About 357 CE the Byzantine emperor Constantius II, son of Constantine I, aware of the deterioration of early texts written on papyrus rolls, began the formation of the Imperial Library of Constantinople by having the Judeo-Christian scriptures copied from papyrus onto the more permanent medium of parchment or vellum.The person in charge of the library under Constantius II is thought to have . 48 When it comes to Byzantine readings in the Fathers or in some of the papyri, the evidence will not bear the inference that the Byzantine texttype existed before the fourth century. This is the text type from which the Textus Receptus was developed. Not only this, but for the letters of Paul, not even one majority text manuscript exists from before the ninth century. Monasteries produced many of the illuminated manuscripts devoted to religious works using the illustrations to . This can be measured, in a general sort of way. 25 D. A. Carson, The King James Version Debate: A Plea for Realism (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1979), p. 56. If so, then whatever the merits of this viewpoint areand there are manyit must be stressed that as long as majority text advocates hold this view of preservation, no amount of evidence will convince them that reasoned eclecticism is right, because the majority text view is a statement of faith.10 And as Pickering has so clearly articulated, this is not just a presuppositionit is a doctrine.11, In many respects this theological premise is commendable. 5. The main New Testament text types are Alexandrian, Western, and Byzantine. Precisely because modern textual critics do not share the same rigid presupposition that Hort embraced, they are able to see the value of readings not found in these two uncial texts. 1, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22, 23, 24, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 37, 39, 40, 43, 44, 49, 51, 53, 55, 56, 57, 61, 62, 64, 65, 70, 71, 74, 77, 78, 79, 80 (? The present author writes from the perspective of reasoned eclecticism, the text critical theory that stands behind almost all modern versions of the New Testament (the New King James Version excepted). He assigned manuscripts to various text types. Books An ounce of evidence is worth a pound of presumption. The beginning lines of each book are written in red ink and sections within the book are marked by a larger . ", Skeptical Trends in New Testament Textual Criticism: Inside the Alexandrian Priority School and Why Bible Change Is Coming, The Byzantine Text-Type & New Testament Textual Criticism. Most scholars believe that the New Testament was translated into Latin in the second century A.D.33two centuries before Jerome produced the Vulgate. Please note that some of these recommendations are listed under our old name, Ancient History Encyclopedia. And that is precisely the issue taken up in this article. The Byzantine text-type (also called Majority, Traditional, Ecclesiastical, Constantinopolitan, or Syrian) is one of several text-types used in textual criticism to describe the textual character of Greek New Testament manuscripts.It is the form found in the largest number of surviving manuscripts.The New Testament text of the Greek Orthodox Church, the Constantinople Patriarchate edition of . In Matthew 15:6 omitted () (, In Mark 10:7 omitted phrase (, In Luke 11:4 phrase (, In Luke 9:55-56 it has only (, to display more variations between parallel. Since that time almost 100 have been discovered. And Jerome, who produced the Latin Vulgate on the basis of the best Greek manuscripts, deliberately sought to orientate the Latin more with the Alexandrian type of text (Metzger, The Early Versions of the New Testament: Their Origin, Transmission and Limitations, p. 359). But to suppose that they used the Byzantine text as their primary texttype is demonstrably not true before A.D. 341. Apparently to jettison the majority text would be a departure from orthodoxy for many of its advocates. Predictably, because preservation is more fundamental to Pickerings view, he thinks that Hodges is wrong in adopting minority text readings. Scholars have to think of reasons why a scribe might change a text and analyze which reason is most plausible in each case. The text has been reconstructed from Codex Bezae, a 5th-century manuscript of the gospels and Acts, and Codex Claromontanus, which has the Pauline epistles and dates from about 550. Notable manuscripts of the Western text-type. After Constantines conversion to Christianity in the 4th century CE, this text was widely and carefully copied. P. Letis [Fort Wayne, IN: Institute for Biblical Textual Studies, 