Meet GA 473

             GA 473 is the same manuscript that was known to F. H. A. Scrivener in 1853 as Lambeth Palace MS 1178 when he collated it (as Gospels-MS “d”) for his book about A Full and Exact Collation of About Twenty Greek Manuscripts of the Holy Gospels.   

            “It is one of the most splendid manuscripts extant,” Scrivener wrote about GA 473.  He also mentioned that GA 473’s text “contains many remarkable variations, such as Scholz would refer to his Alexandrian recension.”  Robert Waltz has briefly updated Scrivener, noting that GA 473 is part of von Soden’s “family I^KC,” and thus an imperfect representative of Family Π, which constitutes, for the most part, the earliest stratum of the Byzantine Text of the Gospels. 

          Scrivener stated that Luke 22:43-44 is obelized, but the passage is accompanied by asterisks, not obeli, in the margin.  And the manuscript features more than what Scrivener shared with his readers:  in the margin of GA 473, alongside Luke 22:43-44, there is also a note referring to part a Maundy Thursday lection.  (This lection begins in Matthew 26; jumps to John 13:1-17, jumps back to Matthew 26, and then jumps to Luke 22:43-44, and then jumps back to Matthew 26:40 (i.e., to Section 296 of Matthew).  The hundreds-unit in the margin of GA 473 is an error; the expected hundreds-unit is 200 (ς) rather than 100 (ρ).  Other than this misprint, or rather, miswriting, the marginalia in GA 473 shows how the text was used at Eastertime in the lectionary.  (The asterisks need not convey scribal doubt.)  (In the core members of family 13, Luke 22:43-44 is embedded within the text of Matthew, which is one of the strongest proofs of lectionary influence upon family 13’s text.)              
            Scrivener listed 32 notable unusual readings attested by GA 473.  Because he collated the entire text, there is no need to go through them all here, but a few may be pointed out as examples:   

            At Matthew 23:27, GA 473 reads τοῖς ἀνθρώποις after φαίνονται, a reading shared by F and 33 (sorta). 
            At Mark 16:19, GA 473 reads ἐν δεξια instead of ἐκ δεξιῶν, a reading shared by C and Δ.

            At Luke 14:32, GA 473 reads εις before πρεσβείαν, yielding a minor tweak of the meaning.

            At Luke 17:17, GA 473 reads ευκοποτερον (relieved) instead of the usual εκαθαρίσθησαν (cleansed).  Perhaps an overly scrupulous scribe did not think that those who did not express thanks for the miraculous healing Jesus had given merited being called clean.

            At John 2:14, GA 473 is missing the words καὶ περιστερὰς (and doves).  This was very extremely probably due to simple parablepsis from the καὶ before περιστερὰς to the καὶ that comes after περιστερὰς.

            At John 13:15, GA 473 reads ποιω instead of ἐποίησα.

            At John 19:21, GA 473 is missing the first occurrence of τῶν Ἰουδαίων.  This is probably not accidental, but a case of stylistic adjustment to remove perceived superfluity.

        Digital page-views of GA 473 at the CSNTM website have been fully indexed.  Readers are invited to look over this manuscript for themselves to view its other interesting features (such as the obeli in the margin alongside John 5:4, as well as the readings within John 5:4 itself).

 

 

Matthew 21:31 - Who Did the Father's Will?

            “Overall this is a very difficult problem.”  Thus wrote Wieland Willker, in his Textual Commentary on the Greek Gospels, about the variation-units in Matthew 21:29-31, to which he devoted eight pages of analysis before concluding that “a fully convincing solution is currently not available.”

            “Verses 29-31 involve a rather complex and difficult textual problem.”  Thus begins the NET’s note on the same subject – one of the longest notes in the NET.

            But you wouldn’t know that there is a very tough textual variant here from most of our English Bibles.  The CSB, ESV, NASB, NIV, NLT, EHV, MEV, NRSV, and NKJV all say that the answer to Jesus’ question was “The first,” and they have no footnote here.  (The EOB-NT is a rare exception; the EOB-NT has “The first” in the text and a footnote says, “A few manuscripts, notably D, read “the second” which is unlikely but presents the Jews as spoiling the parable by giving (seemingly deliberately) the wrong answer.”  The EOB’s note could be improved, though, by replacing “the second” with “the last.”)   

