This is precisely the example of applying different methods and different assumptions. Fanciful emendation of ancient texts by a “philologist” is not a current practice among New Testament textual critics. Dogmatic assumptions have nothing to do with this. The committee of five who produced the text behind NA26 and third edition of UBSGNT we’re not theological conservatives motivated by dogmatic considerations. The text that they produced has been altered very little in NA28.
Decades ago Gordon Fee attempted to omit two verses in chapter 14:34-35 First Corinthians, his proposal didn’t get any traction. Why do you suppose Westcott didn’t mentioned John 6:4 τὸ πάσχα in his commentary?
Suggesting the omission τὸ πάσχα John 6:4 is ignoring the obvious: the manuscripts. In New Testament textual criticism decisions are made based on evidence. Fanciful emendation is anathema.
TC on classical texts often deals with a very poor manuscript base, and so conjectural emendation becomes much more important. The more manuscripts you have, the less need for conjectural emendation. What we are discussing here concerning John 6:4 is in the realm of sheer speculation. It “doesn’t quite fit into the story?” Why would that be? Or could it possibly be that John is organizing his narrative in a way different than a modern reader might expect? This could be more of a genre/literary issue than a text critical one. Hint: the fact that we have “almost the same twice earlier in John” might be a clue that this is not incidental or an addition, but that it’s intentional on John’s part. So I would suggest that “doesn’t quite fit” is a judgment that may not be concordant with the full context and John’s careful use of devices to move that narrative forward.
Stirling, One of your unargued assumptions is that current NT text-criticism is better than it was in the 19th and early 20th centuries. That is questionable, to say the least.
In your final remark, you appear to take the surviving manuscripts as constituting the entirety of evidence. That is wrong. No suggestion about the history of the text ignores the manuscripts as you claim.
That there are no advancements or improvements in TC since the Victorian era seems me to be the assumption which needs to be argued. And the question is the relative weight placed on hard, tangible evidence vs. the subjective use of the text in secondary authors.
If you amend that to “the more independent witnesses of early texttypes that you have,” I would probably agree. But you will want to note that the incidence of certain types of errors may probably increase with more early manuscripts and more collation events. Including the type of accretion event that has been suggested for this verse.
Also, it’s 250 years between the originals and the great unicals, and sometimes thousands of miles between the where the NT books were written and where the unicals were copied, and perhaps some evidence of important text recension events affecting what we have now.
Obviously, that’s better than a 1000 more years of copying, but it’s not infinitely better. I would guess that the reduced error rate per line is only linearly better, not exponentially better.
Well, I’ll take this as an opportunity to restate a question on that point from earlier in the thread that I’d like answered:
Joel was the author the original post. After some reflection on this thread and similar recent threads he has initiated, applying traditional authorial-intent hermeneutics [E. D. Hirsch], it appears that some of the critique has been somewhat misdirected. Joel is doing what any student might enjoy doing and benefit from, going back and reading old books and analyzing the old arguments and testing them. Nothing wrong with that. It’s an intellectual game. While your at it, read Walter Bauer, Adolf von Harnack, James D. G. Dunn. [1] Get your fill of it.
Meanwhile, lets not confuse this with a discussion of N.T. textual criticism as it is currently practiced by people like Dirk Jonkind, Peter Head, Tommy Wasserman, Peter J. Williams and others.
[1] Not textual critics, rather authors who promoted a history of early Christianity from which Bart Ehrman collected his central ideas. This is connected tangentially to the textual criticism.
Barry, Get real. The NT corpus is a small one and has been endlessly worked over. Advance comes through new ideas and new evidence. Without new hard evidence in the form of ancient manuscripts (such as we now have in a papyrus of Acts, for example) little significant progress can be expected. (Linguistic analysis is more advanced and sophisticated, but the main result is simply reformulation of earlier work. Computerization improves the accessibility and usability of data, but evaluation must still be human.) Scholars back then knew Greek far better than NT scholars do now. And they knew how to use their heads.
All textual criticism is subjective. It’s matter of iudicium, intelligently applied to pertinent information. That doesn’t change.