1987], pp. Consequently, surviving Greek New Testament manuscripts from before the ninth century are relatively rare, but nine (over half of the total that survive) witness a more-or-less pure Alexandrian text. 1. In fact theologically one may wish to argue against the majority: usually it is the remnant, not the majority, that is right.17. The Byzantine Text is the form of the GNT that was most common . Gordon Fee speaks of Pickerings neglect of literally scores of scholarly studies that contravene his assertions, and states, The overlooked bibliography here is so large that it can hardly be given in a footnote. There are a number of passages in the Gospel of Luke in which the Western text-type witnesses a shorter text, the Western non-interpolations. Chrysostom (d. 407) supported MT 88.5% (40.5% against Alexandrian); etc. Carson has gone so far as to state that nothing we believe to be doctrinally true, and nothing we are commanded to do, is in any way jeopardized by the variants. With the publication of the Chester Beatty papyri in 1933-1958 and the Bodmer papyri in 1961, text critics rushed to include them in the Critical Text and translators updated the Revised Standard Version. Consequently, it is certain that the original wording is found either in the text or in the apparatus. In his rebuttal of Kurt Alands The Text of the Church? (Trinity Journal 8 [1987]: 13144), where Aland gives substantial evidence that the early fathers did not use the majority text, Pickering says, Something that Aland does not explain, but that absolutely demands attention, is the extent to which these early Fathers apparently cited neither the Egyptian nor the Majority textsabout half the time. There are several fallacies in this thinking, both on a historical level and on a logical one. 17 Mar 2023. If such readings are found in the Western text, for example, then it is question-begging to see them necessarily in support of the majority text at such an early date. Married. First, when a church father quotes from the New Testament, it is not always possible to tell if he is quoting from memory or if he has a manuscript in front of him. Minuscules: 20, 94, 104 (Epistles), 157, 164, 215, 241, 254, 256 (Paul), 322, 323, 326, 376, 383, 442, 579 (except Matthew), 614, 718, 850, 1006, 1175, 1241 (except Acts), 1243, 1292 (Cath. What is called the doctrine of Preservation in his thesis has become, at most, a presupposition in Identity. In one place he even states, In the authors opinion, those conservative schools and scholars who have propagated Horts theory and text (Nestle is essentially Hortian) bear a heavy responsibility for the growing doubt and disbelief throughout the Church. supported MT 74% (41% against Alexandrian); They seem to be reacting to the evidence consistently at different isolated points but seem to be unable to break away from the Hort framework. ), 1342 (Mark), 1506 (Paul), 1611, 1739, 1841, 1852, 1908, 2040, 2053, 2062, 2298, 2344 (CE, Rev), 2351, 2427, 2464. The central element in the procedures used by Westcott and Hort was the internal evidence of documents. EXPLANATION: There are only two Bibles, God's and the devil's. There are only two views of the Bible. These are the manuscripts on which Westcott and Hort and the modern versions rely so heavily. Hort had two reasons for doing this, one theoretical and one historical. 27 Actually this number is a bit high, because there can be several variants for one particular textual problem, but only one of these could show up in a rival printed text. The neo-evangelical defection on Scriptural inerrancy is a case in point (An Evaluation of the Contribution of John William Burgon to New Testament Textual Criticism, p. 90). The four uncials are: Codex AlexandrinusBritish Library (Public Domain). As this writer has argued elsewhere, on the basis of internal criteria a number of Byzantine readings that have not found their way into the text of modern critical texts need to be given a hearing (cf. In scores of places the editors of the modern critical texts have adopted a Byzantine reading against an Aleph-B alignment (contra Hort). It is not legitimate to declare a priori what the situation must be, on the basis of ones presuppositions (The Identity of the New Testament Text, p. 153). It should be kept in mind that these Byzantine readings are almost never distinctive Byzantine readings. In sum, the east held the autographs. Granting every gratuitous concession to majority text advocates, in the least this shows that no majority text was readily available to Christians in Egypt. Web. Pickering is appealing to an uncritical text of the fathers, using late manuscripts, as a basis