mls@dasys1.UUCP (Michael Siemon) (09/11/89)
In an earlier article, I held forth rather dogmatically in favor of the newly
standardized Greek New Testament text over the "Majority Text" or _Textus
Receptus_ (i.e., the main line of Byzantine manuscript tradition and hence the
overwhelmingly most common manuscript version of the NT). I did give some
references for those who wished to ignore my dogmatism and pursue the matter
for themselves. I want here to do a (minimal) defense of my prior assertions
by way of actually looking at an editor's problems in a couple of places --
to show in a simplistic way what kinds of data are used and how they are used
and what degree of confidence can be placed in the results. So this is a sort
of "child's guide" to text editing. I have oversimplified, but I hope not in
a way contrary to truth -- and the examples should suggest the kind of data
and analysis that leads to the current GNT text. I will look at two verses
in Luke's story of the Nativity, namely 2:14 and 1:78.
For references to this article, see (besides the Alands' book that I cited
before and which I am also cribbing from here)
Martin L. West, _Textual Criticism and Editorial Technique_,
B.G.Teubner (Stuttgart), 1973, ISBN#3-519-07402-8
and (for extensive commentary on the Luke passages I'm using)
Joseph A. Fitzmeyer, _The Gospel According to Luke I-IX_, Anchor Bible
vol. 28, Doubleday (New York), 1981, ISBN#0-385-00515-6
West's volume has the immense advantage (in our context) of being aimed at
towards secular authors, so that his editorial advice is not compromised by
theological presuppositions. He also deals extensively with the problem of
"contamination" (a technical term explained below) which pervades the New
Testament tradition. In addition, readers who want to see the arguments on
individual hard NT questions should look at
Bruce Metzger, _A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament_,
United Bible Societies (New York and London) 1971.
which I believe the moderator has previously mentioned. Despite its title,
this is not a general survey of the text, but is a record of the dissenting
opinions in the discussions of the GNT editorial board "utilizing the minutes
of the committee sessions. Of the total of thirty dissenting votes, seventeen
represent Metzger alone; eight, Metzger and Wikgren; two, Wikgren alone; one,
Metzger and Martini; one, Metzger and Aland; and one, Aland alone. While a
certain tendency may be detected here..., the variety of combinations also
witnesses to the lack of any consistent lines of division." [quoted from
Aland's discussion of the book on p.34 of his; I have not read it, but I note
that Aland has a fair amount of sniping at Metzger throughout his comments on
the GNT. mls]
Our general problem is that, when texts are being copied, the copyists make
mistakes. Sometimes one gets a "clever" copyist who "corrects" a problem in
his text, or a copyist (in this case most often a scholar of some sort or a
theologian) who has a theological bias (an axe to grind), but in fact these
are rare, and the usual case is a poor fellow who is only trying his best to
grind out a new book to help replicate an old one. It is an almost certain
rule that when manuscript B is being copied from A, B will contain every
error of A plus a fair number of its own. In special cases, B will correct
some of A's errors, and this may be confused by B simply misunderstanding
the text and "correcting" something that is not wrong. When a text is
important, it may be compared to several extant versions (since scribes know
that other scribes are fallible). In this case, the text of the copy is
"contaminated" -- it confuses later editors by mingling several lines of
descent. (If this never happened, it would be MUCH easier to figure out
"genealogically" what the earliest manuscripts said; on the other hand, it
would probably also mean that we had even more garbled copies of ancient
literature than we do have.)
One other warning: copyists are usually poorly educated: slave labor or for
Christian documents monk labor, which amounts to much the same thing.
Sometimes, a copyist thinks well enough of himself to make a "correction"
in his text; if he is in fact well educated and understands the text, he may
be right -- emendations in manuscripts have sometimes proved correct.
More often we see what is also seen on the net -- readers are all too willing
to simplify what they have before them in order to feel superior by
"correcting" something they have actually misunderstood. I have to insist
here that the net is VASTLY better educated than the body of copyists who
have given us our treasured manuscripts of antiquity. Spend some time
scanning the exchanges on the net, and despair of ever knowing for certain
what the NT authors wrote!
That said, consider some of the common mistakes -- you have probably made
them in your own writing --
- it is easy to transpose letters (my postings do it all the time!)
