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THE INTERPRETER’S DICTIONARY OF THE BIBLE, [Called IDB]
AN ILLUSTRATED ENCYCLOPEDIA
George Arthur Buttrick, Dictionary Editor;
Thomas Samuel Kepler, Associate Editor, New Testament Articles, Illustrations;
John Knox, Associate Editor, New Testament Articles;
Herbert Gordon May, Associate Editor, Old Testament Articles;
Samuel Terrien, Associate Editor, Old Testament Articles;
Emory Stevens Bucke, Editor, Abingdon Press.
In Four Volumes.
New York, Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1962.
Scanned in by Carolyn Goodman Plampin
September 14, 2002
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TEXT, NT. No other writing which has come to us from the ancient world has had so great an influence upon Western life and culture as has the NT. And yet, the text of no other body of ancient literature exists in so many different forms. This variety is, in the main, the result of the almost embarrassing number of copies of the NT that have been preserved from ancient times and from the Middle Ages. The ultimate task of textual criticism, is to recover, with as much precision and assurance as possible the original text.
A. The problem
B. Sources
1. Ostraca and talismans
2. Papyri
3. Uncials
4. Minuscules
5. Lectionaries
6. Versions
7. Quotations of the Church Fathers
C. Written text of the NT
D. Printed text of the NT
8. The Complutensian Polyglot
9. Erasmus
10. Other early editions
11. Modern critical editions
E. Theory and method
12. From Origen to Bentley
13. The work of Richard Bentley
14. Bengel and Wettstein
15. Beginnings of modern criticism
16. Westcott and Hort
a) Internal evidence of readings
b) Internal evidence of documents
c) Genealogical evidence
d) Internal evidence of groups
17. Von Soden and later developments
F. Conclusion
Bibliography
A. THE PROBLEM. The NT is now known, in whole or in part, in nearly five thousand Greek MSS [Note CGP: Manuscripts] alone. Every one of these handwritten copies differs from every other one. In addition to these Greek MSS, the NT has been preserved in more than ten thousand MSS of the early versions (see VERSIONS, ANCIENT) and in thousands of quotations of the Church Fathers. These MSS of the versions and quotations of the Church Fathers differ from one another just as widely as do the Greek MSS. Only a fraction of this great mass of material has been fully collated and carefully studied. Until this task is completed, the uncertainty regarding the text of the NT will remain.
It has been estimated that these MSS. and quota-
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tions differ among themselves between 150,000 and 250,000 times. The actual figure is, perhaps, much higher. A study of 150 Greek MSS of the Gospel of Luke has revealed more than 30,000 different readings. It is true, of course, that the addition of the readings from another 150 MSS of Luke would not add another 30,000 readings to the list. But each MS studied does add substantially to the list of variants. It is safe to say that there is not one sentence in the NT in which the MS tradition is wholly uniform.
Many thousands of these different readings are variants in orthography or grammar or style and have no effect upon the meaning of the text. But there are many thousands which have a definite effect upon the meaning of the text. It is true that not one of these variant readings affects the substance of Christian dogma. It is equally true that many of them do have theological significance and were introduced into the text intentionally. It may not, e.g.. affect the substance of Christian dogma to accept the reading “Jacob the father of Joseph, and Joseph (to whom the virgin Mary was betrothed) the father of Jesus who is called ‘Christ’ “ (Matt. 1:16) as does the Sinaitic Syriac (see VERSIONS, ANCIENT); but it gives rise to a theological problem.
It has been said that the great majority of the variant readings in the text of the NT arose before the books of the NT were canonized and that after those books were canonized. they were very carefully copied because they were scripture. This, however, is far from being the case.
It is true, of course, that many variants arose in the very earliest -period. There is no reason to suppose, e.g., that the first person who ever made a copy of the autograph of the Gospel of Luke did not change his copy to conform to the particular tradition with which he was familiar. But he was under no compulsion to do so. Once the Gospel of Luke had become scripture, however, the picture was changed completely. Then the copyist was under compulsion to change his copy, to correct it. Because it was scripture, it had to be right.
Many thousands of the variants which are found in the MSS of the NT were put there deliberately. They are not merely the result of error or of careless handling of the text. Many were created for theological or dogmatic reasons (even though they may not affect the substance of Christian dogma). It is because the books of the NT are religious books, sacred books, canonical books, that they were changed to conform to what the copyist believed to be the true reading. His interest was not in the “original reading” but in the “true reading.” This is precisely the attitude toward the NT which prevailed from the earliest times to the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the invention of printing. The thousands of Greek MSS, MSS of the versions, and quotations of the Church Fathers provide the source for our knowledge of the earliest or original text of the NT and of the history of the transmission of that text before the invention of printing.
B. SOURCES. It does not lie within the scope of this article to discuss in detail all the sources for the study of the text of the NT. Actually, no complete
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catalogue of the thousands of MSS of the versions has ever been published, nor, indeed, has one ever been compiled. For information on the Church Fathers, many excellent patrologies and special studies are available.
The official list of Greek NT MSS which is now accepted by all scholars was drawn up by C. R. Gregory and has been kept up to date by Ernst von Dobschütz, Walter Eltester, and Kurt Aland. This official list divides the MSS into six quite arbitrary and sometimes quite meaningless classifications according to the material upon which they are written, the kind of writing used, and the use for which they were intended. These classifications are: ostraca; talismans; papyri; uncials; minuscules; and lectionaries. To these Greek MSS as thus classified must be added the evidence of the versions and of quotations from the fathers.
1. Ostraca and. talismans. Twenty-five 0STRACA and nine talismans (see AMULETS) containing small portions of NT text are now known. They are of no importance for the recovery of the original text or for the history of the transmission of the text. It will, therefore, suffice here to note that the ostraca are designated by the letter “0” and an index figure (e.g., O1, 02) and that the talismans are designated by the letter “T” and an index figure (e.g., T1, T2).
2. Papyri. Less than a century ago, not one fragment of Papyrus was known which contained any NT text. Today, sixty-four papyrus NT MSS (all fragmentary) have been catalogued, and several others, which have not yet been given official listing, are known. These papyrus fragments are designated by the letter “P” with an index figure (e.g., P1, P2). Portions of twenty books, just over forty per cent of the entire NT, are now known on papyrus. The papyri date from the second to the eighth centuries, with more than half of them dating from the third and fourth centuries.
Among the most interesting and the most important of the papyrus NT MSS are:
a) P52 (Manchester, John Ryland’s Library, P. Ryl. Gk. 457). This small fragment is the oldest known extant MS of any part of the NT and dates from ca. A.D. 140. It measures ca. 3½ by 2½ inches and contains parts of John 18:31-33, 37-38. Because of its very fragmentary nature, it is of no great value in establishing the second-century text of the Fourth Gospel. The MS was published by C. H. Roberts in 1935.
b) P46 (Dublin, private library of Chester Beatty, Beatty Biblical Pap. II; and Ann Arbor, University of Michigan, Pap. 222). Forty-six leaves of this MS are in the private library of Chester Beatty in Dublin, and thirty leaves are in the library of the University of Michigan. (Some other fragments are known to be in private hands.) All the leaves are somewhat mutilated, but they originally measured ca. 11 by 6½ inches and contained 25-32 lines of writing per page. The MS was a single quire codex of ca. 104 leaves. It dates from very early in the third century, probably from ca. 200. It contains the Pauline letters (in whole or in part) in a very unusual order: Romans, Hebrews, I and II Corinthians, Ephesians, Galatians, Philippians, Colossians, and I Thessalonians. Orig-
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inally, it may have contained II Thessalonians and Philemon. Most certainly it never contained the Pastoral letters. It was published by P. C. Kenyon (1934-37).
c) P66 (Cologny, Switzerland, private library of M. Martin Bodmer, Pap, Bodmer II). This MS contains chs. [chapters] 1-14 of the Gospel of John, with but few lacunae, and fragments of chapters. 15-21. It dates from very early in the third century, probably from ca 200. The MS is made up of several quires containing varying numbers of leaves. It measures ca. 64½ by 5½ inches and originally contained 146 leaves. The script is in a good literary hand, although it contains many errors, which are apparently due to carelessness. In most cases these errors have been corrected by the original scribe. The MS was published by V. Martin (1956-58).
d) P45 (Dublin, private library of Chester Beatty, Chester Beatty Biblical Papyri I; and Vienna, Austria, Osterreichische Nationalbibliothek, Pap. Graec. Vindob. 31974). Portions of 30 leaves of this MS are preserved in Chester Beatty’s private collection in Dublin, and a fragment containing Mat. 25:41— 25:39 is preserved in the National Library in Vienna. The Dublin leaves contain parts of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Acts, all very much mutilated. Originally the MS contained ca. 110 leaves measuring ca. 10 by 8 inches and containing ca. 39 lines of writing on each page. It is written in a small, even hand and dates from just after the middle of the third century. The MS was published by F. G Kenyon (1933- 34) and by Hans Gerstinger (1933).
e) P47 (Dublin, private library of Chester Beatty, Chester Beatty Biblical Papyri III). It contains portions of Rev. 9:10-17:2 on 10 leaves. Originally the MS was a single quire codex of 32 leaves measuring ca. 9½ by 5½ inches and containing 25-30 lines of writing on each page. It is written in a rough hand and probably dates from the last third of the third century. It was published by F. 0. Kenyon (1934-36).
Without exception, the papyrus NT MSS which are extant today were found in Egypt and undoubtedly were written there. Many of them are too small to be of much value textually. Their cumulative evidence, however, is of value. They prove conclusively that in Egypt, particularly in the second, third, and fourth centuries, no one type of NT text was dominant. In those early centuries many types of text flourished side by side.
3. Uncials. The MSS that are referred to as UNCIAL are written on parchment in a style that ultimately descended from the capital letters used in Greek inscriptions—large, rounded Greek and Latin characters. The style owes its immediate origin, however, to the hand that was used in the literary papyri. This style of writing was used exclusively in the NT MSS until the ninth century, and it persisted until considerably later in the lectionaries. The official list of MSS now contains 241 uncials. Each is designated by an Arabic numeral preceded by a zero (e.g., 01, 02). It is customary, however, to designate several of these uncial MSS by the Hebrew, Latin, or Greek letters, by which they were earlier, and are still more familiarly, known.
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Among the more important uncial MSS are the following:
a) 01 (א; London, British Museum, Add. MS 43725), known as SINAITICUS. This is a fourth-century vellum MS of the Bible. The OT contains 199 leaves, and the NT contains 147½ leaves. An additional 43 leaves of the OT from this MS (known as Codex Friderico-Augustanus) are now in the University Library, Leipzig, and there is a small fragment in the Library of the Society of Ancient Literature, Leningrad. This MS contains the Epistle of Barnabas and the Shepherd of Hermas in addition to the canonical NT books. Each page of the MS measures ca. 15 by 13½ inches and, with the exception of those containing the poetical books, has four columns of writing, each containing forty-eight lines. The pages containing the poetical books (Psalms, Proverbs. Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus, and Job) each have two columns of writing. The MS was written by three different scribes; nine correctors made corrections in it between the fourth and the twelfth centuries.
This MS is one of the most important witnesses to the text of the NT. Tischendorf relied heavily upon it for his eighth edition. Mark ends at 16:8; the pericope de adultera (John 7:52-8:11) is omitted; the doxology of Romans appears after 16:23.
The dramatic story of Tischendorf’s discovery of this MS and of its eventual purchase by the British nation and government has often been told. See SINAITICUS.
b) 02 (A; London, British Museum, Royal MS I D V-VIII), known as ALEXANDRINUS.* Originally this early-fifth-century codex contained the whole Greek Bible and, in addition, I and II Clement and the Psalms of Solomon. Fig. ALE 15.
The OT has suffered some mutilation, and the NT now lacks Matt. l:l—25:6; John 6:50—8:52; I Cor. 4:13—12:6. The Psalms of Solomon also have been lost from the MS. The codex contains 773 vellum leaves (630 in the OT, perhaps written by two scribes; 143 in the NT, perhaps written by three scribes), each measuring 12¾ by 10¼ inches. The text is written in two columns to the page with 46-52 lines per column.
c) 03 (B; Vatican City, Biblioteca Vaticana, Cod. Vat. Gr. 1209), known as VATICANUS. This early-fourth-century Greek uncial codex originally contained the whole Greek Bible with the exception of the Prayer of Manasses. and the books of Maccabees.
The codex has
suffered considerable mutilation. It now lacks Gen. 1:1—46:28; II Sam.
