Recent Unsubstantiated Critiques of the CBGM (Pastorelli and Alexanderson)

At the SNTS in Leuven last summer, David Pastorelli came up to me during a break and handed over an off-print of an article, "La mise en oeuvre de la cohérence prégénéalogique dans le cadre de la Coherence-Based Genealogical Method: évaluation critique," BABELAO 10-11 (2022): 169-188, in which he criticizes the Coherence-Based Genealogical Method making ample references to my and Peter Gurry's introduction to the method. When I read the article I just felt that it was so full of misunderstandings that I did not know where to begin. Unfortunately, Pastorelli has never participated in our text-critical seminar at SNTS, where we could have had a dialogue about his concerns.

In any case, Klaus Wachtel has now actually taken the time to offer a response to Pastorelli under the heading, "Selective Reading and Unsubstiantiated Criticism" on the INTF Blog, for which I am grateful. In the blogpost, Wachtel refers to one of the many unsubstantiated statements that Pastorelli cites in his article, namely a statement that he has drawn from Bengt Alexanderson's 2014 critique of the CBGM: "This is all arbitrary, a 'place of variation', a reading, a variant, a passage can be anything" (Pastorelli, 179).  

Many years ago I was asked by a Swedish journal to review Alexanderson's study. I wrote the review in Swedish (Swedish version here), but  I have now translated it below for our blog readers – it is another example of criticism against the CBGM which is totally off the mark. (The critique of the CBGM are in his chapters 3–4.)

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Review of Bengt Alexanderson, Problems in the New Testament: Old Manuscripts and Papyri, the New Genealogical Method (CBGM) and the Editio Critica Maior (ECM) (Acta Regiae Societatis Scientiarum et Litterarum Gothoburgensis. Humaniora 48). 146 pages. Kungl. Vetenskaps- och Vitterhets-Samhället i Göteborg 2014.

Bengt Alexanderson’s short study is divided into four chapters: (1) An analysis of textual variants in four of the oldest textual witnesses to the Gospel of John (P66, P75, Codices Sinaiticus and Vaticanus); (2) A survey of how Barbara Aland has analyzed early NT papyri in three studies; (3) A critical treatment of the Coherence-Based Genealogical Method (CBGM), developed by Gerd Mink of the Institut für neutestamentliche Textforschung in Münster and applied for the Editio Critica Maior (ECM) and, in extension, also Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece (from the 28^th edition and onwards); (4) An evaluation of the second edition of the Editio Critica Maior IV. Catholic Letters (“ECM2”).

Review of Falcetta’s Bio of J. Rendel Harris

The new issue of BBR has my review of Alessandro Falcetta’s The Daily Discoveries of a Bible Scholar and Manuscript Hunter: A Biography of James Rendel Harris. It’s an account thick with detail of a life marked by some remarkable adventures. The man survived not one but two German U-Boat attacks and “discovered” the Odes of Solomon in his own office!

One feature I wished for in the book was a bit more of Rendel’s own voice. Falcetta appears to have worked through all the personal correspondence and there were times I would have liked to hear them rather than Falcetta’s summary of them. One other thing I didn’t mention in the review is the extreme price. Thankfully, I noticed today that the publisher has put out a much more affordable paperback edition. It’s worth a read.

You can read the review here.

Review Article of A Critical Examination of the CBGM

The latest issue of TC is chock full of good-looking articles—none of which I’ve been able to read yet. This issue also has a lengthy review article from Andrew Smith dealing with my published dissertation on the CBGM. Andrew was very kind to send me a pre-pub copy. It’s a real honor to have something you worked so long and hard on taken seriously in a venue like this. So, my thanks to TC for publishing it and especially to Andrew for his detailed and careful interaction. Once I emerge from end-of-semester-and-new-baby fog, I might offer some response. In the meantime, let me again thank Andrew and commend the article to you. Here’s the conclusion.

In conclusion, the CBGM deserves the serious scrutiny of the scholarly community outside the INTF, and Gurry’s examination of the method is the first major published work to start the conversation. The strengths of this book include the introduction to the history and reception of the method, the descriptions of the method’s process, and the straightforward examples of using the method found in the first two-thirds of the book. Additionally, Gurry’s clarifications regarding the referent of Ausgangstext in the process of editing the ECM serve as a good reminder that the text-critical community needs to clearly state presuppositions when producing a critical text of the Greek New Testament. The testing of the method’s parameters in chapter four begins a welcome exploration that could have had a more meaningful impact if supported by statistical analysis; this is a general weakness in the humanities when analyzing data such as these. The final third of the book raises some good questions about the use and future of the method, though Gurry’s answers are not always satisfying. His analysis of the method draws attention to the differing opinions of scholars regarding the CBGM and history, especially what is meant by history in each context. Finally, looking to the future, Gurry provides some helpful recommendations for moving forward with the CBGM. Some of his suggestions are fundamentally at odds with the method itself but discussing these in detail will also move the discussion forward.

Update: the book can be purchased here in time for your white elephant parties. 

Barton on the Bible

John Barton, Oriel and Laing Emeritus Professor of the Interpretation of Holy Scripture at Oxford, has a new book out titled A History of the Bible: The Story of the World’s Most Influential Book. (The British subtitle is The Book and Its Faiths.) Barton has written on this before in How the Bible Came to Be (1998) and of course in his many other publications, but this book is more extensive and is aimed at a wide audience. Here’s the publisher’s info:

A literary history of our most influential book of all time, by an Oxford scholar and Anglican priest

In our culture, the Bible is monolithic: It is a collection of books that has been unchanged and unchallenged since the earliest days of the Christian church. The idea of the Bible as “Holy Scripture,” a non-negotiable authority straight from God, has prevailed in Western society for some time. And while it provides a firm foundation for centuries of Christian teaching, it denies the depth, variety, and richness of this fascinating text. In A History of the Bible, John Barton argues that the Bible is not a prescription to a complete, fixed religious system, but rather a product of a long and intriguing process, which has inspired Judaism and Christianity, but still does not describe the whole of either religion. Barton shows how the Bible is indeed an important source of religious insight for Jews and Christians alike, yet argues that it must be read in its historical context—from its beginnings in myth and folklore to its many interpretations throughout the centuries.

