Mark 5:27 - A Small Clue to Consider in the Synoptic Mystery

In Mark 5:21-43 (chapter 21 of the Greek text) and Matthew 9:18-26 and Luke 8:40-56 the testimony of Saint Veronica is related - the woman who had suffered for twelve years from hemorrhages until the day she met Jesus.

In Matthew 9:20, and in Luke 8:44, after the word ηψατο, both read του κρασπέδου του ιματίου αυτου.  Mark 5:27, though, reads του ιματίου αυτου,  without του κρασπέδου . . . or did he?

There's instability in the text of Mark 5:27 - WH1881  Souter1910 and  NA25 had τα after ακουσασα but this was changed; NA27 does not have τα in the text.  Thee pertinent variant involving του κρασπέδου is not included in the textual apparatus of the UBS and NA compilations.  The text of family-1, 021 (M - Campianus), 33 and 579  include του κρασπέδου in Mark 5:27!   

It's a natural harmonization to Matthew (and Luke), and entirely benign - but the majority of manuscripts do not have it.  Apparently more than one scribe working independently, including the scribe responsible for the archetype of family-1, felt led (erroneously) to add του κρασπέδου to Mark's account.  

This means something regarding the literary relationship between the texts of the Gospel of Matthew, the Gospel of Mark, and the Gospel of Luke as we know them (the Synoptic Problem).  Advocates of the Two-Source Solution and the Four Source Hypothesis operate on the premise that Matthew and Luke borrowed material from Mark's account - Matthew enlarging Mark's account via the inclusion of his transcripts of Jesus' discourses, and Luke enlarging Mark's account via the inclusion of the testimonies of various eyewitnesses.  

Matthew closely followed Mark's report about Jairus' daughter and Veronica - but not in this little detail about specifying that she thought about touching the hem of his garment.  Why did Matthew and Luke both mention this detail and not Mark?

I propose that neither Matthew nor Luke had copies of the Gospel of Mark in front of them when they composed their Gospels.  Instead, they had two forms of Proto-Mark - Mark's collections of Peter's remembrances about Jesus as the written collection existed in the early 60s, not as the Gospel of Mark existed when officially released in Rome c. 67-68.  And in Proto-Mark, the words του κρασπέδου were present in the text, eliciting their inclusion by Matthew and Luke.  When preparing  the definitive text of his Gospel, Mark himself committed parablepsis:  his line of sight drifted from the του of του κρασπέδου to the του of the following phrase (του ιματίου αυτου).

An interesting lesson in how the Holy Spirit bears with human weakness even in the production of the Word of God.

For reference:  My solution to the Synoptic Problem:

 

  

Spotlight on John 11 (Again) - BAR's Alliance With Silliness

            Since the editors of Biblical Archeological Review have decided to spread Elizabeth Schrader's (now Schrader Polczer, Assistant Professor of New Testament at Villanova University) wild ideas about the text of John 11 (already debunked in 2019) in the article The Mystery of Mary and Martha, I decided to revisit the subject today.  The idea that the original text of John 11 is no longer extant is simply ridiculous.  Even a novice textual critic should be intelligent enough to realize that that what she claimed to be a demonstration that "one in five Greek witnesses and one in three Old Latin manuscripts display some sort of inconsistency" pertaining to Martha are not meaningful inconsistencies at all, but merely a collection of ordinary and unremarkable scribal errors. 

          Papyrus 66 (shown here) was corrected to amend the scribe's initial error (repeating Mary's name twice) and the reason why Schrader noted that "perhaps this was just a mistake" is because it WAS a mistake; the fact that other scribes of other manuscripts made other mistakes will not make it anything else.  Having noticed a parableptic error in Codex Alexandrinus, the sensible thing to do would be to acknowledge it for what it is and move on undisturbed.  Every scribe, generally speaking, makes such errors if they write enough.  Nevertheless Schrader chose to consider Codex A's scribe (or the scribe of its ancestor) "apparently uncertain" about whether one or two women were present in John's narrative in 11:1 - as if scribes in the early fifth century, after the story had circulated in churches for over 300 years, would be clueless on the subject.