2:5-7, 10-13; Pss. 106:27—138:6; Heb. 9:14—13:25; the Pastoral letters; and
Revelation. It contains 759 leaves (617 in the OT, 142 in the NT) of very fine
vellum out of an original total of ca. 820. Each leaf measures 10½ by 10
inches. Each page of the poetical books of the OT contains two columns of text
with 40-44 lines to the column. The rest
of the codex contains three columns of text to the page with 40-44 lines to
column.
d) 04 (C; Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, Cod. Gr. 9), known as EPHRAEMI-SYRI.* This early-fifth-century palimpsest originally contained the entire Bible. Only parts of Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Wisdom of
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Solomon, Ecclesiasticus, and Song of Songs are now extant from the OT. Portions of every NT book except II Thessalonians and II John are extant. It contains 209 leaves (64 in the OT, 145 in the NT) measuring 12¼ by 9½ inches. There is one column of writing containing 40-46 lines per page. The upper writing contains a twelfth-century Greek translation of some writings of Ephraem Syrus. Fig. EPH 34.
e) 05 (D; Cambridge, University Library, Nn. 2.41), known as BEZAE.* In this fifth- or sixth-century uncial codex MS of the gospels and Acts in Greek and Latin, the gospels are arranged in the Western order: Matthew, John, Luke, Mark. The codex apparently originally also contained the Catholic letters, as the end of III John is preserved before the beginning of Acts. Fig. BEZ 41.
The codex contains 406 vellum leaves (plus 9 leaves that have been added by later hands) measuring 10 by 8 inches. Originally it probably contained 510 leaves or more. The Greek and Latin texts face each other on opposite pages—the Greek text on the left and the Latin text on the right. Each page contains one column of text with 33 lines of varying length (sense lines) per column.
f) 06 (DP; Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, Cod. Gr. 107), known as CLAROMONTANUS. . This is a sixth-century uncial codex MS of the Pauline letters in Greek and Latin, containing 533 vellum leaves measuring 9⅝ by 7⅝ inches. Leaves 162 and 163 are palimpsest. Their under writing contains fragments of the Phaethon of Euripides. The Greek and Latin texts face each other on opposite pages—the Greek text on the left and the Latin text on the right. Each page contains one column of text with 21 lines of varying length (sense lines) per column. The MS contains all the letters traditionally assigned to Paul (Hebrews follows Philemon). It has suffered some slight mutilation.
g) 07 (E; Basel, University Library, Cod. A.N. III.12), known as Codex Basiliensis. This is an eighth-century MS of the gospels containing 318 leaves measuring ca. 9 by 6¼ inches. The text is written in a single column containing 23-25 lines of writing on each page. The MS allegedly was taken to Basel in 1431 and presented to the Dominican convent by John of Ragusa. It became a part of the University Library in 1559.
h) 08 (Ea; Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud. Gr. 35), known as Codex Laudianus. This is a sixth or seventh-century bilingual MS of Acts containing 227 leaves measuring ca. 10½ by 8⅝ inches. The text is written in two columns (the left-hand column is Latin, and the right-hand column is Greek) containing 22-26 lines of writing in each column. The MS is known to have been in Sardinia sometime after the destruction of the Vandal kingdom in Africa by Belisarius, Early in the eighth century it was at Jarrow (England), where it probably had been taken by Ceolfrid, Abbot of Wearmouth and Jarrow. It was used by Bede when he wrote his commentary on Acts. Later the MS was taken, probably by the great missionary Boniface, to Germany, where it remained for several centuries. When the monastery at Würzburg was sacked by the Swedes in 1631, the MS was taken as part of the booty of war. Eventually it fell
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into the hands of Archbishop Land, who presented it to the Bodleian Library in 1636.
i) 015 (HP), known as Codex Coislinianus. This is a sixth-century MS of the Pauline letters containing 43 leaves. The codex has been mutilated, and the 43 extant leaves are divided among several libraries as follows: Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, Cod. Gr. 202 Coislin, Suppl. Gr. 1074, Suppl. Gr. 1155. III, 24 leaves; Athos, Laura, no library number, 8 leaves; Kiev, Archaeological Museum, 154, 3 leaves; Leningrad, State Public Library, 14, 3 leaves; Moscow, Lenin State Library, 526.1 and Holy Synod Library, 563, 3 leaves; and Turin, National Library B.I.5, 2 leaves. Each leaf measures ca. 10¾ by 7⅝ inches. The text is written in a single column with 16 lines of writing on each page. The lines are short sense lines in accordance with the edition which was prepared by Euthalius in the fourth century. A subscription in the MS states that it- was compared with a copy which was written by Pamphilus and preserved in his library at Caesarea.
j) 017 (K; Pads, Bibliothèque Nationale, Cod. Gr. 63), known as Codes Cyprius. A ninth- or tenth-century MS of the gospels containing 267 leaves measuring ca. 10 by 7⅜ inches. The text is written in a single column containing 16-31 lines of writing on each page. The MS was taken from Cyprus to Paris in 1673 and was placed in Colbert’s library.
k) 019 (L; Paris, Bibliothêque Nationale, Cod. Gr. 62), known as Codex Regius. This is an eighth-century MS of the gospels containing 257 leaves measuring ca. 8⅝ by 6½ inches. The text is written in two columns with 25 lines of writing on each page. The most notable features of this MS are that it contains both the longer and the shorter endings of Mark and that it does not contain the pericope de adultera (John 7:53—8:11), although a space large enough to contain it is left blank.
l) 027 (R; London, British Museum, Add. MS. 17211), known as Codex Nitriensis. This is a sixth-century palimpsest MS of the gospels. It now contains only 53 leaves, on which is preserved a portion of the Gospel of Luke. The upper writing is part of a treatise of Severus of Antioch against John the Grammarian, written in Syriac in the early ninth century. The leaves measure ca. 11⅝ by 8⅞ inches. The under writing (i.e., the NT text) is written in two columns with 25 lines of writing to the page. The MS once belonged to the Convent of St. Mary Deipara in Nitria, but it was taken to the British Museum ca. 1847.
m) 032 (W; Washington, Freer Gallery of Art, 06.274), known as Codex Washingtonianus. This is a fifth-century MS of the gospels containing 187 leaves measuring ca. 8⅛ by 5⅜ inches. The gospels are arranged in the Western order: Matthew, John, Luke and Mark. The text is written in a single column with 30 lines of writing to the page. The MS was purchased by Charles L. Freer in Egypt in 1906. Without doubt, this is the most important MS of the NT, with the exception of the University of Michigan leaves of P46, that is to be found in any American collection.
n) 037 (D; St. Gall, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. 48), known as Codex Sangallensis. This is a ninth- or
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tenth-century MS of the gospels containing 195 leaves measuring ca. 8⅞ by 7¼ inches. The text is written in a single column with 17-29 lines of writing to the page. A Latin translation is written between the lines of Greek text. It was written by an Irish scribe in the monastery of St. Gall.
o) 36 (Q; Tiflis, Georgian Museum, Cod. Gr. 993), known as Codex Koridethianus. This is an eighth- or ninth-century MS of the gospels containing 249 leaves measuring ca. 11 by 9 inches. The text is written in two columns with 19-32 lines of writing to the page. It was evidently written by a scribe who knew very little Greek. The MS once belonged to a monastery at Koridethi near the E end of the Black Sea. It was first discovered in 1853 and was taken to St. Petersburg, only to be returned to the Caucasus ca. 1870. The location of the MS was unknown for over thirty years. In 1901, it was rediscovered by Bishop Kirion, who took it to Tiflis.
p) 044 (Y; Athos, Laura, Cod. 172 [B´. 52]), known as Codex Laurensis. This is an eighth- or ninth-century MS of the NT (without Revelation) containing 261 leaves measuring ca. 8¼ by 6 inches. It is defective from Matt. 1:1 to Mark 9:5. The text is written in a single column with 30-31 lines of writing to the page. It contains both the shorter and the longer endings of Mark. The pericope de adultera (John 7:53-8:11) is omitted. The doxology of Romans comes after 14:23.
The uncial MSS date from the fourth to the tenth or eleventh centuries. Many of them are fragmentary. Because of the antiquity of many of them they were once looked upon as being the most important sources for the study of the text of the NT. Textual scholars today, however, are more prudent, and they do not hesitate to decide against an uncial reading if other evidence so warrants.
4. Minuscules. The minuscule MSS are those written in a cursive or running hand. They date from the ninth to the seventeenth or eighteenth centuries. A total of 2,533 minuscules have thus far been catalogued. They are designated simply by Arabic numbers (e.g., 1, 2). No attempt can be made here to describe in any detail even the most important of these hundreds of MSS. Only a few of the best known of the minuscules can be mentioned in the following list:
1. Basel, University Library, A.N. IV.2. A group of closely related MSS, including this one, is called “Family 1.”
2. Basel, University Library, A.N, IV.l. This MS was Erasmus’ chief source for his gospel text.
13. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, Gr. 50. A group of related MSS, including this one, is often called “Family 13” or the “Ferrar group.”
28. Paris, Bibliothêque Nationale, Gr. 379, a member of the so-called Caesarean family.
33. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, Gr. 14, which contains the so-called Neutral or Alexandrian type of text. This is often called the “Queen of the cursives.”
69. Leicester, Municipal Museum, a member of Family 13 (the Ferrar group).
81. London, British Museum, Add. MS. 20003, considered the best minuscule witness to the Acts.
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118. Oxford, Bodleian, Misc. Gr. 13, a member of Family 1.
124. Vienna, Österreichischen National-bibliothek, Gr. 188, a member of Family 13 (the Ferrar group).
209. Venice, St. Mark, 10, a member of Family 1.
346. Milan, Ambrosiana, S. 23 supra, a member of Family 13 (the Ferrar group).
543. Ann Arbor, University of Michigan, 15, member of Family 13 (the Ferrar group).
565. Leningrad, State Public Library, Gr. 53, member of the so-called Caesarean family.
579. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, Gr. 97, a witness to the so-called Neutral or Alexandrian type of text.
700. London, British Museum, Egerton 2610, a member of the so-called Caesarean family.
826. Grottaferrata, A.a.3, a member of Family 13 (the Ferrar group).
828. Grottaferrata, A.a.5, a member of Family 13 (the Ferrar group).
892. London, British Museum, Add. MS. 33277, a witness to the so-called Neutral or Alexandrian type.
1071. Athos, Laura, A. 104, an important witness to von Soden’s Io text.
1241. Sinai, 260, a witness to the so-called Neutral or Alexandrian type of text.
1582. Athos, Vatopedi, 747, a member of Family 1.
5. Lectionaries. The lectionaries are the service books that contain lessons to be read on every day of the calendar year and of the church year. Lessons are read from the Gospel (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) and from the Apostle (the rest of the NT outside the gospels, with the exception of Revelation). The official catalogue of MSS now contains 1,838 lectionaries, Many of them are uncials, although the majority of them are minuscules. They are designated by an italicized, lower-case “l” followed by an Arabic number (e.g., l 1, l 2). They date from the third or fourth century to the seventeenth century.
The lectionaries have long been considered of no value for the study of the text of the NT, and, for this reason, they never have been adequately represented in any critical apparatus. Recent textual research, however, has shown that the lectionaries are of great value for the study of the history of the transmission of the text of the NT. Unfortunately this research work is only in its initial stages, and not enough is yet known to justify any definite conclusions as to the part the lectionaries have played in the development of the NT text. All that can now be said is that in the future the lectionaries will play an ever-increasing role in the study of the text.
6. Versions. The most significant versions for the study of the NT text are those which were made before the year 1000 and which are direct translations from the Greek. The most important of these are: (a) Latin (OL and Vulg.); (b) Syriac (Old Syriac, Peshitta, Philoxenian, and/or Harclean and Palestinian); (c) Coptic (Sahidic, several Middle Egyptian versions, and Bohairic); (d) Armenian; (e) Old Georgian; (f) Old Slavic; (g) Gothic. Of less importance are: (a) Arabic (those translations made directly from the Greek); (b) Ethiopic; (c) Nubian; (d) Sogdian; (e) Frankish; (f) Anglo-Saxon; (g) Persian.
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It is often affirmed that the versions are of great importance for the recovery of the original text of the NT because they often represent translations that were made in very early times. It must be remembered, however, that there are no extant MSS of the versions that date earlier than the fourth century. The MSS of the versions were subject to the same changes as they were copied and recopied as were the Greek MSS. A sixth-century Latin MS, e.g., is no better witness to an early-third-century text than is a sixth-century Greek MS. Both have been changed in the process of transmission.
For a complete discussion of the versions, see VERSIONS, ANCIENT.
7. Quotations of the Church Fathers. The NT quotations of the Church Fathers are of importance for the study of the NT text primarily because they can be definitely located as to time and place. It is of particular importance for the study of the transmission of the text to know, e.g., that a certain reading was known and used by Origen in Egypt in the first half of the third century. By this means, it has been possible to determine that the text of Family I (MSS 1 and 1582), at least in Matthew, was current at that early date.
The quotations of the Church Fathers should be taken only from critical texts of the Fathers. Unfortunately, too few such texts are available. In the absence of critical texts, it must be kept in mind that the Fathers did not always quote accurately. They harmonized their texts, and they misquoted just as often as does the modern writer. They made allusions and references to the NT text, and they often paraphrased.