It is a book full of narratives, laws, proverbs, prophecies, poems, and letters, each with their own character and origin stories. Barton explains how and by whom these disparate pieces were written, how they were canonized (and which ones weren’t), and how they were assembled, disseminated, and interpreted around the world—and, importantly, to what effect. Ultimately, A History of the Bible argues that a thorough understanding of the history and context of its writing encourages religious communities to move away from the Bible’s literal wording—which is impossible to determine—and focus instead on the broader meanings of scripture.

Here is a clip chosen not at random from the section on NT textual criticism that I plucked from Amazon:

There are several thousand New Testament manuscripts from the first few centuries CE [!], from early papyrus fragments to the great elaborate fourth-century manuscripts such as Codex Sinaiticus. As well as manuscripts in Greek, the original language of the New Testament writers, there are many of translations into other languages, including even languages of northern Europe such as Gothic (see Chapter 18). The work of New Testament textual critics is painstaking and difficult, and earlier attempts to establish ‘the original text’ of any book have now largely been set aside in favour of tracing the history of different manuscript ‘families’, and so establishing various parallel traditions as to what, in detail, the books contain.

Thus there is not, and never can be, a text of ‘the New Testament’ as it left the hands of Paul, Luke or John: we have only variants. The implications of this for theories of the inspiration and authority of the New Testament have scarcely begun to be worked out. Where the words of Jesus are concerned, for example, we often know only roughly what he is supposed to have said (and whether he really said it is of course yet a further question). (pp. 285–286)

The British cover

From this you probably get a good sense of where Barton is coming from. I’ve had our library order a copy. But until then I’ll leave you with two more quotes from reviews of quite opposite persuasion. The first is from Julian Coman in the Guardian who is quite taken with the book and closes with this:

Along with the evident conviction that this marvellous “melee of materials” deserved fresh treatment beyond the absurdities of Da Vinci Code-style fantasies (conspiracy theories about the Bible’s compilation are well and truly laid to rest), it is this desire to free the Bible from overzealous interpreters that sums up Barton’s intellectual project. Asserting a perfect fit between scripture and the faiths of either Judaism or Christianity means doing violence to a set of texts that are open, mutually contradictory, historically situated, utterly diverse in genre and all the more suggestive for that.

Fundamentalists will not be queuing up to up to buy A History of the Bible: the Book and its Faiths. But for believers of a more open disposition, and non-believing lovers of great literature, reading it will be a revelation and a delight.

The second review is by another Barton, Barton Swaim in today’s Wall St. Journal, which closes with this:

Like many biblical scholars of a more “liberal” disposition, Mr. Barton wants to find a path between revering the Bible as in some sense a genuine revelation of God and dismissing it as a collection of ancient delusions. The evidence makes that middle path a hard one to travel. … John Barton’s reluctant, lukewarm “admiration” for the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures will impress some readers as perfectly respectable. But surely the Bible—a book that has outraged, captivated and upended greater minds than his—demands a more decided response.

Paulson Review of THGNT

I’m driving cross country today but, through the magic of Blogger, here is a review of the THGNT from Greg Paulson for you. Here’s the conclusion:

In spite of these lingering queries, there is no doubt that the THGNT possesses many quintessential hallmarks of a hand-sized critical edition. The edition, which boasts high quality collaboration among some of the discipline’s foremost text-critics and scholars, is a most welcome addition to the market. The apparatus cites pertinent manuscripts to elucidate the editors’ decision-making process and includes other editorial features that greatly assist the reading experience, such as paragraphing, accents, and breathing marks. In sum, the editors have achieved their goal of creating an edition that is easy to use. They have removed some of the cumbersome barriers of other critical editions and offered a stream-lined approach to delving into the text—even though users will have to get accustomed to the edition’s distinctive aspects like its orthography and an alternate order of books. The edition’s sleek page design, void of cross-references and other marginal features, containing a minimal apparatus and simple paragraphing, seem especially advantageous for those who want to read through the Greek text with as few distractions as possible—and for that purpose, it is heartily recommended

New Review of THGNT

In the latest Puritan Reformed Journal, Jeffrey Riddle has a review of the THGNT which he has uploaded to Academia. I believe Jeff is a proponent of either the Majority Text or the Received Text (not sure which exactly) and that pokes through at various points, notably in this latest sentence: “Despite all the scholarly erudition reflected in this work, however, the question remains as to whether modern text critical methodology will ever be able to offer a scholarly approximation of the text.” It’s pretty clear that Jeff’s answer to that question would be no. But the review is quite fair and evenhanded. For more on his view of the THGNT, he has a podcast episode on it here.

I’ll leave you with this snippet:

In the final analysis, the THGNT is a visually attractive printed edition of the Greek New Testament. It is inspired by the text-critical approach of Tregelles and focuses on the earliest extant Greek manuscripts of the New Testament (papyri and uncials). It reflects the modern “reconstructionist” method of text criticism, which emerged in the nineteenth century and eventually led to the toppling of the Textus Receptus as the standard text among most Protestants including evangelicals. It also departs at points, however, from the current trends manifest in the application of the Coherence-Based Genealogical Method (CBGM) in the Editio Critica Maior and in the most recent critical handbooks produced by the Institute für Neutestamentliche Textforschung in Münster and the United Bible Societies. As noted, this reflects an effort “to constrain editorial choice” as “a check on editorial fallibility and eccentricity” (505) and appears to be in keeping with a long history of both Anglo adaptation and dissent from German higher criticism.