            I think one has to go back to J.B. Phillips’ version to find, in English, anything other than “the first” (or, in the CEV, “the older one”) as the answer that was given to Jesus’ question in Matthew 21:31.  (In Phillips’ version, the answer is given as “The second one,” echoing the variant δευτερω.  A different reading, ὁ ὕστερος, was in the text of the 25^th edition of the Nestle-Aland compilation, and was also adopted by Westcott & Hort and Tregelles.  (The 1881 Revised Version reads “The first.”  Perhaps the Revision Committee was unimpressed with Westcott and Hort’s divided opinion.)     (The Tyndale House GNT deviates from Tregelles’ compilation, adopting the usual reading ὁ πρῶτος, with an exceptionally thorough apparatus-entry.)    

            Hort, in 1881, devoted over two full pages (in Notes on Select Readings) to Mt. 21:28-31, and mentioned the view of Lachmann that the Jews’ answer to Jesus in Mt. 21:31 is “an early interpolation” (along with the four words which follow it).  Westcott inserted a note of his own into Hort’s analysis, stating, “Considering the difficulty of the Western combination of readings it seems not unlikely that Lachmann is substantially right.”

            The array of readings in this passage is interesting:  first comes a contest in verse 29:  οὐ θέλω, ὔστερον δέ μεταμεληθεὶς ἀπῆλθεν is read by the Byzantine Text, and by C L M W Π 157 565 579; À* has almost the same reading but without the δέ).  Codex Vaticanus has, instead, ἐγώ κε καὶ οὐκ ἀπῆλθεν (“I go, lord, and did not go”).  Third, f¹³ and 700 (Hoskier’s 604) read ὕπαγω κύριε καὶ οὐκ ἀπῆλθεν.  Fourth, Θ (038) has ὕπαγω καὶ οὐκ ἀπῆλθεν.  Fifth, Codex Bezae (05) reads οὐ θέλω ὔστερον δέ μεταμεληθεὶς ἀπῆλθεν but adds εἰς τὸν ἀμπελωνα (repeating the words from v. 28).       

            There are other textual contests (Byzantine witnesses have και before προσελθὼν; Alexandrian witnesses tend to have προσελθὼν δε, and the scribe of À skipped ὁ δὲ ἀποκριθεὶς ειπεν in v. 30), but the main contest near the beginning of v. 30 is between ἑτέρω (another) and δευτέρω (second). 

          Δευτέρω (second) is supported by B L M S Ω and by most Greek manuscripts, and by 28 33 700 892 and 1424.  The Byzantine Textform is somewhat split here, though:  δευτέρω is in the text and ἑτέρω is in the margin.  

            Ἡτέρω (the other) is supported by À*, D, Q, K, Π, W, Y, Δ, 157, 565, 579, et al.  In Codex À, someone creatively changed ἑτέρω by putting δ in the left margin and υ between the first  ε and τ, thus producing the variant δευτέρω. 

            Those two textual contests must be kept in mind as we approach the main textual contest in verse 31, where we see (after another variation-unit in v. 31:  after λεγουσιν, most MSS have αυτω but not B À L D Θ 33 f¹³ 788) the answer that Jesus’ listeners gave:

            Codex B and some Ethiopic copies support ὁ ὕστερος (“the later [one]”).

            Almost all manuscripts support ὁ πρῶτος (“the first”).

           Codex D and Θ 700 f¹³ and several Old Latin copies (a, b, d, e, ff², h, l) and the Sinaitic Syriac and the Armenian version support ὁ ἔσχατος (“the last”).    

            Let’s remember one of the canons of textual criticism:  prefer the more difficult reading.  The reading of Codex Bezae is the more difficult reading here – but it also makes Jesus’ hearers appear idiotic; it is obvious that the son who told his father that he would go, but did not go, did not do what the father wanted him to do.

            Jerome’s Vulgate supports ὁ πρῶτος.  But in his Commentary on Matthew, Jerome said something about the variant in verse 31: “one should know that with respect to what follows: ‘Which of the two did the father’s will? And they said, ‘the last,’ the authentic copies do not have ‘the last’ but ‘the first.’”  Jerome proposed that “If we want to read ‘the last,’ the interpretation is plain.  We would say that the Jews indeed understood the truth, but they are evasive and do not want to say what they think.”  In other words, to Jerome, the reading ὁ ἔσχατος (“the last”) makes the Jews seem not stupid, but duplicitous. 

            Bruce Metzger, in his Textual Commentary, rejected the very difficult reading of Codex Bezae, stating that “it is not only difficult, it is nonsensical” – and explained that the UBS committee judged that D’s reading originated “due to copyists who either committed a transcriptional blunder or who were motivated by anti-Pharisaic bias.”  Whatever the mechanism was, the range of its effect must have extended not only to Codex D but to several Latin copies, to the Sinaitic Syriac, and to Jerome’s “authentic” Latin manuscripts – most of which are major representatives of the Western Text.

