Nestle-Aland in Mark 11: Alexandrian or Eclectic?

          In the preceding three posts, I observed that even though the Nestle-Aland/UBS compilation of the Greek New Testament is often described as an eclectic edition, based on hundreds and hundreds of manuscripts, in three sample-chapters it is almost entirely Alexandrian, and it hardly contains any distinctive Byzantine readings which represent the vast majority of extant Greek manuscripts.  To be precise, in Galatians 1, NA is .3% distinctly Byzantine; in Luke 15, NA is 1% distinctly Byzantine, and in NA’s 2,812-letter compilation of John 20, there is only one letter (and a bracketed letter, at that) which is in the Byzantine Text and not in Vaticanus (B) or Sinaiticus (À).

          Let’s make another investigation; this time, we will look at the eleventh chapter of the Gospel of Mark, which describes Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, the cleansing of the temple, and some other incidents that occurred during the final week of Jesus’ ministry.  In Reuben Swanson’s comparison of the readings of some major manuscripts of the Gospel of Mark, chapter 11 is divided into 59 text-lines.  In 45 of those text-lines, NA agrees precisely with B.  (One of those lines is repeated, however, due to a printing error, so the real total is 58 text-lines, of which B agrees precisely in 44.)   Out of the remaining 14 text-lines, three agree precisely with À (after nomina sacra contractions are taken into consideration).  This means that if we are to find distinctly Byzantine readings in Mark 11 in the Nestle-Aland compilation, they will be somewhere in the remaining 11 text-lines.  Here is what we find there:

● At the beginning of verse 1, NA adopts À’s spelling of Βηθφαγη (disagreeing with B’s Βηδφαγη and with the Byzantine Text’s Βηθσφαγη – though the Byzantine Text is divided at this point; RP2005 has Βηθφαγη in the margin) and then rejects À’s inclusion of εις (agreeing with B and with the Byzantine Text).  Thus, while the line as a whole agrees with relatively few manuscripts (such as W Δ f1), each component agrees with either B or À. 

● In the second half of verse 1, NA disagrees with B’s reading το (disagreeing with των which is read by À and the Byzantine Text), and then agrees with B’s reading of the next word, Ελαιων, disagreeing with À’s Ελεων.  The line as a whole thus agrees with the Byzantine Text; however, neither component agrees with the Byzantine Text distinctly; each component agrees with either B or À. 

● At the end of verse 3, NA adopts B’s spelling ευθυς (instead of the Byzantine reading ευθεως) but then adopts the word-order found in À (disagreeing with B).  NA also adopts the word παλιν near the end of verse 3; the word is not in the Byzantine Text.  Next, NA adopts και απηλθον (read by B and À) instead of απηλθον δε, which is read by the Byzantine Text.  NA also does not include τον before πωλον, although τον is read by À.  Thus, this text-line does not entirely agree with B, or with À, or the Byzantine Text.  Swanson lists only one manuscript – Codex L – that has the combination of readings selected in NA.  Yet, taken individually, each component agrees with either B or À.

● In a text-line which ends with the first three words of verse 6, NA rejected the spelling found in B, À, and in the Byzantine Text (ειπον), adopting instead ειπαν, which is read by a small but respectable cluster of manuscripts (including A, L, Δ, and Π).  This component stands as a non-Byzantine reading which disagrees with À and B.

● Midway through verse 7, NA reads επιβάλλουσιν (agreeing with B and À against the Byzantine Text’s reading επέβαλον) but after the word ιμάτια, NA reads αυτων (agreeing with the Byzantine Text and disagreeing with B’s reading εαυτων and À’s reading αυτω).  The text-line as a whole thus agrees with relatively few manuscripts (including Codices C and L) and its last featured reading (αυτων after ιμάτια) is a Byzantine reading not supported by B or À.

● In the next text-line (in which verse 8 begins), NA adopts εκάθισεν (agreeing with B and the Byzantine Text but disagreeing with À’s reading εκάθισαν), and then adopts και πολλοι (agreeing with B and À but disagreeing with the Byzantine Text’s πολλοι δε), and then, after ιμάτια, adopts αυτων (agreeing with À and the Byzantine Text but disagreeing with B’s reading εαυτων).  The line as a whole thus agrees with relatively few manuscripts (including Codices C, Δ, and 579).  However, each component agrees with either B or À.    

● In the second half of verse 11, NA disagrees with À’s reading οψε (reading οψιας instead, agreeing with B and with the Byzantine Text), and also disagrees with B’s non-inclusion of της ωρας (thus agreeing with À and with the Byzantine Text).  Thus, as a whole, this text-line agrees with the Byzantine Text.  Individually, however, each component agrees with either B or À.

