6
SOME POSSIBLE OBJECTIONS
Burgon recognized the "antecedent
probability" with these words:
The more ancient testimony is probably the better testimony. That it is
not by any means always so is a familiar fact. . . . But it remains true, notwithstanding, that until evidence has
been produced to the contrary in any particular instance, the more ancient of
two witnesses may reasonably be presumed to be the better informed witness.[1]
This a priori expectation seems to
have been elevated to a virtual certainty in the minds of many textual critics
of the past century. The basic ingredient in the work of men like Tregelles,
Tischendorf and Hort was a deference to the oldest MSS, and in this they
followed Lachmann.
The `best' attestation, so Lachmann maintained, is given by the oldest
witnesses. Taking his stand rigorously with the oldest, and disregarding the
whole of the recent evidence, he drew the consequences of Bengel's
observations. The material which Lachmann used could with advantage have been
increased; but the principle that the text of the New Testament, like that of
every other critical edition, must throughout be based upon the best available
evidence, was once and for all established by him.[2]
Note that Zuntz here clearly equates
"oldest" with "best." He evidently exemplifies what Oliver
has called "the growing belief that the oldest manuscripts contain the
most nearly original text." Oliver proceeds:
Some recent critics have returned to the earlier pattern of Tischendorf
and Westcott and Hort: to seek for the original text in the oldest MSS. Critics
earlier in the 20th century were highly critical of this 19th century practice.
The return has been motivated largely by the discovery of papyri which are
separated from the autographs by less than two centuries.[3]
But, the "contrary evidence" is
in hand. We have already seen that most significant variants had come into
being by the year 200, before the time of the earliest extant MSS, therefore.
The a priori
presumption in favor of age is nullified by the known existence of a variety of
deliberately altered texts in the second century: Each witness must be
evaluated on its own. As Colwell has so well put it, "the crucial question
for early as for late witnesses is still, 'WHERE DO THEY FIT INTO A PLAUSIBLE
RECONSTRUCTION OF THE HISTORY OF THE MANUSCRIPT TRADITION?'"[4]
It is generally agreed that all the
earliest MSS, the ones upon which our critical texts are based, come from
Egypt.
When
the textual critic looks more closely at his oldest manuscript materials, the
paucity of his resources is more fully realized. All the earliest witnesses,
papyrus or parchment, come from Egypt alone. Manuscripts produced in Egypt,
ranging between the third and fifth centuries, provide only a half-dozen
extensive witnesses (the Beatty Papyri, and the well-known uncials, Vaticanus,
Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus, Ephraem Syrus, and Freer Washington).[5] [To these the Bodmer Papyri must now be
added.]
But what are Egypt's claims upon our
confidence? And how wise is it to follow the witness of only one locale? Anyone
who finds the history of the text presented herein to be convincing will place
little confidence in the earliest MSS.
Quite apart from the history of the
transmission of the text, the earliest MSS bear their own condemnation on their
faces. P66 is widely considered to be the earliest
extensive manuscript. What of its quality? Again I borrow from Colwell's study
of P45, P66, and P75. Speaking of "the seriousness of intention of
the scribe and the peculiarities of his own basic method of copying," he
continues:
On
these last and most important matters, our three scribes are widely divided. P75 and P45 seriously intend to produce a good copy, but it is
hard to believe that this was the intention of P66. The nearly 200 nonsense readings and 400 itacistic
spellings in P66 are
evidence of something less than disciplined attention to the basic task. To
this evidence of carelessness must be added those singular readings whose
origin baffles speculation, readings that can be given no more exact label than
carelessness leading to assorted variant readings. A hurried count shows P45 with 20, P75 with 57, and P66 with 216 purely careless readings. As we have seen,
P66 has, in addition, more than twice as many
"leaps" from the same to the same as either of the others.[6]
Colwell's study took into account only
singular readings—readings with no other MS support. He found P66 to have 400 itacisms plus 482 other
singular readings, 40 percent of which are nonsensical.[7]
"P66
editorializes as he does everything else—in a sloppy fashion."[8] In short, P66 is a very poor copy and yet it is one of
the earliest!