Meanwhile, Stirling continues to ride the wave of the latest fashion (I recall an illuminating exchange in http://discourse.textkit.com/t/2cor-5-19-exegetical-challange/14547/1), flaunting names and bibliography and taking potshots at his favorite betes noires (Ehrman, philology, …). I look in vain for any sign of actual thought.
I’ve actually been real since July 14th, 1958. Another way of phrasing your comments is that TC is as much an art as it is a science. Speaking of art, I like the way you simply insert your ad hominems directly in your response as though they represent some sort of definitive argument. Nicely done. Evaluating, reevaluating, and working over the evidence is simply a part of scholarship. As for Stirling, I just don’t know. Somehow, I’ve always thought that keeping up with current scholarship is a good thing. The assumption that it’s all been done and there’s nothing really left to do reminds me of the attitude of many scientists at the end of the 19th century, who felt that all had been discovered and discussed, and everything to follow would be footnotes. Maybe, but maybe not, even in biblical studies.
I’m glad you’re done. Your comments have added little of insight to this discussion, and your valuable time is perhaps best spent elsewhere.
Ah man, a topic on a GNT TC question and I’m late to the party? As someone who tags the images online at the CSNTM as well as the INTF (plus a huge interest in Biblical TC), hopefully I can offer some relevant remarks.
This would lead one to conclude it was more prevalent in 2nd century copies of John than the patristic remarks may indicate. Another such example is John 1:13, where Tertullian says most copies read “who was born not of blood” as opposed to the corruption of the Valentinians’ “who were born not of blood” (ὃς … ἐγεννήθη / οἰ … ἐγεννήθησαν). Problem is all of our Greek copies of John read the plural, along with all the rest of the versions, bar one solitary Old latin witness (b, aka Codex Veronensis). See Bart Ehrman’s comments in The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture, pp. 69-70. Usually, a patristic assertion with no other manuscript support is not usually given much credence if few other manuscripts agree. For John 1:13, our earliest papyri (𝔓66 and 𝔓75) both read the plural, and both roughly date to the time Tertullian was writing (both dated 3rd century CE by most papyrologists, though Philip Comfort would date 𝔓66 early to the mid second century CE, so before both Irenaeus and Tertullian). For a supposed “Gnostic” corruption to have spread so far and so quickly to have been present in our earliest copies, would lead one to conclude here the patristic citation and assertion to the contrary are in fact in error.
Depends on the context of “useful”. For determining the original text (or more common in modern TC, the “earliest attainable text”)? Probably not. Can’t remember who it was exactly, but a scholar in the 18th/19th century sought to make a critical GNT based on patristic citations, but somewhat fell flat. The general unreliableness of the manuscripts containing patristic works (due to copyists either making their own mistakes, or altering the citations to fit the more common one prevalent at the time of the copyist and their location), and their later date than actual copies of the NT was too big a hurdle to overcome at the time. It may be possible now. See for instance The Text of the Fourth Gospel in the Writings of Origen (Gordon Fee & Bart Ehrman), and The Text of the Apostolos in Athanasius of Alexandria (Gerald J. Donker). Whether these are reflective of the original/earliest attainable text, or just of the manuscripts available to the patristic author in question, will likely be debated for years to come.
One of my major grievances with the NA28 is the decision to remove pc (pauci/a few) and al (alii/others). The removal I feel gives the impression the witnesses cited are the only witnesses to the variant; however, this is apparently why the NA28 removes both, which to me makes little sense. I’m thinking 472 was no longer cited as omitting the verse, as it doesn’t actually omit it, but places an obelisk at the start of the verse. See page 184 of the manuscript online at the Lambeth Palace Library, right hand page about half-way down. The obelisk is easily seen.
As it stands only 1 manuscript appears to have omitted it completely (min. 1634), with only one pointing out its possible inauthenticity (min. 472). See 1634 at the INTF, with the omission seen on page 204 verso. As this omission appears to have come at a time where the copyist has indicated the start of a new section, one wonders whether this was merely done by accident, rather than due to a reflection of an earlier exemplar. As I know of no study on min. 1634, whether it has other such omissions we don’t yet know. It could be this happens a few times throughout all four Gospels; just this one was noticed due to its peculiarity, and possibly due to supporting the idea that Origen didn’t know of the passage (as per Hort, Notes p. 77). Evidently, I don’t think the evidence of either the manuscripts or patristic authors indicates that the entire verse was missing, but possibly only τὸ Πάσχα. See further on this below.
