Sinaiticus and the Byzantine Text: Same Message?

A page from Codex Sinaiticus

            “A person who reads the New Testament as found in Codex Sinaiticus and applies sound exegetical methods to its text will come to the very same conclusions as anyone reading a Byzantine manuscript written a thousand years later.” – James White. (KJV-Only Controversy, p. 74)

            Seriously?  Claims such as that one unrealistically minimize the differences between the Alexandrian text and the Byzantine Text, and downplay the mistakes made by copyists.  Let’s test that claim, comparing the text that was written by the copyist of Sinaiticus (À) – before anyone came along later and made corrections – and the Byzantine Text as found in the Robinson-Pierpont compilation.  In the interest of brevity, I will limit this comparison to the text of the Gospel of Matthew (and I will not make all the comparisons that could be made).  I will add some comments, but for the most part I will let these comparisons speak for themselves.

● 1.  Was Asaph a descendant of David? (see Matthew 1:8)

            Byzantine Text:  no; Asa was a descendant of David.

            Sinaiticus:  yes. 

            To avoid attributing a bad error to Matthew, the person who uses sound exegetical methods will perceive that the Alexandrian Text actually refers to Asa but resorts to a non-standard spelling that happens to produce the same name as the name of a contemporary of David (Asaph) to whom several Psalms are attributed.

● 2.  Was Amos a descendant of David?  (see Matthew 1:10)

            Byzantine Text:  no; Amon was a descendant of David.

            Sinaiticus:  yes. 

            To avoid attributing a bad error to Matthew, the person who uses sound exegetical methods will perceive that the Alexandrian Text actually refers to Amon but resorts to a non-standard spelling that happens to produce the same name as the name of an Old Testament prophet (Amos).

● 3.  In Matthew 5:22, did Jesus prohibit being angry with a brother, unless there was a reason, or did Jesus prohibit being angry with a brother, without qualification?

            Byzantine Text:  Jesus prohibited being angry with a brother without a cause

            Sinaiticus:  Jesus prohibited being angry with a brother, without qualification.

            Inasmuch as Jesus is plainly said to be angry in Mark 3:5, those who utilize both sound exegetical methods and the Alexandrian Text are left with the task of defending the premise that Jesus was consistent with His own teachings.  Perhaps their sound exegetical methods will involve considering the nuances of the Aramaic terms for “anger” that Jesus used.

● 4..  In Matthew 5:19, did Jesus affirm that the person who does what the law says, and teaches others to do so, shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no. 

            The text of À skips the second half of the verse, very likely because the scribe of À’s line of sight drifted from the first occurrence of “in the kingdom of heaven” in the verse to its second occurrence, skipping all the words in between.

● 5.  Did Jesus instruct His disciples to pray, “For Yours is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever,” or not?  (See Matthew 6:13)

            Byzantine Text:  yes, Jesus did this.

            Sinaiticus:  no, Jesus did not do this.

● 6.  In Matthew 7:27, did Jesus mention that “the floods came”?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no

            The scribe of À accidentally skipped the phrase due to a parableptic error (when his line of sight shifted from the letters -μοι at the end of ποταμοι to the same letters at the end of ανεμοι). 

● 7.  In Matthew 8:3, did Matthew mention that the leper was cleansed immediately when Jesus touched him?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no

● 8.  Did Matthew report in 8:13 that the centurion went to his house and found that the servant had been healed?

            Byzantine Text:  no

            Sinaiticus:  yes

● 9.  Where did Matthew say that the demoniacs were encountered in 8:28?

            Byzantine Text:  the country of the Gergesenes

            Sinaiticus:  the country of the Gazarenes

            The reading in the Byzantine Text is supported by Origen in the 200s, before Sinaiticus was produced.  “Gazarenes” (Γαζαρηνων) appears exclusively in Codex Sinaiticus. 

● 10.  In Matthew 8:29, did the demoniacs address Jesus by name?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no

● 11.  In Matthew 9:15, did Jesus say, “But days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them”?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no.  

            The scribe of À carelessly skipped some text again, skipping from the first occurrence of νυμφιος in this verse to the second occurrence of the same word.

● 12.  Did Matthew report (in 9:24) that the people at the home of the young girl who had died knew that she was dead?

            Byzantine Text:  no

            Sinaiticus:  yes

● 13.  Does Matthew 9:35 say that people followed Jesus after He healed them?

            Byzantine Text:  no

            Sinaiticus:  yes

● 14.  Does Matthew 10:3 affirm that Lebbaeus was also named Thaddeus?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no 

● 15.  Did Jesus tell the apostles not to provide themselves with silver as He sent them to preach in Mathew 10:9?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no

● 16.  Does Matthew 10:12 say that Jesus told the apostles, when entering a house, to greet those within with the blessing, “Peace to this house”?