P75 is placed close to P66 in date. Though not as bad as P66, it is scarcely a good copy. Colwell
found P75 to have about 145 itacisms plus 257 other
singular readings, 25 percent of which are nonsensical.[9] Although Colwell gives the scribe of P75 credit for having tried to produce a good
copy, P75 looks good only by comparison with P66. (If you were asked to write out the
Gospel of John by hand, would you make over 400 mistakes?[10] Try it and see!) It should be kept in
mind that the figures offered by Colwell deal only with errors which are the
exclusive property of the respective MSS. They doubtless contain many other
errors which happen to be found in some other witness(es) as well. In other
words, they are actually worse even than Colwell's figures indicate.
P45, though a little later in date, will be considered
next because it is the third member in Colwell's study. He found P45 to have approximately 90 itacisms plus
275 other singular readings, 10 percent of which are nonsensical.[11] However P45 is shorter than P66 (P75 is longer) and so is not comparatively so much
better as the figures might suggest at first glance. Colwell comments upon P45 as follows:
Another way of saying this is that when the scribe of P45 creates a singular reading, it almost
always makes sense; when the scribes of P66 and P75 create singular readings, they frequently do not
make sense and are obvious errors. Thus P45 must be given credit for a much greater density of
intentional changes than the other two.[12]
As
an editor the scribe of P45
wielded a sharp axe. The most striking aspect of his style is its conciseness.
The dispensable word is dispensed with. He omits adverbs, adjectives, nouns,
participles, verbs, personal pronouns—without any compensating habit of
addition. He frequently omits phrases and clauses. He prefers the simple to the
compound word. In short, he favors brevity. He shortens the text in at least
fifty places in singular
readings alone. But he does not drop syllables or letters.
His shortened text is readable.[13]
Of special significance is the possibility
of affirming with certainty that the scribe of P45 deliberately and extensively shortened the text.
Colwell credits him with having tried to produce a good copy. If by
"good" he means "readable," fine, but if by
"good" we mean a faithful reproduction of the original, then P45 is bad. Since P45 contains many deliberate alterations
it can only be called a "copy" with certain reservations.
P46 is thought by some to be as early as P66. Zuntz's study of this manuscript is
well-known. “In spite of its neat appearance (it was written by a professional
scribe and corrected—but very imperfectly—by an expert), P46 is by no means a good manuscript. The
scribe committed very many blunders . . . . My impression is that he was liable
to fits of exhaustion.”[14]
It should be remarked in passing that
Codex B is noted for its "neat appearance" also, but it should not be
assumed that therefore it must be a good copy. Zuntz says further: "P46 abounds with scribal blunders, omissions,
and also additions."[15]
. . . the scribe who wrote the papyrus did his work very badly. Of his
innumerable faults, only a fraction (less than one in ten) have been corrected
and even that fraction—as often happens in manuscripts—grows smaller and
smaller towards the end of the book. Whole pages have been left without any
correction, however greatly they were in need of it.[16]
Hoskier, also, has discussed the
"large number of omissions" which disfigure P46.[17] Again Zuntz says: “We have observed that,
for example, the scribe of P46 was careless and dull and produced a poor
representation of an excellent tradition. Nor can we ascribe the basic
excellence of this tradition to the manuscript from which P46 was copied (we shall see that it, too,
was faulty).”[18]
It is interesting to note that Zuntz feels
able to declare the parent
of P46 to be faulty also. But, that P46 represents an "excellent
tradition" is a gratuitous assertion, based on Hort's theory. What is
incontrovertible is that P46 as it
stands is a very poor copy—as Zuntz himself has emphatically stated.
