Do Byzantine MSS Have Less Disagreements? (Part 3)

            In part 1 and 2 of this investigation, we compared the differences between Vaticanus and Sinaiticus in Luke 19 to the differences between Codex Alexandrinus and minuscule 2474 in the same passage, and found that although B and À disagree 35 times, and these 35 disagreements involve 115 letters’ worth of difference, there are 28 disagreements between A and 2474, involving 127 letters’ worth of disagreement, indicating that the amount of disagreement between À and B is not remarkably higher than the amount of disagreement between A and 2474 (both considered Byzantine manuscripts).

            Now, in Part 3, I wish to look at the text of Luke 19 in two members of a particular Byzantine sub-group:  family 35, which the famous compiler Hermann von Soden named the “K^r” text.  The “K” in this appellation stands for “Koine,” that is, the common text, essentially synonymous with the Byzantine Text, and the “^r” stands for “revision,” because von Soden thought that this form of the text was a standardization made in the 1100s. 

            Researcher Wilbur Pickering has argued that the term “K^r” is somewhat loaded, like Hort’s term “Neutral text,” and he believes that this text goes back to the 200s at least, and constitutes the best available representative of the original text.  Pickering has argued that because representative manuscripts of family 35 are found in diverse monasteries at Mount Athos, this implies that their ancestor-manuscripts were taken to Mount Athos before the Islamic conquest, ant thus family 35’s form of text cannot be the result of a medieval revision.  Without addressing Pickering’s claims, I will use the title “family 35” as an alternative to “K^r.”

           Family 35 could be described as a manuscript-cluster, having essentially the Byzantine Text but with enough shared readings to set its members apart from other Byzantine manuscript-groups.  (For a brief description of Byzantine sub-groups see Robert Waltz’s description of the Claremont Profile Method.)   Do its members agree with each other more closely than B and À?  More closely than A and 2474?

            To find out, I compared the text of Luke 19:1-27 in GA 155 and GA 691 (two members of family 35 – GA 155 is at the Vatican Library, catalogued as Reg. Gr. 79, and GA 691 is at the British Library, catalogued as Additional MS 22739).  I compared their online page-views to the Robinson-Pierpont Byzantine Textform, using the same ground-rules I used for À, B, A, and 2474 (that is, setting aside trivial orthographic variations, not counting contractions as errors, and ignoring most itacisms).   

            Due to the remarkable uniformity of the text in these two manuscripts, instead of providing a verse-by-verse list of their disagreements with each other, it seems better to just state the differences:

           

Differences between GA 155 and 691 in Luke 19:1-27:

1-15 – no differences

16 – 691 reads επραγματεύσατο instead of διεπραγματεύσατο (-2)

17 – no differences

18 – 692 reads μνας instead of μνα before σου (+1)

19-22 – no differences

23 – 691 reads την before τράπεζαν (+3)

Verses 24-27 – no differences

            (Both 155 and 691 disagree with RP2005 in verse 15 by not including και, and both MSS read συκομοραίαν instead of RP2005’s συκομωραίαν in verse 4.)
            The total amount of disagreement between 155 and 691 in Luke 19:1-27 thus consists of three disagreements, involving six letters.

            I am confident that 155 and 691 display a similarly remarkable level of agreement in Luke 19:28-48.

            In Luke 19:1-27, there is obviously a stark difference between the degree of disagreement between two representatives of the Alexandrian Text (20 differences, involving 49 letters), and two relatively early members of the Byzantine Text (14 differences, involving 69 letters), and two members of family 35 (three disagreements, involving six letters).   

            Unless 155 and 691 are somehow exceptional, it appears that the copyists of the manuscripts in family 35 transcribed with a level of precision and uniformity which was on a whole other level compared to the scribes in the other manuscript-groups.  It may be the case that “No two manuscripts agree exactly,” due to trivial differences, but the agreement-rate for members of family 35 appears to be phenomenally higher than the agreement-rate among members of any other major manuscript-group.  Whether the copyists of the over 220 manuscripts that represent were physically isolated from exemplars representing other forms of the text, or were intentionally selective about which exemplars to use, they perpetuated the text with remarkably uniformity.  So we can say, when asking if Byzantine manuscripts have less disagreements that other forms of the text:  not necessarily in early settings where the use of diverse exemplars elicited mixture, but in the Byzantine sub-group known as family 35, yes; those Byzantine MSS have far fewer disagreements.  