● At the beginning of verse 21, NA rejects the spelling of Ραββει, adopting instead Ραββι and thus agreeing with the Byzantine Text.

● At the beginning of verse 25, NA adopts στήκετε as the third word in the verse, thus disagreeing with B and with the Byzantine Text (which read στήκητε)  and with À (which reads στητε).    

● At the beginning of verse 30, NA includes το after βαπτισμα (agreeing with B and À but disagreeing with the Byzantine Text) but does not adopt B’s spelling of John’s name (Ιωάνου), agreeing instead with À and the Byzantine Text, which read Ιωάννου.  Then NA disagrees with À’s inclusion of the word ποθεν.  As a whole, this text-line agrees with relatively few manuscripts (including Codices A, D, and L).  Individually, each component agrees with either À or B. 

● At the end of verse 33, NA adopts οχλον instead of λαόν, thus agreeing with B and À against the Byzantine Text.  But then NA rejects À’s reading παντες, adopting instead απαντες which agrees with B and with the Byzantine Text.  But then, NA rejects B’s spelling of John’s name (Ιωάνην), reading  Ιωάννην instead.  And next, NA includes the words οντως οτι, agreeing at this point with B but disagreeing with À (which has only οτι) and with the Byzantine text (which transposes these two words).   The text-line as a whole thus agrees with none of Swanson’s witnesses except for a corrector of À.  Taken individually, each component agrees with either B or À.

          Thus, when the variant-units are examined individually, the distinctly Byzantine readings in Mark 11 in the Nestle-Aland compilation consist of the following:

(1)  In verse 7, NA reads αυτων (agreeing with the Byzantine Text and disagreeing with B’s reading εαυτων and À’s reading αυτω), and  

(2)  In verse 21, NA rejects the spelling Ραββει, adopting instead Ραββι and thus agreeing with the Byzantine Text.

          Thus, in Mark 11, the impact of the Byzantine Text is felt by the absence of one letter (ε) in verse 7, and by the absence of one letter in verse 21.  Reckoning that the text of Mark 11 in NA consists of 563 words, and that the Byzantine Text’s contribution to the compilation is discernible in two words, this implies that .4% of the Nestle-Aland compilation of Mark 11 is distinctly Byzantine.  Or, calculating that the text of Mark 11 in NA consists of 2,752 letters, one could say that the Byzantine Text’s existence is manifest in less than .02% of the Nestle-Aland compilation.  The rest originates with other witnesses, primarily Vaticanus, Sinaiticus, and Codex L.

Postscript:  In the course of this series of posts, a point has been raised in the comments:  because the Byzantine Text and the Alexandrian Text agree so frequently, the Byzantine Text’s existence cannot be manifested in 100% of the compilation, but can only be expressed at those points where the Alexandrian and Byzantine texts disagree.  That is undoubtedly true, but how can one answer the question being asked – To what extent is the Nestle-Aland compilation an eclectic text rather than an Alexandrian text? – if not by identifying non-Alexandrian readings (especially Byzantine readings) and seeing how much of the compilation they constitute?  Nor does it affect the answer to the question:  whether one looks at the whole compilation, or only at the parts where the Alexandrian and Byzantine Texts disagree, it is obvious that the Nestle-Aland compilation contains hardly any readings that are found in the Byzantine Text and not in the Alexandrian Text.     

Nestle-Aland in John 20: Alexandrian or Eclectic?

          In the two preceding posts, I showed that the Nestle-Aland/UBS compilation is almost entirely Alexandrian in Galatians 1 and in Luke 15.  To be precise, the NA compilation adopts a Byzantine reading instead of an Alexandrian reading in .3% of Galatians 1, and in 1% of Luke 15.  Let’s take another sample from the Gospels – John 20 – and see what kind of results we get.

          Sifting through John 20 in Reuben Swanson’s presentation of the text in horizontal-line comparisons of the contents of many important manuscripts, I observe that out of 53 text-lines, NA agrees entirely with Vaticanus (B) in 39 of them.  In the remaining 14 text-lines, NA agrees entirely with Sinaiticus (À) in six.  This leaves eight lines that do not agree entirely with either B or À.  Let’s investigate those eight lines to see how non-Alexandrian the Nestle-Aland compilation is in this chapter:

          ● At the end of verse 4, NA adopts τάχιον (agreeing with À), and also adopts À’s reading ηλθεν, but then follows the word-order in B.  Thus, although this three-part series of readings, collectively, agrees with the Byzantine Text, each component agrees with either B or À.