- it is easy to duplicate letters, especially at the start or end of words
- it is easy to omit a letter, especially at the start of a word when the
letter in question ends the previous word, or at the end of a word
THELASTTWOARESPECIALLYEASYINANTIQUITYSALLCAPITALUNCIALSCRIPT
Please carefully work out that last line -- it illustrates a problem with the
general form of manuscripts from before the 9th century; the uncial
characters are individually more legible than the later minuscule, but there
are no separations between words, and there is often no punctuation. In my
example there's a deliberate instance of one of the errors. Find it.
Other errors crop up in copying someone else's text: it's easy to skip a line,
particularly if it begins or ends the way your current line does. It is easy to
get ahead of yourself and type words on the basis of what you remember and not
what is really there. It is tempting to correct spelling errors (this is so
tempting that netiquette guides warn against spelling flames -- do you really
think that copyists of Greek did any better? when Greek has a worse problem
with spelling than English does; most of the vowels and diphthongs sound
exactly alike in later Koine and Modern Greek!) When copying from dictation,
a scribe will often substitute a homonym for what his "original" text reads.
That is true even when copying by sight, as the copyist "sounds" out what he
has read while copying it, or is otherwise influenced by the sound of earlier
text. There are many other pitfalls, but I'll stop now in favor of going on
to the "case studies" I want to present.
Twenty-five years ago, a Jewish friend of mine asked me to explain something
he had noticed from hearing the omnipresent TV Christmas quotations out of
the King James Bible:
"And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly
host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on
earth peace, good will toward men."
As a musician, he knew the standard text for the Gloria of the Mass (we
were in fact discussing the Poulenc Gloria, which is a wonderful piece)
"Gloria in excelsis Deo, et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis."
which is to say "peace to men of good will," which is a bit different in sense
than the KJV text. I looked up a Greek text and told him the KJV was correct.
This suited my prejudices, but I didn't look far enough. The King James panel
translated correctly what they found in the Erasmian edition (and what Erasmus
found in late Byzantine manuscripts)
"Doxa en hypsistois theo:i kai epi ge:s eire:ne: en anthro:pois eudokia"
But there is a variant; the final _eudokia_ also appears in some manuscripts
as _eudokias_ (the genitive) which yields more or less the reading of the
Latin (Fitzmeyer has some quibbles about the adequacy of the translation of
_eudokia_ as _bona voluntas_; I also note that my Vulgate has a literal
_altissimis_ instead of the liturgical text's _excelsis_, but never mind.)
The question therefore arises, what did Luke write? Can we know that? Well,
not if you demand absolute certainty. But probability has something to say
in the case. First, the dropping of a final sigma is a common scribal error,
not least because the uncial sigma (which looks like 'C') is often reduced
to a little "hook" at the end of a word (especially at the end of a line.)
That is only reinforced in a case like this where the omission turns an
oblique case (genitive) into a nominative. When we observe that _eudokias_
appears in earlier strata of tradition (it's in the original hand of Sinaiticus
and Vaticanus, later "corrected" out; it appears in the old Latin versions
before the Vulgate and in Syriac translations; it is also attested by an
impressive array of patristic citations) all the external evidence points to
the nominative _eudokia_ being a secondary reading. Internal evidence
(appropriateness of the readings in the context of Luke, either locally to
this verse or with respect to Luke's theology) supports the external evidence
-- Luke is generally partisan for the humble and hostile to the rich. Thus,
a general message of good will goes against the grain of, e.g. the Magnificat
and its glee in "he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their
hearts." Internal evidence is a bit dangerous in theological contexts -- any
reading may be held onto by some interpreter as "revealed truth" no matter
how unlikely an unprejudiced reader finds it. But in general, editors use
internal evidence only as confirmatory -- it does not do to select a reading
that goes against the external evidence just because you like it. I prefer
"good will towards men" -- perhaps out of early imprinting with the KJV --
but my preference should not blind me to either the external evidence or the
assumptions of Luke's gospel.
My second example may seem even more trivial than the first. It is less
familiar, at least to those who do not use the _Benedictus_ (the canticle
spoken by the father of John the Baptist) in liturgical settings. The KJV
(and the 1928 Book of Common Prayer) reads, in Luke 1:78
"the dayspring from on high hath visited us"
where the current Episcopal Prayer Book has
"the dawn from on high shall break upon us"
and the point I want to look at is the tense of the verb, aorist (past, sort of)
_epeskepsato_ versus future _episkepsetai_, which is the reading in the
GNT. Here again Sinaiticus has the GNT reading in the original hand and a
"correction" (in the same hand as that above in the Gloria) to aorist by a
later hand. A, C and D have the aorist; B has the future as do a few other
uncials, a 3rd century papyrus (p4) and some translations (Syriac, Coptic,
Gothic.) There is little patristic evidence; the earliest is Irenaeus, who
supports the aorist. The external evidence, in other words, is less clear
here than in the last case, and the GNT records this reading as class C (i.e.,
"a considerable degree of doubt") whereas the Gloria reading is class B
("some degree of doubt").