            Nobody should imagine that the scribe of Alexandrinus or the scribe of any of its its ancestors harbored the doubts that Schrader has attributed to him (or her).  What Schrader was looking at had already been analyzed correctly by B. H. Cowper in 1840.  In most copies of the Gospel of John the text of 11:1 is Ἦν δέ τις ἀσθενῶν Λάζαρος ἀπὸ Βηθανίας, ἐκ τῆς κώμης Μαρίας καὶ Μάρθας τῆς ἀδελφῆς αὐτῆς – “Now a certain man was sick, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha.”  In 02, though, besides shifting from αυτης to αυτου (and thus causing the text to refer to “his sister Martha”), the copyist skipped the two words καὶ Μάρθας.  Perceiving that this could be salvaged, the scribe erased the word κώμης and rewrote it in small letters at the end of the previous line.  Following that, the scribe filled in the newly blank space was filled with the words Μαρίας καὶ Μάρθας. 

There is nothing here that even remotely suggests an agenda in the early church to diminish the influence of Mary by adding an extra character (Martha) to John's narrative, and the editors of BAR only make themselves look like fools publishing this sort of sensationalized nonsense to sell more copies.  You just need to realize that a scholar who has testified that Mary Magdalene spoke to her – in other words, that she somehow engaged in necromancy – might not be the best source for serious analysis of the text.

            BAR personnel Nathan Steinmeyer and C. Moyer are invited to pay attention.

Luke 9:55-56 - What a Knot!

           Having seen that a scribal note at the end of Luke 9:54 became extremely popular and eventually dominated over 99.5% of extant manuscripts, let’s move along to the fascinating cluster of variants in verses 55-56 – one of the most difficult variant-units in the New Testament.   Metzger’s six-line dismissal of the longer readings has been augmented in online studies by several researchers including Robert Clifton Robinson and the NET’s annotator.  Zooming in on verse 55 first, we see that the Textus Receptus, the Byzantine Textform, and the Majority Text and quite a few MSS read (after αὐτοἷς) καὶ εἶπεν οὐκ οἴδατε οίου πνεύματός ἐστε ὑμεις” and verse 56 begins with ὁ γὰρ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου οὐκ ῆλθεν ψυχὰς ἀνθρώπων ἀπολέσαι άλλὰ σῶσαι. – that is (in the EOB New Testament) “You do not know of what kind of spirit you are.  The Son of Man did not come to destroy people’s  lives but to save them.”

          Weighing in for non-inclusion are P45 P75 À A B C E G H L S V W D X Y Ω and about 430 minuscules including 28 33 157 565 892 1424 etc.   The Sinaitic Syriac and the Sahidic version do not include the material.  Cyprian supports the inclusion of "the Son of Man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them" (in Letter 58:2 - thanks to Demian Moscofian for this reference).  Chrysostom supports the inclusion of εἶπεν οὐκ οἴδατε οίου πνεύματός ἐστε ὑμεις and non-inclusion of ὁ γὰρ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου οὐκ ῆλθεν ψυχὰς ἀνθρώπων ἀπολέσαι άλλὰ σῶσαι.  Epiphanius supports inclusion.  Basil weighs in for non-inclusion.

Majuscules that support inclusion (with minor variations) include D (although D does not include ὑμεις at the end of v. 55 and 56a) Y M K U Γ Θ Λ Π,  and the 1,300 minuscules that include the longer reading include f¹ f¹³ 124 180 205 597 700 1006 1243 1292 1505.  Willker noticed that 240 minuscules read ποίου instead of οίου (agreeing with D), and that 33 minuscules have the first segment of verse 56 before the last segment of verse 55.  Latin support for non-inclusion includes a, aur, b, c, e, f, q, r¹ and the Clementine and Wordsworth’s edition of the Vulgate. Nestle’s Novum Testamentum Latine reads “Et conversus increpavit illos, dicens :  Nescitis euius spiritus estis.  Filius hominis non venit animas perdere, sed salvare.”   I have not verified the claim that Codex Fuldensis supports non-inclusion.  The Curetonian Syriac, the Peshitta, and Harklean Syriac support inclusion and so do the Armenian and Gothic versions.  Ambrose and Ambrosiaster both support the longer reading.