There is no one source to which the student of the text of the NT can go for the quotations of the Church Fathers. Even the sixteen handwritten volumes of the Index Patristicus, compiled by J. W. Burgon and now housed in the British Museum, is incomplete, though it contains 86,489 quotations.
C. WRITTEN TEXT OF THE NT. The original copies of the NT books have, of course, long since disappeared. This fact should not cause surprise. In the first place, they were written on papyrus, a very fragile and perishable material. In the second place, and probably of even more importance, the original copies of the NT books were not looked upon as scripture by those of the early Christian communities. To the early Christians, the books that are now the NT books were only a few among many pieces of occasional writing. A letter of Paul, e.g., would at first have been valued, perhaps only because it came from the founder of some local church, Only after that letter had been read and reread, only after it had been copied and recopied, only after it had proved its worth, would it have been looked upon as scripture. Were it possible to recover or to reconstruct the original texts of the NT books, the resulting texts would be texts that never were looked upon as scripture.
Whenever any document is copied by hand, the copy differs from the exemplar. Many of the changes are accidental. Such changes are usually easy to detect and do not cause the textual student a great deal of trouble, They can be identified as various types of
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errors of the eye or ear. But many of the changes are intentional. It has been pointed out above that even after the NT books were canonized, they were often changed intentionally as they were copied. During the MS period, the interest of the copyist was in the “true reading” and not in the “original reading.”
As far as is known, during the MS period no rigid control ever was exercised over the copying of MSS, nor was an official revision ever made in any great ecclesiastical center. Perhaps no more can be said about the MS period than that the great mass of evidence that comes from the Greek MSS, the MSS of the versions, and the quotations of the Church Fathers represents the various interpretations, the various doctrines and dogmas, the various theological interests, and the various worship habits of many different Christians in many different times and places. Before the Renaissance and the Reformation and the invention of printing, the NT was a living body of literature which was constantly being enriched as it was interpreted and reinterpreted by each succeeding generation.
D. PRINTED TEXT OF THE NT. The first portions of the Greek NT to be printed were the Magnificat (Luke 1:42-56) and the Benedictus (vss. 68-80). These passages were attached to a Greek Psalter which first appeared in Milan in 1481. The same passages were printed a second time in 1486 in Venice. They appeared again in Venice in 1496 or 1497 in a volume that came from the famous Aldine press. In 1504 the Aldine press printed the first six chapters of the Gospel of John. Sometime later, in 1514, John 6:1-4 appeared in print in Tübingen. Since these beginnings, literally hundreds of editions of the Greek NT have been printed. Only those which have been of major significance for the history of the printed text will be discussed here.
1. The Complutensian Polyglot. The first printed edition of the complete Greek NT contained the Greek and the Latin Vulg. texts arranged in parallel columns. It was vol. 5 of the edition of the Bible that is known as the Complutensian Polyglot, which received its name from Complutum, the Latin designation for Alcala in Spain, where it was printed. The NT volume was completed on January 10, 1514. The entire edition was completed on July 10, 1517. Permission for its publication, however, was not given by Pope Leo X until March 22, 1520, and it was not put into circulation until 1522.
The editors of this edition did not indicate which MSS they used in its production. In their preface, however, they said: “Ordinary copies were not the archetypes for this impression, but very ancient and correct ones; and of such antiquity, that it would be utterly wrong not to own their authority; which the Supreme Pontiff Leo X, our most Holy Father in Christ and lord, desiring to favor this undertaking sent from the apostolical library to the most reverend lord the Cardinal of Spain [i.e., Francis Cardinal Ximines], by whose authority and commandment we have had this work printed.” Cardinal Ximines himself, in his dedication of the edition to Leo X, said: “For Greek copies indeed we are indebted to your Holiness, who sent us most kindly from the apostolic library very ancient codices, both of the Old and the
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New Testament; which have aided us very much in this undertaking.”
Although it cannot now be determined which MSS were used by the editors of the Complutensian Polyglot, it is evident that they used their MSS well. They did, however, “correct” their Greek text to the Latin Vulg. in a few places. E.g., they included I John 5:7-8 in their Greek text. This passage is unknown in any Greek MS with the exception of Codex Montfortianus (Greg. 61; Dublin, Trinity College, A. 4. 21), which was written early in the sixteenth century, after work on the Complutensian Polyglot had been completed.
The text of the NT in the Complutensian Polyglot is a better text than those of Erasmus, Stephanus, and the Elzevirs (see §§ D2-3 below). Had the Complutensian Polyglot been the first Greek NT published as well as printed, it might well have become the textus receptus upon which the KJV was based. Had that been the case, the entire history of the English NT after 1611 would have been vastly different.
2. Erasmus.
The first complete Greek NT to be published, although it was the second one to
he printed, was that of Erasmus. It contained the Greek text and a revised
Latin Vulg. text in parallel columns. This edition was published by Joannes
Froben, a German-born printer of Basel, who was evidently a very enterprising
businessman. He heard of the work that was being done on the Complutensian
Polyglot under the direction of Cardinal Ximines at Alcala and conceived the
idea of getting an edition of the NT on the market before the Spanish edition
could be published. Accordingly, on April 17, 1515, Froben sent a message to
Erasmus, who was then in England, asking him to come to Basel for the purpose
of editing the Greek NT. Erasmus arrived in Basel sometime during the summer of
1515. But as late as September 11, it was still being debated as to whether the
Latin texts should be published in parallel columns to the Greek or in a separate
volume. In less than six months, however, in March, 1516, the entire NT had
been printed, and it was released immediately for publication. The volume was
dedicated to Pope Leo X, and a copy was sent to him. All the evidence points to
the fact that the enterprising Froben was given exclusive rights to publish the
NT for a period of four years. (This fits well with the fact that Leo X did not
give permission for the Complutensian Polyglot to be published until March 22, 1520.)
As we have seen, Erasmus’ NT was prepared in great haste. Erasmus himself said later that it was “precipitated rather than edited.” He depended largely upon late Greek MSS which he found in the University Library. In fact, a twelfth-century MS of the gospels (Greg. 2; Basel, University Library, A.N. IV.1) was sent to Froben to be used as printer’s copy. The MS of Revelation which he used was mutilated at the end, and Erasmus translated the last six verses from Latin into Greek for his edition. In many places where it was not necessary, he “corrected” the Greek text to conform to the Latin (e.g., Acts 8:37; 9:5-6). He did not, however, include I John 5:7-8 in his Greek text. In answer to those who
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criticized him for this “omission,” Erasmus said if he were ever shown one Greek MS that contained those verses, he would include them in his text. Later, he was shown Codex Montfortianus, which evidently had been written for the purpose, and he included I John 5:7-8 in his third edition (1522). Thus, those verses came, through the Greek texts of Stephanus and the Elzevirs, into the KJV, and there they remained for three centuries. The haste with which Erasmus’ NT was prepared was reflected in its printing as well as in its use of MSS. It contained hundreds of typographical errors. Scrivener once said: “In that respect it is the most faulty book I know.”
The second edition of Erasmus’ NT appeared in March, 1519. The first two editions sold more than 3,300 copies. Other editions appeared in 1522, 1527, and 1535. The third and fourth editions contained the Greek text, the Latin Vulg. text, and Erasmus’ own edition of the Latin text in parallel columns. These various editions contained only slight changes from the first, with the exception of the correction of typographical errors.
Erasmus’ work met with some criticism, but not on the basis of what he had done to the Greek text. He was criticized for having dared to change the Latin text. In spite of this criticism, Erasmus’ NT was immediately accepted. Thus, a text of the Greek NT which had been “edited” on the basis of late MS evidence and which too often had been “corrected” to the Latin text became stereotyped in man’s mind. It was assumed for over three centuries to possess some prescriptive right, just as if “an apostle had been the compositor.”
3. Other early editions. In 1546 and 1549, Robert Stephanus, a scholar-printer of Paris, published two editions of the NT. They contained a Greek text that was blended from those of the Complutensian Polyglot and Erasmus. In 1550 he published a folio edition (his third edition) which followed the text of Erasmus’ fifth edition almost without variation. This edition contained marginal readings that were taken from some fifteen MSS, mostly from the Royal Library in Paris, and from the Complutensian Polyglot. The MSS (which include Greg. 05[D], 019[L] 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 38, and 120) were collated for him by his son Henry. Often the marginal readings were supported by all the MSS. but the text itself was not changed. Nearly six hundred readings from the Complutensian Polyglot were included in these marginal variants, but often they were cited incorrectly. More than seven hundred other readings in which Stephanus’ text differed from the Complutensian. Polyglot were not noted. This 1550 edition became the textus receptus for Great Britain.
Robert Stephanus left Paris late in the year 1550 and went to Geneva, where the next year (1551) he published his fourth edition of the NT. The text of this edition was exactly the same as that of his third edition. It contained the Greek text, the Latin Vulg. text, and Erasmus’ Latin text in parallel columns. In this edition, however, for the first time our modern verse divisions appeared.
The French theologian Theodore Beza edited an
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edition of the Latin NT (1556) and ten editions of the Greek NT (1565 [2], 1567, 1580, 1582, 1588, 1591, 1598, 1604, and 1611). All these Greek editions contained the Greek text, the Latin Vulg. text, and Beza’s own Latin text arranged in parallel columns. For his Greek text, Beza relied upon the 1550 edition of Stephanus. Upon occasion, he mentioned variant readings in the margin, but only rarely did he ever introduce them into his text. Two ancient MSS, Codex Bezae and Codex Claromontanus, were at that time in Bezas possession; but he evidently made little, if any, use of them. Beza’s editions of the NT are of no great value for the history of the printed text, but they are of interest because of the influence they exerted on two English translations, the Geneva Version (1557 and 1560) and the KJV (1611).
The Elzevirs were a famous Dutch family of scholar-printers. Of all the family, the Leyden Elzevirs are probably the best known. In 1624 they published their first edition of the Greek NT. Their basic text was that of Stephanus’ third edition. They introduced into the text an occasional reading which they found in one of Beta’s editions and which they took to be corrections of Stephanus. In some places, however, their text differs from both Stephanus and Bezae.
In 1633 the Elzevirs published the second edition of their Greek NT. It is in the introduction to this edition that was printed the statement: “You have the text, now received by all: in which we give nothing altered or corrupted.” It was this statement which gave rise to the phrase textus receptus. The Elzevir text became the textus receptus for the Continent, just as the Stephanus text did for Britain. These two editions differ from one another in only 287 places.
In 1657, Brian Walton, later bishop of Chester, published his famous Polyglot. It was an edition of the entire Bible in six volumes. Vol. 5 contained the NT. The Greek text that Walton used was the text of the 1550 Stephanus edition. Beneath the Greek text were given the readings of Alexandrinus, which was designated by the siglum A. This marked the first time that a capital letter had been used to designate an uncial MS. In addition to the Greek text and the Latin Vulg., Walton also printed the Peshitta, the Ethiopic, the Arabic, the Persian (of the gospels), and the later Syr. of the NT books that are not to be found in the Peshitta (II Peter, II and III John, Jude, and Revelation), each accompanied by a Latin translation. In vol. 6, in an appendix, there appeared the collations of sixteen MSS that had been prepared under the direction of Archbishop Usher, the collations that had been collected by Stephanus and several other collations that had been prepared at Walton’s request.
John Fell, bishop of Oxford, in 1675 published an edition of the NT which contained the 1550 text of Stephanus and some variant readings from MSS at the bottom of the page. But the importance of Fell’s edition lies in the fact that he also published some evidence from the Coptic and the Gothic versions in his notes.
One of the most important of the earlier editions
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of the NT appeared in 1707. It was that of John Mill, who had spent more than thirty years in preparation. The text that Mill used was that of the Stephanus (1550) edition. The notes and appendices contained the variant readings that had appeared in earlier editions, the readings that Mill had collected by collating such MSS as were available to him, readings that were taken from collations that were made for him by his friends, and many readings from the ancient versions and the Church Fathers. Altogether, Mill was able to cite ca. thirty thousand variant readings. He was the first to see the real value and the importance of the ancient versions and the Church Fathers for the study of the text of the NT.
Not only did Mill cite more variant readings than had ever been cited before, but he also dared to express his own opinion of the value of many of these variants. His mature judgment on the value of certain readings is to be found in his Prolegomena, written after the entire work was completed. Here he often reversed an earlier opinion on the value of the variants which he had collected.
In 1734, at Tübingen, John Albrecht Bengel published his edition of the NT. His text did not precisely follow the textus receptus; but, except in Revelation, he did not include a single reading that had not appeared in some earlier printed edition, He did, however, include, at the end of his volume, a critical apparatus in which he listed the MS evidence for his text as well as the evidence for variant readings. In addition to the apparatus at the end of the volume, he placed selected variant readings in the margins and indicated his opinion of them by means of Greek letters: α indicated readings decidedly better than in his text; β indicated readings somewhat more likely than those in his text; γ indicated readings equal to those in his text; δ indicated readings slightly inferior to those in his text; and ε indicated readings considerably inferior to those in his text.