Do Byzantine MSS Have Less Disagreements? (Part 2)

            Today we continue to look into a question about the rates of disagreements in the two main Alexandrian manuscripts (Vaticanus and Sinaiticus), asking if their rate or disagreement is uniquely high compared to other pairs of manuscripts, particularly manuscripts which attest to the Byzantine Text.  Our sample manuscript-pair to contrast with B and À are Codex Alexandrinus (A) and minuscule 2474 (the Elfleda Bond Goodspeed Gospels). 

            In Part 1, we saw that in Luke 19:1-27, while B and À disagree 20 times (including three transpositions), A and 2474 disagree 14 times.  We also saw that the disagreements in B and À in those verses involve 49 letters’ worth of disagreement – but in A and 2474, the disagreements involve 69 letters’ worth of disagreement. 

            Now let’s see how each pair of manuscripts disagrees in Luke 19:28-48, using the same ground-rules as before.

Luke 19:28-48:  Comparison of Codex A and 2474

28 – no differences

29 – no differences

30 – 2474 reads ω instead of ον before ουδεις (+1, -2)

30 – (2474 transposes so as to read αυτον αγάγετε)

30 – 2474 reads μοι at the end of the verse (+3) [Agreeing with G and N.] 

31 – no differences

32 – no differences

33 – no differences

34 – no differences

35 – (2474 transposes so as to read εαυτων τα)

36 – 2474 reads αυτων instead of εαυτων (-1)

37 – no differences

38 – 2474 does not have βασιλευς (-8)

38 – 2474 transposes so as to read ειρήνη εν ουνω

39 – no differences

40 – (several itacisms here, but no significant variants)

41 – 2474 reads αυτη instead of αυτην (-1)

42 – 2474 reads σου after ημερα (+3)

42 – Codex A does not have νυν δε εκρύβη απο οφθαλμων σου (-25) [h.t. error]

43 – no differences

44 – 2474 reads λιθων instead of λιθον (+1, -1)

45 – no differences

46 – Codex A reads οτι after γεγραπται (+3)

46 – 2474 reads κληθήσεται instead of εστιν (+10, -5)

46 – 2474 transposes so as to read εποιήσατε αυτον

47 – Codex A does not have οι after αρχιερεις και (-2)

48 – no differences

Luke 19:28-48:  Comparison of À and B

28 – no differences

29 – B reads εγετο instεad of εγενετο (-2)

29 – B does not have Ελεων (-5)

30 – À does not have και after εκαθισεν (-3)

31 – no differences

32 – no differences

33 – no differences

34 – no differences

35 – À reads επεβίβασαν instead of επεβίσαν (+2)

36 – À reads αυτων instead of εαυτων (-1)

37 – À reads πασων instead of παντων (+3, -4)

38 – À does not read ὁ ερχόμενος (-10)

38 – À reads εν before ειρήνη (+2)

39 – no differences

40 – B does not read οτι before εαν (-3)

41 – no differences

42 – no differences

43 – À reads περεμβαλουσιν instead of περιβαλουσιν (+2, -1)

43 – À does not read σε before και συνέξουσιν (-2)

43 – À does not read σε before πάντοθεν (-2)

44 – no differences

45 – no differences

46 – À does not read και εσται before ο οικος (-8)

47 – À does not read ιερω.  Οι δε (-8)

48 – no differences

            And now for the totals:  A and 2474 disagree 14 times in Luke 19:28-48, and these differences involve 58 letters’ worth of difference. Meanwhile, B and À disagree 15 times in Luke 18:28-49, and these differences involve 66 letters’ worth of difference. 

            In Luke 19 (combining the results in Parts 1 and 2), A and 2474 disagree 28 times, and their disagreements involve 127 letters’ worth of difference.  B and À disagree 35 times, and their disagreements involve 115 letters’ worth of difference.  All in all, this comparison indicates that the texts of Byzantine manuscripts are capable of as much intramural competition, so to speak, as the texts of Alexandrian manuscripts.

           But the possibility exists that we are looking non-typical samples.  Let’s dig a little further in Part 3 by exploring one of the sub-groups of the Byzantine Text:  manuscripts from family 35, which has a reputation for uniformity.

Glossary of Textual Criticism: D-M

(Continuing the Glossary of Textual Criticism)

Diorthotes: The proof-reader and general overseer of the production of manuscripts in a scriptorium.  

Dittography:  A scribal mistake in which what should be written once is written twice.  This can describe the repetition of a single letter, a line, or even (rarely) a whole paragraph.

 

The first table
of the Eusebian Canons
in Codex K.