            Byzantine Text:  no

            Sinaiticus:  yes

● 17.  Did Matthew record (in 10:39) that Jesus said, “He who finds his life will lose it”?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no

● 18.  Did Jesus say, in Matthew 11:29, “Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me,” or merely “Take My yoke upon you, and learn”?

            Byzantine Text:  “learn of Me.”

            Sinaiticus:  “Learn.”

● 19.  In Matthew 12:13, when Matthew described how Jesus healed the man with the withered hand, did he say that the hand that had been withered became as whole as the other?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no

● 20.  Did Matthew say that one of Jesus’ disciples told Him, as He was speaking to the crowds, that His mother and brothers stood outside waiting to see Him?  Or to put it another way:  does Matthew 12:47 belong in the text?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no

● 21.  Does Matthew 13:35 say that the prophet Isaiah wrote Psalm 72?

            Byzantine Text:  no.

            Sinaiticus:  yes.

            In Matthew 13:35, Sinaiticus’ text says that Isaiah the prophet is being quoted.  The quotation that is given, however, is from Psalm 78.  Now, there is another passage – Mark 1:2 – where Isaiah’s name appears in the Alexandrian Text where it does not belong, and in that case, “sound exegetical methods” provide a sort of loophole, so that even though the first part of the quotation is from Malachi rather than Isaiah, eagle-eyed exegetes can perceive that Mark combined two prophetic passages, and only named the more prominent of the two; Malachi’s material being connected in a thematic way. 

            Here in Matthew 13:35, however, there is no such loophole, for the Psalms are not the domain of Isaiah, and are not bundled together with Isaiah’s book.  The author of Psalm 78 is explicitly identified as Asaph.  Thus the person who applies sound exegetical methods to the text faces an irreconcilable contradiction in the text of Codex Sinaiticus, and down falls the doctrine of inerrancy.  (I propose in a series of detailed posts about Mark 1:2 that a better option is to realize that some early copyists occasionally added Isaiah’s name where it didn’t belong, and that Mark 1:2 and Matthew 13:35 are two of those places.)   

● 22.  Did Jesus explain, in Matthew 13:39, that the harvest is the end of the age?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no

           

● 23.  Did Matthew record, in Matthew 13:41, that Jesus said that the angels are “His” angels?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no

            This is an interesting reading in À, because there is no readily obvious mechanism to elicit it.  Vaticanus and other Alexandrian witnesses include “his” (αυτου).

● 24.  Did Jesus immediately make His disciples get in the boat after the feeding of the five thousand, according to Matthew 14:22?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no

            Like the preceding comparison, this one shows another passage in which the scribe of À seems to have arbitrarily dropped a word that was not essential to the sense of the sentence.  Vaticanus and other Alexandrian witnesses include “immediately” (ευθεως).

● 25.  Did Jesus send the crowds away before went up a mountain to pray in Matthew 14:23?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus;  no

● 26.  In Matthew 14:30, was Peter intimidated when he saw that the wind was boisterous, or simply when he saw the wind?

            Byzantine Text:  when he saw that the wind was boisterous

            Sinaiticus:  when he saw the wind

            The Alexandrian Text’s core witnesses share a parableptic error; an early copyist’s line of sight skipped from the letters -ον in ανεμον (“wind”) to the identical letters at the end of the next word, ισχυρον (“boisterous”).

● 27.  In Matthew 15:31, did the multitudes marvel when they saw that the maimed were made whole?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  there is no mention of this (another parableptic error)

● 28.  In Matthew 16:2-3, did Jesus rebuke the Pharisees and Sadducees because they could discern the meaning of certain weather patterns, but could not discern the signs of the times?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no

● 29.  In Matthew 17:15, did the father of the boy with an unclean spirit address Jesus as “Lord”?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no

● 30.  In Matthew 17:21, did Jesus tell His disciples, “But this kind does not come out except by prayer and fasting”?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no; the entire verse is absent

● 31.  In Matthew 18:11, did Jesus say, “For the Son of Man has come to save that which was lost”?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no; the entire verse is absent

● 32.  In Matthew 18:12, in the parable of the lost sheep, does Jesus mention that the shepherd leaves the ninety-nine sheep upon the mountain when he goes to search for the lost sheep?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no; there is no mention of “upon the mountain”

● 33.  In Matthew 19:9, did Jesus say, “And whoever marries her who is divorced commits adultery”?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no.  The final sentence of the verse is absent

● 34.  In Matthew 19:18, does Jesus include “Do not commit adultery, do not steal” among the commandments that one should keep?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no

● 35.  In Matthew 19:20, does the young man say that he has kept the commandments since his youth?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no

● 36.  In Matthew 20:7, as Jesus told the parable of the laborers in the vineyard, did he repeat the master’s statement, “And what is right, you shall receive”?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no

● 37.  In Matthew 20:16, does Jesus say, “For many are called, but few are chosen”?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no

● 38.  In Matthew 20:22, does Jesus ask James and John if they are able to be baptized with the baptism with which He is baptized?  And does Jesus affirm in 20:23 that they will be baptized with the baptism with which He is baptized?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no

● 39.  In Matthew 20:30, did the two blind men at Jericho address Jesus as “Lord”?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no

● 40.  In Matthew 21:12, does Matthew refer to the temple as “the temple of God” or simply as “the temple”?