Aland says concerning P47: "We need not mention the fact that
the oldest manuscript does not necessarily have the best text. P47 is, for example, by far the oldest of the
manuscripts containing the full or almost full text of the Apocalypse, but it
is certainly not the best."[19]
As to B and Aleph, we have already noted
Hoskier's statement that these two MSS disagree over 3,000 times in the space
of the four Gospels. Simple logic imposes the conclusion that one or the other
must be wrong over 3,000 times—that is, they have over 3,000 mistakes between
them. (If you were to write out the four Gospels by hand do you suppose you
could manage to make 3,000 mistakes, or 1,500?) Aleph and B disagree, on the average, in almost every verse of
the Gospels. Such a showing seriously undermines their credibility.
Burgon personally collated what in his day
were "the five old uncials" (À, A, B, C, D). Throughout his works he
repeatedly calls attention to the concordia discors, the prevailing confusion and
disagreement, which the early uncials display between themselves. Luke 11:2-4
offers one example.
"The five Old Uncials" (ÀABCD) falsify the Lord's Prayer as given
by St. Luke in no less than forty-five words. But so little do they agree among
themselves, that they throw themselves into six different combinations in their
departures from the Traditional Text; and yet they are never able to agree
among themselves as to one single various reading: while only once are more
than two of them observed to stand together, and their grand point of union is
no less than an omission of the article. Such is their eccentric tendency, that
in respect of thirty-two out of the whole forty-five words they bear in turn
solitary evidence.[20]
Mark 2:1-12 offers another example.
In the course of those 12 verses . . . there will be found to be 60
variations of reading. . . . Now, in
the present instance, the 'five old uncials' cannot be the depositories of
a tradition—whether Western or Eastern—because they render inconsistent
testimony in every
verse. It must further be admitted, (for this is really not a
question of opinion, but a plain matter of fact,) that it is unreasonable to
place confidence in such documents. What would be thought in a Court of Law of
five witnesses, called up 47 times for examination, who should be observed to
bear contradictory testimony every time?[21]
Hort, also, had occasion to notice an
instance of this concordia
discors. Commenting on the four places in Mark's Gospel (14:30,
68, 72a,b) where the cock's crowing is mentioned he said:"The confusion of
attestation introduced by these several cross currents of change is so great
that of the seven principal MSS ÀA B C D L D
no two have the same text in all four places."[22] He might also have said that in these
four places the seven uncials present themselves in twelve different combinations
(and only A and D agree together three times out of the
four).If we add W and Q the confusion remains the same except
that now there are thirteen combinations. Are such witnesses worthy of
credence?
Recalling Colwell's effort to reconstruct
an "Alexandrian" archetype for chapter one of Mark, either Codex B is
wrong 34 times in that one chapter or else a majority of the remaining primary
"Alexandrian" witnesses is wrong, and so for Aleph and L, etc.
Further, Kenyon admitted that B is "disfigured by many blunders in
transcription."[23] Scrivener said of B:
One
marked feature, characteristic of this copy, is the great number of its
omissions. . . . That no small portion of these are mere oversights of the
scribe seems evident from the circumstance that this same scribe has repeatedly
written words and clauses twice over, a class of mistakes which Mai and the
collators have seldom thought fit to notice, . . . but which by no means
enhances our estimate of the care employed in copying this venerable record of
primitive Christianity.[24]
Even Hort conceded that the scribe of B
"reached by no means a high standard of accuracy."[25]
Aleph is acknowledged on every side to be worse than B in every way.
Codex D is in a class by itself. Said
Scrivener:
The
internal character of the Codex Bezae is a most difficult and indeed an almost
inexhaustible theme. No known manuscript contains so many bold and extensive
interpolations (six hundred, it is said, in the Acts alone). . . . Mr. Harris from curious internal evidence,
such as the existence in the text of a vitiated rendering of a verse of Homer
which bears signs of having been retranslated from a Latin translation, infers
that the Greek has been made up from the Latin.[26]
Hort spoke of "the prodigious amount
of error which D contains."[27] Burgon concluded that D resembles a
Targum more than a transcription.[28]
If these are our best MSS we may as well
agree with those who insist that the recovery of the original wording is
impossible, and turn our minds to other pursuits. But the evidence indicates
that the earliest MSS are the worst. It is clear that the Church in general did
not propagate the sort of text found in the earliest MSS, which demonstrates
that they were not held in high esteem in their day.