Eusebian Canons:  A cross-reference system for the Gospels, devised by Eusebius of Caesarea to help readers efficiently find and compare parallel-passages (and thematically related passages).  The basic idea is that numbers were assigned to every section of every Gospel, and each number was put into one of ten lists, or canons, in a chart at the beginning of the Gospels.  The first list presented the identification-numbers of passages in which parallels exist in all four Gospels; the tenth list presented the identification-numbers of passages which appear in one Gospel only, and lists 2-9 present the identification-numbers of passages in combinations of Gospels (such as Matthew+Mark+Luke).  The Eusebian Canons were often prefaced by Eusebius’ composition Ad Carpianus, in which an explanation was given of how to use the cross-reference chart.  In some Greek manuscripts, some Latin manuscripts, and especially in Armenian manuscripts, the Eusebian Canons are elaborately decorated.  In a few deluxe copies, the text of Ad Carpianus appears within a quatrefoil frame.

            Also, in some manuscripts, the copyists have put extracts from the Canon-tables below the main text, relieving the reader of the need to consult the Canon-tables in order to identify parallel-passages.  This is called a foot-index, because it appears at the foot of the page.

           

Euthalian Apparatus:  A collection of supplemental study-helps and systems of chapter-divisions for Acts and the Epistles, developed by an individual named Euthalius (who to an extent adopted earlier similar materials prepared by Pamphilus).  Little is known about Euthalius and the extent to which his initial work has been adjusted and expanded by others; the detailed analysis Euthaliana, by J. A. Robinson, remains an imperfect but valuable resource on the subject.

Family 35:   A cluster of over 220 manuscripts which represent the same form of the Byzantine Text.  Wilbur Pickering has reconstructed its archetype.

Flyleaves:  Unused pages at the beginning and end of a manuscript.  In some cases, these pages consist of discarded pages from older manuscripts, glued into or onto the binding. 

Genre distinction:  The practice of recognizing each genre of literature in the New Testament (Gospels, Acts, Epistles, and Revelation) as having its own transmission-history.

Gregory’s Rule:  An arrangement of the pages of a manuscript in such a way that the flesh-side of the parchment (i.e., the inner surface of the animal-skin from which the parchment was made) faces the flesh-side of the following page, and the hair-side of the parchment (i.e., the outer, hair-bearing surface of the animal-skin from which the parchment was made) faces the hair-side of the following page.  Only a few manuscripts, such as 059, do not have their pages uniformly arranged in this way.  (Named after C. R. Gregory.)

Harklean Group:  A small cluster of manuscripts which display a text of the General Epistles which is related to, and strongly agrees with, the painstakingly literal text of the Harklean Syriac version (which was produced in A.D. 616 by Thomas of Harkel, who made this revision of the already-existing Philoxenian version (which was completed in 508 as a revision/expansion of the Peshitta version) by consulting Greek manuscripts in a monastery near Alexandria, Egypt which he considered especially accurate).  The core members of the Harklean Group are 1505, 1611, 2138, and 2495.  Some other manuscripts have a weaker relationship to the main cluster, including minuscules 429, 614, and 2412. 

            Although the Greek manuscripts in the Harklean Group are all relatively late, they appear to echo a text of the General Epistles which existed in the early 600s, and perhaps earlier, inasmuch as Codex Sinaiticus (produced c. 350) contains in the third verse of the Epistle of Jude a reference to “our common salvation and life,” a reading which appears to be a conflation between an Alexandrian reading (“our common salvation”) and the reading of the Harklean Group (“our” (or “your”) “common life”). 

                   

Headpiece:  A decorative design accompanying the beginning of a book of the New Testament in continuous-text manuscripts, and sometimes accompanying the beginnings of parts of lectionaries.  These may sometimes be extremely ornate, especially in Gospel-books.

Homoioarcton:  A loss of text caused when a copyist’s line of sight drifted from the beginning of a word, phrase, or line to the same (or similar) letters at the beginning of a nearby word, phrase, or line.  Often abbreviated as “h.a.”

Homoioteleuton:  A loss of text caused when a copyist’s line of sight drifted from the end of a word, phrase, or line to the same (or similar) letters at the end of a nearby word, phrase, or line.  Often abbreviated as “h.t.”  (Many short readings can be accounted for as h.t.-errors, such as the absence of Matthew 12:47 in some important manuscripts.)

This detail from Lectionary 1963
features a simple headpiece, a rubric,
an initial, and an incipit before the text of
Matthew 5:42-43.