[But not the Curetonian Syriac.  As Willker notes, the Curetonian Syriac was erroneously cited in NA27 as if it supports ὁ ἔσχατος.  Willker supplies Peter Williams’ rendering of the Curetonian Syriac, which concludes with “The first/former”.] 

[Another oddity in the apparatus of NA27 is that Θ is assigned two readings in v. 31:   ἔσχατος and ὕστερος.] 

[A mistake might have been made by Kurt and Barbara Aland in their Text of the New Testament where they took a close look at this passage (beginning on p. 233), and they zoom in on Mt. 21:31 (beginning on page 235).  The Alands stated that ὁ ὕστερος is supported by Codex Vaticanus “and other Greek manuscripts as well as in some Sahidic manuscripts and the whole Bohairic tradition.”  What are the “other Greek manuscripts” here?  The apparatus of NA27 lists  B Θ f¹³ 700 al; however, this seems to refer to the reading ὕστερον near the end of v. 30; Swanson gives ὁ ἔσχατος as the reading of Θ f¹³ 700 in v. 31 before λέγει.  If there are any other Greek manuscripts that read ὁ ὕστερος other than Codex Vaticanus, I do not know what they are.  If anyone knows of any, please mention them in the comments.]      

            Now let’s apply another canon:  prefer the variant which accounts for its rivals better than they account for it.  The reading in Mt. 21:31 adopted in the UBS compilation – ὁ πρῶτος – does not explain ὁ ὕστερος.  And ὁ ὕστερος can account for ὁ πρῶτος and  ὁ ἔσχατος. 

            As as answer to Jesus’ question, ὁ ὕστερος is a somewhat fluid answer; to someone whose first language was Latin, ὁ ὕστερος might be misunderstood as if it means “the latter.”  And such a misunderstanding explains the origin of the Western reading; there is no need to suppose that an “anti-Pharisaic bias” was involved here.     

            Ὁ ὕστερος also explains ὁ πρῶτος:  The answer “The later one” refers to the first son, not initially (when he said that he would not go), but later (after he changed his mind).  An early scribe who perceived that ὁ ὕστερος could be misunderstood as a reference to the second son could easily avoid the misunderstanding that mars the Western Text by making the wording clearer, and he did so, creating the reading ὁ πρῶτος.

            This internal evidence – (1) ὁ ὕστερος is difficult but not nonsensical, and (2) ὁ ὕστερος accounts for ὁ πρῶτος better than ὁ πρῶτος accounts for ὁ ὕστερος, and (3)  ὁ ὕστερος accounts for ὁ ἔσχατος – compels the adoption of ὁ ὕστερος. 

NA 25

            Whatever other shortcomings Vaticanus’ Gospels-text has, here in Matthew 21:31, it preserves the original wording.   This was the verdict of Tregelles, and it should be the reading in future editions. 

            By the way, I adopted ὁ ὕστερος over a decade ago in my Equitable Eclectic English Edition of the Gospel of Matthew, rendered as “The later one.”   EEEE Matthew, as I call it, is available as a Kindle e-book on Amazon for $1.99.

             In closing, I recommend that that the Armenian and Ethiopic evidence in Matthew 21:31 should be double-checked.

Pseudo-Cyril: More Support for Mark 16:9-20

Sometimes it is tempting to dismiss patristic witnesses whose names begin with “Pseudo-.”  After all, “pseudo” means “false,” and such a name might convey that the reader is encountering the work of an imposter.   Yet, just as the devil can quote Scripture for his own purpose, imposters in ancient times could also do so, allowing the reader to get a look at the Scriptural text the imposter was using.

Pseudo-Cyril, the author of Homily on the Virgin Mary and Her Birth and Her Dormition, might initially appear to be one such imposter.  (The Cyril being referenced is Cyril of Jerusalem, who died in 386.)  But he does not describe himself as Cyril of Jerusalem, and he refers to Cyril of Jerusalam in the course of his homily.  Pseudo-Cyril is simply an anonymous writer whose homily is thrown in with the works of Cyril of Jerusalem.

I think that Pseudo-Cyril’s homily has been assigned to the first half of the 500s.  (His manuscript of the Gospels, if it was brand new when he used it, was about 225 years younger than Codex Vaticanus.)

E.A.W. Budge translated Pseudo-Cyril’s homily into English in 1915; the translation can be found online here.  Budge used the text in Brit. Mus. MS. Oriental No. 6784 as the basis for his translation.   