            (GA 579 has a unique expansion which I will ignore here.)

            Early readers might have wondered know what Jesus said when he rebuked James and John.  But would they be willing to invent a response from Jesus and present it as if it originated with Jesus?  Is it likely that a scribe would add this sentence knowing that it was not originally part of Luke’s Gospel?

            On the other hand, if Luke wrote καὶ εἶπεν οὐκ οἴδατε οίου πνεύματός ἐστε ὑμεις  ὁ γὰρ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου οὐκ ῆλθεν ψυχὰς ἀνθρώπων ἀπολέσαι άλλὰ σῶσαι, what possible motive would any scribe have to remove these words?  Luke preserved Jesus’ saying (in 19:10) that the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost – so why add a similar statement here?

            A very bad case of parablepsis could account for the loss of καὶ εἶπεν οὐκ οἴδατε οίου πνεύματός ἐστε ὑμεις  ὁ γὰρ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου οὐκ ῆλθεν ψυχὰς ἀνθρώπων ἀπολέσαι άλλὰ σῶσαι if a scribe’s line of sight drifted from the καὶ after αὐτοῖς to the καὶ before ἐπορεύθησαν.  However this seems unlikely for several reasons.  First, due to the large amount of lost material.  Second, because a proof-reader would almost certainly correct the omission.  Third, because the attestation for non-inclusion are from Alexandrian (P75 À B Sahidic), Western (Old Latin a b c r¹ ), and Byzantine (A S Ω 1424) transmission-lines.  

            Let’s take a closer look at a few of Chrysostom’s utilizations of Luke 9:55-56.   Near the end of Homily on Matthew 29 he cited 9:55b plainly.  Ini his 51^st Homily on John he utilized 9:55b again.  And he did so again in Homily on First Corinthians 33 when commenting on I Cor. 13:5, writing, “Wherefore also when the disciples besought that fire might come down, even as in the case of Elijah, ‘You know not,’ says Christ, ‘what manner of spirit you are of.’” 

            We are looking at two variants here, not just one:  (1) the addition of καὶ εἶπεν οὐκ οἴδατε οίου πνεύματός ἐστε ὑμεις and (2) the inclusion of ὁ γὰρ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου οὐκ ῆλθεν ψυχὰς ἀνθρώπων ἀπολέσαι άλλὰ σῶσαι.  We are also looking at several strata in the transmission of the text.

           I suspect we are dealing with a phenomenon involving marginalia in the autograph.  Whether the marginalia was added by Luke, or by a later scribe, is very difficult to determine.  Imagine the main text of verses 55-56 looking like it does in Codex S (028).  Then picture καὶ εἶπεν οὐκ οἴδατε οίου πνεύματός ἐστε ὑμεις in the margin to the left, and ὁ γὰρ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου οὐκ ῆλθεν ψυχὰς ἀνθρώπων ἀπολέσαι άλλὰ σῶσαι in the margin to the right.  Scribes coming to this could interpret it in different ways.  To encapusulate the hypothetical history of the text at this point, I will name alphabetically the scribes who treated it differently:

          Alex and Bill perpetuate only the main text, thinking that the marginalia is all secondary and non-Lukan.
          Cecil perpetuates the main text and includes all the marginalia as the text in the copy he produces.

           Dexter perpetuates the main text and includes 55b in the main text of the copy he produces.

          Later, using exemplar based on the ones made by Bill and Cecil, Edward made a copy resembling most Byzantine MSS, with 55b and 56a indiscernible from the rest of the text.

          Fred similarly made a copy including 55b and 56a, but in a different order.