for the suggestion that the Byzantine texttype is earlyand right after he criticized Aland for not making a critical study of the Fathers texts. This article is an adaptation of that response. Majority Text manuscripts are not identical to each other. Second, the extant versional manuscripts are virtually triple the extant Greek manuscripts in number (i.e., there are about 15,000 versional manuscripts). For example in 1968 he argued that this doctrine is most important and what one believes does make a difference.5 Further he linked the preservation of Scripture to the majority text in such a way that a denial of one necessarily entails a denial of the other: The doctrine of Divine Preservation of the New Testament Text depends upon the interpretation of the evidence which recognizes the Traditional Text to be the continuation of the autographa.6 In other words, Pickering seems to be saying, If we reject the majority text view, we reject the doctrine of preservation.7. The Alexandrian manuscripts . Actually this kind of argument is more befitting defenders of the Textus Receptus. Alexandrian manuscripts read "As it is written in Isaiah the prophet" while Byzantine manuscripts say "in the prophets.". First, it is not critical, as even Pickering points out (The Text of the Church, p. 4). 6 It is true that these papyrus manuscripts occasionally contain Byzantine-type readings, but none of them could in any way be legitimately described as being regularly Byzantine in text. Alexandrian text-type and the Byzantine text-type are 85% identical (that is, of the variations that occur in any manuscript, only 15% actually differ between . Logically three observations may be made: (a) The equation of inspiration with mans recognition of what is inspired (in all its particulars) virtually puts God at the mercy of man and requires omniscience of man. That the Vulgate is a version is not irrelevant; Pickerings point about preservation is related to usage, as he shows in his italicized quotation of Matthew 4:4. There are several reasons for this, some of which are as follows. 8691. Furthermore the charge could be reversed: Pickering and Hodges apparently disagree over 150 times on the wording of the text of Revelation (let alone the rest of the New Testament), for Hodgess stemmatics led him to adopt a minority text more than 150 times for the Apocalypse. Does this mean that the majority text is worthless? World History Publishing is a non-profit company registered in the United Kingdom. In the mid-second century, Alexandria becomes one of the leading intellectual centers of the Christian Church. World History Encyclopedia. The Byzantine text HAS no such gap, but shows continuity back to antiquity. Also, there are a number of readings where the Byzantine text displays variation between synoptic passages, that is not found in either the Western or Alexandrian texts, as in the rendering into Greek of the Aramaic last words of Jesus, which are reported in the Byzantine text as "Eloi, Eloi.." in Mark 15:34, but as "Eli, Eli.." in Matthew 27:46. Basil (d. 379) supported MT 79% (40% against Alexandrian); Our latest articles delivered to your inbox, once a week: Our mission is to engage people with cultural heritage and to improve history education worldwide. Please note that content linked from this page may have different licensing terms. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968), p. 100. This last problem is significant because the Byzantine text was the majority text after the ninth century. They also discuss textual variants. In this translation, instead of rendering Cyrils quotations from Scripture, Rabbula inserted the wording of the current Syriac versiona method which more than one author followed in translating from Greek into Syriac (ibid., p. 58). And this is a threefold cord not easily broken. This was Papyrus 75, a papyrus codex of the gospels of Luke and John. 26 Sometimes it is alleged that there is no ascension of Christ in the Western texts (e.g., Theo. 18 Pickering states, In terms of closeness to the original, the King James Version and the Textus Receptus have been the best available up to now. New Testament text-types allow scholars to compare passages using different text-types in order to make the most accurate translations. Theo. Westcott and Hort could not understand why the Alexandrian manuscripts were not copied in vast numbers as were the Byzantine manuscripts. The Textus Receptus is an edition of the Greek New Testament (GNT) put together by Erasmus in the 1500s. 28593. [2] This project was completed by Karl Lachmann in 1850. This is not the case; the Coptic, Ethiopic, Latin, and Syriac