Consider the so-called "Western"
text-type. In the Gospels it is represented by essentially one Greek MS, Codex
Bezae (D, 05), plus the Latin versions (sort of). So much so that for many
years no critical text has used a cover symbol for "Western". In
fact, K. and B. Aland now refer to it simply as the "D" text (their
designation is objective, at least). The Church universal simply refused to
copy or otherwise propagate that type of text. Nor can the Latin Vulgate
legitimately be claimed for the "Western" text—it is more
"Byzantine" than anything else (recall that it was translated in the
4th century).
Consider the so-called
"Alexandrian" text-type. In more recent times neither the UBS nor the
Nestle texts use a cover symbol for this "text" either (only for the
"Byzantine"). F. Wisse collated and analyzed 1,386 MSS for chapters
1, 10 and 20 of Luke.[29] On the basis of shared mosaics of
readings he was able to group the MSS into families, 15 "major"
groups and 22 lesser ones. One of the major ones he calls "Egyptian"
("Alexandrian")—it is made up of precisely four uncials and four
cursives, plus another two of each that are "Egyptian" in one of the
three chapters. Rounding up to ten, that makes ten out of 1,386—less than 1%!
Again, the Church universal simply refused
to copy or otherwise propagate that type of text. Codex B has no
"children". Codex Aleph has no "children"—in fact, it is so
bad that across the centuries something like 14 different people worked on it,
trying to fix it up (but no one copied it). Recall Colwell's study wherein he
tried to arrive at the archetype of the "Alexandrian" text in chapter
one of Mark on the basis of the 13 MSS presumed to represent that type of text.
They were so disparate that he discarded the seven "worst" ones and
then tried his experiment using the remaining six. Even then the results were
so bad—Codex B diverged from the mean text 34 times (just in one chapter)—that
Colwell threw up his hands and declared that such an archetype never existed.
If Colwell is correct then the "Alexandrian" text-type cannot
represent the Autograph. The Autograph is the ultimate archetype, and
it did indeed exist.
Consider one more detail. Zuntz says of
the scribe of P46: “Of
his innumerable faults, only a fraction (less than one in ten) have been
corrected and even that fraction—as often happens in manuscripts—grows smaller
and smaller towards the end of the book. Whole pages have been left without any
correction, however greatly they were in need of it.”[30]
A similar thing happens in P66. Why? Probably because the corrector lost
heart, gave up. Perhaps he saw that the transcription was so hopelessly bad
that no one would want to use it, even if he could patch it up. It should also
be noted that although many collations and discussions of MSS ignore errors of
spelling, to a person in the year 250 wishing to use a copy, for
devotional study or whatever, errors in spelling would be just as annoying and
distracting as more serious ones. A copy like P66, with roughly two mistakes per verse, would be set
aside in disgust.
Further, how could the early MSS survive
for 1,500 years if they had been used? (I have worn out several Bibles in my
short life.) Considering the relative difficulty of acquiring copies in those
days (expensive, done by hand) any worthy copy would have been used until it
wore out. Which brings us to the next possible objection.
Why would or should there be? To demand
that a MS survive for 1,500 years is in effect to require both that it have
remained unused and that it have been stored in Egypt (or Qumran). Even an
unused MS would require an arid climate to last so long.
But is either requirement reasonable?
Unless there were persons so rich as to be able to proliferate copies of the
Scriptures for their health or amusement, copies would be made on demand, in
order to be used.
As the use of Greek died out in Egypt the demand for Greek Scriptures would die
out too, so we should not expect to find many Greek MSS in Egypt.
It should not be assumed, however, that
the "Byzantine" text was not used in Egypt. Although none of the
early Papyri can reasonably be called "Byzantine", they each contain
"Byzantine" readings. The case of P66 is dramatic. The first hand was extensively
corrected, and both hands are dated around A.D. 200. The 1st hand is almost half "Byzantine" (a. 47%), but
the 2nd hand regularly changed "Byzantine" readings to "Alexandrian"
and vice versa, i.e. he changed "Alexandrian" to "Byzantine",
repeatedly. This means that they must have had two exemplars, one
"Alexandrian" and one "Byzantine"—between the two hands the
"Byzantine" text receives considerable attestation.