           How should modern English versions handle this?  I would be content with what we see in the New American Standard Bible (1995), but with brackets only around 56b:  “But He turned and rebuked them, and said, “You do not know what kind of spirit you are of [for the Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them.”] And they went on to another village.”  Let’s see an array of different treatments:

            Modern English versions have handled this variants in a variety of ways:

          NIV:  But Jesus turned and rebuked them. Then he and his disciples went to another village. (no footnote)

          NLT:  But Jesus turned and rebuked them.^a  The footnote reads:  “Some manuscripts add an expanded conclusion to verse 55 and an additional sentence in verse 56: And he said, “You don’t realize what your hearts are like. ⁵⁶ For the Son of Man has not come to destroy people’s lives, but to save them.””
          ESV:  But he turned and rebuked them.^a  The footnote reads:  “Luke 9:55 Some manuscripts add And he said, “You do not know what manner of spirit you are of; ⁵⁶for the Son of Man came not to destroy people's lives but to save them.”

          WEB:  But he turned and rebuked them, “You don’t know of what kind of spirit you are.  For the Son of Man didn’t come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them.”

          EHV:  But he turned and rebuked them. “You don’t know what kind of spirit is influencing you.  For the Son of Man did not come to destroy people’s souls, but to save them.”^a  Then they went to another village.  The footnote reads “Luke 9:56 Some witnesses to the text omit this quotation.”

          The Message hyper-paraphrase:  “Jesus turned on them: “Of course not!” And they traveled on to another village.”

          Christian Standard Bible:  “and they went to another village.” (Footnote:  Other mss add and said, “You don’t know what kind of spirit you belong to. 56 For the Son of Man did not come to destroy people’s lives but to save them,”)

In conclusion, with the present state of evidence, the best option is to include καὶ εἶπεν οὐκ οἴδατε οίου πνεύματός ἐστε ὑμεις in the text and ὁ γὰρ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου οὐκ ῆλθεν ψυχὰς ἀνθρώπων ἀπολέσαι άλλὰ σῶσαι in a footnote.

Hand to Hand Combat: GA 2414 versus Sinaiticus in John 10 - and a variant in John 10:12-13

GA 2414 is more interesting and important than the average New Testament manuscript.  It resides in Greece in the Public History Library in the village of Zagora - a place that has been occupied for quite a long time.   The manuscript is assigned to the 900s.  It is fully indexed on the CSNTM website.  

How does its (Byzantine) text compare to, say, the text of Sinaiticus in one of the most famous passages in the Gospels - verses 10-16 of Jesus' "Good Shepherd" discourse in John 10?  Let's find out, using the text of NA27 as the referee.  Trivial deviations from the compilation such as final nu and nomina sacra contractions will be noted but not counted as variants.

John 10:10-16 in GA 2414 

10 - has εχουσι instead of εχουσιν (-1)

11 – no variants

12 – has δε between μισθωτὸς and και [+2]

12 – has εισι instead of εστιν [+2, -3]

12 – has τὰ πρόβατα after σκορπίζει [+9]

13 – begins with Ὁ δὲ μισθωτὸς φεύγει [+17]

14 – has γινώσκομαι ὑπο τῶν ἐμῶν instead of γινώσκουσι με τὰ ἐμα [+11, -7]

15 – no variants

16 – transposes, reading με δει instead of δει με

16 – reads γενήσεται instead of γενήσονται [+1, -2]

2414 has 42 non-original letters added and 13 original letters missing, for a total of 55 letters’ worth of corruption.

Now let's compare Sinaiticus' text to NA27:

10 – has αιωνιον after ζωην [+7]

10 - has εχουσι instead of εχουσιν (-1)

11 – no variants

12 – has δε between μισθωτὸς and και [+2]

12 – has εισι instead of εστιν [+2, -3]

12 – has τὰ πρόβατα after σκορπίζει [+9]

13 – begins with Ὁ δὲ μισθωτὸς φεύγει [+17]

14 – has γινώσκομαι ὑπο τῶν ἐμῶν instead of γινώσκουσι με τὰ ἐμα [+11, -7]

15 – no variants

16 – transposes, reading με δει instead of δει με

16 – reads γενήσεται instead of γενήσονται [+1, -2]

That’s 18 non-original letters included, and 11 original letters omitted, for a total of 29 letters’ worth of corruption.  Codex Sinaiticus wins!  