I don’t know if Dirk and the Petes saw themselves as dissenting from German higher criticism or not, but there we are.

The Biblical Canon Lists Reviewed by Lee Martin McDonald in RBL

Reviews of The Biblical Canon Lists from Early Christianity keep coming out. See the earlier ones from Reading Religion and JETS
respectively. Last week, Review of Biblical Literature published Lee Martin McDonald’s (long-time canon scholar and recent author of The Formation of the Biblical Canon) musings on the book.

He provides a great summary of the work, a few items for Ed and me to think about in the event of expanding the work in the future (e.g. more comment about the texts of the books in these lists such as forms of Mark’s gospel or forms of Jeremiah et al.), a few disagreements with us  (e.g. whether Melito refers to Wisdom or not), and a strong recommendation for the book. You can read the whole review here [PDF]. McDonald concludes his review as follows:

Gallagher and Meade are also to be commended for their frequent use of the words “possibly” and “may be” when the evidence in their sources is not as clear as they would hope. I also want to commend them for their irenic position toward all those with whom they disagree without demeaning either the scholars or their positions. They have produced a superb volume with a wealth of information about canon formation that cannot be ignored in all future investigations of this topic. They have produced what I think may well remain the standard volume on canon lists that scholars and students alike will appreciate for years to come. I heartily recommend this impressive volume.

Thanks for a gracious and helpful review, Professor McDonald!

Kruger on Ehrman’s Latest

Over at the Gospel Coalition, Mike Kruger has a review of Bart Ehrman’s latest book. It’s another popular volume, this one on why Christianity spread so quickly, a topic Kruger and his Doktorvater have recently published on as well. The surprising thing here? Kruger likes the book and says it’s an important resource.

Here’s the conclusion.

Ehrman has written an intriguing, helpful, and well-balanced volume exploring the development, and eventual dominance, of early Christianity.

Certainly there are areas were I, and others, would disagree—for example, on the treatment of miracles, analysis of martyrdom, and the role of tolerance and intolerance. But this volume is a refreshing shift away from the tone of some of Ehrman’s earlier volumes that seemed more polemical and critical in their assessment of early Christianity. Indeed, as a whole this is an enjoyable read that is clear, insightful, and well-written.

Thus, Ehrman’s volume will be an important addition to any reading list exploring the emergence of Christianity in the first four centuries.

How about that.

Initial thoughts on the Tyndale House Greek New Testament

Dan Wallace, Larry Hurtado, James Snapp, Todd Scacewater, and Brice Jones have all given us their first impressions on the Tyndale House Greek New Testament (THGNT) and, since I have now had some time to look over my gratis copy, I thought I would share some of mine.



Since I was able to see the final stages of the edition up close and personal, I cannot feign neutrality—I am an unashamed supporter of the effort, the editors, and (mostly) of the results. For what they’re worth, here are some of my initial reflections on the edition.

• The most important distinctive of the edition is its documentary approach which aims to follow early manuscripts as much as was feasible. This is most obvious in the paragraphing and the textual choices but also in more subtle details of orthography. In terms of establishing the text, this approach means that only readings attested by at least two witnesses are printed and one of them (except in Revelation) must be from before the sixth century (p. 506). Within this documentary constraint, the editors gave special weight to matters of scribal tendencies. Where a variant could be explained transcriptionally, it was and was thereby set aside. The strict constraint bears some unexpected similarity to the Byzantine priority method of Maurice Robinson and William Pierpont. The difference is that here early external evidence sets the boundaries whereas in the Byzantine priority approach, late evidence plays that distinctive role. The result is that neither method is open to rejecting their take on external evidence where the internal evidence strongly goes against it. For examples, consider ὀνόματι vs. μέρει in 1 Pet 4.16 in THGNT and ἐπηγγείλατο vs. ἐπηγγείλατο ὁ κύριος in Jas 1.12 for Robinson-Pierpont. In both cases, strong internal evidence gives way to the editors’ external constraints.



The THGNT hardcover is
just slightly taller than NA28.

• The editors passed on printing nomina sacra in the main text though they do occasionally show up in the apparatus (e.g., Rom 8.34). This was because there was not time for a systematic review. While the nomina sacra would trip up beginning Greek readers, I think they would be great to have a in a printed edition. The trick, of course, will be deciding which nomina sacra to use and where. But its the same issue that faced the editors with the next matter of formatting so, I suppose, there is cause for hope for the future.
• The paragraphing too has been drawn from the early manuscripts as much as possible. The editors only present a new paragraph where such is found in at least two pre-sixth-century manuscripts. Unfortunately, it is not clear from the edition itself which manuscripts these come from in any given case. How did the editors decide when two such manuscripts disagreed with two others? We are not told. This problem aside, I find the paragraphing to be one of my favorite features of the new edition. The amount of paragraphing is really quite surprising, especially in the Gospels. But even outside, the breaks will surprise many of us who are accustomed to reading, say, Romans in a certain way (note, for example, the non-break at Rom 3.21). One curiosity on this front is how often the THGNT’s paragraphs match the versification. So far, I’ve only spotted a small handful of places where a new paragraph does not line up with a new verse (e.g., Gal 4.12b).
• Orthography is another major area of distinction as far as presentation goes (see Pete’s various posts). Much effort has clearly gone into matters of spelling here, so much that I think it is safe to say that no edition since WH has done more. Certainly, none that I can think of has been more transparent about it. Capitalization is kept to a minimum such that even χριστος is given a lowercase. However, I do question the decision to use uppercase letters at the start of paragraphs. Would doing otherwise really be a “stumbling block” (p. 511) to readers? I would think that the other changes introduced to the paragraphing (their frequency and ekthesis) are different enough, that it would be a small thing to also give way to the habit of capitalizing them too. There is also no distinction given to text cited from the Old Testament. I must say, this is one place I wish the edition had followed the early manuscripts more than it does. It seems to me that this is a perfect place to introduce the common use of the diple symbol to mark such quotations. Couldn’t that be handled in the same way as paragraphing? Perhaps something else for a 2nd edition. 
• The apparatus is small and unencumbered. I cannot say I am happy that the versional evidence was excluded or that it seems to have played such a minor role in the editorial decisions (p. 507). But one thing I really like about the apparatus is that it gives much more detail about legibility. For instance, P75 is not merely marked with “vid” at John 13.10, but what appears to be in P75 is also listed as νι[ψ]α̣σ̣θ̣αι. This extra detail is quite nice to have in an appratus.
• The order of books is a pleasant change. The editors have printed the Catholic Letters before Paul’s but have placed Hebrews at the end of the latter section. I am happy to see from the ECM for Acts that it too is moving this direction. Perhaps the NA29/UBS6 will adopt the same?
• The type used in printing Greek New Testaments is one of my pet interests and I was very pleased with the use of Adobe Text here. Some letter shapes (like alpha) grate just slightly but, on the whole, it is a clean, crisp face that is a pleasure to read. I should confess that I campaigned several times for the use of Porson Greek given its Cambridge roots. But, alas, I failed to convince. Mostly I am just glad they did not settle for Times New Roman’s Greek. Unfortunately, it seems impossible to avoid Times New Roman altogether and here it managed to sneak itself into the edition in the book titles and the running heads.