Consider the case of Codex B and P75; they are said to agree 82% of the time
(unprecedented for "Alexandrian" MSS, but rather poor for
"Byzantine"). But what about the 18% discrepancy? Most of the time,
when P75 and B disagree one or the other agrees
with the "Byzantine" reading. If they come from a common source, that
source would have been more "Byzantine" than either descendant. Even
the Coptic versions agree with the "Byzantine" text as often as not.
The study and conclusions of Lake, Blake,
and New, already discussed in a prior section, are of special interest here.
They looked for evidence of direct genealogy and found virtually none. I repeat
their conclusion.
. . . the manuscripts which we have are almost all orphan children
without brothers or sisters.
Taking
this fact into consideration along with the negative result of our collation of
MSS at Sinai, Patmos, and Jerusalem, it is hard to resist the conclusion that
the scribes usually destroyed their exemplars when they had copied the sacred
books.[31]
Is it unreasonable to suppose that once an
old MS became tattered and almost illegible in spots the faithful would make an
exact copy of it and then destroy it, rather than allowing it to suffer the
indignity of literally rotting away? What would such a practice do to our
chances of finding an early "Byzantine" MS? Anyone who objects to this conclusion must still account for the
fact that in three ancient monastic libraries equipped with scriptoria (rooms
designed to facilitate the faithful copying of MSS), there are only
"orphan children." Why are there no parents?!
Van Bruggen addresses the problem from a
slightly different direction. He says of the "Byzantine" text:
The fact that this text-form is known to us via later manuscripts is as
such no proof for a late text-type, but it does seem to become a proof when at
the same time a different text is found in all older manuscripts. The
combination of these two things seems to offer decisive proof for the late
origin of the traditional text.[32]
He answers the
"seeming proof" in the following way:
Let us make ourselves aware of what we have presupposed with this
seemingly convincing argumentation. What conditions must be satisfied if we
wish to award the prize to the older majuscules? While asking this question we
assumed wittingly or unwittingly that we were capable of making a fair
comparison between manuscripts in an earlier period and those in a later
period. After all, we can only arrive at positive statements if that is the
case. Imagine that someone said: in the Middle Ages mainly cathedrals were
built, but in modern times many small and plainer churches are being built.
This statement seems completely true when we today look around in the cities
and villages. Yet we are mistaken. An understandable mistake: many small
churches of the Middle Ages have disappeared, and usually only the cathedrals
were restored. Thus, a great historical falsification of perspective with
regard to the history of church-building arises. We are not able to make a
general assertion about church-building in the Middle Ages on the basis of the
surviving materials. If we would still dare to make such an assertion, then we
wrongly assumed that the surviving materials enabled us to make a fair
comparison. But how is the situation in the field of New Testament manuscripts?
Do we have a representative number of manuscripts from the first
centuries? Only if that is the case, do we have the right to make conclusions
and positive statements. Yet it is just at this point that difficulties arise.
The situation is even such that we know with certainty that we do not
possess a representative number of manuscripts from the first centuries.[33]
The conclusion of Lake, Blake, and New
reflects another consideration. The age of a manuscript must not be confused
with the age of the text it exhibits. Any copy, by definition, contains a text
that is older than it is. In Burgon's words, it "represents a MS, or a
pedigree of MSS, older than itself; and it is but fair to suppose that it
exercises such representation with tolerable accuracy."[34]
Van Bruggen discusses yet another relevant
consideration.
In
the codicology the great value of the transliteration process in the 9th
century and thereafter is recognized. At that time the most important New
Testament manuscripts written in majuscule script were carefully transcribed
into minuscule script. It is assumed that after this transliteration-process
the majuscule was taken out of circulation. . . . The import of this datum has
not been taken into account enough in the present New Testament textual
criticism. For it implies, that just the oldest, best and most customary
manuscripts come to us in the new uniform of the minuscule script, does it not?