          ● At the beginning of verse 13, NA has και at the very beginning of the verse (agreeing with B) and does not have και later in the verse before λέγει (agreeing with À).  Thus, in this case, each component of the text of NA agrees with either B or À.      

          ● At the beginning of verse 17, NA does not adopt ὁ before Ιησους (agreeing with B), and then adopts the word-order in À (μου απτου), and then does not adopt μου (agreeing with B and À).  Thus, taken as a series, this text-line agrees with D against B, À, and the Byzantine Text, but taken individually, each component is found in either B or À.

          ● In verse 22, NA adopts the variant αφέωνται, disagreeing with B (αφειονται) and À (αφεθήσεται) and the Byzantine Text (αφίενται), agreeing with a small minority of manuscripts including Codices A and D.

          ● At the beginning of verse 25, NA adopts ουν after ελεγον, and αλλοι before μαθηται (agreeing both times with B), but then adopts Εωράκαμεν, agreeing instead with À and the Byzantine Text.  Thus, taken individually, each component of this text-line is found in B or À. 

          ● At the end of verse 27 and the beginning of verse 28, NA reads γίμου, rejecting the itacism in B (γειμου) and agreeing with À.  Further along in the line, however, NA does not adopt ὁ before Ιησους (agreeing with B but not with À).  NA also rejects Και at the beginning of the verse.  Each component of this text-line is found in B or À or both. 

          ● At the beginning of verse 29, NA adopts λεγει, agreeing with B and the Byzantine Text against À (which reads ειπεν δε).  Then NA adopts ὁ before Ιησους (disagreeing with B and the Byzantine Text, but agreeing with À), and further along in the verse reads εωρακάς, disagreeing with the Byzantine Text (which reads εωρακάς) but agreeing with B and À.  NA also does not include και after με (thus agreeing with B and the Byzantine Text but disagreeing with À).  Thus, in this series of variant-units, NA collectively disagrees with B, with À, and with the Byzantine Text (agreeing instead with Codices A, C, D, N, and an assortment of other manuscripts).  Each component of this text-line, however, agrees with either B or À.          

          ● Near the beginning of verse 31, NA places the letter sigma in brackets, so as to read πιστεύ[σ]ητε which disagrees with B and À and agrees with the Byzantine Text.

          Thus, out of the eight text-lines which do not entirely agree with B or À, we see that in terms of their component-parts, they all agree with either B or À except at two points:  the adoption of αφέωνται in verse 22 (disagreeing with the Byzantine Text’s reading αφίενται), and the inclusion of the bracketed letter sigma in πιστεύ[σ]ητε in verse 31.   

          The existence of the Byzantine Text is thus manifested in the Nestle-Aland text of John 21 by one letter.  That is, a distinctly Byzantine reading (one that is not found in B or À) is preferred in one of John 20’s 615 words in the Nestle-Aland compilation.  Or, calculated by letters:  exactly one of  this chapter’s 2,812 letters in the Nestle-Aland compilation is found in the Byzantine Text and not in Vaticanus or Sinaiticus.  The letter is bracketed, however, so do not be surprised if the number of distinct Byzantine readings in John 20 is zero in the next edition.  (The New Living Translation is already based on the reading without the sigma.)

Nestle-Aland in Luke 15: Alexandrian or Eclectic?

          Is the Nestle-Aland compilation basically a slightly tweaked presentation of the Alexandrian Text, relying very heavily on Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus?  Or is it an eclectic text based on thousands of manuscripts?  In the previous post, I investigated Galatians chapter 1 and found that the text in NA27 can be almost completely derived from readings in Vaticanus and/or Sinaiticus.  The Byzantine Text’s unique contribution to Galatians 1 amounts to .3% of the text.  What about the text in the Gospels?  Let’s investigate, using Luke 15 as a sample-passage – a chapter known for its parables:  the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the prodigal son.

          Sifting through the horizontal-line comparison prepared by Reuben Swanson for the text of the Gospel of Luke, we find that out of 51 lines of text, Swanson reports that NA and B agree in 39 of them.  Out of the remaining 12 lines of text in which NA and B do not agree, the NA compilation agrees with Sinaiticus in six of them.  This leaves six text-lines in Luke 15 in which NA does not consist of the contents of either B or À.  Here are those six deviations:   

● In a line in which verse 10 begins, NA reads γίνεται χαρα, adopting the word-order found in B and À but not adopting their spelling. (They both read γεινεται χαρα.)  Apparently, only one manuscript used by Swanson (minuscule 579) has this reading; the Byzantine Text reads χαρα γίνεται instead. 