Or so it seems.  Much depends on what happens at the end of verse 12 and the beginning of verse 13.  The NASB renders these two verses as follows:  "He who is a hired hand, and not a shepherd, who is not the owner of the sheep, sees the wolf coming, and leaves the sheep and flees; and the wolf snatches them and scatters the flock.  He flees because he is a hired hand and does not care about the sheep."  

            The italicized words salvage the problem:  without them, the antecedent of  the entity who flees is the wolf!  The shorter Alexandrian reading is clearly the more difficult reading - but it is so difficult that it is rather nonsensical. What, if the Byzantine reading is original, could have elicited the creation of the shorter reading?  Simple parablepsis:  If a copyist wrote, after a line ending in σκορπίζει, the words τα πρόβατα ὁ δε μισθωτός φευγει, inattentiveness could have cause a subsequent scribe to omit all six words, skipping from -ει to -ει.  Major Alexandrian witnesses - P66, P75, Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, 019, etc. - weigh in for the shorter text, as well as 05 032 and the Sinaitic Syriac and the Coptic version.       

            Byzantine witnesses are not entirely uniform.  Most MSS read τα πρόβατα ὁ δε μισθωτός φευγει but Swanson notes that Codex Π 565 and 1071 read ὁ δε μισθωτός φευγει (and the Peshitta and the Latin texts concur) - suggesting to me that an early exemplar written in narrow columns read 

        πρόβατα καὶ φευγει

        και ὁ λύκος ἁρπάζει

        αὐτὰ και σκορπίζει

        ὁ δε μισθωτός φευγει - 

four consecutive lines ending with -ει.

       This is an especially notable variation-unit - not only because the non-inclusion of the six or four words is accounted for so readily, but also because the shorter reading is supported by the primary witnesses in both the Alexandrian and Western transmission lines - so the Byzantine reading would be, in theory, a non-Western elaboration.  At the same time, the sentence without ὁ δε μισθωτός φευγει is jarring - Jesus' subject jumps from the role of the wolf to the role of the hireling without warning.  One could argue that the shorter reading is thus the more difficult reading - but it can also be argued that the shorter reading is so difficult that it is unlikely to be what John initially wrote.  

        I propose that the text of John 10:13 should be amended in the Nestle-Aland compilation to include ὁ δε μισθωτός φευγει.  If the calculation of letters' worth of corruption is altered accordingly, GA 2414 has 38 letters' worth of corruption, and Codex Sinaiticus has 47.  Yet again the outcome of the contest depends on the selection of the umpire.

 

 

  

                     

Matthew 26:28: My Blood of the New Covenant

            In Matthew 26:28, did Jesus say, "This is my blood of the new covenant"?  Or did he say, "This is my blood of the covenant'?  The contest, in Greek, is between τὸ τῆς καινῆς and τῆς.  The external evidence - as presented in the apparatus of Wayne Mitchell's The Greek New Testament, 4th edition - shows that representatives of multiple text-types support τὸ τῆς καινῆς or τῆς καινῆς:  the Byzantine text finds allies in A, C, D (without the τὸ), E, F, G. H. K, M, S, U, W, Γ, Δ, Π Ω 074vid f¹  f¹³ 28 205 565 579 597 700 892 1006 1071 1241 1243 1342 1505 1582 Lect  the Old Latin and Vulgate, the Peshitta, Palestinian Aramaic, Sahidic and Bohairic versions (except for one Bohairic copy, and Schenke's Middle Egyptian), Armenian, Ethiopic, and part of the Old Georgian version. The Byzantine reading also has support from Irenaeus (in Latin), Origen (in Latin), Theophilus of Alexandria, Theodoret, Jerome, and Augustine.

           P45 (damaged, but with space-considerations taken into account) and P37 agree with Vaticanus and Sinaiticus (and 019 035 038 33) on the shorter reading.  Irenaeus (as preserved in Armenian) agrees with the shorter reading, and so do Cyprian and Cyril.
           Both readings are clearly ancient.
           Looking at the parallel in Mark 14:24, the longer reading is paralleled word for word in the Byzantine Text.  Meanwhile, the passage without "new" is supported by Vaticanus, Sinaiticus, and L D P W Z Θ Ψ and Old Latin Codex Bobbiensis.  

