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.
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]
Now let's compare Sinaiticus' text to NA27:
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.