            Byzantine Text:  the temple of God

            Sinaiticus:  the temple

● 41.  Does Matthew 22:15 mention that the Pharisees plotted how they might trap Jesus in His words?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no

● 42.  In Matthew 23:4 did Jesus say that the scribes and Pharisees devised burdens that were “hard to bear”?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no

● 43.  In Matthew 23:8, did Jesus forbid His disciples to be called “Rabbi”?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no; the first part of the verse is absent.

● 44.  In Matthew 23:35, is Zechariah identified as the son of Berechiah?

            Byzantine Text: yes

            Sinaiticus:  no

            This comparison is particularly interesting, because it catches the scribe of an old witness (Sinaiticus) removing a difficulty, whereas the vast majority of Byzantine scribes left it untouched.

● 45.  In Matthew 24:7, what does Jesus say will happen before the end of the world?

            Byzantine Text:  famines, pestilences, and earthquakes

            Sinaiticus:  earthquakes and famines

● 46.  In Matthew 24:10, did Jesus say that in the last days, many will hate one another?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no.  Sinaiticus, rather uniquely, says that people will hand over one another to tribulation and then verse 11 commences.

● 47.  Did Jesus say in Matthew 24:35, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away”?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no; the verse is absent.

 

● 48.  In Matthew 24:36, did Jesus specifically acknowledge that the Son does not know the day of His return?

            Byzantine Text:  no

            Sinaiticus:  yes

● 49.  In Matthew 25:22, does the servant address his master as “Lord”?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no

● 50.  In Matthew 25:42, does the King tell the goats, “I was naked, and you did not clothe Me”?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no (another parableptic error)

  

● 51.  As Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper in Matthew 26:28, did He say, “This is My blood of the new covenant,” or “this is My blood of the covenant”?

            Byzantine Text:  new covenant

            Sinaiticus:  covenant

            Although the Byzantine Text’s reference to the “new covenant” can be accounted for as a harmonization to First Corinthians 11:25, it is a very widespread and very early reading.  The Alexandrian reading interlocks suspiciously well with Marcionite theology. 

● 52.  In Matthew 26:62, what does the high priest say to Jesus?

            Byzantine Text:  “Do You answer nothing?  What is it that these men testify against You?”

            Sinaiticus:  nothing; the second half of the verse is absent.

● 53.  In Matthew 26:63, does Matthew say that Jesus was silent when questioned by the high priest?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no; the first half of the verse is absent.  (This is the result of another parableptic error; the copyist of À accidentally skipped from “said to Him” in 26:62 to the identical phrase in 26:63, losing all the words in between).

  

● 54.  Does Matthew 27:45 specify that there was darkness “over all the land”?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no

● 55.  Does Matthew 27:49 state that Jesus was pierced with a spear before He died, and that water and blood came forth from Jesus’ body before He died?

            Byzantine Text:  no.

            Sinaiticus:  yes.

            In Matthew 27:49 – when Jesus is on the cross, and has cried out, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” – Codex Sinaiticus includes a passage which says that one of the soldiers took a spear and pierced His side, and that water and blood flowed from the wound.  After this, in Matthew 27:50, Jesus cries out again with a loud voice, and dies.  This contradicts what is stated in John 19:30-34:  John reports that Jesus died (in 19:30), and that the soldiers pierced His side afterwards, confirming that He was already dead.  A person who applies sound exegetical methods to the text of Codex Sinaiticus cannot maintain the doctrine of inerrancy, whereas a person reading the Byzantine Text can.

● 56.  Does Matthew 27:52 report that when the earth quaked and the rocks were split, the graves were opened?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no

● 57.  Does Matthew 27:56 name Mary Magdalene as one of the women who witnessed Jesus’ crucifixion from afar?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no

● 58.  In Matthew 28:6, does the angel invite the women at the empty tomb to “Come, see the place where He lay,” or, “Come, see the place where the Lord lay”?

            Byzantine Text:  Come, see where the Lord lay.

            Sinaiticus:  Come, see where He lay.