After a verbose beginning, Pseudo-Cyril mentions the widow’s two mites, and the fish that Peter was commanded to catch.  Pseudo-Cyril zooms in on the heresies that had been spread by Ebion and Harpocratius (Carpocrates?).  He then presents an account of Mary’s family.  Mary the mother of Jesus is identified as Mary Magdalene.  It must be emphasized that Pseudo-Cyril is not saying that Mary the mother of Jesus is the same individual who is named “Mary Magdalene” in the Gospels.  Pseudo-Cyril is merely claiming that Mary the mother of Jesus was born in the village of Magdala.  Mary the mother of Jesus and Mary Magdalene are pictured as two distinct individuals in the course of Pseudo-Cyril’s homily.

Pseudo-Cyril proceeds to relate the story of Mary’s birth to her parents Joakim (who is also named Cleopas by Pseudo-Cyril) and Anna (relying in part on the Protevangelium of James).  He then relates a brief account of the childhood of Mary and her service in the temple.  (The veracity or non-veracity of Pseudo-Cyril’s account is not my focus here.)  He then changes the subject and tells about Cyril’s encounter with Annarikhus, a monk who had been mislead by the books written by Ebion and Harpocratius.  Cyril and Annarikhus discuss whether the Gospel of the Hebrews ought to be a fifth Gospel along with the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.  (Cyril says no; Annarikhus says yes.)

Pseudo-Cyril then attributes to Cyril of Jerusalem a few quotations of New Testament material (Matt 12.24, Second John v. 7 and Second John v. 10) in the course of opposing the Gospel of the Hebrews.  Annarikhus, in the anecdote in Pseudo-Cyril’s homily, promptly repents, and invites Cyril to burn Annarikhus’ books.

Pseudo-Cyril relates that Cyril, after doing so, taught Annarikhus against the Ebionite heresy that Mary had been the incarnation of some kind of mystical force, and then Annarikhus, upon receiving Cyril’s teaching, repented of being fooled by Ebion and Harpocrates’ books.

The Dormition of Mary, as depicted by Jacopo Torriti
in a cathedral-apse in Rome in 1296.

Pseudo-Cyril then turns to the subject of the death/departure/dormition of Mary (quoting Luke 1.36 along the way), and he says that he is informed that John and Mary “lived in the same house in Jerusalem.”  He relates that Mary called for Peter and James to come to her there.  Several passages of the Gospels (and Acts 1) are used in this part of the homily, as Mary is depicted speaking to John, Peter, and James.  Mary Magdalene then enters the picture, “out of whom the Christ had cast several devils.”  After Peter, James, and John have told a group of virgins that Mary the mother of Jesus has announced that she is about to “depart to the Jerusalem of heaven,” Mary Magdalene begins preparations for Mary’s funeral-observance.  Most of the rest of the homily is an account of the dormition of Mary.

Getting back to what Pseudo-Cyril attributed to Annarikhus:  at one point, Pseudo-Cyril says that Cyril asked Annarikhus, “Who sent thee to teach about these things,” and that the answer that Annarikhus gave was, “The Christ said, “Go ye forth into all the world, and teach ye all the nations in my name in every place.”

This is a blended use of Mark 16:15 and Matthew 28:19.(with possible indirect use of Mark 16:17 (for "in My name") and 16:20 (for "in every place")).

So:  Annarikhus-according-to-Pseudo-Cyril should be added to the list of individuals whose copies of Mark included Mark 16:9-20.  (As a contemporary of Cyril of Jerusalem, Annarikhus lived in the 300s, and his copy of Mark, if it was brand new, would have been about as old as Codex Sinaiticus.) 

Also, Pseudo-Cyril should be included in the textual apparatus’ list of patristic writers who cite Mark 16:15 (or, at least, whose writings affirm Mark 16:9-20).  (Pseudo-Cyril, along with Palladius and Fortunatianus, is one of numerous patristic writers whose names have been overlooked in the UBS and N-A apparatuses - and by Christian teacher Mike Winger, among others.)

(I note, in passing, that if it was known to Mark’s readers that Mary the mother of Jesus was from Magdala, then Mark would have a very good reason for mentioning (in Mark 16:9) that Mary Magdalene was the person from whom Jesus had cast out seven demons:  to avoid giving the impression that Jesus’ mother Mary was the individual visiting the tomb.) 

(I also note, in passing, that the unnamed companion of Cleopas in Luke 24 may have been Mary herself - which would be a subtle confirmation by Luke of his use of Mary’s own testimony as one of his sources.) 

 

The Longer Reading in Matthew 25:13

           A textual variant in Matthew 25:13 may shed some light on a mechanism that elicited some expansions in the Byzantine Text.  In the EOB-NT, Matthew 25:13 reads, “Watch, therefore, for you do not know the day or the hour that the Son of Man is coming.”  The words “that the Son of Man is coming” are framed by “<” and “>.”  The WEB, based on the Majority Text, says similarly, “Watch therefore, for you don’t know the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming.”  The KJV reads similarly, and the Textus Receptus agrees with the Byzantine Textform at this point.  In the EHV, Matthew 25:13 only says, “Therefore, keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour.”  There is no footnote in the EHV to indicate the existence of the longer Byzantine reading. 