This is even more cogent since it appears that various archetypes can be
detected in this transliteration-process for the New Testament. Therefore we do not receive one
mother-manuscript through the flood-gates of the transliteration, but several.
The originals have, however, disappeared! This throws a totally different light
on the situation that we are confronted with regarding the manuscripts. Why do
the surviving ancient manuscripts show another text-type? Because they are the
only survivors of their generation, and because their survival is due to the
fact that they were of a different kind. Even though one continues to maintain
that the copyists at the time of the transliteration handed down the wrong
text-type to the Middle Ages, one can still never prove this codicologically
with the remark that older majuscules have a different text. This would be
circular reasoning. There certainly were majuscules just as venerable and
ancient as the surviving Vaticanus or Sinaiticus, which, like a section of the
Alexandrinus, presented a Byzantine text. But they have been renewed into
minuscule script and their majuscule appearance has vanished. Historically it seems
as though the most ancient majuscule manuscripts exclusively contain a
non-Byzantine text, but the prespective [sic] is falsified here just like it is
regarding church-building in the Middle Ages and at present.[35]
The significance of the transliteration
process was explained by A. Dain as follows: "The transliterated copy,
carefully written and securely bound, became the reference point for the
subsequent tradition. The old papyrus and parchment exemplars that had been
copied, doubtless quite worn out, were of no further interest and were usually
discarded or destroyed."[36] Apparently there was an organized movement to "transliterate"
uncial MSS into minuscule form or script. Note that Dain agrees with Lake that
the "worn out" exemplars were then destroyed (some may have been
"recycled", becoming palimpsests).
What if those exemplars were ancient "Byzantine" uncials? Come
to think of it, they must have been since the cursives are “Byzantine”.
C.H. Roberts comments upon a practice of
early Christians that would have had a similar effect.
It was a Jewish habit both to preserve manuscripts by placing them in
jars . . . and also to dispose of defective, worn-out, or heretical scriptures
by burying them near a cemetery, not to preserve them but because anything that
might contain the name of God might not be destroyed. . . . It certainly looks
as if this institution of a morgue for sacred but unwanted manuscripts was
taken over from Judaism by the early Church.[37]
Note that the effect
of this practice in any but an arid climate would be the decomposition of the
MSS. If "Byzantine" exemplars, worn out through use, were disposed of
in this way (as seems likely), they would certainly perish. All of this reduces
our chances of finding really ancient "Byzantine" MSS. Nor is that
all.
There is a further consideration. “It is
historically certain that the text of the New Testament endured a very hard
time in the first centuries. Many good and official editions of the text were
confiscated and destroyed by the authorities during the time of the
persecutions.”[38]
Roberts refers to "the regular
requisition and destruction of books by the authorities at times of
persecution, so often recorded in the martyr acts."[39] Such official activity seems to have come
to a climax in Diocletian's campaign to destroy the New Testament manuscripts
around A.D. 300.
If there was any trauma in the history of
the normal transmission of the text, this was it; the more so since the
campaign evidently centered upon the Aegean area. Many MSS were found, or
betrayed, and burned, but others must have escaped. That many Christians would
have spared no effort to hide and preserve their copies of the Scriptures is demonstrated
by their attitude towards those who gave up their MSS—the Donatist schism that
immediately followed Diocletian's campaign partly hinged on the question of
punishment for those who had given up MSS. The Christians whose entire devotion
to the Scriptures was thus demonstrated would also be just the ones that would
be the most careful about the pedigree of their own MSS; just as they took
pains to protect their MSS they presumably would have taken pains to ensure
that their MSS preserved the true wording.
In fact, the campaign of Diocletian may
even have had a purifying effect upon the transmission of the text. If the
laxity of attitude toward the text reflected in the willingness of some to give
up their MSS also extended to the quality of text they were prepared to use,
then it may have been the more contaminated MSS that were destroyed, in the
main, leaving the purer MSS to replenish the earth.[40] But these surviving pure MSS would have
been in unusually heavy demand for copying (to replace those that had been
destroyed) and been worn out faster than normal.