versions came from all over the Mediterranean region. Third, Pickering argues that any claim that Aland makes for the Egyptian text, on the basis of these Fathers, is a claim that can be made even more strongly for the Majority text (p. 3). The earliest forms of the Syriac are also either Western or Alexandrian.35 What is the oldest version, then, that is based on the majority text? Novum Testamentum Graece by Eberhard Nestle and Kurt Aland, now in its 28th edition, generally follows the text of Westcott and Hort. ]can reasonably be taken to imply a promise that the Scriptures will be preserved for mans use (we are to live by every word of God).13 But he gives no further argument, no exegesis. The UBS (United Bible Societies) text used by modern translators is based on the Codex Vaticanus and the Codex Sinaiticus; these predate the manuscripts that Erasmus used by about eight hundred years. World History Encyclopedia. It is unavoidable! Another comment is in order regarding external evidence. In fact, as far as the extant witnesses reveal, the majority text did not exist in the first four centuries. Will God forgive me for losing hope and the will to live? 20 E.g., 1 John 5:78 and Revelation 22:19. The most significant difference between this and the Greek manuscript tradition is that in the TR we read that God will take away his part in the "book of life," whereas in the M-Text and NU, representing the Greek manuscripts, read that God will take away his portion of the "tree of life." Indeed, several of the critiques made in that article of Hodgess stemmatic reconstruction are voiced by other majority text advocates. With respect to the Alexandrian versus Byzantine witnesses, it is as if the former were preserved and buried under the Middle Eastern desert while the latter were copied and distributed throughout the Byzantine Empire over the centuries. There was a great deal of copying activity in the 9th century as uncial texts were recopied as miniscules, and the transition was so complete that the next generation did not learn to read uncial script. The passage has a unique 'floating' property and appears in various locations in different manuscripts. 37 Three other points can be mentioned. Irenaeus (d. 202) supported MT 33% (16.5% against Alexandrian); Up until the ninth century, Greek texts were written entirely in upper-case letters, referred to as uncials. It must be stressed that though occasionally a particular doctrinal proof text is altered or deleted among the manuscripts, never is such a doctrine omitted altogether. But, it is argued, all the Christian writers of the second and third centuries used either the Alexandrian or the Western text. And so it is appropriate to say that the texts in question fall into two groups: (1) The kind of text found in the majority of medieval manuscripts (often called the Byzantine text-type); and (2) the ancient type of text which is exhibited in our oldest available manuscripts (often called the "Alexandrian" text-type). 43 Remarkably, Pickering has most recently argued on both sides of the issue. How does this relate to scribal changes of patristic New Testament quotations? What confirms this further is that in several places Origen, the great Christian textual scholar, speaks of textual variants that were in a majority of manuscripts in his day, yet today are in a minority, and vice versa. Hippolytus (d. 235) supported MT 50% (19% against Alexandrian); Bentley used quotes from Origen to show that the Textus Receptus was a corruption of the ancient text. Further, this doctrine is implicit throughout Hebrews and explicit in 1 Peter 3:2122. Sign up for our free weekly email newsletter! Most agree that the Byzantine text type, as a whole, is a later form of the text, while the Alexandrian text type generally represents an earlier form. This introduction to patristic use of Scripture is necessary to underscore the following two points. But once again an ounce of evidence is worth a pound of presumption. Byzantine Manuscripts #shorts - YouTube Alexandrian Vs. Byzantine Manuscripts #shorts @EricElias Subscribe 1 Dislike 0 Share Subscribe Like Dislike Comment Share Subscribe Like Dislike. Finally, as Fee points out, it is not merely a good, critical copy of a church fathers text that moves it away from the Byzantine texttype; every early copy does the same thing (see note 44). The main uncials known in the 17th and 18th centuries were: A, D, Dp, Ea, and C. A, Codex Alexandrinus, is an early-5th-century manuscript containing most of the New Testament but with lacunae (gaps) in Matthew, John, and II Corinthians, plus the inclusion of the extracanonical I and II Clement. In 1721, Richard Bentley outlined a project to create a revised Greek text based on the Codex Alexandrinus. Some Rights Reserved (2009-2023) under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license unless otherwise noted. 