● 59.  Does Matthew 28:9 begin by mentioning that “As they went to tell His disciples,” Jesus met the women?

            Byzantine Text:  yes

            Sinaiticus:  no

● 60.  Does Matthew 28:17 specify that when the disciples saw Jesus, they worshiped Him, or does it simply say that they worshiped?

            Byzantine Text:  they worshiped Him     

            Sinaiticus:  they worshiped

    

         It should be obvious from this comparison that the sermons of a Christian preacher in the early church using a copy of the Byzantine Text of the Gospel of Matthew certainly would not and could not be the same as the sermons prepared by a preacher who used Codex Sinaiticus, even if their methods of exegesis were identical.  Not only would they be different regarding a variety of details, but a preacher using Sinaiticus’ errant text of Matthew 13:35 and 27:49 would not reach the same conclusion about the veracity of the text as a preacher using the inerrant Byzantine text of Matthew 13:35 and 27:49.  And in passages such as Matthew 5:19, 6:13, 9:15, 10:39, 12:47, 15:31, 17:21, 18:11, 19:9, 20:16, 23:8, 24:10, 24:35, and 26:62-63, the difference between what was written by the copyist of Sinaiticus and what was written by Byzantine scribes is the difference between no text and a text.

            Similarly, a sermon preached by a preacher using Codex Sinaiticus would differ from a sermon preached by a preacher using the Byzantine Text because the Byzantine Text does not contain the harmonizations and expansions that corrupt the text of Codex Sinaiticus in passages such as Matthew 8:13, 9:24, 9:35, 10:12, 13:35, and 27:49.  The idea that anyone, however sound their exegetical methods may be, will interpret nothing the same way he would interpret something, and draw the same conclusions, is absurd.  This is particularly true when one reading conveys an error and a rival reading does not (as is the case in Matthew 13:35 and 27:49). 

            It is not my intention today to defend in detail either the contents of Sinaiticus, or the contents of the Byzantine Text (although in most of the cases I have listed, the reading in Sinaiticus is an obvious scribal corruption, disagreeing not only with the Byzantine reading but also with the reading found in the manuscript’s Alexandrian allies).  This comparison simply shows that the text of Matthew in Codex Sinaiticus and the text of Matthew in the Byzantine Text are so different from one another that they do not elicit the “very same conclusions” from their readers.  Such a thing is not remotely possible. 

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

The Myth of Tenacity

            On page 78 of The King James Only Controversy, author James White states:   “Once a variant reading appears in a manuscript, it doesn’t simply go away.  It gets copied and ends up in other manuscripts.”  To support this statement, White appealed to Kurt & Barbara Aland’s similar statement:  “Once a variant or a new reading enters the tradition it refuses to disappear, persisting (if only in a few manuscripts) and perpetuating itself through the centuries.  One of the most striking traits of the New Testament textual tradition is its tenacity.” – Aland & Aland, The Text of the New Testament, p. 56.

            Aland & Aland, however, only provided three examples of this “tenacity” – and two of the three are very poorly attested among later Greek manuscripts.  Their first example is the abrupt ending of the Gospel of Mark (i.e., the ending at 16:8); among extant Greek manuscripts, it is supported by exactly one later copy (304).  In addition, 304’s text of Mark is 90% Byzantine; there is a very real possibility that 304’s exemplar contained Mark 16:9-20; like 2386 and 1420 (both of which used to be cited – erroneously – as support for the abrupt ending), 304’s support for the abrupt ending of Mark may turn out to be merely a quirk. 

            What about Aland & Aland’s other two demonstrations of tenacity?  They are found in Matthew 13:57 and Mark 1:16:

            Regarding Matthew 13:57:  Aland and Aland point out that whereas some manuscripts (B D Θ 33 700) simply present Jesus saying that a prophet is without honor in [his] homeland (πατριδι), and some manuscripts (À f¹³) present Jesus saying that a prophet is without honor in his own homeland (ἰδία πατριδι), and some manuscripts (L Byz K N W) present Jesus saying that a prophet is without honor in his homeland (πατριδι αὐτοῦ), the scribe of Codex C conflated two readings, so as to write ἰδία πατριδι αὐτοῦ.  “This is typical,” Aland and Aland say – “a scribe familiar with both readings will combine them, reasoning that by preserving both texts the right text will be preserved.”

            The obvious problem with the Alands’ proposal is that Codex C’s reading in this passage is anything but “typical;” C’s reading is singular – that is, it is the only Greek manuscript that has this reading!  Far from being “tenacious,” this reading burst into existence with the scribe of C, and then went extinct.  We may have here a tenacious page of parchment, but not a tenacious reading.