The most probable direction of change here is disputed; Raymond Brown (the
editor of the Anchor _John_) argues that the future picks up from the future
tenses of verse 76 ("will be called," "will go before") to override an original
aorist. Most commentators prefer the simpler idea that _epeskepsato_ is
still in the copyist's head from it use in verse 68. Internally, it makes
better sense, especially in the context of Zechariah prophesying about his
son, for the visitation of God in John's conception to be past while the
"dayspring" of the prophecy is yet to come. An aorist in verse 78 also
disrupts the futures of verse 76, and Luke's Greek is good enough that one
should not expect so serious a breach of sequence. (One problem of NT
editing is that the original Greek in much of it -- Mark, especially -- is so
bad that almost ANY scribe would think he could correct it. With most
secular authors it is safe to assume that they had a better command of the
language than their scribes; that may not be true in the New Testament.
This greatly complicates arguments from internal evidence.)
The final point of this overlong essay is that Byzantine manuscripts, the
"majority text" tradition, are on the "wrong" side of both of these cases.
The very triviality of the examples is important -- in innumerable similar
trivial cases, the Textus Receptus has what external and internal evidence
suggest to be secondary readings. The "corrections" to Sinaiticus are in line
with the growing influence of the imperially sponsored text -- but are no
guide to what the original text may have been. Byzantine readings
increasingly contaminate (in the technical sense above) other manuscript
traditions. This is not to reject the Byzantine text entirely -- it seems to
go back to Antioch in the years around 300, just as the "Alexandrian" type of
text goes back to the same period, and it often preserves good readings. But
it also tends to have expansions and secondary "smoothing" of the text and
that is why it is devalued in current editorial practice. Theology has
nothing to do with this devaluation.
All of the papyrus witness before 300 shows that the text was NOT regarded
as something sacred, to be copied with extreme respect for every word or
every character -- there are lots of papyri that have the sort of "loose" copy
that results from a scribe writing what he remembers from reading a few
sentences of his exemplar, but with no concern to get every word right.
Nothing in the papyrus data suggests a theological bias (except in those few
papyri that turn out to be ancestral to the text of D, the Codex Bezae
Cantibrigensis that tended to throw Westcott and Hort off the track). And
the exemplars of the papyrus manuscripts may have come from anywhere --
there is no reason to suppose they represent some idiosyncratic Egyptian
tradition. In fact, the setting up of the Alexandrian catechetical school by
Clement in the early 3rd century marks the first entry of Egypt onto the
orthodox Christian stage (earlier, Egypt was mostly known for gnosticism;
that is in no way inferable from our extant NT papyri) and it is very probable
that texts were brought from all over the Christian world as the Egyptians
began to want copies of the orthodox books.
In short, there is no evidence but wishful thinking to support those who
want to restore the Textus Receptus to the place it had for 3 centuries or so
after Erasmus. It is *possible* that the Byzantine text is a more correct
recension of the original books of the NT, but all the probabilities stand
against it (and continuing manuscript discoveries tend generally to
vindicate the rules of critical editing worked out in the secular realm,
which are the basis for establishing probabilities in the NT text). To hold on
to the Textus Receptus is a statement that NO rational investigation of the
text is admissible. And yet we KNOW that texts, even sacred texts, are not
copied without error. That is, to dismiss ciritical scholarship (and with it
the GNT) is to dismiss any possibility of knowing what the NT authors
wrote. Which is hardly the goal of the advocates of the "Majority" text, yet
it is the inevitable result of their claim. Our "knowledge" remains, of
course, incomplete and probabilistic -- and that seems more than anything
what bothers the believers in a certain, "revealed" text. But if they remove
the text from human scholarship, they have also removed it from human
comprehension. And thereby they make sure that the Word of God speaks to
no one.
--
Michael L. Siemon This has been a century of semantic
...!cucard!dasys1!mls and semiotic nostrums; the century
of hermeneutical last-ditch stands.
-- Wayne C. Booth, _Rhetoric of Irony_