These are some initial impressions, then. Overall, the edition is refreshing in its visual simplicity and some of the novelties such as paragraphing are a nice change. I will still use my NA, of course, for serious work but I expect to be reading the THGNT devotionally in 2018 and perhaps as my new church NT.

With only a few exceptions, the THGNT is set in Adobe Type throughout.

Reviews of Lin’s Erotic Life of Manuscripts

Sometime in the spring while my head was still in boxes, BBR published my review of Yii-Jan Lin’s provocatively titled book The Erotic Life of Manuscripts: New Testament Textual Criticism and the Biological Sciences (Oxford, 2016). I must say that I did not expect to like the book when I first picked it up but the more I read the more it grew on me. There were still some problems and some... weirdness (cyborgs, anyone?), but overall I found it a helpful exercise to step back and consider the conceptual metaphors we use in the discipline. Lin admits up front that she is an outsider and occasionally it shows. But, on the whole, her outsider perspective was more benefit than liability. 

Here is my conclusion:

In the end, what is most enduring and helpful about Lin’s book is not its particular conclusions (will any be taken with her “cyborg” textual model?), but its method of interrogating past practitioners to see how their categories of thought have shaped their work. In that the work succeeds admirably and should generate a good deal more self-awareness on the part of textual scholars.

Read the rest here. For another review, see Hugh Houghton’s in BMCR.

Tischendorf’s ‘Wounded Vanity’?

In 1858, Hort reviewed the latest editions of both Tischendorf and Tregelles. He was much more positive about the latter than the former. In closing, he says this about Tischendorf:

Both editors in fact deserve the praise of conscientiousness in their actual work. But Tischendorf is becoming less careful than he used to be. We must add that the merits of his labours would be at least equally appreciated by duly qualified judges, if he were less given to proclaiming them himself. Even his title-page deserves reprobation: what he calls his seventh is to all intents and purposes his third edition: he has presumed far on his readers’ ignorance in reckoning his two Paris editions, which we should have thought he would have been only too glad to have forgotten. His old ungenerousness to every other editor is worse than ever: such an absurd effusion of wounded vanity and spite against his friend Dr Tregelles as he has prefixed to his third number will do him no good in the eyes of candid men.*

Now, in my experience, the British have a noticeable distaste for anything much beyond self-effacement. But this still seems a bit harsh from Hort. I’d like to hear from readers who have read more of Tischendorf than me: Is there some truth to what Hort says here or is he being unfair?

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*F. J. A. Hort, “Notices of New Books,” The Journal of Classical and Sacred Philology, 4 (1858): 201–211 (211).

Hort’s Review of Burgon’s Last Twelve Verses

In 1871, F. J. A. Hort wrote a short review of Dean Burgon’s well-known defense of the longer ending of Mark in The Last Twelve Verses of St. Mark. The review itself isn’t especially noteworthy. Hort found himself unconvinced and unimpressed by Burgon’s case. Burgon was no fan of Hort’s text critical work either, of course.

What is a bit more interesting is that Hort wrote his review just before the committee of the Revised Version was set to meet in Westminster to discuss this very text. So Hort must have gone into the meeting with the issues fresh on his mind. Here is what Hort wrote to Westcott about the review.

To the Rev. Dr. Westcott
St Ippolyts, All Saints’ Eve [Tuesday, October 31], 1871

Mr Burgon, aided by various interruptions, has swallowed up two precious days:—not more, I hope. I send you the result for correction or approval. I want to send it to Cheyne as early as possible, hoping that it may be in the Academy of the 15th, which will appear just when we are discussing Mark xvi.9–20 at Westminster. If you have not seen the book, you will still be able to judge on most points. Even the brief statement of principle may be useful. It was useless to attempt particulars without more space, and I have already transgressed. Is not what little I have said about Mr Burgon’s style necessary? It was difficult not to say much more. The point about + τέλος + is very curious and deserves further working.

Here is the review that was published in The Academy the same year (vol 2, pp. 518-519):

A Bounty of Text Critical Reviews in the Latest NovT

Roughly the number of books
J. K. Elliott reviews in a year.

Here is a list of what is reviewed in the latest issue of Novum Testamentum with some snippets that caught my eye. All but one of these are reviewed by J. K. Elliott with his characteristic flare for spotting misstatements and typos.