          Metzger proposed that the longer reading in Mt. 26:28 originated via a harmonization to Luke 22:20.  I propose, however, that something else has affected the text of Matthew 26:28. And it wasn't Marcionism.  It could be imagined that Marcion or a Marcionite created the shorter reading because to Marcion, Jesus Christ did not introduce a new covenant; to Marcion, the one true God had nothing to do with the covenant of the Law. 
           Metzger asserted that if καινῆς had been present in the original text of Matthew 26:28, "there is no good reason why anyone would have deleted it."  Some might insist that a Marcionite's theology would be, to him, a reason to delete it.  But can a Marcionite's influence upon the Alexandrian text of Matthew have been so strong?  Marcion himself only accepted his own edited text of the Gospel of Luke.  So the idea that Marcionism was a factor seems unlikely. 
           But the flimsiness of an arrow thrown at the shorter reading does not really prove the strength of the shorter reading.  If the shorter reading is regarded as original, then the text of Matthew 26:28 must have been harmonized to Luke 22:20 in multiple transmission-streams (affecting the Byzantine Text, the Old Latin and Vulgate, the Sahidic, the Sinaitic Syriac, Armenian, Ethiopic, and Slavic versions).  Neither Lachman nor Tregelles seems to have thought that was a plausible option.

            A less sinister mechanism than Marcionism seems to have been at work in the Alexandrian text of Matthew 26:28:  simple parablepsis.  A scribe beginning with τῆς καινῆς before διαθήκης could skip καινῆς by accidentally jumping from the -ῆς in τῆς to the -ῆς at the end of καινῆς.  Perhaps slightly facilitating the omission of καινῆς was the influence of scribes' recollection of Exodus 24:8 as written in the Septuagint, where Moses "took the blood, sprinkled it on the people, and said, 'This is the blood of the covenant which the LORD has made with you according to all these words.'"  There is no καινῆς in Exodus 24:8, the passage that Christ's words in Matthew 26 reflect.  Contrary to Metzger's assertion that "there is no good reason" for a deletion in Matthew 26:28, it is easy to see that a mechanism of deliberate harmonization (to Exodus 24:8) and a mechanism of accidental omission could both contribute to the creation of the shorter reading.  (Whenever an accidental omission occurs,  aren't observations about the lack of motive superfluous?)

          A wild card should not be overlooked:  the word τὸ before τῆς καινῆς in the Byzantine Text.  Non-Greek scribes might not have bothered with this; Greek scribes may have naturally added τὸ, regarding the resultant reading to be a slight stylistic improvement not affecting the meaning of the text.  (Conversely, Alexandrian scribes might have considered it unnecessary.)  This detail need not be resolved to maintain the conclusion that καινῆς was part of the original text of Matthew 26:28.

Hand to Hand Combat: GA 1691 vs. Sinaiticus in Matthew 7:26-8:5

          Earlier this month, we looked at a page in GA 1691 that contained most of Matthew 7:26-8:5.  GA 1691 is one of many manuscripts featured at the CSNTM website.  More than one reader of that post had a question:  is GA 1691 really more accurate than Codex Sinaiticus?  Today we shall investigate this question, as far as Matthew 7:26-8:5 is concerned, via a quick round of hand-to-hand combat – that is, a comparison of the text of both manuscripts.  The standard of comparison shall be the Nestle-Aland NTG (28^th edition), although the Solid Rock Greek New Testament (third edition) will also be consulted.  The passage in which both manuscripts will be compared is Matthew 7:26-8:5, the same passage featured in the previous post (slightly expanded to include the entirety of the verses on the page of 1691).  

          As usual, the comparison is scored as follows:  every extra letter earns the manuscript a point, and every missing letter earns the manuscript a point.  Word-order differences that do not change the meaning and which do not result in any loss of text do not receive a score.  Contractions of nomina sacra (sacred names) and other contractions are not counted as variants.  The number of points = the total amount of corruptions, so the lower score wins.