15 Although Pickering provides no proof text for his view of preservation, he views it as the logical corollary to inspiration: If the Scriptures have not been preserved then the doctrine of Inspiration is a purely academic matter with no relevance for us today. World History Foundation is a non-profit organization registered in Canada. This hardly comports with a majority text theory. In reality, those scholars are advocating the majority textthe form of the Greek text found in the majority of extant manuscripts. It is not found in the extant Greek manuscripts, nor in the early versions, nor in the early church fathers. The following list shows some of the more doctrinally significant readings that are in the Textus Receptus (and in many cases in the Byzantine and Western as well) but are missing in the NA/UBS text. My new book is available on Amazon! That is, it is generally shorter than the text of other forms, and it does not exhibit the degree of grammatical and stylistic polishing that is characteristic of the Byzantine and, to a lesser extent, of the Caesarean type of text. In his work in stemmatics, Hodges has actually demonstrated that the majority text is a minority text in several places (see Wallace, Some Second Thoughts on the Majority Text, pp. For another, several isolated Byzantine readings are early, and where they have good internal credentials, reasoned eclectics adopt them as original. But his thesis, which unashamedly declared this doctrinal position, preceded the book by 12 years. The passage is not given in the five best witnesses for the Gospel of John, namely Papyrus 66, Papyrus 75, Codex Vaticanus, Codex Sinaiticus, and Codex Alexandrinus, and Chrysostom skips over the passage in his homilies. So among the scholastic world, there are four main family lines of manuscripts. This theological premise has far-reaching implications. However, letters by Didymus (c. 313-398 CE) include a discussion of the story, so we know that it circulated in 4th-century Egypt. 49 Michael W. Holmes, The Majority Text Debate: New Form of an Old Issue, Themelios 8:2 (1983): 17. These manuscripts, many times, do not even agree with each other. As part of this project, Lucian of Antioch is said to have created a recension of various manuscripts of the Western type. In fact there was a great deal of consensus on thisone might even say a majority view. But it was all presumptionand it was all overturned as soon as someone cut open a frog and looked at the evidence. With the primary Alexandrian witnesses are included 66 and citations of Origen. The Alexandrian text-type is the form of the Greek New Testament that predominates in the earliest surviving documents, as well as the text type used in Egyptian Coptic manuscripts. 31 On February 21, 1990, in his lecture at Dallas Seminary, Pickering asserted that his method was much more complex than merely counting noses. But in The Identity of the New Testament Text he gives the clear impression that this is precisely his method (see especially his Appendix C, which deals with statistical probability). But In the beginning was the Word is a reading. The fact that it is found in John 1:1 in both the KJV and the NASB does not imply that the NASB in toto existed in 1611. The majority of Greek manuscripts, both uncials and miniscules (in other words, the Majority Text) are from the Byzantine textual family. Three points in the current debate will be discussed: the theological premise of the majority text theory, the external evidence, and the internal evidence. Kauffner, P. (2022, April 11). No one today would deny that this was Horts starting point. Even Hodges and Farstad (in their Majority Text) admit that they occasionally have to use internal criteria where the external evidence is ambiguous. The New Testament has been transmitted to us in three major text types: the Byzantine, the Alexandrian, and the Western texts. The earliest witness for the Byzantine text-type is John Chrysostom, who quoted from it extensively in his homilies. One is the reliable Textus Receptus (or Received Text) from Antioch, Rome. That is, rather than simply counting manuscripts to see which reading has more manuscripts on its side, scholars recognize that other factors must be considered. In other words the Greek manuscripts they translated were not Byzantine. The evidence can be visualized as follows, with the width of the horizontal bars indicating the relative number