(In the spirit of the latter, I might mention that the ECM for the Catholic Epistles does not restrict itself to manuscripts from before A.D. 1000 as claimed on p. 420. Rather it gives evidence for the transmission history up to A.D. 1000 but it does so using many manuscripts from well after that cut off.)

Anyway, enjoy!

Marcus Sigismund, Martin Karrer and Ulrich Schmid (eds.) Studien zum Text der Apokalypse (Berlin and Boston: de Gruyter, 2015)

This rich array of well-documented facts and figures in the volume makes it a worthy research tool to sit along other long-lasting volumes in this prestige series. We congratulate Martin Karrer, his Mitarbeiter and other colleagues for their steadfast progress towards the goal of publishing the definitive 21st-century edition of Revelation.

J.K. Elliott, A Bibliography of Greek New Testament Manuscripts. Third Edition. Supplements to Novum Testamentum 160.

Information about manuscript families is missing from the third edition. There are no longer cross-references to 07 or 041 for manuscripts which are treated in studies of Family E or Family Π. Even though Family 1 and Family 13 have separate entries at the beginning of the section on Minuscules, the list of members is now absent: similarly, the indication has been dropped from the entries for manuscripts such as 118, 131, 205 and 209 that they also feature in publications on the whole family. No doubt this can quickly be put right in the electronic version, but those who prefer printed books will once again have to return to the second edition.

Warfield’s Review of Westcott & Hort

Princeton Seminary has put their old journals online. These go back to 1825 with the Biblical Repertory. There are plenty of essays from the bright lights of Old Princeton. Among the articles is Warfield’s 32-page (!) review of Westcott and Hort’s GNT.

The PDF is available at https://commons.ptsem.edu/id/presbyterianrevi3101unse-dmd007. Here’s a great diagram offered as an illustration of WH’s genealogy of the NT text (p. 340):

Update

Yesterday I also came across some of Warfield’s reviews of Burgon, Scrivener, Kenyon, and a few others. These are from a 1932 reprint. You can download them here.

New Article and Reviews in TC: A Journal of Biblical Textual Criticism

One new article by John Granger Cook and a number of new reviews have appeared in the current issue of TC: A Journal of Biblical Textual Criticism 20 (2015).

More to come soon!

New article

John Granger Cook, Julian’s Contra Galilaeos and Cyril’s Contra Iulianum: Two Witnesses to the Short Ending of Mark

Abstract: A Syriac MS (British Museum Add. 17214, fol. 65a–65b) preserves an excerpt from Julian’s Contra Galilaeos and Cyril’s response (the Contra Iulianum), which indicates that both authors either did not know the longer ending of Mark (16:9–20) or regarded it as spurious. The evidence has apparently been overlooked in studies of the longer ending of Mark. If the argument is sound, then Julian should be added to the apparatus criticus of Mark as a witness to the short ending (16:8). Cyril should be reevaluated as a patristic father who probably knew MSS that omitted the longer ending, but, unlike Jerome and Eusebius, did not assert that fact about the MSS in the surviving text.

New reviews

W. Andrew Smith, A Study of the Gospels in Codex Alexandrinus: Codicology, Palaeography, and Scribal Habits (Thomas J. Kraus, reviewer)

Lincoln H. Blumell, Lettered Christians: Christians, Letters, and Late Antique Oxyrhynchus (Malcolm Choat, reviewer)

Falluomini on The Gothic Version of the Gospels and the Pauline Epistles

I have just received Carla Falluomini’s fine monograph on The Gothic Version of the Gospels and the Pauline Epistles: Cultural Background, Transmission and Character published by De Gruyter in the ANTF series (vol. 46), edited by D. C. Parker and Holger Strutwolf.

In the first chapter, “Wulfila and his context,” Falluomini re-examines the historical and cultural context of the Gothic version. She concludes that “the territories in which Wulfila lived, north and south of the Lower Danube, were characterised by the coexistence of several cultures and languages” which is reflected in “Wulfila’s triangual education, in his alphabet devised on the basis of Greek and Latin letters and runes, and in the vocabulary of his version, which includes Greek and Latin terms.” The Behind his translation lay both a missionary purpose, as well as an attempt to elevate Gothic to the rank of other languages, which in extension would reinforce the ethnic and religious identity of his people from the mid-fourth century and later.

The second chapter deals with the witnesses to the version. For the Gospels: Codex Argenteus, the Ambrosianus C, the Gissensis; For the Pauline Epistles (excl. Hebrews): Codex Carolinus, Ambrosianus A+ and Ambrosianus B. In addition, a few other witnesses testify to the circulation and usage of the version:  the tablet of Hács-Béndekpuszta (now lost), the recently discovered Codex Bononiensis (see our earlier reports here and here), the Gotica Vindobonensia in Gothic script and the Gotica Parisina in Latin script.

Falluomini concludes that Codex Argenteus is an example of a high class of book production (indeed, Sweden’s foremost book treasure). The elegant bilingual Carolinus and Gissensis are less accurate in their writing, but, nevertheless, are also the products of well organized scriptoria. Argenteus, Carolinus and Ambrosianus A+ share a number of paleographical innovations. Falluomini thinks Ravenna is the most probable place for their production.

The codicological analysis in chapter three shows, among other things, that the Gothic MSS were used in liturgy. On the other hand, the existence of glossed MSS (Argenteus and Ambrosianus A+) indicates that the biblical text was also read and used outside of liturgical contexts (this is mentioned in ch. 2). Further, Falluomini identifies a close relationship between Gothic and Latin scribes, suggesting that there were scriptoria “where Goths and Romans worked side by side.”