John James Wettstein’s great two-volume edition of the NT was published in Amsterdam in 1751-52. The text which Wettstein printed was, with very few exceptions, the text of the Elzevir edition of 1624. The value of the edition was in the great mass of new material it made available. On the upper part he page stood the text itself. Below the text were printed those MS variants of which the editor approved. Next came other variant readings, with the MSS which contained them. Because Wettstein had examined so many MSS, this part of the evidence often filled most of the page. On the lower part of page was printed a mass of quotations from Greek and Latin classical authors, Talmudic and Rabbinic writings, etc., which in Wettstein’s opinion illustrated some passage, elucidated the use of some word, or presented an instance of a similar grammatical construction. Wettstein, for the first time, used capital letters as sigla for the uncial MSS (with exception of Walton’s use of “A” as a symbol for Alexandrinus) and Arabic numerals as sigla for the minuscule MSS.
Johann Jakob Griesbach published a three-volume edition of the NT in 1775-77. He printed the Elzevir of 1624 with a few changes. Most of his critical
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materials were drawn from Wettstein, although he added some evidence from his own collations. Griesbach’s second edition was published in 1796-1806.
Christian Frederick Matthaei publishcd a twelve-volume edition of the NT at Riga in 1782-88. Because of his lack of knowledge of the principles of textual criticism, his text, which was “molded on his own views,” was of little value. Matthaei’s NT was of importance, however, because of the many MSS which it accurately cited. Bishop Middleton once characterized Matthaei as the “most accurate scholar who ever edited the NT.” Many of the MSS he cited are known even today only through his publication.
John Martin Augustine Scholz published his two-volume edition of the NT in 1830-36. His text was a critical text—i.e., it was based upon his own critical principles, although it did not depart radically from the textus receptus. Scholz’s chief claim to fame lay in the fact that he cited more than six hundred MSS—many times more than ever had been cited before. Only twelve of them, however, were cited with anything that approached completeness. In contrast to Matthaei, Scholz was perhaps the most inaccurate scholar who ever edited the NT.
4. Modern critical editions. Charles Lachmann was the first to publish an edition of the NT that ignored completely the textus receptus. His aim was to publish the text of the NT as it was known in the fourth century. He relied entirely upon ancient witnesses. His first edition was published in 1831; and his second edition, in two volumes, was published in 1842 and 1850. Lachmann’s work stands as a landmark in the history of the printed text of the NT.
The critical text of the NT of Samuel Prideaux Tregelles was published between 1857 and 1872. In the construction of his text, Tregelles relied upon “ancient authorities” alone and refused to allow either the textus receptus or the great mass of late MSS to have any voice in determining the true reading. All his ancient Greek MS authorities were uncials, with the exception of the minuscules 1, 33. and 69 of the gospels and 81 of the Acts. Tregelles’ critical apparatus, which gives the evidence for his text and for variants from his text, is a model of accuracy.
Lobegott Friedrich Konstantine von Tischendorf published no fewer than twenty-four editions of the Greek NT, if the reissues of his stereotyped Editio Academica (1855) are included. For our purposes, however, only his last and greatest edition need be considered. It was his eighth major edition (Editio Octava Critica Major), published in eleven parts between 1864 and 1872. Tischendorf’s death prevented him from preparing the Prolegomena to his eighth edition. This task was undertaken by C. R. Gregory and Ezra Abbot. After Abbot’s death, Gregory completed the Prolegomena volume, and it was published in 1894. Tischendorf’s aim was to recover the best text of the NT, even though this might not necessarily be the oldest text. The text of his eighth edition was based upon ancient evidence, especially of the Greek MSS, but without neglecting the evidence of the versions and the Fathers. His text showed signs that he was greatly influenced by the evidence of Codex Sinaiticus, which was his greatest MS dis-
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covery. Even yet, Tischendorf’s critical apparatus to his eighth edition is without parallel, and it is indispensable to the textual student.
After more than thirty years of labor, in 1881, Brooke Foss Westcott and Fenton John Anthony Hort published their critical text of the NT, The NT in the Original Greek. Unfortunately they published no MS evidence except that for a few readings which is to be found in their “Introduction and Appendix,” which appeared in 1882. They relied heavily for their text upon Codex Vaticanus. The Westcott and Hort text has become, in effect, a new textus receptus; its hold upon textual scholars today is just as strong as was the hold of the Stephanus and Elzevir texts upon textual scholars between 1550 and 1831.
The most recent major edition of the text of the NT was that published by Hermann von Soden between 1902 and 1913. Von Soden adopted a new system of MS notation; he developed a new theory of the history of the text; and, of course, he constructed a new critical text. He has been often criticized for the incompleteness and the inaccuracy of his MS citation. In all fairness, it should be said that in this he was no worse, nor was he any better, than most other editors of the NT. He cites a great amount of minuscule MS evidence that is not available anywhere else. James Moffatt’s English translation of the NT was based upon von Soden’s text.
Under the auspices of a committee of British scholars, S. C. E. Legg published the Gospel of Mark in 1935 and the Gospel of Matthew in 1940. He used the text of Westcott and Hort and provided it with a critical apparatus. This edition was often referred to as the “new Tischendorf.” Legg resigned from the editorship of this new edition in 1948. At that time his committee invited a committee of American scholars to join with them in completing the edition. The American-British undertaking is known as the International Greek NT Project. The “Project” will publish the textus receptus (Oxford, 1873) and provide it with a critical apparatus that is based upon new collations of all available MSS and upon new studies of the versions, the lectionaries, and the quotations of the Church Fathers. The two volumes that were published by Legg will be revised on the basis of the textus receptus. The new edition is designed as a tool to be used in future critical studies of the NT text.
In addition to the major editions of the Greek NT which have been listed above, many minor editions have been published. Among the more important of these are: J. M. Bover, Greco-Latin (1st ed., 1943); A. Merk, Greco-Latin (1st ed., 1933); E. Nestle (1st ed., 1898); A. Souter (1st ed., 1910); and H. J. Vogels, Greco-Latin (1st ed., 1920). By far the most popular of these minor editions is that of Nestle. It has been published in many editions since 1898. The text of the first two editions was based on the majority reading of Westcott and Hort, Tischendorf, and Weymouth. Beginning with the third edition (1903), Weiss was substituted for Weymouth. The apparatus in the Nestle NT has been revised in each succeeding edition. In 1904 the British and Foreign Bible Society published the Nestle third edition as its first edition. In 1958 the second British and Foreign Bible Society edition was published with a revised
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apparatus, although its text was still essentially the Nestle text.
E. THEORY AND METHOD. 1. Front Origen to Bentley. Any study of the text of the NT, apart from the preliminary study of MSS, paleography, grammar, etc., should properly begin with Origen, the first great textual critic of the church.
Frank Pack (see bibliography) has shown that Origen’s textual work should be conceived as a part of his larger conception of scripture. The same thing could be said of any textual critic, ancient or modern. There is no question but that the work of Tregelles, Tischendorf, von Soden, Legg, the Lakes, and others would be better understood if more were known regarding their larger conception of scripture.
Pack showed in his study that Origen’s conception of scripture was based upon three major beliefs: a) the tradition of the church is the framework within which all teaching, belief, and activity must he done; (b) scripture is a unity with light given from God equally in the OT and in the NT; (c) all scripture is inspired, so that whether every part of it looks important to the reader or not, it is important, and is to be interpreted in such a way that God is not dishonored.
Origen attributed the great variety of readings which he found in his MSS of the NT to four causes: (a) carelessness in scribal transmission; (b) conscious alteration made in a rash and daring manner (these are the more serious dogmatic corrections); (c) addition and subtraction made in an “arbitrary” way (these are the more simple, detailed corrections which are made in the interest of clarification of meaning or harmonization of accounts); (d) the corrupting influence of the heretics.
In those places where he called attention to the existence of more than one reading and indicated his preference for one or the other, Origen seems to have based his choice upon (a) dogmatics; (b)geography (c)harmonization; (d)etymology; (e)the majority of MSS known to him.
Origen’s main controls in the handling of variants in the text, then, may be summed up as: (a) contextual meaning and internal probability; (b) harmonization; (c) the tradition of the church. As Pack puts it, Origen’s methodology was a process of: (a) correction; (b) the knowledge, use, and conflating of different textual traditions; (c) the handling of the text with the interests of teaching and preaching in mind. Even in those cases where he judged that the text had been corrupted by the heretics, Origen sought, because of his great respect for tradition, to avoid the task of having to change the copies of the NT in actual use.
By and large, this seems to have been the method used in handling the text of the NT until after the Reformation, and the printing of the Greek NT. Chrysostom, in his homilies, was no mere follower of a traditional text, but a writer who consciously altered the text in an attempt to make more lucid certain passages of scripture. Bishop Theophylact of Bulgaria, who wrote in the eleventh century, treated his NT text in precisely the same way.
As we have seen, those who edited and published the early editions of the Greek NT (i.e., Cardinal
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Ximines, Erasmus, Stephanus, the Elzevirs, Beza, etc.) depended in the main upon late Greek MSS, which they used uncritically. Most of them did, to be sure, as, e.g., Stephanus, print variant readings. But as someone has said, these marginal notes seem to be more ornamental than anything else. Those readings which were debated were usually those in which the late Greek text differed from the late Latin Vulg. text which was in common use. Not always, but too often, the Greek text suffered by being “corrected” to the Latin.
In spite of the fact that materials were not used critically, however, an accumulation of variant readings was built up by those early editors. They collated MSS and recorded their readings. Usually such variant readings were relegated to prolegomena or appendices, as was the case in the editions of Walton, Fell, Mill, and others. It was, of course, easier to print the text “received by all” and to record variant readings in prolegomena or appendices. At least by using this method the editor did not leave himself open to all manner of charges of heresy. As it was, most of these early editors were subject to vicious attack. If Erasmus, e.g., had been content to publish the Greek text, or if he had printed beside his Greek text only the Latin Vulg., as was then in common use, all might have been well. But his own revised Latin version was regarded as such an innovation that every variant from the text in common use was regarded as presumption or even as heresy.
Stephanus was condemned by the theological faculty at the Sorbonne for publishing an amended Latin text several years before his first Greek text appeared. No wonder, then, that he did not try to publish an amended Greek text. His critics could make nothing of what they found in the margins of his 1550 edition, but they prohibited it because of its “annotations.” When Stephanus told them that there were no annotations in the margin, but only variant readings, they demanded to see the MS from which the variants were taken. They were told that there was not one MS but several MSS and that they had been returned to the Royal Library. So severe did the criticism of Stephanus become that he fled to Geneva—some say that flight was necessary for him to escape death at the stake.
The early editors and printers of the Greek NT were motivated by the new interest in humanistic studies and by a desire to set the Greek text over against the Latin text in common use. Perhaps this latter motivation was tied up with the whole complex of the Reformation, the new Protestant movement, the break with Rome, etc. Without doubt, however, in some cases financial motivation entered in as well.
Gradually, as men saw not only that the Greek text of the late MSS differed from the Latin text in common use, but that it differed from the early Greek MSS and from the text of the ancient versions (other than Latin) and from the quotations of the early Church Fathers as well, they began an attempt to make a better Greek text. But still, they hardly dared to publish an amended text. As has been shown, their variant readings were relegated to marginal notes, prolegomena, and appendices. The text they printed was the text “commonly received
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by all.” In no other way could they escape the censure of their fellow churchmen.
Even the great Mill, who had published practically unchanged the Stephanus text of 1550, was severely criticized. His crime was not that he had changed the text of the NT, hut that he had made this text precarious. Not only the clergy, but university professors in England and Germany as well, declared that because he had found thirty thousand variant readings in the NT, his work was a work of evil tendency and inimical to the Christian religion. Fortunately for his peace of mind, Mill did not live to hear these attacks. He died only two weeks after his NT was published.
In the early part of his work Mill placed great value on the number of MSS supporting a reading, but later he became more aware of the value of the testimony of authorities of different kinds.
The principal attack upon Mill was made by Whitby in 1710.
He charged Mill with making the text of the NT uncertain and insisted that in
every case the text of Stephanus could be defended. Whitby seems to have
thought that the evidence of numbers of MSS should outweigh all other
considerations except when those numbers of MSS read against the textus receptus.
In 1713, Anthony Collins in his “Discourse of Free Thinking” used Whitby’s attack on Mill as an argument for rejection of the authority of scripture.
2. The work of Richard Bentley. In answer to Collins’ book, Richard Bentley published under the name of Phileleutherus Lipsiensis his “Remarks upon a Late Discourse of Free Thinking.” In section 32, part 1, of his “Remarks,” Bentley took up the subject of the various readings of the Greek NT. In this section he made some observations that were made a part of the later method of textual study. He said: “‘Tis a good Providence and a great Blessing, That so many Manuscripts of the New Testament are still amongst us; some procur’d from Egypt, others from Asia, others found in the Western Churches. For the very Distances of Places, as well as Numbers of the Books, demonstrates that there could be no Collusion, no altering nor interpolating One Copy by another, nor All by one of them.” Further, “the lesser matters of Diction, and among several synonymous Expressions the Very Words of the Writers, must be found out by the same Industry and Sagacity that is used in other Books; must not be risk’d upon the credit of any particular MS or Edition, but be sought, acknowledg’d, and challeng’d, where-ever they are met with.”