GA 1691 compared to NA28:

26 – 1691 transposes to τὴν οἰκίαν αὐτοῦ instead of αὐτοῦ τὴν οἰκίαν

27 – no variants

28 – 1691 has συνετέλεσεν instead of ετέλεσεν (+3)

29 – 1691 does not have αυτων at the end of the verse (-5)

1 – 1691 has Καταβαντι δε αυτω instead of Καταβαντος δε αυτου (+2, -4)

2 – 1691 has ελθων instead of προσελθων (-4)

3 – 1691 has ο Ις after αυτου (+7, uncontracting the n.s.)

4 – 1691 has εκαθερισθη instead of εκαθαρισθη (+1, -1)

4 – 1691 has προσενεγκε instead of προσενεγκον (+1, -2)

5 – 1691 has Εισελθοντι instead of Εισελθοντος (+1, -2)

5 – 1691 has αυτω instead of αυτου (+1, -2)

5 – 1691 has Καπερναουμ instead of Καφαρναουμ (+2, -2)

Thus, using NA28 as the standard of comparison, GA 1691 has 17 non-original letters and is missing 20 original letters, for a total of 37 letters’ worth of corruption.

          Now let’s see how the scribe who copied the Gospels in Codex Sinaiticus did in Matthew 7:26-8:5, compared to NA28.

À compared to NA28:

(from Codex Sinaiticus)

26 – no variants

27 – À has ελθαν instead of ελθον (+1, -1)

27 – À does not have καὶ ἔπνευσαν οἱ ἄνεμοι (-19)

27 – À has εκινη instead of εκεινη (-1)

28 – À has ἐξεπλήττοντο instead of ἐξεπλήσσοντο (+2, -2)

28 – À transposes to επι τη διδαχη αυτου οι οχλοι instead of οι οχλοι επι τη διδαχη αυτου

1 – À has Καταβαντι δε αυτω instead of Καταβαντος δε αυτου (+2, -4) (A corrector has erased the ω but it is noted in the trnscription)

2 – no variants

3 – À has εκτινες instead of εκτεινες (-1)

3 – À has αυτου after χειρα (+5)

3 – À does not have ευθεως (-6)

4 – À has ειπεν instead of λέγει (+5, -5)

4 – À has αλλα instead of αλλ՚ (+1)

4 – À has διξον instead of δειξον (-1)

4 – À has προσενεγκε instead of προσενεγκον (+1, -2)

5 – À has εκατοναρχης instead of εκατοναρχος (+1, -1)

            Thus, the text of Codex Sinaiticus, uncorrected, has 18 non-original letters and is missing 42 original letters, for a total of 60 letters’ worth of corruption in Matthew 7:26-8:5.  Even if we remove from the equation all the minor (and not-so-minor) orthographic variants in 7:27, 8:3, 8:4, and 8:5, that still leaves 44 letters’ worth of corruption. 

            Want to see how both manuscripts compare to the Solid Rock Greek New Testament?  Well, GA 1691 reads exactly like the Solid Rock Greek New Testament (third edition) throughout Matthew 7:26-8:5 except for two little orthographic variants in Matthew 8:4 (where 1691 has εκαθερισθη instead of εκαθαρισθη, and Μωϋσης instead of Μωσης).  There is no need, considering the variants in À noted above, to ask which manuscript agrees more with the Solid Rock GNT.   

            GA 1691 is the clear winner of this round of hand-to-hand combat.  

            Side-note:  an Alexandrian reading in NA28 in 8:1 (προσελθων instead of the Byzantine ελθων) is questionable.  ελθων is supported not only by the Byzantine text but also by C K L S U V W X  Γ Π 33.  Scholz and Griesbach and Knapp (1797)  read ελθων.  The προς in the immediately preceding λεπρος may have been accidentally repeated. 

Lessons in Ligatures from GA 260

Minuscule 260 is a Greek manuscript of the Gospels produced in the 1200s.  Though not particularly old, it displays the oldest form of the Byzantine text (K^x), very accurately written. The copyist of 260 had very clear handwriting which allows aspiring Greek manuscript-readers to get a good idea of how some medieval copyists blended together letters (and contracted and stacked them).  Let’s tour some features in GA 260 which collective give some lessons in ligatures.