          The ESV, CSB, NIV, and NASB all end the verse at the word “hour.”  The NLT, apparently abandoning its base-text, continues with “of my return.”

          What’s going on here?  Did Matthew write the words ἐν ἧ ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ερχεται or not?

          Short answer:  Not.

          The Byzantine/Majority Text supports the inclusion of “in which the Son of Man is coming,” but the Peshitta does not.  Codices A, D, L, W, Δ, and Σ end the verse with ὥραν (hour).  So do some minuscules, including 33, the first hand of 157, 892, and the first hand of 1424.   The Alexandrian codices À and B weigh in for the shorter reading, and so do P35 and Codex D, and patristic witnesses such as Chrysostom, Athanasius, and Augustine.  The Vulgate and the Old Latin also solidly support the shorter reading here.

          To perceive what has happened here, it is helpful to know that Matthew 25:1-13 was the lection assigned to the 17th Saturday after Pentecost in the Byzantine lectionary.  (It is also a lection in Lectionary 846, to be read in honor of female virgins and martyrs.)  When this segment is read separately from the rest of the chapter, the final sentence was expanded to tell listeners what day and hour were referred to (perhaps using Mt. 24:42 and 24:44 as a model). 

          This expansion can be seen happening in Byzantine manuscripts.  In Codex Y (034), the verse ends ὥραν in the text, but someone – apparently the same person who supplemented the manuscript for lection-reading – added in the margin, “εν η ὁ υς του ανου ερχεται.”  There’s the longer variant.

          Bruce Metzger’s dismissal of the longer reading is correct, but his explanation for its existence (as a “pedantic addition”) seems to show little appreciation for the influence of the lectionary on the Byzantine Text.  When Metzger wrote his Textual Commentary, he was all-in on Hort’s now-defunct theory of the Lucianic Recension.   A more mature Metzger would probably adjust his wording, acknowledging the longer reading as having been made under the influence of lectionary-usage.

          When was the longer reading introduced?  Probably sometime after Codex A (400s), and before 017 (Cyprius) (800s) and the marginalia in 034 (800s, if the marginalia is of the same date as the main text).  [Update:  Andy Vogan has observed that 07, assigned to the 700s, also has the longer reading.]  Someone influenced by a lectionary, wishing to benignly introduce an expansion at the end of Mt. 25:13 to wrap up a lection, created the longer reading, and it was so edifying that so many scribes adopted it that it eventually became the majority reading.  The removal of such intrusions into the text can be achieved relatively easily by filtering the majority text against the Alexandrian Text, the Western Text, and the text of family Π.

 

About That "Embarrassment of Riches" (and Quantities of Manuscripts)

“We have an embarrassment of riches when it comes to the evidence for the New Testament.”   Ever hear that one?  Such a claim is routinely made by Christians who fill, or appear to fill, two roles as apologists and researchers.  And they are mostly right:  the quantity of manuscripts of the Greek New Testament is staggeringly superior to the evidence for any other literary work of a comparable age.  But they are partly wrong, for at least three reasons. 

First, the relative poverty of textual support for specific readings in the works of Suetonius (to pick one ancient author) does not make other authors (such as the authors of the books of the New Testament) rich. 

Second, the New Testament did not initially circulate as a single book, but as 27 books - which were not copied and distributed evenly.  (There are over 1,600 Greek Gospels-manuscripts; there are fewer than 400 Greek MSS of Revelation.) 

Third, quantity is not necessarily quality.  Kurt & Barbara Aland (as in "Nestle-Aland compilation of Novum Testamentum Graece," the primary base-text of the New Testament in the ESV, NIV, CSB, NRSV, NLT, and NASB), after listing numerous Greek manuscripts, candidly stated in their 1981 handbook The Text of the New Testament (translated into English by Erroll F. Rhodes), “All of these minuscules exhibit a purely or predominantly Byzantine text.  And this is not a peculiarity of the minuscules, but a characteristic they share with a considerable number  of uncials.  They are all irrelevant for textual criticism, at least for establishing the original form of the text and its development in the early centuries.”

How many Greek manuscripts did Kurt and Barbara Aland consider “irrelevant” to the task of reconstructing the original New Testament text?  Looking over their list on pages 140-142 (“Table 7”), I count 887 manuscripts.  Aland & Aland, though, seem willing to put “more than 1,175 minuscules” (p. 138) into the category which they dismiss as “irrelevant.”