In 1713, Francis Hare, writing under the name of Philo-Criticus, published a pamphlet entitled “The Clergyman’s Thanks to Phileleutherus for His Remarks on the Late Discourse of Free-Thinking.” In this pamphlet he urged Bentley to edit an edition of the NT. He said, in part: “The present Text is not the Text as left us by the Apostles in their Autographum, but as it was settled about two hundred years ago by Robert Stephens, that learned Printer; whence it follows that if the Text should be revis’d now by an abler Hand, and by the help of more and better Manuscripts, such an Edition of it ought to be prefer’d; but such undoubtedly would that be which
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you could give, would you, upon the Materials your Friend Dr. Mill has with so much Labour brought together, exercise the Critik, you, and you alone are Master of.”
On April 16, 1716, Bentley wrote to Archbishop Wake and unfolded his plan for a new edition of the NT. In this letter he gave an account of some of his studies, and said that he had found a close agreement between the oldest Latin and Greek MSS. By means of this agreement he believed that he would be able to restore the text of the NT to what it had been at the time of the Council of Nicaea. He then spoke of the formation of the common text of the Greek NT.
“After the Complutenses and Erasmus,” Bentley said, “who had but very ordinary MSS, it became the property of booksellers. Robert Stephen’s edition, set out and regulated by himself alone, is now become the standard. The text stands, as if an apostle was his compositor.
“Pope’s Sixtus and Clement, at a vast expense, had an assembly of learned divines to recense and adjust the Latin Vulgate, and then enacted their new edition authentic: but I find, though I have not discovered anything done dolo malo, they were quite unequal to the affair. They were mere theologi, had no experience in MSS, nor made use of good Greek copies, and followed books of 500 years before those of double age. Nay, I believe, they took these new ones for the older of the two; for it is not everybody knows the age of a manuscript.
“To conclude: in a word, I find that by taking 2000 errors out of the Pope’s Vulgate, and as many out of the Protestant Pope Stephen’s, I can set out an edition of each in columns, without using any book under 900 years old, that shall so exactly agree word for word, and, what at first amazed me, order for order, that no two tallies, nor two indentures, can agree better.”
In 1720, Bentley issued his Proposals for Printing. These proposals were, accompanied by the last chapter of Revelation as a specimen. They are contained in eight paragraphs as follows:
“(a) The author of this edition, observing that the printed copies of the New Testament, both of the original Greek and ancient vulgar Latin, were taken from manuscripts of no great antiquity, such as the first editors could then procure; and that now by God’s providence there are MSS in Europe (accessible, though with great charge) above a thousand years old in both languages; believes he may do good service to common Christianity if he publishes a new edition of the Greek and Latin, not according to the recent and interpolated copies, but as represented in the most ancient and venerable MSS in Greek and Roman capital letters.
“(b) The author, revolving in his mind some passages of St. Jerome; where he declares, that (without making a new version) he adjusted and reformed the whole Latin Vulgate to the best Greek exemplars, that is, to those of the famous Origen; and another passage, where he says, that a verbal or literal interpretation out of Greek into Latin is not necessary, except in the Holy Scripture, ubi ipse verborum ordo mysterium est, where the very order of the words is mystery; took
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thence the hint, that if the oldest copies of the original Greek and Jerome’s Latin were examined and compared together, perhaps they would be still found to agree both in words and order of words. And upon making the essay, he has succeeded in his conjecture beyond his expectation or even his hopes.
“(c) The author believes that he has retrieved (except in very few places) the true exemplar of Origen, which was the standard of the most learned of the Fathers, at the time of the Council of Nicaea and two centuries after. And he is sure that the Greek and Latin MSS, by their mutual assistance, do so settle the original text to the smallest nicety, as cannot be performed now in any classic author whatever; and that out of a labyrinth of thirty thousand various readings, that crowd the pages of our present best editions, all put upon equal credit, to the offense of many good persons, this clue so leads and extricates us, that there will scarce be two hundred out of so many thousands that can deserve the least consideration.
“(d) To confirm the lections which the author places in the text, he makes use of the old versions, Syriac, Coptic, Gothic, and Aethiopic, and of all the Fathers, Greeks and Latins, within the first five centuries; and he gives in his notes the various readings (now known) within the said five centuries. So that the reader has under one view what the first ages of the church knew of the text; and what has crept into any copies since is of no value or authority.
“(e) The author is very sensible, that in the sacred writings there’s no place for conjecture or emendations. Diligence and fidelity, with some judgment and experience, are the characters here requisite. He declares, therefore, that he does not alter one letter in the text without the authorities subjoined in the notes. And to leave the free choice to every reader, he places under each column the smallest variations of this edition, either in words or order, from the received Greek of Stephens, and the Latin of the two popes Sixtus V and Clement VIII. So that this edition exhibits both itself and the common ones.
“(f) If the author has anything to suggest towards a change of the text, not supported by any copies now extant, he will offer it separate in his Prolegomena; in which will be a large account of the several MSS here used, and of the other matters which contribute to make this edition useful. In this work he is of no sect or party; his design is to serve the whole Christian name. He draws no consequences in his notes; makes no oblique glances upon any disputed points, old or new. He consecrates this work, as a κειμήλιον, a κτˆημα ’εσα`ει, a charter, a magna charta, to the whole Christian Church; to last when all the ancient MSS here quoted may be lost and extinguished. [Three of the diacritical marks precede the Greek letter they belong to because Word 2000 does not give me the option of the letter with the mark.]
“(g) To publish this work, according to its use and importance, a great expense is requisite: it’s designed to be printed, not on the paper or with the letter of this Specimen, but with the best letter, paper, and ink that Europe affords. It must therefore be done by subscription or contribution. As it will make two tomes in folio, the lowest subscription for smaller paper must be three guineas, one advanced in present; and for the great paper five guineas, two advanced.
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“(h) The work will be put to the press as soon as money is contributed to support the charge of the impression; and no more copies will be printed than are subscribed for. The overseer and corrector of the press will be the learned Mr. John Walker, of Trinity College in Cambridge; who, with great accurateness, has collated many MSS at Paris for the present edition. And the issue of it, whether gain or loss, is equally to fall on him and the author.”
Although Bentley’s proposed edition was never published, it is important for the study of the history of the NT text. He saw that it was necessary to use some discrimination in the choice of Greek MSS and that the ancient MSS are the witnesses to the ancient text. It must be kept in mind that a late MS may also be a witness to an ancient text; but, generally speaking, the older the MS, the older the text to which it witnesses. After the ancient text had been established through the general agreement of the ancient MSS with the ancient versions and the quotations of the Church Fathers, Bentley was ready to discard from consideration the whole mass of late witnesses. In this, of course, he was wrong. The late witnesses are of value for the history of the transmission of the NT text, and they may preserve an ancient reading that has been lost in the earlier MSS.
Bentley formed two other conclusions, in which he was wrong:(a)that Jerome used the Greek MSS of Origen in making his revision—the Vulg.;(b)that there had been one known and received Latin version, which was altered and revised to produce the confusion that Jerome found.
Had Bentley’s edition been published, it would have shaken the foundations of the textus receptus. It was long before scholars again adopted the principle of selecting from among the mass of available materials.
3. Bengel and Wettstein. With the work of John Albrecht Bengel, there was a revival of interest in the study of the text of the NT on the Continent. Bengel was born in Würtenberg in 1687. During his student days at Tübingen (1703-7) he became interested in the variant readings in the text of the Greek NT. He had learned to value the NT as the declaration of God’s revealed will, and he was anxious to know the precise form in which it had been given.
Bengel’s difficulty in regard to the text of the NT was caused by the fact that before Mill’s edition there were only partial collations of the variant readings which raised doubt in his mind. After much study, he came to the conclusion that the variant readings were less numerous than might have been expected and that they did not shake any article of evangelic doctrine. He also came to the conclusion that a Greek text was needed which was based upon sound principles of criticism applied to accurate and complete collations.
At first Bengel gathered materials for his own use, but he was encouraged by his friends to complete his work for publication. The collations which were made by Bengel and for him, unfortunately, do not meet the requirements of modern research.
Bengel’s chief importance lies in the critical principles which he evolved. The great principle he fol-
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lowed was: “The more difficult reading is to be preferred.” This is an idea which is to be found in some places in Mill’s Prolegomena. Bengel attached high value to the Latin versions as witnesses to the original text. Here, too, he followed. Mill, as well as Bentley.
Most important of all, it was Bengel who first advanced the theory of textual families or recensions. He hoped to reduce all extant witnesses (Greek MSS, versions, and quotations of the Church Fathers) into “companies, families, tribes, and nations.” He tried to divide all extant Greek MSS into two families (a) the Asiatic, chiefly written in Constantinople and its vicinity; (b) the African, comprising a few MSS of the better type.
The next important step in the study of the text of the NT was taken by John James Wettstein (not Wetstein; see bibliography). Wettstein was born in Basel in 1693. By the age of twenty, when he was ordained a pastor, he was interested in biblical studies. At that time he delivered a disputation on the various readings of the NT. His love for this subject became a passion, the “master-passion which consoled and dignified a roving, troubled, unprosperous life.”
In 1714, Wettstein’s search for MSS of the NT led him to Paris; in 1715 and again in 1720, it led him to England. On his second visit to England, he was employed by Bentley to collate MSS, but he seems to have learned but little from the great British scholar.
Wettstein lived at a time when the textual critic was suspect. Anyone who suggested changes in the textus receptus was accused of tampering with the pure Word of God. In spite of the fact that he was subjected to persecution, Wettstein fought constantly for honest and free criticism. It should be noted, however, that Wettstein was constantly being accused of holding unorthodox beliefs and that he was always protesting his orthodoxy. Such constant protestations of orthodoxy are usually open to some suspicion. In insisting upon the fact that textual study should be made free from theological bias and yet in insisting upon his own orthodoxy, Wettstein was, in effect, taking a theological position.
In 1730, while Wettstein in Basel was waging his “fight for freedom,” he published anonymously at Amsterdam his famous Prolegomena—a quarto volume of 201 pages. Even though it was published anonymously, no one who read it could doubt that it was his.
The first five chapters of the Prolegomena dealt with MSS and their authority. The codices which Wettstein had examined personally were marked with a star; the MSS which had been examined and reported to him by his friends were marked with a cross; the others had no mark. He discussed MSS in general, the material on which they were written, the method of writing, the form of the letters, accents, breathings, abbreviations, orthography, and corrections. “The Apostles,” he said, “were not literary purists. They spoke and wrote according to the manner of the common people.” Wettstein divided the materials for the formation of the text of the NT into four classes: (a) eight MSS written in the oldest
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lettering; (b) twelve MSS of a later uncial type; (c) MSS written by Latin copyists, accompanied by a Latin version; (d) 152 minuscule MSS. He passed judgment on many MSS. The place of honor he gave to Alexandrinus, even though he confessed that it had many faults introduced by copyists. He suspected that it was the work of a female scribe. In spite of its faults, Wettstein intended to use it as the base for the text of his proposed edition of the NT.
Chs. 6-7 of the Prolegomena dealt with the Church Fathers who have quoted the NT from the earliest times to the invention of printing. He implied that no edition of any Father which had not been edited critically was of value for the textual criticism of the NT.
Ch. 8 dealt with the Latin versions.
In ch. 9, Wettstein expressed his belief that the Bohairic and Syriac versions were of great value. The Syriac was of especial value, he thought, even more trustworthy than the Greek text, as it represented the language in common use in apostolic times.
The next five chapters (10-14) dealt with various editions of the NT.
Ch. 15 pointed out that the Protestant commentators recognized and dealt with the various readings to be found in the text of the NT.