Astute observation. I was unable to find any other manuscript which omitted the verse entirely (von Soden also makes no other mention than 472 or 1634 – vol 4. p. 412), so pc in the NA Apparatus will be a reference to 472 in this case. As noted above, 472 doesn’t omit it, but obelisks it.
No, likely not (also assuming he knew of the other Gospels at any point is up to debate. Though Eusebius (IIRC) makes mention of John knowing the synoptics, this isn’t exactly reliable proof he did). Also the synoptics themselves aren’t entirely worried about chronology either.
I would agree mostly with the above. Some conjectural emendations are given some traction, such as J. R. Harris’ suggestion that John 11:25 should omit καὶ ἡ ζωή; however even here Harris’ suggestion was based due to its omission in the Syriac Sinaiticus, so it wasn’t entirely without manuscript evidence. This was given even more credence in the 1930’s when 𝔓45 turned up, which supported both the Syriac Sinaiticus and Harris by not having καὶ ἡ ζωή in John 11:25.
A further example to be drawn from John 11:25: there are 6 patristic authors who don’t cite it as having Ἐγώ εἰμι ἡ ἀνάστασις καὶ ἡ ζωή, but rather Ἐγώ εἰμι ἡ ζωή καὶ ἡ ἀνάστασις, thus swapping around both ἡ ἀνάστασις and ἡ ζωή. These are Amphilochius of Iconium, John Chrysostom, Cyril of Alexandria, Didymus the Blind, Ephrem of Syria, and Severian of Gabala. Amphilochius of Iconium, John Chrysostom and Didymus the Blind quote it this way twice, giving 9 citations of John 11:25 with this word order. Who exactly though has suggested to amend the text of John to this word order? None, as far as I’m aware. There is no manuscript evidence other than patristic for this sequence, hence why it has largely been ignored. See a list of citations of John 11:25 in patristic authors at the ITSEE website provided by the University of Birmingham, England, UK.
See my comments above concerning 𝔓66 and 𝔓75. Both of these manuscripts (dated the same way the uncials are) are assigned dates in the 3rd century, and early for P66 in the mid 2nd century, and both contain John 6:4 as the traditional wording. As the prevailing date usually given for when the GoJ was written is 95 CE, we either have this verse appearing within 65 years, or just over 100 years since the autograph. As noted, there is only one manuscript which omits the verse in its entirety, and that comes from the 14th century CE. The earliest manuscript attests the authenticity of the verse, with no variant. No manuscript omits τὸ Πάσχα. Interestingly though, min. 543 omits ἡ ἑορτὴ, but not the previous τὸ Πάσχα (see the page online at the CSNTM, 2nd column, lines 5-7). There’s a likelihood this is an assimilation to John 2:13, but again I know of no study of min. 543 which could give us any insight as to how often the copyist assimilated the passages. There’s therefore more manuscript evidence for the omission of ἡ ἑορτὴ than there is for the omission of τὸ Πάσχα.
This therefore leads to answer this final thing:
I’m not sure if jeidsath’s comments have been misunderstood, or Hort’s have, but no early patristic author ever quotes John 6:4 as omitting τὸ Πάσχα, or even omitting the verse entirely. That some patristic authors didn’t have τὸ Πάσχα or didn’t know of John 6:4 is a subjective assumption based on what they mention in other places. This isn’t really evidence for the omission of τὸ Πάσχα or of the entire verse, and what would’ve been a “more obvious argument” (as per Hort on Origen) is just as subjective, and trying to guess at what patristic authors “would have” written if they knew of something isn’t something we can judge. One can see the list of patristic citations of John 6:4 from the UoB’s ITSEE, and one will be quick to notice even the adaptations note the presence of τὸ Πάσχα, and even a manuscript lemma which agrees with the reading of min. 543 in omitting ἡ ἑορτὴ. Therefore, there is neither manuscript nor patristic evidence for either the entire omission of John 6:4, or of τὸ Πάσχα from within the text.