● At the beginning of verse 14, NA reads λιμος ισχυρα, adopting the second word in agreement with B and À but rejecting their spelling of the first word (λειμος).  The occurrence of λιμος and ισχυρα side-by-side here appears to be attested in only a few manuscripts, one of which is Codex L.  The Byzantine Text reads λιμος ισχυρος instead.    

● In the middle of verse 15, NA rejects the spelling of B and À (where both read πολειτων), adopting instead the spelling used in Codex L and in the Byzantine Text (πολιτων).

● Near the end of verse 17, NA rejects the reading found in Papyrus 75, B and À (λειμω ωδε) and the shorter reading found in the Byzantine Text (λιμω), and the transposition supported by other manuscripts (including Codices D, N, and Θ), adopting instead the reading found in Codex L (λιμω ωδε).  (The transposed reading, whether ωδε λειμω or ωδε λιμω, explains its rivals:  when ωδε was accidentally skipped after the preceding word δε, it was lost in the Byzantine Text, and in the Alexandrian Text, after the loss was detected, the word ωδε was moved, as a practical preventative measure, to the other side of λειμω or λιμω.)  

● At the end of verse 21, NA rejects the reading found in B and À (and in Codex D and a minority of minuscules including 700), ποίησόν με ως ενα των μισθίων σου (that is, “Make me as one of your hired servants,” the same phrase found in verse 19), adopting the shorter reading supported by almost all other Greek manuscripts, including Papyrus 75, Codex L, and the Byzantine Text.  (More Greek manuscripts support the variant in B and À here than support the non-inclusion of Mark 16:9-20; yet this variant does not even receive a footnote in translations such as the ESV, HCSB, NIV, and NASB.)

● At the beginning of verse 25, NA adopts the word-order in B (ουτος ο υιος μου), and then adopts the next variant from À (ανέζησεν, instead of B’s εζησεν) – a combination found in only a few manuscripts, including Papyrus 75 and Codex L.  NA also rejects the Byzantine Text’s inclusion of the word και.

          Thus, out of the six text-lines in Luke 16 that do not agree with either Vaticanus or Sinaiticus, Novum Testamentum Graece adopts a reading found in the Byzantine Text in two of them.  The effect of the Byzantine Text upon the text in Luke 16 thus amounts to the removal of one letter in the À-B text in verse 15, and the removal of seven words at the end of verse 21. 

          One could argue that the real impetus for these deviations was Codex L – a strongly Alexandrian witness in Luke – rather than the Byzantine Text, inasmuch as Codex L’s readings were adopted in both of these places and in verses 14 and 25.  Nevertheless, presuming the maximum discernible impact of the Byzantine Text, out of Luke 16’s 2,703 letters in the Nestle-Aland compilation, had the Byzantine Text not been consulted, the text in verse 15 would be one letter longer, and the text in verse 21 would be 27 letters (that is, seven words) longer, yielding a total of 2,731 letters.  Thus, the impact of the Byzantine Text upon the text of Luke 15 in the Nestle-Aland compilation may be said to be discernible in 1% of the text. 

The Nestle-Aland Text in Galatians 1: Alexandrian or Eclectic?

       It is sometimes claimed that the text in the Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece and the United Bible Societies’ Greek New Testament was compiled via a process that rejects the contents of over 90% of the existing manuscripts of the New Testament, strongly preferring the contents of two manuscripts:  Vaticanus (B, 03) and Sinaiticus (À, 01).  Is that true?  Let’s find out – or at least, let’s use a sample to get some idea about how accurate that claim is – by comparing the text of the first chapter of Galatians in the 27th edition of the Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece to the text in Codex Vaticanus, the text in Codex Sinaiticus, and to the Byzantine Text.  (In Galatians, the text in the 28th edition of the Nestle-Aland compilation is the same as the 26th and 27th edition, going back to 1979; the same text is in the fourth and fifth editions of the UBS Greek New Testament.)  In Matthew-Jude, the Byzantine Text usually represents the contents of the vast majority of Greek manuscripts.       

          In Galatians chapter 1, there are only nine differences between the  Nestle-Aland compilation and the Byzantine Text, and in three of those cases, the text in NA27 is bracketed, indicating that the NA compilation is unstable at those three points.  Here are the differences:   

● 1:3 – NA rejects the word-order in B and Byz, adopting À’s reading instead.

● 1:4a – NA rejects the reading of Byz and À and Papyrus 46 (περι), adopting instead the reading in B (υπερ).

● 1:4b – NA rejects the shorter reading found in Byz (ενεστωτος αιωνος), agreeing instead with B and ﬡ (αιωνος του ενεστωτος), 

● 1:6 – NA has Χριστου (supported by B, Byz, and À) in the text, but it is bracketed.