In the last chapter of his Prolegomena, Wettstein set down nineteen rules which he proposed to follow in his own edition of the NT: (a) every effort should be made to edit the NT as correctly as possible; (b) all critical aids should be employed for the elucidation of the text; (c) the prescription of the textus receptus should have no authority; (d) editors must form their own judgment as to accents, breathings, punctuations, and orthography; (e) conjectural emendations are never to be hastily admitted or rejected; (f) the distinction of readings into those more or less weighty is useless—i.e., all varieties of readings must be impartially considered by the critic; (g) between two readings, the one which is better sounding, or more clear, or better Greek, is not to be at once chosen but more often the contrary; (h) a reading which exhibits an unusual expression, but which is in other respects suitable to the matter in hand, is preferable to another which, though equally suitable, has expressions such as are not peculiar; (i) of two readings, the fuller and more ample is not at once to be accepted, but rather the contrary; (j) if of two readings one is found in the same words elsewhere and the other is not, the former is by no means to he preferred to the latter; (k) a reading altogether conformable to the style of each writer, other things being equal, is to be preferred; (l) of two various readings, that which seems the more orthodox is not to be forthwith preferred; (m) of two various readings in Greek copies, that which accords with the ancient versions is not easily to be considered the worse; (n) the witness of the ancient Church Fathers has great weight in proving the true reading of the NT; (o) the silence of the Fathers as to readings of importance in the controversies of their own times makes such readings suspect; (p) great care should be taken not to adopt as true readings the errata of collectors of readings or of printers; (q) the reading which is proved to be
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the more ancient, other things being equal, must be preferred; (r) the readings of the majority of MSS, other things being equal, must be preferred; (s) there is no reason why a reading should not be received into the text, not only if it is suitably attested, but even when it is doubtful which reading is preferable.
The Prolegomena formed a landmark in the history of textual criticism. It is to be regretted that Wettstein did not proceed immediately to the editing of the NT along the lines which he laid down. Unfortunately, however, as has been indicated, his NT did not appear until 1751 and 1752.
During the twenty-one years that elapsed between the publication of his Prolegomena and the publication of the first volume of his NT, Wettstein became obsessed by his theory of the Latinization of the early Greek MSS. It had long been recognized that the Greek text in the bilingual Greek-Latin MSS showed a remarkable resemblance to the Latin text. The suspicion arose that in such cases the Greek text had been “corrected” to the Latin text. Erasmus had suggested that at the Council of Florence, in 1439, it had been agreed that the Greeks who then united with the Roman church should alter their MSS to make them conform to the Latin Vulg. If any Greek MSS resembled the Latin in their readings, it was thought that this agreement might explain them. Erasmus had, of course, applied this principle to the late MSS. Wettstein, however, applied it to all the early codices and thus vitiated all the earlier principles he had laid down. He lamented the fact that all the most ancient MSS had been interpolated from the Latin and that it should be necessary to descend several centuries from the date of the oldest copies before any could be found which could be used for establishing a pure text.
4. Beginnings of modern criticism. It was with Johann Jakob Griesbach (born 1745) that real critical texts of the NT began. He recognized the value of the ancient MSS and approved, in principle, Bengel’s theory of a twofold division of the Greek MSS into families: one African, and one Byzantine. Griesbach, however, divided the African family into two parts so as in fact to maintain that there are three classes of text—two ancient, and one more recent. The names assigned by him to these three classes of MSS were: (a) Western; (b) Alexandrian; (c) Constantinopolitan. The Western class contained the text which had been in circulation in the early periods and which because of the errors of copyists required much correction. The Alexandrian was an attempt to revise the old corrupt text. The Constantinopolitan flowed from the other two. Griesbach believed that the Western and Alexandrian recensions, as he called them, existed as distinct recensions in the latter part of the second century.
In deciding upon the value of a reading, Griesbach relied chiefly upon the evidence furnished by agreement of families. Agreement between the Western and Alexandrian he considered to be of great importance. It should be emphasized that he placed importance on the evidence of families and not upon the evidence of individual authorities, however important.
Griesbach laid down five canons of criticism: (a)
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no reading must be considered preferable unless it has the support of at least some ancient witness; (b) all criticism of the text turns on the study of recensions or classes of documents; not single documents but recensions are to be counted in determining readings; (c) the shorter reading is to he preferred to the longer; (d) the more difficult reading is to be preferred to the easier; (e) the reading which at first sight appears to convey a false sense is to he preferred to other readings.
Griesbach has never received the credit due him for his contributions to the study of the NT text. In many ways, he laid the foundations for the work of later scholars. The work of Westcott and Hort and of von Soden, e.g., was based upon precisely the principles which he laid down.
To Charles Lachmann, a classical philologist, must go the credit of being the first editor of the NT to break the sway of the textus receptus. His edition of 1831 was the first Greek NT after the invention of printing to be edited wholly on the evidence of ancient authorities, irrespective of later traditions.
Lachmann set out to edit the Greek NT as if the textus receptus had never existed. His object was to give the text of the Greek NT in that form in which the most ancient documents are known. His aim was purely historical; it was to recover, not the original text, but the text of the fourth century. He professed implicitly to follow ancient copies so far as then-existing collations made this possible. The oldest Greek MSS, compared with the citations of Origen, were the basis of his text. The readings of the OL, as found in unrevised MSS, and the citations of the Latin Fathers were his secondary sources.
Where the principal authorities agreed in an error (i.e., in a certain unquestionable error) Lachmann included this error in his text. He regarded such errors to have been a part of the textual tradition of the fourth century.
Lachmann recognized only two types of text: oriental and occidental, His witnesses for the gospels were 02 (A), 03 (B), 04 (C), 024 (P), 026 (Q), 029 (T), 035 (Z), and sometimes 05 (D). For Acts, they were 05 (D) and 08 (Ea). For Paul, they were 06 (DP), 012 (GP) and 015 (HP). These witnesses were supplemented with the Greek remains of Irenaeus, the OL MSS a, b, c, the citations of Cyprian, Hilary of Poitiers, Lucifer of Cagliari, and Primasius.
Lachmann developed six canons of criticism for determining the readings of his text: (a) nothing is better attested than that in which all authorities agree; (b) the agreement has less weight if part of the authorities are silent or in any way defective; (c) the evidence for a reading, when it is that of witnesses of different regions, is greater than that of the witnesses of some particular place, differing either from negligence or from set purpose; (d) the testimonies are to he regarded as doubtfully balanced when witnesses from widely separated regions stand opposed to others equally wide apart; (e) readings are uncertain which occur habitually in different forms in different regions; (f) readings are of weak authority which are not uniformly attested in the same, region.
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After Lachmann, the next great opponent of the textus receptus was the British scholar Samuel Prideaux Tregelles. He was born into a Quaker family in 1813, At an early age he became a member of the Plymouth Brethren. The last years of his life were spent as a lay member of the Church of England. He at one time assured the bishop of Marlborough that he had become a member of the Church of England as a result of his study of the Greek NT. The only formal education that Tregelles ever had was received at the Falmouth Classical School. In spite of his lack of formal education, at the age of twenty-five he was deeply interested in the critical study of the Greek NT. This interest became the main occupation of his life.
Tregelles traveled extensively on the Continent and examined and collated many MSS of the NT. He developed a method for textual study which he called “comparative criticism.” He defined this method by saying: “As a preliminary definition of terms, I state that by ‘Comparative Criticism’ I mean such an investigation as shows what the character of a document is, — not simply from its age, whether known or supposed, — but from its actual readings being shown to be in accordance or not with certain other documents. By an estimate of Mss. through the application of comparative criticism, is intended merely such an arrangement as may enable it to be said, that certain Mss. do, as a demonstrated fact, present features of classification as agreeing or not agreeing in text with ancient authorities with which they are compared” (An Account of the Printed Text of the Greek New Testament, 1854).
In the same book he set forth and explained in detail his canons of criticism. They may be summarized as follows: (a) readings whose antiquity is proved apart from MSS are found in repeated instances in a few of the extant copies; (b) as certain MSS are found, by a process of inductive proof, to contain an ancient text, their character as witnesses must be considered to be so established that, in other places, their testimony deserves peculiar weight; (c) the concurrence of two versions in a definite reading excludes the supposition that the reading is merely an accident of transcription or translation; and that the accordance with them of certain MSS is likewise the result of fortuitous circumstances or of arbitrary alteration; (d) although patristic quotations are often modernized to suit the Greek text to which the copyist was accustomed, yet when the reading is such that it could not be altered without changing the whole texture of their remarks, or when they are so express in their testimony that such a reading is that found in such a place, we need not doubt that it was so in their copies; and so, too, if we find that the reading of early Fathers agrees with other early testimonies in opposition to those which are later; (e) the antiquity of documents is to be preferred to their number as a basis of testimony.
The greatest of the Continental students of the text of the NT was the “fabulous Tischendorf,” a contemporary of Tregelles. Tischendorf was born in Saxony in 1815. His greatest contributions to the study of the text of the NT were made as a collector and publisher of MSS and as an editor of the NT.
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He discovered and published more Greek uncial MSS than did any other man. His greatest discovery was, of course, Codex Sinaiticus. It has been noted above that he edited no fewer than twenty-four editions of the NT.
Tischendorf made but few, if any, improvements in the methods of textual criticism. He drew up six canons of criticism, but they contained no new suggestions for determining the oldest or the best readings. His canons were: (a) the text is only to he sought from ancient evidence, and especially from Greek MSS, but without neglecting the testimonies of versions and Fathers; (b) a reading altogether peculiar to one or another ancient document is suspect, as also is any, even if supported by a class of documents which seems to show that it has originated in the revision of a learned man; (c) readings, however well supported by evidence, are to be rejected when it appears that they have proceeded from errors of copyists; (d) in parallel passages, whether of the NT or the OT, especially in the Synoptic gospels, those testimonies are to be preferred in which there is no precise accordance of such parallel passages, unless there are important reasons to the contrary; (e) in discrepant readings, that reading should be preferred which may have given occasion to the rest, or which appears to comprise the elements of the others; (f) those readings must be maintained which accord with NT Greek, or with the peculiar style of each individual writer.
5. Westcott and Hort. B. F. Westcott and F. J. A. Hort finally dealt the death blow to the textus receptus, but in doing so they set up what has come to be a new textus receptus and “canonized” a new method for textual studies, the genealogical method.
B. F. Westcott (1825-1901) was one of the most amazing men of the nineteenth century. He was an educator, a churchman, a humanitarian, and a scholar. In 1870 he was elected Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge, and in 1883 he became a professorial fellow at King’s College. He was appointed by the crown to a canonry at Westminster, and in 1890 he became bishop of Durham. He took a practical interest in the affairs of the British coal miners and of the employees of the shipping and, artisan industries, He was a stanch supporter of the British co-operative movement. He was one of the main founders of the Christian Social Union. Among his scholarly publications were History of the NT Canon, Characteristics of the Gospel Miracles, Introduction to the Study of the Gospels, The Bible in the Church, The Gospel of the Resurrection, History of the English Bible, and The Gospel of Life. He also published commentaries on the Fourth Gospel, on Hebrews, and on the Johannine letters. He served as a member of the committee that was engaged in the revision of the NT (the Revised Version). During all this time, he and Hort were at work on their edition of the Greek NT.
In his Bible in the Church (1864), Westcott made two statements that reveal more about his interest in the text of the NT than any other words that ever came from his pen. In the Preface to that book, he said: “A corrupted Bible is a sign of a corrupted Church, a Bible mutilated or imperfect, a sign of a
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Church not yet raised to the complete perception of Truth. It is possible that we might have wished … this otherwise: we might have thought that a Bible of which every part should bear a visible and unquestioned authentication of its divine origin, separated by a solemn act from the first from the sum and fate of all other literature, would have best answered our conceptions of what the written records of revelation should be. But it is not thus that God works among us. In the Church and in the Bible alike, He works through men. As we follow the progress of their formation, each step seems to he truly human; and when we contemplate the whole, we joyfully recognize that every part is also divine.” In the final paragraph of this same book, he said: “The Bible, no less than the Church, is Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic: Holy, for they who wrote it were moved by the Holy Spirit: Catholic, for it embraces in essence every type of Christian truth which has gained entrance among men: Apostolic, for its limits are not extended beyond that first generation to which was committed the charge of preaching the Gospel in the fulness (sic.) of its original power.”
F. J. A. Hort (1828-92) was a fellow and lecturer in Emmanuel College and, later, Lady Margaret reader in divinity. He, like Westcott, was a member of the committee for the revision of the NT.
In Part II of their NT in the Original Greek: Introduction and Appendix, Westcott and Hort pointed out that “every method of textual criticism corresponds to some one class of textual facts,” that “the best criticism is that which takes account of every class of textual facts and assigns to each method its proper use and rank,” and that “the leading principles of textual criticism are identical for all writings whatever.” They then set forth the methods of textual criticism in their “natural order” so that what they considered to be the higher methods came last into view. The following paragraphs represent a condensation, as far as possible in their own words, of Westcott and Hort’s longer discussion:
a. Internal evidence of readings. This is the most rudimentary form of criticism. It consists in dealing with each variation independently and adopting at once in each case, out of two or more variants, that which looks most probable. It takes no account of any relative antecedent credibility of the actual witness. Internal evidence of readings is of two kinds, having reference respectively to the author and to copyists:
a) Intrinsic probability. The first impulse in dealing with a variation is usually to lean on intrinsic probability—i.e., to consider which of two readings makes the best sense, and to decide between them accordingly. The decision may be made either by an immediate and, as it were, intuitive judgment, or by weighing cautiously various elements which go to make up what is called sense, such as conformity to grammar and congruity to the purport of the sentence and of the larger context; to which may be rightly added congruity to the usual style of the author and to his matter in other passages. These considerations afford reasonable presumptions, presumptions which in some cases may attain such force on the negative side as to demand the rejection or
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qualify the acceptance of readings most highly commended by other kinds of evidence.