The fourth chapter deals with linguistic and stylistic features. First of all, the Gothic version is very literal, following a Greek (lost) Vorlage. Thus, it is often possible to determine the underlying Greek text; a good thing for textual criticism. At the same time, Wulfila tried to be intelligible to his audience. However, some of his loan words or creations may have been difficult to understand for the Goths, but they “may have found a kind of justification in the aura of mystery surrounding the new cult.” It is also possible, Falluomini adds, that the translation formed a Sondersprache which was different lexically and syntactically from the common Gothic language. The presence of glosses in Gothic MSS may reflect that some words were obsolete. On the other hand, the sixth century Codex Bononiensis, probably part of a sermon or liturgical prayer, contains citations from the Gothic version suggesting that the Wulfilian Gothic was understood and in use.

In the fifth chapter, the author discusses the Greek Vorlage and the Gothic textual transmission. A large part of this chapter reviews the history of research in this area. The Gothic text agrees primarily with the Byzantine text type. Some readings, however, agree with the “Western” or Alexandrian texts. The “Western” readings may either have been present in Wulfila’s Greek Vorlage, or, as the dominant theory suggests, they entered into the version during its transmission through a revision on the basis of the Latin version(s). The role of the Latin version(s) in the Gothic transmission is a complex problem. Falluomini discusses three possibilities: (1) Wulfila used a Latin model in addition to a Greek Vorlage; (2) the Gothic text underwent a double process of Latinisation (first at the time of translation, and subsequently in the west during the copying of Gothic MSS; (3) the original translation was subject to Latin influence only in the western milieu.

Falluomini rejects the hypothesis that all the non-Byzantine readings are post-Wulfilian. However, some changes did occur in the subsequent transmission, typical to scribal activity (rather than redaction): additions/omissions of words, insertion of marginal annotations and harmonisation to parallel passages. Further, she concludes that there is nothing that contradicts the possibility that Wulfila used a Latin exemplar in addition to the Greek Vorlage, “as an aid to render some difficult expressions of the Greek text, particularly in the Epistles.”

In the sixth chapter, the author goes on to discuss the readings of the Gothic version in relation to the Byzantine text and offers her own textual analysis . If the Byzantine text is seen as a slowly developing tradition (faster in the Gospels than in the Pauline Epistles), then the non-Byzantine readings of the Gothic versions may be interpreted as conservative elements “reflecting a mid-fourth century Greek text in which the process of standardization was still far away.” This is an important conclusion which has implications for the future study of the Byzantine text.

Among other things, Falluomini’s textual analysis lists 44/116 (38%) non-Byzantine readings in Matthew and 147/335 (44%) non-Byzantine readings in John. The greatest part of these readings are shared with “Western” witnesses. On the other hand, only 8/116 (7%) of the readings in Matthew and 19/335 (6%) of the readings in John are supported exlusively by “Western” witnesses. In Romans there are 63/120 (53%) non-Byzantine readings and 40/82 (49%) in Galatians. Further, there are 14/120 (12%) readings in Romans attested only by “Western” witnesses, and 17/82 (21%) in Galatians.

Falluomini suggests that the following readings can be attributed to Wulfila: (1) readings supported by Byzantine MSS; (2) non-Byzantine readings which are not “Western” (and therefore not suspected to reflect Latinisation); (3) non-Byzantine readings supported not only by “Western” witnesses. Thus, doubts remain when Gothic readings agree only with Latin witnesses, with or without the support of Greek “Western” witnesses (D F G). Further, she concludes that, since the Gothic version is so literal, it is particularly valuable for tracing the history of the oldest stage of the Byzantine text.

There are two appendices. Appendix I lists all significant readings of the Gothic Gospels of Matthew and John, and in Romans and Galatians. Appendix II contains a table of the main codicological features of the Gothic MSS; information about the Long Ending of Mark; and a transcription of the so-called praefatio to the Codex Brixianus.

The author is to be congratulated for this fine work!

Lunn on the End of Mark. Part 3

For the introduction to this book and review series, see my previous posts: Part 1, Part 2.
 
N.P. Lunn, The Original Ending of Mark: A New Case for the Authenticity of Mark 16:9-20 (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2014).

Ch. 2 External Evidence (1): Biblical Manuscripts

Broadly speaking, in this chapter, Lunn argues that the absence of 16.9-20 is ‘a fairly localized textual variant which had no earlier explicit witness before the fourth century’. Of course, the latter is true, but the question of localisation is rather more complicated and not adequately addressed. The impression throughout the whole chapter is that Lunn’s knowledge of the actual manuscripts is mediated almost totally through other secondary literature. On a couple of points this becomes very problematic. I am not going to be able to address every point in this chapter, but I will try to touch on the main points.

An initial problem is that although Lunn notes and lists five alternative ending forms for Mark (p. 22), he declines to address three of these (the Freer interpolation, the shorter ending on its own, the shorter ending with the longer ending) on the grounds that they are obviously not the original ending of Mark (p. 23). This is true, but they all are of value in illustrating the history of the textual tradition. Just to take one example, L 019 (image here from VMR), it is clear that no one could read this manuscript without thinking there were some problems here with the ending of Mark. And the manuscripts which preserve both the short ending and the long ending may plausibly be regarded as a witness to the shorter form of the text in the prior transmission history of these texts. But none of this is even mentioned - attempts to simplify a complex situation are not always reasonable. It is interesting that in the conclusion to the chapter Lunn writes ‘the textual issue relating to the end of Mark does not have the complexity which it is often claimed to have’ (p. 60), but this is because he has imposed a simplicity by not really listening to all the relevant data.

In relation to the external witnesses supporting the inclusion of 16.9-20 Lunn rightly notes, what everyone knows, that the numerical advantage is overwhelmingly with Greek manuscripts, versions, and Fathers attesting these verses (p. 24f).