The number of minuscules that they did not consider “irrelevant” is given on page 138:  “a little more than 175.” 

What about uncials, a.k.a. majuscule MSS?  The total number of majuscules is easy to calculate, since each is identified by a number preceded by a zero, and we saw the addition of 0315 in 2015 – so the current total number of majuscules is just a bit higher than 315, right?  Wrong.  Some majuscule manuscripts were obtained by researchers, and were given identification numbers, after the manuscripts had been torn up.  Only later did researchers discern that they had portions of the same manuscript, with a different identification-number given to each portion. 

029 is same manuscript catalogued (in portions) as 0113, 0125, and 0139. 

070 is the same manuscript catalogued (in portions) as 0110, 0124, 0178, 0179, 0180, 0190, 0191, 0193, 0194, 0124, and 0202. 

063, according to Aland & Aland, “belongs with 0117.”

064 is the same manuscript (in portions) as 074 and 090.  (Part of this manuscript was found among the New Finds at St. Catherine’s monastery.)

073 is the same manuscript as 084.

083 is the same manuscript (in portions) as 0112 and 0235.  (Take note NET-readers; this manuscript is erroneously double-counted in the NET’s notes.)

087 is the same manuscript as 092b.

089 is the same manuscript as 092a and 0293.

0100 is the same manuscript as 0195, and neither one merits an identification-number among continuous-text uncial MSS, because each one is part of lectionary 963.

0102 is probably (according to Aland & Aland) the same manuscript as 0138.       

0129 is the same manuscript as 0203, and neither one merits an identification-number among continuous-text uncial MSS, because each one is part of lectionary 1575.

0137 is the same manuscript as 0138.

0152 is a talisman, technically not a continuous-text uncial manuscript.

0153 is an ostracon, technically not a continuous-text uncial manuscript.

0192 is lectionary 1604.

0212 is not a continuous-text uncial manuscript, and thus does not merit inclusion in the list.

A simple (perhaps too simple) count brings the total number of continuous-text majuscule (uncial) manuscripts down from 315 (in 2015) to 285.    

Uncial manuscripts that display a Byzantine text (according to Aland & Aland), and which are thus “irrelevant,” include 07, 09, 011, 013, 014, 017, 018, 021, 022, 023, 024, 026, 027, 028, 030, 031, 033, 034, 036, 039 (the same manuscript as 566 (Codex L; the text of Matthew and Mark is written in minuscule; Luke and John are written in majuscule – but it is all a single manuscript), 041, 042, 043, 045, 046, 047, 049, 052, 056, 0104, 0116, 0133, 0135, 0197, 0211, 0248, 0253, 0255, and 0257.  These forty majuscules are in the same “irrelevant” category in which Aland & Aland placed about 1,175 minuscules.

So the maximum number of continuous-text majuscule parchments that were used for the compilation of the Nestle-Aland NTG is . . . (let’s see:  285 – 40 . . . ) 245.

Most of these are not complete.  It should be kept in mind than even a tiny fragment, if it is not part of another manuscript, receives its own identification-number, and is counted as one manuscript.  A complete New Testament = one manuscript, and a fragment of a single page = one manuscript.  Without this factor constantly in mind, people who hear about the “embarrassment of riches” might tend to imagine that we have 245 relevant majuscule continuous-text copies of the New Testament.  But in real life, as I mentioned, many of the majuscules are fragmentary. 

Instead of referring to “New Testament manuscripts,” majuscule or minuscule, it would be more accurate to refer to “Gospels-manuscripts,” (about 1,800) and to manuscripts of Acts and the Epistles,  and to manuscripts of Revelation, and to manuscripts that contain the entire New Testament, whether majuscule or minuscule, are anomalies.  (I think about 70 such copies exist.)   (Manuscripts with other combinations also exist.)

Minuscules are not immune from the same (or similar) kind of double-counting that slices off the number of real continuous-text majuscule manuscripts by ten percent.  Georgi Parpulov, of the Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen, reported in 2022 in the open-access journal Fragmentology that GA 674 and GA 1284 are portions of the same manuscript.  And one minuscule, GA 2427, which was featured prominently in the apparatus of the Nestle-Aland NTG, but was proven to be a nineteenth-century forgery, has to go.  Another, GA 2795, is lectionary 2198.