            The example in Mark 1:16 is better, where it can be argued that the majority reading is a combination, or conflation, of the reading in Codex A (του Σίμωνος) and the reading in Codex D G W Θ and the Textus Receptus (αὐτου), producing the longer reading αὐτου του Σίμωνος.  Although a counter-argument can be made, let’s step back at this point and survey the evidence that has been collected to illustrate the proposal that once a reading (whether part of the original text, or the creation of a scribe) appears in a manuscript, it does not go away:

            ● The presence of the abrupt ending of Mark in minuscule 304.

            ● The reading ἰδία πατριδι αὐτοῦ in Codex C (a singular reading), and

            ● The reading αὐτου του Σίμωνος in the Byzantine Text of Mark 1:16.  

            Now consider the mass of evidence against the concept of tenacity:  the hundreds of singular readings that appears in ancient manuscripts, but of which there is no trace in later manuscripts.  How many such readings are there?  Greg Paulson wrote his 2013 thesis on singular readings in the codices Vaticanus (B), Sinaiticus (À), Bezae (D), Ephraemi Rescriptus (C), and Washingtonianus (W) in the Gospel of Matthew, and he mentioned how many singular readings – i.e., readings that do not recur in any other Greek manuscript – each one of these codices has in its text of Matthew.  Paulson’s data:
            Vaticanus:  97.

            Sinaiticus:  Scribe A:  163. 

            Bezae:  259.

            Ephraemi Rescriptus:  75

            Washingtonianus:  112.

            I emphasize that these numbers – showing that five important early manuscripts combine to produce a total of 706 singular readings – only take the text of Matthew into consideration.  If one were to extrapolate, so as to maintain a proportion of 25 singular readings per chapter of the Gospels, then we could reasonably expect that a study of all the singular readings in these five manuscripts throughout the four Gospels would total about 2,225.  Well, there we would have 1,500 non-tenacious readings – never seen before or after the one time they appear – versus the three submitted by Aland & Aland.  Suppose that two-thirds of these were nonsense-readings which scribes could reasonably be expected to regard as mistakes.  That would leave 500 non-tenacious, non-nonsense readings, just in the Gospels, just in these five manuscripts.

            And what if we consider some earlier manuscripts?   A single quotation from James Royse (from p. 246 of Scribal Tendencies in the Transmission of the Text of the New Testament, chapter 15 of The Text of the New Testament in Contemporary Research, © 1995 Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., Ehrman and Holmes, editors) may serve to tell us:  Royse provides a chart which conveys that Papyrus 45 has 222 significant singular readings; Papyrus 46 has 471 significant singular readings; Papyrus 47 has 51 significant singular readings; Papyrus 66 has 107 significant singular readings; Papyrus 72 has 98 significant singular readings; Papyrus 75 has 119 significant singular readings.  (In a footnote, Royse helpfully defines “significant singular readings” as “those singular readings that remain after exclusion of nonsense-readings and orthographic variants.”)  

            Hundreds of readings refute the Alands’ claim about tenacity.  (Over a thousand in just six papyri.)  There is no evidence that these readings were ever perpetuated after they entered the transmission-stream precisely once.  Here the case might rest, Q.E.D. 

  

            But let’s also consider a few peripheral pieces of evidence.             

            ● Origen and Luke 1:46.  Bruce Metzger pointed out (in his essay References in Origen to Variant Readings) that Origen, in his commentary on Matthew, mentioned that in some copies, the Magnificat is said to be sung by Mary, while according to other copies, Elizabeth is the singer.  Presently, no Greek manuscripts say that Elizabeth was the singer. 

            ● Tertullian and John 1:13.  All Greek manuscripts of John 1 support the use of a plural in this verse, so as to understand it as a generalization about all genuine believers.  Tertullian, however, seems to have been convinced that the original reading here was singular, and that Valentinian heretics were responsible for changing it to a plural form.  (Denis S. Kulandaisamy has written a 300-page book on this little subject.)   

            ● Epiphanius and Matthew 2:11.  The apologist Epiphanius of Salamis, in the late 300s, mentioned that the wise men opened their “wallets” (πήρας), and noted that some manuscripts – like all Greek manuscripts extant today – referred instead to their “treasures” (θησαυροὺς).  No known manuscript today has the reading πήρας.  

            ● Jerome, Isidore, Theodore of Mopsuestia, and Ephesians 5:14.  Several significant patristic writers drew attention to a textual variant in Ephesians 5:14, where instead of “And Christ will shine on you,” some manuscripts in their day read “And Christ will touch you.”  John Chrysostom seems to have alluded to this variant, too, although he did not go into detail about it.  If it is extant in any Greek manuscripts, there is no mention of them in the Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece. 