In relation to Codex Vaticanus, Lunn barely notices the actual ending of Mark, urging that ‘the phenomenon most relevant regarding the ending of Mark in Vaticanus is the presence of a blank column following the close of this Gospel’ (p. 28). This is clearly wrong. The phenomenon most relevant regarding the ending of Mark in Vaticanus is the absolutely clear ending of the text at 16.8. Of course the blank column is interesting and unusual and intriguing, but the confidence with which a blank space is interpreted in the direction of the overall thesis, is unwarranted.We shall see throughout the book that ambiguities and absences are always interpreted, without sufficient rigour, in support of the overall thesis.

In relation to Codex Sinaiticus, Lunn suggests (following Williams) that the particular form of the wavy coronis at the end of Mark suggests that the since the scribe so definitely wanted to indicate that the gospel of Mark was finished that he must have known about the long ending. Here is a hermeneutic of suspicion indeed. It makes no sense to over-interpret blank spaces and scribal doodles.

So both Sinaiticus and Vaticanus should be taken as witnesses for ‘the prior existence of the longer ending’ (p. 33) - although why it should be 16.9-20 is not made clear. 

In relation to the numerous minuscule manuscripts which include either a marginal note, or a heading, or in some other way indicates that 16.9-20 are disputed or doubtful, Lunn takes the view that while these notes acknowledge the existence of earlier witnesses lacking 16.9-20, by and large they affirm the text, and so copy it. There is a place for a detailed study of these, but this isn’t it, and Lunn hasn’t done any first hand work on the manuscripts (Snapp is far better on this). I limit myself to two comments. Firstly, that Lunn does not, in my opinion, give a balanced presentation of the whole of the evidence, e.g. re ms 1: it is hardly fair to call its introduction to 16.9-20 ‘a marginal note’; nor can it be true that ‘nothing suggests spuriousness’, since it explicitly appeals to the support of Eusebius and to other manuscripts for the gospel as having ended at v8. For an image try here. Secondly, Lunn lacks nuance in interpreting the notes and signs that do exist (it is interesting to see him dispute the clarity of interpreting an obelus on the grounds of lack of explicit indication of what the sign meant - something that hadn’t hindered his interpretation of the end of Mark in Sinaiticus!). The larger point is that these manuscripts (and as well L PSI 099 0112 etc. which have the short and long ending) resist the conclusion that Lunn is aiming for - that the absence of 16.9-20 is an isolated and idiosyncratic textual tradition. They also show that simply to say that 16.9-20 is attested in a manuscript, is not the same thing as saying that 16.9-20 is presented as unambiguously the ending of Mark in continuity with 16.8.

In relation to the Versions Lunn obviously has to cope with the problem that the oldest Old Latin manuscript, the oldest Syriac manuscript, the oldest Sahidic manuscript, alongside the oldest Armenian and Georgian manuscripts all lack 16.9-20. His general view is simply to contrast in each case the one earliest witness with the many others, admit that there is a problem, and move on.

In general, throughout the chapter, the argument is basically a discussion of the way other secondary sources discuss the primary evidence. The conclusion, that Vaticanus and Sinaiticus stand isolated, is not sustained by the argument.

Book Review: The Gospel of Mark in the Syriac Harklean Version (2015)

Samer Soreshow Yohanna. The Gospel of Mark in the Syriac Harklean Version: An Edition Based upon the Earliest Witnesses. Biblica et Orientalia 52. Rome: Gregorian & Biblical Press, 2015. xi + 196. €48 (hardback); £5.75 (e-book)

“No other branch of the church has given so much effort to spread and to accurately transmit the Gospel. From the hills of Lebanon and Kurdistan, from the Mesopotamian plains and the coast of Malabar, even from faraway China, Syriac manuscripts that are valuable for textual criticism have come to the European libraries.” —Eberhard Nestle

1. Background

The Syriac speaking church has left us one of the richest traditions of Biblical translation. The translation of the New Testament starts with the Gospels as early as the second and third centuries with Tatian’s Diatessaron and the Old Syriac Gospels. The Peshitta came next and was to become the most prominent of all the Syriac translations. Even so, the heat of theological controversy led to a number of more exacting translations which were intended to help settle matters of exegetical dispute. The Philoxenian was completed in 508 and was the first to include the small Catholic Epistles and possibly Revelation, the former being all that survives to us today. The last of the major translations and the most literal was that of Thomas of Harkel who finished his work in 616, shortly after Paul of Tella’s completion of the Syro-hexepla.

Even with native Aramaic, Thomas gives
the Greek (e.g., μαραναθα in 1 Cor 16.22)

Although the youngest of the Syriac translations, the Harklean has proven to be one of the most fruitful for textual criticism. This is due to Thomas’s innovation as a translator. His colophon tells us that he based his work on the Philoxenian but revised it with the help of what he considered to be “well proven and accurate” (ܣܓܝ ܒܚܝܪܝܢ ܘܚܬܬܝܬܝܢ) Greek manuscripts. These he represents with an exacting translation style designed to give the Syriac reader as much access to the Greek as possible. To this end he adopted the text critical symbols made famous by Origen (the asterisk, metobelus, and obelus) to mark words not found in his Greek manuscripts but either required by Syriac idiom or found in his Philoxenian predecessor. In the margin he adds more detail, supplying textual variants, translation notes, word meanings, and often simply giving the Greek word itself. In short, Thomas holds the distinction of producing the very first critical edition of the Syriac New Testament.

New Book: Early Christianity in Contexts

William Tabbernee (ed.), Early Christianity in Contexts: An Exploration across Cultures and Continents (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2014).

I’ve just finished reading this interesting book about Early Christianity which surveys the spread of Christianity from its origin up to around AD 1000. There is an interest in locating the particular form that Christianity took in its diverse locations, and in documenting archaeological information which evidences early Christianity.
Here is a bit of the blurb:

Organized according to geographical areas of the late antique world, this book examines what various regions looked like before and after the introduction of Christianity. How and when was Christianity (or a new form or expression of it) introduced into the region? How were Christian life and thought shaped by the particularities of the local setting? And how did Christianity in turn influence or reshape the local culture? The book’s careful attention to local realities adds depth and concreteness to students’ understanding of early Christianity, while its broad sweep introduces them to first-millennium precursors of today’s variegated, globalized religion. Numerous photographs, sidebars, and maps are included.

