparatus” – the apparatus being the collection of rejected variants found at the foot of the page in the Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece.  So wrote Daniel Wallace in 2004.

          The creators of what Wallace has called “the new standard in critical texts of the Greek New Testament” seem to disagree. 

          The textual apparatus in the 27th edition of Novum Testamentum Graece fails to mention the reading that is found in the vast majority of manuscripts on many occasions.  Maurice Robinson, in an essay published as chapter six of Getting Into the Text – New Testament Essays in Honor of David Alan Black , demonstrates the shortcomings of the Nestle-Aland apparatus by listing its non-inclusions of Byzantine readings in sample chapters of the New Testament.  Robinson showed (among other things) that the Nestle-Aland apparatus fails to mention the reading found in the majority of manuscripts four times in Matthew 3, fourteen times in Mark 3, eleven times Luke 3, eight times in Acts 3, and, incredibly, thirty-three times in Mark chapter 9.  Some of the neglected Byzantine readings are mere transpositions, but this does not explain their non-inclusion, for many of the variants included in the Nestle-Aland apparatus are also transpositions.    

          Allow me to offer a few examples of the non-trivial readings in the Byzantine Text which might as well be non-existent to readers who depend solely on the Nestle-Aland compilation.  Why did the same editors who included all sorts of trivial and untranslatable readings leave readers unaware of the following Byzantine readings?

● Matthew 3:11 – the Byzantine text’s non-inclusion of και πυρι (“and fire”)

● Mark 3:5 – the Byzantine Text’s inclusion of ὑγιὴς ὡς ἡ ἄλλη (“as whole as the other”), supported by Codices L, Y, M, et al.

● Mark 3:31 – φωνοῦντες (instead of καλοῦντες), supported by Codices D, K, Π, M, et al.

● Mark 9:3 – the Byzantine Text’s inclusion of ὡς χιὼν (“like snow”), supported by Codices A, D, M, N, et al, and secondarily (as ὡςεί χιὼν) by Codices K, Π, Y, et al.  

● Mark 9:16 – the Byzantine Text’s inclusion of τοὺς γραμματεις (“the scribes,” instead of αὐτους, “them”), supported by Codices A, G, C, N, K, U, Π, M, et al.   

● Mark 9:18 – the Byzantine Text’s inclusion of αὐτου (“his,” instead of non-inclusion) after ὀδόντας, supported by Codices A, K, M, N, U, Θ, Π, et al. 

● Mark 9:24 – the Byzantine Text’s inclusion of Κύριε (“Lord,” instead of non-inclusion), supported by Codices Δ, K, M, N, Π, et al.

● Mark 9:33 – the Byzantine Text’s inclusion of πρὸς ἑαυτοὺς (“among yourselves,” instead of non-inclusion), supported by Codices A, W, K, Π, M, N, Θ, et al.  

● Luke 3:4 – The Byzantine Text’s inclusion of λέγοντος (“saying,” versus non-inclusion), supported by Codices A, C, K, M, N, U, Θ, Λ, Π, Ψ, et al.  

● Luke 3:22 – The Byzantine Text’s inclusion of λέγουσαν (“saying,” versus non-inclusion), supported by Codices A, E, F, H, Γ, Δ, Ψ, Y, K, M, N, S, U, Θ, Π, Λ, et al. 

● Acts 3:26 – The Byzantine Text’s inclusion of Ἰησοῦν (“Jesus,” versus non-inclusion).

● Second Timothy 4:1 – The Byzantine Text’s inclusion of τοῦ Κυρίου (“the Lord,” versus non-inclusion).

          It is bad enough that the Nestle-Aland apparatus routinely hides the testimony of multitudes of manuscripts beneath a single reference-symbol, or siglum (essentially treating all those Greek manuscripts as the equivalents of copies of an early version), while listing Alexandrian and Western witnesses individually.  It is bad enough that the Nestle-Aland apparatus uses some witnesses selectively, citing them when they bolster the testimony of Vaticanus but ignoring them if they disagree with Vaticanus.  So when it is clear that the Nestle-Aland editors’ pro-Alexandrian bias is so severe that they frequently fail to even mention Byzantine readings, who can be blamed if readers conclude that they must look elsewhere if they want an equitable treatment of the evidence?

Wrong.

          In light of the absence of any mention of these Byzantine readings in the Nestle-Aland compilation, how should we regard claims such as James White’s assertion that “Anyone who has these critical texts has all the readings of the manuscripts right there in front of him” and  his claim that “Any reading that is in any of the tradition is found either in the text, or in the footnote”?  As nothing but misinformation spread by the misinformed. 

          This flaw in the Nestle-Aland compilation stands out all the more clearly when one notices that not only does the Nestle-Aland compilation repeatedly completely fail to mention the reading attested by the majority of Greek manuscripts, but its text, in the 28th edition, includes readings that are not found in any Greek manuscripts.  In Acts 16:12, the editors retained the reading that was in the preceding edition:  πρώτη[ς] μερίδος τῆς, which (as Bruce Metzger explained in his Textual Commentary) is not found in any manuscript; a majority of the UBS compilation-committee decided to “adopt the conjecture” made by earlier scholars. 

          The 28th edition of the Nestle-Aland compilation has another conjectural emendation in Second Peter 3:10; the last two words of the verse in NA-28 are οὐχ εὑρεθήσεται (“shall not be found”).  However, while the last word – εὑρεθήσεται – is supported by ﬡ B K P 1739 et al, there is no Greek manuscript support for οὐχ.  Daniel Wallace has argued against this conjectural emendation, and Aaron K. Tresham has written a brief paper against it.  Nevertheless, there it is.

          It may be difficult for some readers to understand the reasoning that simultaneously removes conjectural emendations from the apparatus while adopting them in the text.  Nevertheless, that is the approach that one may fairly expect to influence the Nestle-Aland compilation for decades to come:  a dismissal of the contents of the majority of manuscripts (to the extent that their contents are not even covered in the textual apparatus), in favor of the imaginations of textual critics as a source of Greek readings to be included in the text.

          Daniel Wallace has assured us that “There is no place for conjectural emendation for the NT because of the great wealth, diversity, and age of the materials that we have to work with.”  The Nestle-Aland compilers (secularist David Trobisch among them) obviously disagree (but this does not seem to matter to Wallace, who welcomed NA28 in 2012, calling it “a new standard”), ignoring readings found in the majority of Greek manuscripts while accepting readings that are not found in any Greek manuscripts.  So, what might a future edition of the Greek New Testament look like if such an approach were fully engaged?  I hope to consider that question in more detail in the near future.