In short, if the history of transmission
presented herein is valid we should not necessarily expect to find any early
"Byzantine" MSS. They would have been used and worn out. (But the
text they contained would be preserved by their descendants.) An analogy is
furnished by the fate of the Biblia Pauperum in the fifteenth century.
Of
all the Xylographic
works, that is, such as are printed from wooden blocks, the BIBLIA PAUPERUM
is perhaps the rarest, as well as the most ancient; it is a manual, or kind of
catechism of the Bible, for the use of young persons, and of the common people,
whence it derives its name,—Biblia Pauperum—the Bible of the Poor; who
were thus enabled to acquire, at a comparatively low price, an imperfect
knowledge of some of the events recorded in the Scriptures. Being much in use,
the few copies of it which are at present to be found in the libraries of the
curious are for the most part either mutilated or in bad condition. The extreme
rarity of this book, and the circumstances under which it was produced, concur
to impart a high degree of interest to it.[41]
Although it went
through five editions, presumably totaling thousands of copies, it was so
popular that the copies were worn out by use. I maintain that the same thing
happened to the ancient "Byzantine" MSS.
Adding to all this the discussion of the
quality of the earliest MSS, in the prior section, early age in a MS might well
arouse our suspicions—why did it survive? And that brings us to a third
possible objection.
Although Hort and Kenyon stated plainly
that no "Syrian readings" existed before, say, A.D. 250, their
present day followers have been obliged by the early papyri to retreat to the
weaker statement that it is all the readings together, the
"Byzantine" ("Syrian") text that had no early
existence. Ehrman states the position as baldly as anyone: "No early Greek
Father from anywhere in the early Christian world, no Latin nor Syriac Father,
and no early version of the New Testament gives evidence of the existence of
the Syrian text prior to the fourth century."[42]
This question has already received some
attention in Chapter 4, "'Syrian' Readings before Chrysostom," but K.
Aland offers us some fascinating new evidence. In "The Text of the
Church?" he offers a tabulation of patristic citations of the N.T.[43] The significance of the evidence is
somewhat obscured by the presentation, which seems to be a bit tendentious. The
turn of phrase is such as to lead the unwary reader to an exaggerated
impression of the evidence against the Majority Text. E.g., Origen is said to
be: "55% against the Majority text (30% of which show agreement with the
'Egyptian text'), 28% common to both texts, and 17% with the Majority
text." 55 + 28 + 17 = 100. The problem lies
with the "of which". In normal English the "of which"
refers to the 55% (not 100%); so we must calculate 30% of 55%, which gives us
16.5% (of the total). 55 minus 16.5 leaves 38.5% which is neither Egyptian nor
Majority, hence "other". I will chart the statistics unambiguously,
following this interpretation.
Egyptian both
Majority other # of
Father date alone E&M alone (-EM) pass.
Marcion (160?) 23%
10% 18%
49% 94
Irenaeus (d.202) 16%
16.5% 16.5% 51% 181
Clement Alex. (d.215) 13.5% 29% 15%
42.5% 161
Hippolytus (d.235) 14.5% 31% 19% 46.5% 33**
13.5% 18% 21% 43.5% 21
14.5%
18% 21% 46.5% 33
Origen (d.254) 16.5%
28% 17% 38.5% 459
Methodius (280?) 12.5%
31% 19%
37.5% 32
Adamantius (d.300) 11.5%
21% 31% 36.5% 29
Asterius (d.341)
--- 40% 50% 10% 30
Basil (d.379) 2.5% 39%
40% 18.5% 249
Apost. Const.
(380?) 3% 33% 41% 23% 46
Epiphanius (d.403) 11%
33% 41% 37% 114**
11%
30% 22%
37% 114
Chrysostom (d.407) 2%
38% 40.5%
19.5% 915
Severian (d.408)