So, there are ten chapters as follows:

1. The Roman Near East  2. Beyond the Eastern Frontier  3. The Caucasus  4. Deep into Asia  5. The World of the Nile  6. Roman North Africa  7. Asia Minor and Cyprus  8. The Balkan Peninsula  9. Italy and Environs  10. The Western Provinces and Beyond

The order is interesting as you get taken ‘deep into Asia’ to look at Christianity in China and India, before getting to the more familiar territory of Christian expansion in Asia Minor, Greece, Italy and Europe.

No doubt it would work well as a text which supplements the more traditional approaches to church history (focused on literary texts, Greek and Latin sources, church controversies, theological development, etc.) with information drawn from realia - especially inscriptions and archaeological discoveries. But the book also works quite well as an introduction to the people and churches relevant to the production of the versions of the Bible in the languages of the missions of the churches. This is not the focus, but it is possible to get a good feel for Coptic Christianity and Gothic Christianity and so on. A knowledge of church history is pretty fundamental for textual criticism, so this book is a great help on the general background and historical and ecclesiastical contexts for the versions.

Occasionally the focus of interest in inscriptions and archaeology is expressed at the expense of literary texts which are routinely distrusted (including even NT texts such as Acts and others, although individual authors have taken different views on some critical questions - from a purely NT perspective Peter Lampe’s treatment of Rome in chapter 9 was a highlight).

It is a bit unfortunate that there is no concluding reflection. Obviously the diversity of early Christianity, and the explanation of that diversity in terms of different local contexts, comes through the whole book. Among the other features that come through to me was the importance of martyrdom in the whole early growth of the church, and in the specific local remembering of faithful martyrs in the construction of churches. A second interesting feature is the role of women as agents of mission, especially into the social elite at various places. A third feature is the importance of monastic centres for education and resourcing and training leaders (and although not discussed, we might add, praying).

The book is well documented, with an extensive bibliography with many leads to track down. Surely no reader will not be informed by the wide-ranging contents of the book. Among my particular notes (things to add to lectures, things that I had forgotten, or never knew; things to check out further etc.) are the following (I include these to prove that I was paying attention and as illustrative of the sorts of things you might learn in this book):

• One of the earliest Christian inscriptions is on the tomb of Avircius (“Abercius”) from around AD 200 which speaks of ‘having Paul in the carriage’ (p. 5) [more to read on this, as the editor thinks of Avircius as ‘an avid reader of the Gospels and the letters of St. Paul’ p. 4]
• Melito of Sardis (late 2nd cent) came as a pilgrim to Judea and Galilee ‘to ascertain the biblical canon’ (p. 19)
• According to Eusebius, the fifteen bishops of Jerusalem before the time of Hadrian were all circumcised (HE IV.5.1-4; cf. Horbury, 2006; p. 25)
• According to Eusebius, Origen had a library of 30,000 books in Caesarea (HE VI, p. 28)
• I didn’t know that quite a few recent scholars have argued that the letter of Mara bar Serapion might not be from AD70, but be a fourth century school exercise. (p. 64) Five or six items of bibliography to check out on that one for my lecture on Jesus outside the New Testament.
• According to Eusebius, the church in Edessa claimed to have the original correspondence between Jesus and king Abgar. (p. 85)
• The earliest Chinese Christian monument (the Xian inscription from AD 781) includes a reference to the ‘twenty-seven books of scriptures which explain the great reformation to unlock the barriers of understanding.’ (p. 163)
• On p. 197 in relation to the Oxyrhynchus papyri it is suggested (I think by Malcolm Choat) that ‘the city is unusual only in the amount of papyri found there, and we may reasonably see its level of Christianization as roughly representative of other Egyptian cities.’ (p. 197 - need to mull that one over)
• One of the Scillitan Martyrs (from AD 180) said that in his satchel he had ‘books and letters of a just man named Paul’ (p. 233 - good to remember)
• According to the Acts of Barnabas, he was buried clutching his own copy of Mark’s Gospel (p. 312) 

Review of The Story of the Bodmer Papyri

My review of James M. Robinson, The Story of the Bodmer Papyri: From the First Monastery's Library in Upper Egypt to Geneva and Dublin (Cambridge: James Clarke, 2013; ISBN 9780227172780) has been published in Review of Biblical Literature:







The conclusion of the review:

Stories of manuscript discoveries are always exciting, and this account of one of the most valuable treasure troves of biblical and other manuscripts is no exception. In my opinion, Robinson convincingly establishes the connection between manuscripts in the Bodmer and Chester Beatty libraries as well as a number of other collections, primarily Mississippi, Cologne, and Barcelona. Although Robinson’s investigations in Egypt are likely to be influenced by rumors and exaggeration and the exact extent of the “Dishnā Papers” is impossible to establish, his main proposal of a common discovery is thoroughly backed up with documentation and hard evidence from the manuscripts themselves.

On the other hand, the book is poorly edited and betrays many traces of several layers of revision and scattered updates, not only by Robinson, who “composed the book two decades ago” from several earlier publications and new material, but, more recently, also by K. C. Hanson, who edited and published the book (vii). The resulting unevenness is all the more annoying in a book that presents the reader with many names, dates, and details about the manuscripts, which are repeated back and forth, sometimes with variation, which creates confusion.

For example, we are told in the introduction (6) that the Vatican Library was given P. Bodmer XIV–XV (P75) in 2007, a piece of information that may give the reader a sense that the book is brought up to date. In the next sentence, another manuscript is mentioned, “the Savery Codex (then the Crosby Codex of the University of Mississippi),”

 Read the whole review here.