I’ll quote from C. K. Barrett’s The Gospel According to St. John concerning this verse, and the comments of Hort:
To return to jeidsath’s original question: why it isn’t in Georg Luck’s Conjectural Emendations article? Good question, and I have absolutely no idea. Jan Krans has a chapter on Conjectural Emendation and the Text of the New Testament which may make mention of it.
I’m all up for that! Do a topic for each and every verse in the NT where we can discuss the numerous textual variants contained within each one – I’ll be fine with that
I have some sources who confirm the omitting of τὸ πάσχα
Biblical manuscripts:
Minuscule 163— Vatican, Barb.gr.520, folio 135v (1193 CE)
Miniscule 178—Rome, Biblioteca Angelica, Ms. gr. 123, page 446 (12th century)
Miniscule 187—Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Pluteo VI. 23, folio 179r
Miniscule 472—London, Lambeth Palace, Ms. 1177, image 184 [n183] (11th–12th century)
Miniscule 748—Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Suppl. Gr. 903, folio 176r (12th century)
Miniscule 850—Von Soden Kι20—Vatican, Barb.gr.504, folio 150v (12th century)
Miniscule 979—Mount Athos, Docheiariou Monastery, Ms. 0142 (Lambros 2816) (16th century), Muenster page 5200
Miniscule 1634 - Mount Athos, Greece, Great Lavra Monastery, W’ 125 (John 6.4)
Miniscule 2525-Athens, National Library of Greece, Ms. 2739, folio 147r (13th century)
Minuscule 2206—Greek Patriarchate of Alexandria, Ms. 37 (15th century) (Olim 89), 6.1–3 [7610
I have the scans of this mss on my computer.
Commentary:
Westcott and Hort already mentioned
(1)Browne, Henry Ordo Sæclorum: A Treatise on the Chronology of the Holy Scriptures: and the Indications Therein Contained of a Divine Plan of Times and Seasons: Together with an Appendix. London. J. W. Parker, 1844 p. 635:
‘‘But then directly at variance with this conclusion was a text of S. John , in which there is mention of a Passover intermediate between the Passover after the Baptism and the Passover of the Crucifixion . It appeared however that there are strong grounds for doubting the genuineness of that mention . It is almost certain that the word “ Passover ” was not found in the copies of the fourth gospel which existed in the three first centuries , in some copies even later , § 89—92 . To which I will now add a further piece of evi dence , the value of which , however , must be left for the consideration of those who are more versed in the history of the Ecclesiastical Calendars.’’
(2)Pearce, Zachary. A Commentary, with Notes, on the Four Evangelists, and the Acts of the Apostles: Together with a New Translation of St. Paul’s First Epistle to the Corinthians, with a Paraphrase and Notes . London. E. Cox. 1777, p. 499
V.4 . The passover , a feast , & c . ] There does not feem to be any reaſon for the evangelist’s inserting this verse , nothing in this chapter having any relation to the feaſt of the paſs - over , or to any other of the Jewish feasts . G. J. Voffius , and Mr. Mann ( in De Anno emortuali Chrifti , P. 173. ) are of opinion , that the word nάoxa is an interpolation ; and I think , that the whole verſe is ſo ; because in ch . v . 1. mention is made of a feaſt ( probably , the feast of pentecost ) , and in ch . vii . 2. of the feast of tabernacles , between which two no feaft appointed by the law of Moses intervened . It does not appear from the evangelist’s account , that Jeſus was preſent at a feaſt of the paſs - over here mentioned ; and yet it ſeems probable , that he , who fulfilled all righteousness , would not have been abfent from a feast of the pass - over which ( as is here said ) was then nigh at hand .
Gerhard Vossius. De annis Christi dissertatio secunda. ex typographia P. & J. Blaev, prostant apud Janssonio-Waesbergios, Boom, & Goethals, Amsterdam 1701 - p. 66 … there is no need for us to say that John 6:4 was first written… “But the holy day of the Jews was approaching,” and that the text had to do with the holy day of Tabernacles… but the copyist, since he was not paying attention to it, wrote Pascha [Passover]… the ancients… seem not to have read the word Pascha at John 6, since they say that Christ predicted one year, or even a few months besides.
There has been a lot of debating about this verse, because of the duration of the minisrty of Jesus