            ● Origen and Matthew 4:17.  Origen says plainly that some manuscripts do not have the word “Repent” in this verse.  All of our Greek manuscripts, however, presently support the inclusion of “Repent” in this verse; only in the Old Syriac copies and in the Old Latin Codex Bobbiensis is it missing.     

            ● Jerome and Matthew 13:35.  Jerome firmly asserts that all of the ancient copies state that these things were done to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet Asaph.  No manuscripts of Matthew today have this reading, and Jerome mentions that by his own time, the text had been altered; one alteration had yielded the erroneous reading “Isaiah the prophet.” 

            If you take in hand Amy Donaldson’s two-part dissertation Explicit References to New Testament Variant Readings Among Greek and Latin Church Fathers, you will find details about these readings, and others, which were cited by early patristic writers but which now are never or only rarely found.

            Finally, the myth of tenacity is not only refuted by empirical evidence; it is rendered superfluous by logic.  For if a reading were to enter the transmission-stream, and then fall into oblivion, and the manuscript containing it did not survive, and no one referred to it in patristic writings, how would we know?  Even if we did not have the empirical evidence that thoroughly refutes the theory of tenacity, the theory could only ever be an assumption, not a verifiable thing.

                         

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

EES Moves to Publish More New Testament Papyri

            News! the Egypt Exploration Society has announced that it expects to publish 20 or so New Testament papyri in the Oxyrhynchus Papyri series within a few years.  This is the same organization that released the “First Century Mark” fragment that turned out not to be from the first century (but at least it was real, not some publicity stunt), a fragment with text from Luke (Papyrus 138), and an early fragment from the book of Philemon.  

            Along with New Testament documents, the EES expects to publish about ten patristic compositions, as well as dozens of fragment of the Septuagint.

            The official announcement can be found at the EES website.

HT:  Brent Nongbri

Non-Alexandrian Papyri and Early Versions

            In The King James Only Controversy, author James White made two claims on pages 195-197 that invite clarification.  First, he stated on page 195, “Every papyrus manuscript we have discovered has been a representative of the Alexandrian text-type.” Second, on page 197, he wrote, “An examination of the early New Testament translations reveals they were done on the basis of Alexandrian type manuscripts.”

            Is it true that all of the papyrus manuscripts that have been discovered represent the Alexandrian text-type? No.  The low-humidity climate in parts of Egypt allowed papyrus to survive longer there than in other places, so it would not be particularly surprising if all of the papyri that were found in Egypt contained Egyptian forms of the text.    

            In other locales, papyrus was much more vulnerable to natural decay, which is why we don’t find a lot of New Testament papyri in, say, Ephesus and Athens, for the same reason that we don’t find a lot of ancient Greek sales-receipts there. 

            And yet some New Testament papyri with distinctly non-Alexandrian contents have survived.  Papyrus 45, for example – a heavily damaged manuscript that contains text from the four Gospels and Acts – is the substantial manuscript of (part of) the Gospel of Mark (the surviving portion is from Mark 4-12).  While there is general agreement that P45’s text of Acts is Alexandrian, this is not the case regarding its text of Mark.  Researcher Larry W. Hurtado, in the 2004 paper P45 and the Textual History of the Gospel of Mark, affirmed that P45’s text of Mark was neither Byzantine nor Western nor Alexandrian nor Caesarean.  Hurtado also stated that “This third-century manuscript had numerous readings that previously had been thought to be “Byzantine.””

            Here are some examples of non-Alexandrian readings in Mark in Papyrus 45:
            ● 6:16 – Byz and P45 include οτι (not included in B À).

            ● 6:22 – Byz and P45 read αρεσάσης (B À:  ηρεσεν).

            ● 6:22 –Byz and P45 (here P45 is corrected; the scribe first wrote Herod’s name instead of “the king”) have the word-order ειπεν ο βασιλευς (B À read ο δε βασιλευς ειπεν)    
            ● 6:38 – Byz and P45 have the word-order αρτους εχετε (B L:  εχετε αρτους)  
            ● 6:41 – Byz and P45 have αυτου (not in B À L)

            ● 6:41 – Byz and P45 have παραθωσιν (B À* L have παρατιθωσιν)

            ● 6:45 – Byz and P45 have απολύση (B À L D have απολυει)

            ● 6:48 – Byz and P45 have ειδεν (B À L D have ιδων) [The letters ιδε in P45 here are tentatively reconstructed]

            ● 6:50 – Byz and P45 have -ον so as to read ειδον (B À read ειδαν; D omits)   

            ● 7:5 – Byz and P45 have the word-order οι μαθηται σου ου περιπατουσιν (B À L have a different word-order)

            ● 7:6 – Byz and P45 have αποκριθεις (B À L do not have the word)

            ● 7:6 – Byz and P45 have οτι (B À L do not have the word) 