● 1:8 – NA has υμιν (supported by Byz), but bracketed.

● 1:8 – NA has ευαγγελίζηται where Byz also has ευαγγελίζηται.  The Byzantine Text, however, is divided here:  the text of the Hodges-Farstad Majority Text, and the margin of RP2005, read ευαγγελίζεται.  B agrees with RP2005 at this point in the verse, but disagrees earlier, reading καν instead of και εαν. 

● 1:10 – NA rejects the Byzantine reading γαρ before ετι, thus agreeing with B and À.

● 1:11a – NA rejects δε (thus disagreeing with Byz and ﬡ), and accepts γαρ (thus agreeing with B).  (And, in 1:11b, NA rejects the extra two occurrences of το ευαγγελιον in B, agreeing instead with Byz and À.)

● 1:15 – NA has ο θεος (agreeing with Byz and À) in the text, but it is in brackets.  (The words are not in B.)  [The ESV, by the way, does not translate these words, deviating from the NA text.]
● 1:18 – NA rejects the Byzantine reading Πετρον in favor of Κηφαν (which is supported by B and À).

          Another comparison may be considered.  Using the late scholar Reuben Swanson’s volume of line-by-line comparisons of the contents of various manuscripts, let’s investigate line-by-line to see whether the NA compilation looks like it depends heavily upon B and ﬡ, or if it looks like an eclectic text, in terms of its results.  

The result:  out of 44 lines of text in Galatians in Swanson, 35 lines match the text of B without variation.  Out of the remaining nine lines, which in NA do not agree with B, five of them agree with À.  So when one reads Galatians 1 in the Nestle-Aland compilation, one is reading a text that is in either B or ﬡ roughly 91% of the time, if one divides the text into the comparison-lines in Swanson.

          Does this mean that NA is Byzantine in the 11% of comparison-lines where it is not Alexandrian?  No.  Out of the remaining four lines in Swanson where NA does not agree with B and does not agree with À:

■ At the beginning of verse 8, NA disagrees with B and with ﬡ and agrees with the text in RP2005.

■ Near the end of verse 8, NA disagrees with B and with ﬡ and agrees with Byz. (The word υμιν is, however, bracketed in NA27.)

■ At the beginning of verse 11, NA disagrees with B (due to B’s weird triple occurrence of το ευαγγελιον) and with À and Byz (which both read δε instead of γαρ early in the verse). This sequence of readings adopted by NA is found as a correction in B, a correction in ﬡ, and in G and 33.

■ At the beginning of verse 19, where B has ουχ ειδον and À has ουκ ιδον, NA agrees with Byz (and a correction in B), reading ουκ ειδον.

          So: in Galatians 1, if we divide the text into Swanson’s 44 lines (as a convenient reference):  35 lines agree with B.  Five of the 9 remaining lines that do not agree with B, agree with ﬡ.  Three of the four remaining lines that do not agree with B, nor with À, agree with Byz.  Thus, in Galatians 1, in terms of how many full lines in Swanson’s comparison agree with either B, À, or both, the Nestle-Aland compilation is roughly 91% Alexandrian, 7% Byzantine, and 2% something else.

          If we zoom in for a closer look at those three lines in which NA agrees with Byz against B and ﬡ, we see how small the impact of the Byzantine Text is:  

(1) The difference at the beginning of verse 8 amounts to καν (in B) versus και εαν, which is read by ﬡ as well as by Byz.

(2) The contest near the end of verse 8 is between the absence (in B and ﬡ) or presence (in Byz) of υμιν.  Inasmuch as the word is bracketed in NA27, this should not be considered a stable portion of the NA compilation. And,

(3) The difference near the beginning of verse 19 is a matter of two letters in two words.  Treated as separate variants, each word adopted in NA is supported by either B or ﬡ:   B has ειδον and ﬡ has ουκ.

          Thus, one can produce a compilation of Galatians 1 that is identical to the text of NA by picking and choosing exclusively from first-hand readings in B and ﬡ, with one exception:  the Byzantine Text has contributed one bracketed word (consisting of four letters) in verse 8.  (B also has υμιν, but before ευαγγελίζηται instead of after it.)   It seems to me that the presence of a single word (constituting a little less than one-third of one percent of the text of Galatians 1) does not justify calling the NA compilation of Galatians 1 an eclectic text.  Whatever has been said about the eclecticism of the method used to compile the Nestle-Aland text, the compilation itself in Galatians 1 is more than 99% Alexandrian.