Mt 4:22-24 – Notice here the initial in the left margin in verse 23.  The initials in 260 before Mt. 7:11 are written rather sloppily in black; after this the initials are neatly written in red.  The Eusebian section-numbers are also missing until #54 (ΝΔ) at Mt. 7:12.  Also notice the nu at the end of therapeuon in v. 23 and the stacked upsilon at the end of autou in verse 24.

 

Mt. 6:18 – Here is another stacked upsilon.  One can also see a stacked omega at the end of kruptō in v. 19.  This is not a textual variant; it was simply the copyist's way of conserving space at the end of a line (the same word, without letter-stacking, appears one line later.

 

Mt 7:1-2 – Here (underlined in yellow) we see the true text, not the Textus Receptus' αντιμετρηθησεται.  Also notice how the copyist used a minimum of strokes to write -ete and -et-. 

 

Mt 7:4-5 – Here we see the word kai ("and") contracted as a kai-compendium.  We also see the word sou written in stacked letters.

 

Mt. 10:8b-10 – Besides the lack of any mention about raising the dead, notice how mh is written with the eta forming a downward swoosh.  Also notice how eta is only implied (by a diacritical mark) in the  word τροφῆς. 

Mt 12:11-12 – Notice how the copyist has written the final syllables of sabbasin and kalos.

 

Mt 12:24-25 – Notice the outos followed by ouk (with stacked ou) in v. 24.

 

Mt 13:3 – Notice how idou is written.

 

Mt 13:37-38 – The copyist of 260 did not contract huios ("son") into a sacred name very often.  Also notice the stacked letters at the end of ponerou.

 

Mt 19:19 – Besides noticing that there is no sou after the contracted patera, notice the variant involving haplography in the last word on the page (os eauton rather than os seauton) and how its final syllable has been written.

 

Mt 28:19-20 – Even in the triune baptismal formula, huiou is not contracted.  Also notice how the letters in v. 20 are written in a centered vortex.  And notice how the nu is written in Amen at the very end of verse 20.

 

Mark 2:18 – Here we see one of the copyist's rare parableptic mistakes.  A secondary hand has supplied the missing words in the margin.  Also notable:  how the copyist has written dunantai in v. 19.

 

Lk 6:48 – Notice the stacked letters of tē and the lettering of the final syllable of petran. 

 

Lk 8:6 – Kai is written in a different compendium-form here.  Also notice that the copyist has written around a small hole, which must have been in the parchment before the copyist wrote.

 

Lk 9:49 – Notice the stacked letter at the end of epistata, and the appearance of ἡμῶν at the end of the last line.

 

Lk 12:42-43 – Although the copyist often wrote kurios as a contracted sacred name (as seen here twice, he also wrote kurios uncontracted in a context in which the referred-to lord is not necessarily the Lord.  Also notice the stacked omega in kairo.

 

Luke 17:35-37 – GA 260, like the  Robinson-Pierpont Byzantine Textform and like manuscripts mentioned in a footnote in the 1611 KJV, does not have verse 36. 

 

Jn 6:24 – Notice how estin is written.  Also, the word autoi, which one would expect to find between the last word of the first page  and the first word of the second page, is absent.  GA 260 is not the only manuscript in which this autoi is missing; it's also missing in Codex Sinaiticus (though a later corrector has added autoi above the line) and Codex S (028).  

 

Jn 19:37 – Notice how the copyist has written meta at the beginning of v. 38.  Also notice the lectionary-rubric in the lower margin, added by another hand, informing the lector that he has reached the end of the reading for the ninth hour at Eastertime.

          All in all, GA 260 is a very good Byzantine Gospels-manuscript, and its copyist's script is a good example of medieval handwriting.   There are many examples of handwriting in GA 260 worth looking at that are not covered here.  Full-color digital page-views of the entire manuscript can be downloaded from Gallica (as BNF Cat. MS Grec 51), and the entire manuscript is indexed (allowing viewers to search by chapter-and-verse) at CSNTM, which has black-and-white as well as full-color page views of GA 260.