Finally we come to lectionaries.  Minuscule 2795 is part of the same manuscript as lectionary 2198.  Parpulov also reported that lectionary 849 and lectionary 309 are portions of the same lectionary.   There are over 2,300 lectionaries to consider (and here again one should differentiate between Gospel-lectionaries, and lectionaries of the remaining New Testament books).  But although lectionaries have been the focus of considerable research, one would think from the apparatus in the Nestle-Aland NTG and the UBS GNT that hardly anyone is considering them.  Almost all of them display (with expansions and modifications) the Byzantine Text that Aland & Aland dismissed as irrelevant.
As Maurice Robinson has observed – as noticed by Peter Gurry in 2017 at the Evangelical Textual Criticism blog – “The resources of the pre-fourth century era unfortunately remain meager, restricted to a limited body of witnesses. Even if the text-critical evidence is extended through the eighth century, there would be only 424 documents, mostly fragmentary.”  

 Am I disturbed by individuals who, in one breath, give soothing assurance about the “embarrassment of riches,” and in the next breath endorse the Nestle-Aland compilation that was made with the working premise that over 1,175 minuscule manuscripts, and 40 majuscule manuscripts, are irrelevant?  Well, to answer that question, I must diverge from today’s main topic. 

It is disturbing that anyone would brag about our “embarrassment of riches” and then proceed to dismiss 85% of the coins in the royal treasury as counterfeit.  (Meaning:  Wallace & Co. talk about our “embarrassment of riches” but at the same time habitually reject the reading found in the vast majority of manuscripts (not just 85%, but sometimes 95% – keeping in mind that MSS should be generally divided into Gospels/Acts-Epistles/Revelation categories) when that reading disagrees with a favored reading in the Alexandrian Text.)

But this is essentially a point against bad rhetoric, bad apologetics, and bloviations (or combinations of all three), not a point against the evidence for the New Testament text, about which I am not disturbed.  I disagree with the idea that the Byzantine text, and the manuscripts supporting it, are irrelevant.  Aland & Aland’s anti-Byzantine bias is obsolete. 

The approach used to compile the New Testament base-text of the ESV, NIV, NLT, CSB, and NRSV is basically the same obsolete, never-was-valid approach that was used for the 1881 edition of Westcott & Hort.  (NA27 and WH1881 fully disagree in only 661 readings; I use “fully” to modify “disagree” because the editors of NA27 made non-decisions at multiple points and put some readings in brackets and double-brackets (a feature which I guarantee was not in the original text).  The number of tenuous disagreements is higher:  1,372, as I have explained here.) 

One doesn’t have to think about that long and hard to discern that the Nestle-Aland compilation is unstable at 711 points – not counting the 34 readings introduced in NA28, which included a conjectural emendation (based on zero Greek manuscripts).  (Many of which are trivial as far as meaning is concerned.)

That doesn’t make the Byzantine Text synonymous with the original text of the New Testament.  But it should make it a lot more than “irrelevant.”  English translations that take the Byzantine Text seriously (not the similar Textus Receptus) are already on the market.  More are coming, and I hope some major Bible-publishers will see this as an opportunity to amend the mistakes of publishers in the past 142 years.  So should English Bible-readers who desire the text in their English Bibles (not just the footnotes!) to reflect the text found in the rich manuscript-evidence that is available. 

This should not be interpreted to mean minority readings cannot be original.  Sometimes they are original (as I have repeatedly insisted), and in such cases the reading found in the majority of MSS must give way, lest scribal inventions, no matter how popular, usurp the original text.  But today’s main point should not be diminished:  talk about the “embarrassment of riches” by advocates of a New Testament compilation that is 99% Alexandrian (at points where the Alexandrian Text and Byzantine Text disagree) should stop.

Hand to Hand Combat: 1690 vs. 1691

          1690 and 1691 are both medieval Gospels-manuscripts that were photographed by CSNTM personnel in Athens in 2016-2017 at the National Library of Greece.  Both manuscripts are fully indexed at the CSNTM website.  1690 is assigned to the 1200s or 1300s.  The text on the last page of Mark in 1690 is written in a cruciform pattern.  1691 is older, assigned to the  1000s.  Its text is written in two columns per page.  Let’s see which manuscript has the more accurate text in a sample passage, using the Solid Rock GNT as the standard of comparison.  In the spirit of the season, I have selected Luke 2:1-20 as today’s textual arena.   As usual, sacred-name contractions and other abbreviations, and minor orthographic variants, are noted, but are not counted in the final tallies.

1691 in Luke 2:1-20:

1 – no -ν, just εζηλθε (-1)

2 – no variants

3 – no variants

4 – no variants

5 – no variants

6 – no variants

7 – no variants

8 – no variants

9 – no variants

10 – πεν instead of ειπεν (-2) (This might just be an unusual writing-style.)