Initial:  A large letter at the beginning of a book or book-section, especially one enhanced by special ornateness and color.  In some Latin codices an initial may occupy almost an entire page.

Interpolation:  Substantial non-original material added to the text by a copyist.  Although patristic writings utilize several saying of Jesus that are not included in the Gospels, Codex Bezae is notable for its inclusion of interpolations in Matthew 20:28 and Luke 6:4.  Due in part to Codex Bezae’s text’s tendency to adopt longer readings, Hort proposed in the 1881 Introduction to the Revised Text that Codex Bezae’s shorter readings in Luke 24 are original, and that in each case, the longer reading is not original, despite being supported in all other text-types.  Hort labeled D’s text at these points “Western Non-Interpolations.”        

Itacism:  The interchange of vowels, such as the writing of ει itstead of ι, ε instead of αι, and ο instead of ω.   

Jerusalem Colophon:  A note which, in its fullest form, says, “Copied and corrected from the ancient manuscripts of Jerusalem preserved on the holy mountain.”  Fewer than 40 manuscripts have this note, including Codex Λ/566, 20, 117, 153, 215, 300, 565, 1071, and 1187; in 157 it is repeated after each Gospel.  

Kai-compendium:  An abbreviation for the word και, consisting of a kappa with its final downward stroke extended.

Kephalaia:  Chapters.  In most Gospels-manuscripts, each Gospel is preceded by a list of chapters:  Matthew has 68 chapters; Mark has 48, Luke has 83, and John has 18 or 19.  Chapter-titles typically appear at the top (or bottom) of the page on which they begin, with the chapter-number in the margin.

Lacuna:  A physical defect in a manuscript which results in a loss of text.

Lectionary:  A book consisting of sections of Scripture for annual reading.  Scripture-passages in lectionaries are arranged according to two calendar-forms:  the movable feasts, beginning at Easter, contained in the Synaxarion, and the immovable feasts, beginning on the first of September (the beginning of the secular year), contained in the Menologion.   

 

Lectionary Apparatus:  Marginalia and other features added to New Testament manuscripts in order to make the manuscripts capable of being used in church-services for lection-reading.  These features usually include a table of lection-locations before or after the Scripture-text.  Symbols are inserted in, or alongside, the text of each passage selected for annual reading:  αρχη for “start,” “υπερβαλε” for “skip,” “αρξου” for “resume,” and τελος for “end.”  Rubrics are sometimes added to identify readings for Christmas-time and Easter-time, and holidays considered especially important by the scribe(s).  Incipits, phrases to introduce the readings, often appear alongside the beginning of lections, or alongside the rubric in the upper or lower margin.  

Letter-compression:  A method writing in which letters are written closer to each other than usual, and some letters are written in such a way as to occupy less space than unusual,  This indicates that the scribe was attempting to reserve space.  It occurs especially on cancel-sheets made to remedy omissions by the main scribe.

Majuscule:  A manuscript in which each letter is written separately and as a capital.  These are also known as uncials.  Many majuscules, or uncials, are identified by sigla (singular:  siglum) such as the letters of the English alphabet, letters of the Greek alphabet, and, for Codex Sinaiticus (À), the Hebrew alphabet.  All uncials are identified by numbers that begin with a zero. 

A rare full-page miniature
in GA 2370 at the
Walters Art Museum -
Christ Blessing the Apostles.

Miniature:  An illustration, often (but not always) situated within a red frame.  The term has nothing to do with the size of the illustration; it is derived instead from the red pigment, minium, which was often used to render the frame around the picture.  (This pigment was famously used in the Book of Kells to make thousands of small dots in the illustrations.)  Miniatures of the evangelists frequently appear as full-page portraits, showing each evangelist in the process of beginning his written account; John is typically pictured assisted by Prochorus.       

Minuscule:  A manuscript in which the letters of each word are generally connected to each other.  The transition from majuscule, or uncial script, to minuscule script, occurred during the 800s and 900s, and was led by Theodore the Studite.  Uncial script was still used, however, for lectionaries in the following centuries. 

Mixture:  A combination of two or more text-types within the text of a single manuscript.  When mixture occurs, it normally is manifested as readings from one text-type sprinkled throughout a text which otherwise agrees with another text-type.  In block-mixture, distinct sections represent distinct text-types.  Codex W exhibits block-mixture; in Matthew and in Luke 8-24 its text is almost entirely Byzantine, but other text-types are represented in the rest of the Gospels-text.   

[Continued]