The assumptions involved in intrinsic probability are not to be implicitly trusted. There is much literature, ancient no less than modern, in which it is needful to remember that authors are not always grammatical, or clear, or consistent, or felicitous; so that not seldom an ordinary reader finds it easy to replace a feeble or half-appropriate word or phrase by an effective substitute; and thus the best words to express an author’s meaning need not in all cases be those which he actually employed. It should be noted, however, that in the highest literature, and notably in the Bible, all readers are peculiarly liable to the fallacy of supposing that they understand the author’s meaning and purpose because they understand some part or some aspect of it, which they take for the whole; and hence, in judging variations of text, they are led unawares to disparage any word or phrase which owes its selection by the author to those elements of the thought present to his mind which they have failed to perceive or to feel.
b) Transcriptional probability. The next step in criticism is the discovery of transcriptional probability, and is suggested on the reflection that what attracts us is not on the average unlikely to have attracted transcribers. If one variant reading appears to us to give much better sense or in some other way to excel another, the same apparent superiority may have led to the introduction of the reading in the first instance. Mere blunders apart, no motive can be thought of which could lead a scribe to introduce consciously a worse reading in place of a better. This does not mean that intrinsic inferiority is evidence of originality.
Transcriptional probability is not directly or properly concerned with the relative excellence of rival readings, but merely with the relative fitness of each for explaining the existence of the others. Every rival reading contributes an element to the problem which has to be solved; for every rival reading is a fact which has to be accounted for, and no acceptance of any one reading as original can be satisfactory which leaves any other variant incapable of being traced to some known cause or causes of variation. If variants are binary, ternary, or more complex, each in its turn must be assumed as a hypothetical original, and an endeavor made to deduce from it all the others, either independently or consecutively; after which the relative facilities of the several experimental deductions must be compared. Hence, the basis on which transcriptional probability rests consists of generalizations as to the causes of corruption incident to the process of transcription. Even at its best, this class of internal evidence, like the other, carries us but a little way toward the recovery of an ancient text, when it is employed alone. The number of variations in which it can be trusted to supply by itself a direct and immediate decision is relatively very small, when unquestionable blunders—i.e., clerical errors—have been set aside.
Readings which are certified by the coincidence of both intrinsic and transcriptional probability are of the utmost value in the application of other methods of criticism.
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b. Internal evidence of documents. It is precarious to attempt to judge which of two or more readings is most likely to be right, without considering which of the attesting documents or combinations of documents are the most likely to convey an unadulterated transcript of the original text. In other words, it is precarious, in dealing with matter purely traditional, to ignore the relative antecedent credibility of witnesses, and trust exclusively to one’s own inward power of singling out the true readings from among their counterfeits. The comparative trustworthiness of documentary authorities constitutes a fresh class of pertinent facts. The first step toward obtaining a sure foundation is a consistent application of principle that knowledge of documents should precede final judgment upon readings.
The most prominent fact known about a MS is its date. Relative date affords a valuable presumption as to relative freedom from corruption, when appeal to on a large scale. But the occasional preservation of comparatively ancient texts in comparatively modern MSS forbids confident reliance on priority of date unsustained by other marks of excellence.
The first effectual security against the uncertainties of internal evidence of readings is found in what may be termed internal evidence of documents—i.e., the general characteristics of the texts contained in them as learned directly from them by continuous study of the whole or of considerable parts. This and this alone supplies entirely trustworthy knowledge as to the relative value of different documents. If the readings of two documents in all their variations are compared successively, ample materials for ascertaining the leading merits and defects of each are obtained.
Readings authenticated by the coincidence of strong intrinsic and strong transcriptional probability, or it may be by one alone of these probabilities in exceptional strength and clearness and uncontradicted by the other, are almost always to be found sufficiently numerous to supply a solid basis for inference.
Where one document is found habitually to contain morally certain or at least strongly preferred readings, and another habitually to contain their rejected rivals, there can be no doubt that the text of the first has been transmitted in comparative purity, and that the text of the second has suffered comparatively large corruption; and that the superiority of the first must be as great in the variations in which internal evidence of readings has furnished no decisive criterion as in those which made it possible to form a comparative appreciation of the two texts.
By this cautious advance from the known to the unknown it is possible to deal confidently with a great mass of those remaining variations—open variations, so to speak—the confidence being materially increased when, as usually happens, the document thus found to have the better text is also the older.
The use of internal evidence of documents is really a threefold process: (a) on the basis of internal evidence of readings, material is tentatively gathered. The results are not final, as they would be if internal evidence of readings alone were used. On some variations, at this stage, an ultimate conclusion can be predicted; on many more, only various degrees
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of probability can be estimated; on many more, any decision must be withheld. (b) Documents are investigated on the basis of what has been learned from the investigation of readings. In this step, it is determined which documents contain the best readings. (c) The readings are again investigated, but this time a tentative choice of readings is made simply in accordance with documentary evidence. Where the results coincide with those obtained at the first stage, a very high degree of probability is reached, resting on the coincidence of two and often three independent kinds of evidence. Where they differ at first sight, a fresh study of the whole evidence affecting the variation in question is secured.
c. Genealogical evidence. The first great step in rising above the uncertainties of internal evidence of readings was taken by ceasing to treat readings independently of one another, and examining them connectedly in series, each series being furnished by one of the several documents in which they were found. The second great step consists in ceasing to treat documents independently of one another, and examining them connectedly as parts of a single whole in virtue of their historical relationships.
Documents are not so many independent and rival texts of greater or less purity. By the nature of the case they are not independent; they are all fragments, usually casual and scattered fragments, of a genealogical tree of transmission, sometimes of vast extent and intricacy. All trustworthy restoration of corrupted texts is founded on the study of their history—i.e., of the relations of descent or affinity which connect the several documents.
Knowledge of the genealogy of MSS is chiefly gained by study of their texts in comparison with one another. The process depends on the principle that identity of reading implies identity of origin. Mixture, of course, confuses the picture. One source of knowledge concerning mixture is conflate readings.
d. Internal evidence of groups. In one sense, this is an intermediate step between the internal evidence of documents and genealogical evidence, but in order of discovery it naturally comes last.
When the internal evidence of documents was investigated, only single documents were considered; but the method is equally applicable to groups of documents. Just as the characteristics of any given MS can be noted by observing successively what readings it supports and rejects (each reading having previously been the subject of the tentative estimate of internal evidence of readings, intrinsic and transcriptional), and by classifying the results, so can the characteristics of any given group of documents be noted by similar observations on the readings it supports and rejects, giving special attention to those readings in which it stands absolutely or virtually alone.
As a result of their investigations, Westcott and Hort found many passages in the NT in which there are three forms of the text. Two of these forms were short, and the third was long, a combination of the two shorter forms. These longer readings (conflate readings) must be late, they argued, particularly since they are found only in the Church Fathers who wrote after the fourth century. The MSS which contained
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these conflate readings were grouped together under the name Syrian and were presumed to represent the recension of the NT which is attributed to Lucian of Antioch at the end of the third or the beginning of the fourth century. This Syrian text is characterized by stylistic changes, conflate readings, the tendency to make obscure words and phrases more lucid and the harmonizing of parallel passages. This type of text Westcott and Hort considered to be the least valuable of all. They then identified three pre-Syrian types of text: (a) the Neutral text, which is the primitive text that has been preserved in relative purity, if not in its original form; (b) the Western text, which was made in the second century by scribes who made interpolations, harmonized parallel passages, and suppressed certain details; and (c) the Alexandrian text, which was the work of “purists” trying to mold the NT text to classical standards.
Westcott and Hort never applied the genealogical method to the MSS of the NT. They used only the idea of applying the method to the NT MSS, and even then it was only a secondary element in their procedure. They actually applied the genealogical method only to individual passages and to individual variants. The genealogical method itself fails the NT textual student on two important counts: (a) it cannot adequately account for mixture which is so prevalent in the NT; and (b) it cannot get beyond a two-branched family tree. For an ultimate decision on the originality of any given reading, the student must rely upon what Westcott and Hort called the internal evidence of readings.
In spite of the fact that Westcott and Hort did not apply the genealogical method to the MSS of the NT, and in spite of the method’s shortcomings, it has been the “canonical’ method for studying the NT text since their time. Many scholars have made use of the method, and, almost without exception, they have come to a clearer understanding of its limitations and failures. As long ago as 1904, Kirsopp Lake called the method “a failure, though a splendid one.”
6. Von Soden and later developments. Perhaps the most outstanding work since Westcott and Hort that has made use of the genealogical method is that of Hermann Von Soden (1852-1914). In Von Soden’s opinion, all existing Greek MSS belong to one of the three great recensions which he designated as I, H, and K. The text of each of these recensions, he believed, can be reconstructed with tolerable, though not complete, certainty. He classified the MSS into groups according to: (a) their text; (b) their form of the text of the pericope de adultera; (c) their chapter divisions; and (d) their lectionary apparatus. Naturally, the text was the most important, and Von Soden was principally guided by it. The other points, however, were of value to him in distinguishing among groups of MSS which textually are almost identical.
Von Soden held that the I (Jerusalem) recension was made by Origen in the third century and was later published by Eusebius and Pamphilus of Caesarea. The H (Hesychian) recension was made in Egypt by Hesychius in the third century. The K (Koine) recension was made by Lucian of Antioch at the end of the third or the beginning of the fourth century.
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The I recension corresponds roughly to Westcott and Hort’s Western text. According to von Soden, it represents a recension of the Greek text which was made at a time posterior to the Latin and Syr. versions, These versions, therefore, represent a type of text that is earlier than and different from the I recension. Von Soden found the I recension nowhere in a pure form. He divided his I witnesses for the gospels into the following subgroups: Ia, Iη, Iι, Iφ, Iβ, Iο, Iπ, Iσ, Ik, and Ir. He also found many MSS which preserved I readings but which would not fit into any of his subgroups. These MSS he called Iz.
Ia is the best representative of the I recension. All its MSS have suffered some corruption from K1 but independently of one another. Codex Bezae, the oldest Ia witness, besides being corrupted by K1, was influenced by parallelization, by omission due to paleographical causes, and by the African Latin and the Old Syr. versions.
Iη is essentially Family 1. It is a relatively pure form of the I recension that has been corrupted but very little by K. Originally, it had a critical note attached to the end of Mark. The pericope de adultera, with a critical note attached, originally appeared at the end of the Gospel of John. Since Von Soden’s time, it has been demonstrated that this was the type of Matthean text used by Origen in his commentary on Matthew.
Iι is essentially the Ferrar group or Family 13 and is a very valuable witness to the I recension. It has been corrupted by K (but probably not by Kx) and by the harmonization of parallel passages. It had the pericope de adultera after Luke 21:38.
Iφ has been greatly corrupted by K, but it
still preserves the original readings of the I recension in many places where
they have disappeared from Iη and Iι. It is,
therefore, an important I witness. In its original form, it did not contain the
pericope de adultera.
Iβ is a less important subtype, and it contributes nothing to the knowledge of the I recension that is not known from other sources. It has been greatly contaminated by K1.
Iο is a mixture of K1 and I. It contains some interesting readings but is of no great importance as a witness to the I recension.
Iπ is a mixture of I with K1 and Kx. It is found in the Purple Codices: 022 (N), 023 (0), 042 (Σ), 043 (Φ), and 080. The Cappadocian Fathers probably used this type of text.
Iσ is a mixture of I and K. It is of no particular value as a witness to the I recension.
Ik (or Ka) represents a form of the I recension that has been made to conform almost entirely to the K recension. It does, however, preserve enough I readings to show its original form. It is an I text that has been corrected to K1 on the principle that the text should be followed which showed the greatest number of harmonizations of parallel passages.
Ir is another mixture of K1 and I. According to Von Soden, it consists of nine parts K1 and one part I. It probably, however, contains some Kx readings. There is a close agreement between the Ir MSS and the MSS of the Aa type of the Antiochene commentary text. (The Antiochene commentary is the
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widely found commentary on the gospels of which the basis in Matthew and John is Chrysostom; in Mark, Victor of Antioch; and in Luke, Titus of Bostra.) Typical MSS of both groups contain a note to the effect that they have been compared with Jerusalem codices.
Von Soden reconstructed the original I recension by comparing all these groups and subgroups. He concluded that it was the type of text that was used by Cyril of Jerusalem and by Eusebius of Caesarea. All these subgroups of the I recension he regarded as a compromise between Constantinople and Antioch.
Von Soden’s H recension corresponds to Westcott and Hort’s Neutral and Alexandrian texts. It is found in eleven MSS in varying degrees of purity. The most important extant witnesses to this recension are Sinaiticus and Vaticanus. The most important witness, however, is א-B, the archetype of those two MSS. But even this archetype has been contaminated by the Egyptian versions, by Origen, and by the K and I recensions. Vaticanus more often represents the archetype than does Sinaiticus.