            ● 7:10 – Byz and P45 have τιμα (B D have τειμα)

            ● 7:14 – Byz and P45 have ελεγεν (B has λέγει)

            ● 7:15 – P45 has -ν κοιν-, supporting inclusion of κοινωσαι (which B does not include)

            ● 7:29 – Byz and P45 have the word-order το δαιμονιον εκ της θυγατρός σου (B À L have a different word-order)

            ● 7:30 – Byz and P45 share the same word-order (B À L have a different word-order; so does D)

            ● 7:31 – Byz and P45 share the word-order, with ηλθεν after the reference to Tyre and Sidon.  B À L D have ηλθεν after Τύρου and before δια Σιδωνος (in B, δια Σειδωνος)

            ● 7:35– Byz and P45 include ευθέως (not included in B À)

            ● 7:35 – P45 is difficult to read but it ends the word with –χθησαν, supporting the Byzantine reading διηνοιχθησαν (B À D have ηνοιγησαν)

            ● 7:36 – P45 is difficult to read but appears to support the inclusion of αυτος (agreeing with Byz and disagreeing with B À L D.

            ● 8:13 – P45 has εις το πλοιον, agreeing with D; Byz has εις πλοιον; B À L do not have the phrase)

            ● 8:15 – P45 ends the verse with Ηρωδιανων, agreeing with the Caesarean text (W Θ 565 f¹  f¹³)

            ● 8:19 – P45 and Byz share the word-order πληρεις κλασματων ηρατε (B À L have κλασματων πληρεις ηρατε; D has κλασματων ηρατε πληρεις

            ● 8:20 – P45 and Byz have ειπον (B L have λεγουσιν αυτω; À has λεγουσιν)  

            ● 8:34 – P45 and Byz have ακολουθειν (B À L have ελθειν)

            ● 8:35 – P45 and Byz share the word-order αυτου σωσαι (B has εαυτου before ψυχην σωσαι) 

            ● 8:36 – P45 and Byz have εαν (B À L do not have the word)

            ● 8:36 – P45 and Byz have κερδηση (B À have κερδησαι)

            ● 8:37 – P45 and Byz have δωσαι (B À* have δοι; À^c has ιδω)

            ● 8:37 – P45 and Byz have αυτου (B has εαυτου)

            ● 9:2 – P45 and Byz have μεθ’ (B À L D have μετα)          

            ● 9:6 – P45 and Byz have ησαν (B À D have κφοββοι)

            ● 9:20 – P45 and Byz share the word-order ευθεως το πνευμα (B À L have το πνευμα ευθυς; D has το πνευμα.

             

            Thus, while P45 is far from a strong ally of the Byzantine Text, it is certainly not an Alexandrian manuscript in Mark chapters 8 and 9.  In addition, notice the eleven readings introduced by red dots; these readings shared by P45 and the Byzantine Text are not shared by the flagship manuscripts of the Alexandrian and Western forms of the text.  (How seriously should we take Dan Wallace’s claim – repeated by James White – that there are no more than eight uniquely Byzantine readings to be found among the papyri?  A question of methodology occurs to me:  if Dan Wallace were to take in hand the text of Mark 6-9 in the Robinson-Pierpont Byzantine Textform, would he ever find the Byzantine Text?  How many readings in Mark 6-9 are uniquely Byzantine?)    

           Papyrus 38, a single damaged leaf from a codex of the book of Acts, has been assigned to the early 200s – about the same period when P45 was made – and its text is definitely Western, not Alexandrian.  Papyrus 29 was also identified by Bruce Metger as an ally of the Western Text.

            Papyrus 48, despite being small and difficult to read, is generally regarded as having a text that is more closely allied with the Western Text than with the Alexandrian Text.    

            Papyrus 41, from the 700s, is Greek-Coptic manuscript containing a form of the Western Text of Acts (chapters 17-22).                                                     

            In addition, although the text of uncial 0176 is written on parchment rather than papyrus, that is not a valid reason to ignore it.  Here we have a miniature codex from Oxyrhynchus, made in the late 300s or 400s, with a text that is practically indistinguishable from the Byzantine Text.   

            Also, analysis of the text of several other papyri is inconclusive as far as the task of categorizing the text’s type is concerned, usually because the papyrus is a small fragment, or because its text is hard to read, or because its contents are limited mainly to a passage where there are not a lot of textual contests.  These include Papyrus 17, Papyrus 19, Papyrus 69, Papyrus 70, Papyrus 98, Papyrus 107, Papyrus 108, Papyrus 109, Papyrus 110, Papyrus 111, Papyrus 113, Papyrus 114, Papyrus 115, Papyrus 116, Papyrus 118, Papyrus 121, Papyrus 122, and Papyrus 126.