11 – no -ν, just εστι (-1)

12 – has τη before φάτνη (+2)

13 – no variants, but the scribe apparently momentarily skipped the phrase εις τον ουρανον, which is in the margin (in the main scribe’s handwriting), correcting his mistake before the manuscript was completed.

14 – no variants

15 – has δει instead of δη (-1, +2,)

16 – no variants

17 – no variants

18 – has περι instead of προς before αυτους (+3, -3)

19 – no variants

20 – no variants

Thus, Luke 2:1-20 in 1691 has a total of 7 non-original letters, and is missing 8 original letters, for a total of 15 letters’ worth of corruption.  Setting trivial orthographic variants aside, Luke 2:1-20 in 1691 has 5 non-original letters, and is missing 5 original letters, for a total of 10 letters’ worth of corruption.  Or, with that weird “πεν” in verse 10 removed from the picture (did candle-wax hurt the text??), Luke 2:1-20 in 1691 is missing 3 letters and has 5 non-original letters, for a total of eight letters’ worth of corruption.

Now let’s see how 1690 does.

Luke 2:1-20 in 1690:

1 – no -ν, just εζηλθε (-1)

2 – no variants

3 – no variants

4 – no variants

5 – no variants

6 – no variants

7 – (has τη written in superscript before φατνη)

8 – no variants

9 – no variants

10 – no variants

11 – no -ν, just εστι (-1)

12 – no variants

13 – no variants

14 – no variants

15 – no variants

16 – does not have τη before φάτνη (-2)

17 – no variants

18 – no variants

19 – no variants

20 – no variants

Luke 2:1-20 in GA 1690 thus has no non-original letters, and is missing 4 original letters, for a total of 4 letters’ worth of corruption.  Setting aside trivial orthographic variants, 1690 has only 2 letters’ worth of corruption (the missing τη in v. 16) in Luke 2:1-20.  

Thus, today's winner is 1690, with only two letters’ worth of corruption,.  But 1691, which has only ten letters’ worth of corruption, showed its quality too, and the contest was very close. 

Patristic Presents

         Here are some presents for Christmas 2022:  online patristic resources in English - volumes of the old Ante-Nicene Church Library series, and a significant number of other materials, all accessible for free.  (Some materials may be duplicated; I made this post in a hurry to get it done before Christmas.)

 ANF Vol. 1

ANF Vol. 2

ANF Vol. 3

ANF Vol. 4

ANF Vol. 5

ANF Vol. 6

ANF Vol. 7  

ANF Vol. 8

ANF Vol. 9

ANF Vol. 10 (Bibliographical Synopsis and Index)

Irenaeus - Proof of the Apostolic Preaching (1952)

Origen (mainly) - Philocalia

Eusebius – Ecclesiastical History (1865)

Eusebius – Ecclesiastical History (again)

Eusebius - Ad Marinum (This is Roger Pearse's book, which contains the definitive Greek text with English translation.  He also has done some interesting research about the early Christian celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ on December 25, which is summarized here.)

Eusebius - Against Hierocles

Sozomen – More Ecclesiastical History (1865)

Aphrahat – Homilies (1869)

Didascalia Apostolorum (1903)

Fortunatianus of Aquileia

Phoebadius of Agen (Against the Arians)

Marcellus of Ancyra

Teachings of the Twelve Apostles (Apostolic Constitutions)

Gregory Thamaturgus - On the Mother of God 

Theodoret, Jerome, Gennadius, Rufinus

Hippolytus & Callistus

Eusebius – Ecclesiastical History, Life of Constantine, & In Praise of Constantine

Jerome – Letters & Other Works

Augustine – Confessions & Letters

Socrates, Sozomen – More Ecclesiastical History

Augustine – City of God and On Christian Doctrine 

Augustine – On the Holy Trinity, Doctrinal Treatises, Moral Treatises 

Augustine – Against Manichaeans & Against Donatists 

Athanasius – Select Works & Letters 

Augustine – Anti-Pelagian Writings and Other Works

Gregory of Nyssa

Jerome – Letters & Select Works (links embedded on-site)

Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzus

Augustine – Expositions on Psalms

Basil of Caesarea – Letters & Select Works

Chrysostom – On the Priesthood and Other Works  

Hilary of Poitiers and John of Damascus

Ambrose:  Select Works & Letters 

Chrysostom:  Homilies on Acts and Romans        

Chrysostom:  Homilies on I & II Corinthians

Leo the Great & Gregory the Great

Gregory, Ephrem Syrus, and Aphrahat

Chrysostom:  Homilies on Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Thessalonians, Timothy, Titus, and Philemon

Chrysostom – Homilies on John and Hebrews

Seven Ecumenical Councils

New Advent's Collection (Fathers of the Church)