The K recension of Von Soden approximates the Syrian text of Westcott and Hort. In the gospels, Von Soden divided his K witnesses into six subgroups: K1, Ka, Kx, Kr, Ki, and Kik.
K1 is the oldest and the most important witness to the K recension. Originally it either omitted the pericope de adultera altogether or had it marked with an asterisk to indicate its doubtful origin. K1 seems to have been the base text used by the Aa MSS of the Antiochene commentary on Matthew, Luke, and John. On the basis of MS evidence, the existence of K1 cannot be demonstrated before the eighth century.
The remaining K witnesses are of much less importance than is K1. Ka was discussed above under Ik, Kx is an intermediate type of text lying between K1 and Kr, Its critical value is but slightly greater than is that of Kr. Kr is a late type of text which probably came into existence in the twelfth century. It probably was made in Constantinople for ecclesiastical use. It is valueless insofar as the reconstruction of an early text is concerned. Both Ki and Kik are a mixture of K1 and Kx with other recensions. Ki is either K1 influenced by Iι or, more probably, Iι corrected to a K1 standard. Kik is a mixture of Kx and Ik. It is fairly common, but it is valueless for critical purposes.
Although Von Soden was not able to produce any direct evidence that the K recension was in existence before the eighth century, he believed that he could find traces of it in 02 (A), 04 (C), the Peshitta, the Gothic, and, as has been pointed out above, in the archetype of Sinaiticus and Vaticanus. If this were true, it would place the K recension at least as early as the fourth century.
After he reconstructed the texts of the three great recensions, I, H, and K, Von Soden proceeded to reconstruct their archetype, which he called I-H-K. This archetype is purely hypothetical; there is no objective proof that it ever existed, as it is not identical with the text of any known MS, version, or quotation of a Church Father. In order to reconstruct I-H-K, Von Soden followed a series of rules which he had
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set up: (a) those readings are rejected which are explicable as due to
harmonization; (b)
if there-are two readings, both explicable as due to harmonization, the
one with Matthew and and the other with another gospel, the non-Matthean
reading is to be preferred on the ground that Matthew was the “norm gospel” in
early times; and (c) when there is no question of harmonization, that
reading is to be preferred which is found in two out of three recensions,
unless there is some reason against it, as there often is when the smaller
linguistic points are in question. The result of this process was to show that
of the three recensions, K is the least true and I is the most true to I-H-K.
But H is not far behind I in value as a witness to I-H-K.
The reconstruction of I-H-K took Von Soden back only to the end of the third century. He then had to take into account the evidence of the Latin and Syr. versions. He recognized two OL versions, the African and the Italian. Originally they were two separate versions. The African Latin represents I-H-K with some corruption from Tatian; the Italian Latin represents I-H-K with a much greater amount of Tatianic corruption. The Old Syr. versions represent I-H-K with some corruption from Tatian and some Origenian readings.
Von Soden concluded that the differences between I-H-K and Tatian were not due to the text which Tatian had before him but to his method of handling that text. In the end, I-H-K proved to be the very text to which Tatian himself bears witness.
Since the days of Von Soden, many significant works on the text of the NT have appeared (for the more important ones, see bibliography). But none of them has contributed materially to the theory and method of textual criticism It is now generally agreed that the genealogical method does not meet the needs of the student of the text of the NT.
Among the textual scholars of today, the tendency is to follow an “eclectic” method in order to reconstruct the earliest possible text of the NT. This method can perhaps best be summarized by listing the canons of criticism which are most commonly used: (a) the shorter reading is to be preferred; (b) the more difficult reading is to be preferred; (c) the reading which best suits the author’s characteristic tendencies is to be preferred; and (d) the reading which best explains the origin of all other variants in a given passage is to be preferred. In other words, the emphasis today is upon the internal evidence of readings.
F. CONCLUSION. At the beginning of this article, it was pointed out that the text of the NT contains more variants than that of any other body of ancient literature. It is generally considered that the task of deciding among these variants is the task of the textual critic. His task, it is usually said, is to choose that reading which, among all those to be found in the various sources, is most likely to be the original or most primitive form. To be a textual critic in this limited sense, however, is not enough for a NT scholar. If he were working on the text of a Greek or Latin classic, or, indeed, if he were working on the text of a document from any other body of sacred literature, he could function as a technician and
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nothing more. The NT textual scholar who is working from within the Christian tradition must be more than a textual critic in the narrow sense of the word. He must be, in a certain sense, not only a textual critic but a church historian, a historian of Christian thought, and a theologian as well. The textual critic who works from within the Christian tradition works, not with documents which are like all other ancient documents, hut with documents which are for him scripture, and his attitude toward that scripture is determined by the time and place and religious community from which he comes.
If the textual critic happens to be a Protestant, his task is complicated by the fact that he has to work with MS materials which were produced by those whose attitude toward scripture was vastly different from his own. He may be fully cognizant of the fact that the writers of the NT books were proclaiming the faith of the church as it was their faith; that they were concerned with the present, their present; that they selected from the already growing tradition of the church, both oral and written, those items in that tradition which would enable them to “bear witness to the revelation of God”; that they did not tell us all that had happened, nor did they tell us all that the church had thought and said; or, as someone has said, that “they did not scrape the bottom of the barrel.” He may also be fully aware of the process by which the NT books were finally accorded canonical status. But what the Protestant text historian, with his post-Reformation attitude toward scripture, may not be aware of, or at least what he may not give due consideration to, is the fact that tradition and scripture, after the autographs were written and after they were accorded canonical status, continued to stand side by side, each supplementing the other, and each influencing the development of the other.
The task of the textual critic is at least a fourfold one:
a) The textual critic must fully collate, carefully study, and classify all the thousands of Greek MSS, MSS of the versions, and quotations of the Church Fathers. The completion of this task will, of course, require the combined labors of several generations of scholars. The only consolation is that if this work is done accurately and well, it will not have to be done again.
b) The textual critic must reconstruct the text of the NT autographs. If this proves to be impossible, he must strive constantly to approximate the autographs as closely as possible. But to do this, he must develop a new theory and a new method to supplant the largely discredited genealogical method of the past. The autographs must be recovered because the NT books are the documents which bring us closest to the historical events which are the great doctrines of the Christian faith. These historical events—the Incarnation, the Crucifixion, and the Resurrection -- may all be subsumed under one, the “Christ event,” which is the source and the norm of the life of the church. We are put in direct touch with the primitive church’s experience of that event through the documents—the books of the NT—which she produced.
c) The text historian must reconstruct not only the text of the autographs, but many other texts as well.
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The type of text represented by Codex Bezae was scripture for some Christians at some time, as was the type of text represented by Sinaiticus and Vaticanus. Even the late medieval MS that was used by Erasmus as printer’s copy was scripture for some. As complicated as is the history, e.g., of the so-called Neutral text, the textual critic’s task would be a fairly simple one if he had but to recover such easily distinguishable texts as those that are known as Neutral, Western, Caesarean, and Koine. But, to complicate his task, he finds that he has to recover many texts of but portions of his documents. In other words, his documents have been altered piecemeal. One MS, e.g., may show the result of intentional alteration in one pericope under the influence of some particular time and place, and in another pericope under the influence of some entirely different time and place.
d) The textual critic must place some evaluation upon the readings which he finds in his documents. He might well venture to say that a certain reading can be accepted, not as an original reading, but, nevertheless, as a part of the NT, because it comes to him in the stream of tradition. The textual critic is better equipped to pass such value judgments on texts or readings than is anyone else. Supposedly he knows the Greek MSS, the versional MSS, and the quotations of the Church Fathers. Supposedly he is at home in church history, the history of Christian thought and theology. Why then should he not be urged to do more than work on the assumption that the oldest NT is necessarily the best NT? The textual critic should take it upon himself to give to his contemporaries not only an original text but also many readings which have been examined and criticized in the light of the tradition of the church and of the underlying themes of the Bible. These readings and these texts need not be only the oldest possible texts and readings. If they proclaim the faith of the church, they are scripture.
Bibliography. For the published text of P52, see: C. H. Roberts, An Unpublished Fragment of the Fourth Gospel in the John Ryland’s Library (1935). For the published text of P66, see: V. Martin, Papyrus Bodmer II (1956); Papyrus Bodmer II, Supplement (1958). On Chester Beatty Papyri (P45, P46, P47), see: F. G. Kenyon, The Chester Beatty Biblical Papyri (1933-37). H. Gerstinger, “Em Fragment des Chester Beatty-Evangelien-kodex in der Papyrussammlung der Nationalbibliothek in Wien,” Aegyptus (1933), pp. 67-72.
On the history of the text, see: S. P. Tregelles, An
Account of the Printed Text of the Greek NT (1854); The Greek Testament
Edited from Ancient Authorities (1857-72). C. Tischendorf. Novum Testamentum Graece ...
Editio octava critica maior (2 vols.; 1869-72). F. H. A. Scrivener, A
Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the NT (4th ed., rev. E. Miller;
1894). J. W. Burgon, The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of
the Holy Gospels (ed. E. Miller; 1896); The Traditional Text of the Holy
Gospels (ed. E. Miller; 1896). E. Miller, ed., The Oxford Debate on the
Textual Criticism of the NT held at New Co1lege on May 6, 1897 (1897). M.
R. Vincent, A History of the Textual Criticism of the NT (1899). K.
Lake, Codex 1 of the Gospels and Its Allies. Texts and Studies, vol. VII
(1902). C. R. Gregory, Canon and Text of the NT (l907), pp. 297-598. H.
von Soden, Die Schriften des Neuen Testaments in ihrer ältesten erreichbaren
Textgestalt (2 vols.; 1902-13). H. J. Hoskiar, An Indictment of the
Codex B and Its Allies (1914). J. R. Harris, On the Origin of the Ferrar
Group (1925). B. H. Streeter, The Four Gospels (1925). J. H. Ropes,
“The Text of Acts,” in F. J. Foakes-Jackson and K. Lake, eds., The
Beginnings of Chris-
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tianity, pt. I: The Acts of the Apostles, vol. III (1926). K. Lake and S. New. “The Caesarean Text of the Gospel of Mark,” HTR, vol. XXI (1928), no. 4. H. J. Hoskier, Concerning the Text of the Apocalypse (2 vols.; 1929). P. Collomp, La Critique des textes (1931). C. E. Legg, Novum Testamentum Graece, Secundum Textum Westcotto-Hortianum, Evangeliurn Secundum Marcum (1935). S. Lake, Family II and the Codex Alexandrinus: Studies and Documents V (1937). L. Vaganay, An Introduction to the Textual Criticism of the NT (trans. B. V. Miller; 1937). W. H. P. Hatch, Principal Uncial MSS of the NT (1939). C. E. Legg. Evangelium Secundum Matthaeum (1940). K. Lake and S. lake, Family 13 (The Ferrar Group): The Text According to Mark, Studies and Documents XI (1941). B. M. Metzger, ‘‘The Caesarean Text of the Gospels,’’ JBL, LIV (1945), 457-89. E. C. Colwell, “Genealogical Method: Its Achievements and Limitations,” JBL, LXVI (1947), 109-33. A. F. J. Klijn. A Survey of the Researches into the Western Text of the Gospels and Acts (1949). M. M. Parvis and A. P. Wikgren, eds., NT MS Studies (1950). M. M. Parvis, ‘‘The Nature and Tasks of NT Textual Criticism: An Appraisal,” JR. XXXII (1952), 165-74. G. Zuntz, The Text of the Epistles … Corpus Paulinum (1953). A. Souter, The Text and Canon of the NT (2nd ed., rev. C. S. C. Williams; 1954), pp. 3-133. I. M. Price, The Ancestry of Our English Bible (3rd ed., rev, W. A. Irwin and A. P. Wikgren; 1956), pp. 153-224. F. G. Kenyon, Our Bible and the Ancient MSS (5th ed., rev. A. W. Adams; 1958).
On Origen as a textual critic, see F. Pack, The Methodology of Origen as a Textual Critic in Arriving at the Text of the NT (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Southern California Graduate School of Religion; 1948).
On Wettstein, see C. L. Hulbert-Powell, John James Wettstein (ca. 1937), p. 1, note 2.
For a thorough criticism of Westcott and Hort, see E. C. Colwell, “Genealogical Method: Its Achievements and its Limitations,” JBL, LXVI (1947), 109-33. M. M. Parvis
TEXTUS RECEPTUS tĕks′tes rĭ sĕp′tes (the e are pronunciation indicators whose sound is “u”, .that should be turned upside down, however, the Word 2000 does not give me that option..) Latin for “received [or accepted] text,” used especially of the 1550 edition of the Greek NT published by Stephanus, which came to be known as the “received text” in Britain, and of the 1633 edition of the Elzivir Greek NT, which was accepted on the Continent.
See also Text,
NT, § D3. J. Knox
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