            Papyrus 37, containing text from Matthew 26, has a non-Alexandrian text.    

            Papyrus 72 is basically Alexandrian in First Peter and Second Peter, but in Jude its text is definitely not Alexandrian.

            Papyrus 2 is probably not a continuous-text manuscript; assigned to the 600s, it contains text from Luke 7 and John 12, in a Western form. 

            Papyrus 3 is also probably the remains of a lectionary; it is assigned to the 500s or 600s and contains a non-Alexandrian form of Luke 7:36-45 and Luke 10:38-42.

            Papyrus 104, though very small, betrays non-Alexandrian influence via the non-inclusion of Matthew 21:44.

                         
            And that, I think, is sufficient to demonstrate that the claim that all of the papyri support the Alexandrian Text is false. 

           

            Is the claim that the early New Testament translations were done on the basis of Alexandrian type manuscripts any better?  No.  Certainly the affinities of the Old Latin version(s) favor the Western Text far more than the Alexandrian Text.  The Gothic version has long been regarded as a strong ally of the Byzantine Text, and although research by Roger Gryson may yield a slight adjustment of that assessment, it is not a drastic reappraisal.  The Sinaitic Syriac and the Curetonian Syriac are both characterized as Western, and the Peshitta agrees with the Byzantine Text about 80% of the time.  The Gospels-text of the Armenian version, and the Old Georgian version which echoes an early form of it, are Caesarean rather than Alexandrian.

            Only in Egypt is there clear evidence that early translators were aware of the existence of the Alexandrian Text.  To different degrees, the Egyptian languages (or dialects) of Sahidic, Bohairic, Achmimic, and Middle Egyptian reflect a primarily Alexandrian base-text.  The earliest strata of the Sahidic version is aligned closely with the text of Codex Vaticanus.  This relationship is demonstrated succinctly and effectively by evidence from their texts of Acts 27:37, where Luke mentions (in the Nestle-Aland compilation) that there were 276 souls aboard the ship.  In both Codex Vaticanus and in the Sahidic version, the text says that “about 76” souls were on board.

            F. F. Bruce, in his commentary on Acts, offered a compelling explanation for the reading in B and the Sahidic version – an explanation that had already been offered by John Burgon in his book The Revision Revised.  It may be worthwhile to present a full extract from Burgon:

            “Whereas the Church has hitherto supposed that S. Paul’s company ‘were in all in the ship two hundred threescore and sixteen souls’ (Acts xxvii. 37), Drs. Westcott and Hort (relying on the authority of B and the Sahidic version) insist that what S. Luke actually wrote was ‘about seventy-six.’  In other words, instead of διακόσιαι ἑβδομηκονταέξ, we are invited to read ὩΣ ἑβδομηκονταέξ.  What can have given rise to so formidable a discrepancy?  Mere accident, we answer.  First, whereas S. Luke certainly wrote ἧμεν δέ ἐν τῷ πλοίῳ αἱ πᾶσαι ψυχαί, his last six words at some very early period underwent the familiar process of Transposition, and became, αἱ πᾶσαι ψυχαί ἐν τῷ πλοίῳ ; whereby the word πλοίῳ and the numbers διακόσιαι ἑβδομηκονταέξ were brought into close proximity.   (It is thus that Lachmann, Tischendorf, Tregelles, &c., wrongly exhibit the place.)  But since “276” when represented in Greek numerals is СΟϛ, the inevitable consequence was that the words (written in uncials) ran thus:  ΨΥΧΑΙΕΝΤΩΠΛΟΙΩϹΟϛ.  Behold, the secret is out!  Who sees not what has happened?  There has been no intentional falsification of the text.  There has been no critical disinclination to believe that ‘a corn-ship, presumably heavily laden, would contain so many souls,’ – as an excellent judge supposes.  The discrepancy has been the result of sheer accident:  is the merest blunder.  Some IInd-century copyist connected the last letter of ΠΛΟΙΩ with the next ensuing numeral, which stands for 200 (viz. Ϲ); and made an independent word of it, viz. ὡς – i.e., ‘about.’  But when Ϲ (i.e., 200) has been taken away from ϹΟϛ (i.e., 276), 76 is perforce all that remains.”

James White, February 19, 2019

            This faulty reading in the text of B and the Sahidic version requires such a special set of circumstances to come into existence that it suggests that the Sahidic version not only is related to the Alexandrian Text in general but also to Codex Vaticanus specifically.                       

            In conclusion:  the claims that have been tested here are not just wrong; they are horribly, catastrophically wrong.  One might say that they are laughably wrong, but considering that they continue to mislead readers of The King James Only Controversy (published by Bethany House), this is no laughing matter. 



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