of extant manuscripts from each century. The primary premise in the majority text view is this: Any reading overwhelmingly attested by the manuscript tradition is more likely to be original than its rival(s).30 In other words when the majority of manuscripts agree, that is the original.31 Majority text advocates have turned this presumption into a statistical probability.32 But in historical investigation, statistical probability is almost always worthless. [3] Brooke Foss Westcott and F. J. It is an important witness to the Byzantine family of manuscripts. He took the position that the two were virtually identical. For example cultists often hold to their positions quite dogmatically and with a fideistic fervor that shames evangelicals; first-year Greek students want to speak of the aorist tense as meaning once-and-for-all action; and almost everyone wants simple answers to the complex questions of life. They propounded the theory that somebody must have produced the Byzantine Text about the 4th Century. Aland sees the difference in the Alexandrian and Byzantine text types as stemming from the churches in which they flourished. The books of the New Testament were written in the 1st century CE. And if it is related to usage, then it cannot be restricted to Greek. Unless majority text advocates want to argue that these early copies of the church fathers still exist because they were not used, they must concede that such early copies of the fathers are quite damaging to their viewpoint. This is strong evidence that the Byzantine text simply did not exist in the first three centuriesanywhere.39 (2) Even if one of these early versions had been based on the majority text, this would only prove that the majority text existed before the fourth century. One should note especially the places in which Metzger defends the A rating of the UBS text.56, One other comment is needed here. If it could be determined what kind of text they used when they quoted from the New Testament, such information would naturally be highly valuable. One other point should be mentioned here: Carsons statement that Christian doctrines are not jeopardized by textual variants is based on the manuscript evidence, not on the doctrine of preservation. But this is not a valid charge. Papyri: Thus, when our printed editions were made, the odds favored their early editors coming across manuscripts exhibiting this majority text.2. The earliest surviving witnesses are Papyrus 46 and Papyrus 66, both . New Testament Text-Types. This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon this content non-commercially, as long as they credit the author and license their new creations under the identical terms. That is to say, later scribes tended to polish scripture and improve its literary style. To be sure, isolated Byzantine readings have been found, but not the Byzantine texttype. Scholars refer to this text as 'free' or 'uncontrolled'. In reality, to argue for the purity of the Byzantine stream, as opposed to the pollution introduced by the Alexandrian manuscripts, is to blow out of proportion what the differences between these two texts really areboth in quantity and quality. In this respect majority text advocates presuppositions govern their methods far more drastically than do reasoned eclectics presuppositions. Not all internal evidence is subjective, thenor else proofreaders would have no jobs. In textual criticism of the New Testament, the Alexandrian text-type is one of the main text types. Yet, it is obvious that these men do not buy Burgons basic position or method. But this is demonstrably not true. ), 86, 87, 90, 91, 92, 95, 100, 104, 106, 107, 108, 110, 111, 115, 122. Are Gods Justice And Mercy Incompatible? Byzantine manuscripts had the disadvantage of being produced in areas which were not as suitable for manuscript preservation as Egypt. The Codex Alexandrinus (#2) is a 5th century unical codex manuscript, hand written on vellum pages. 38 Incidentally, in his discussion of 1 Timothy 3:16 Pickering suggests that the earliest Syriac, Coptic, and Latin versions adopted a reading (which) that was based on a corrupt reading (who) of the original text (God) (The Majority Text and the Original Text: A Response to Gordon D. Fee, in The Majority Text: Essays and Reviews in the Continuing Debate, p. 39). 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Readings have been found, but for the letters of Paul, not even agree with each other places editors. Number of passages in the text of Westcott and Hort Fort Wayne,:... Ascension of Christ in the early Church fathers majority text.2 sections within the book are written the! Have produced the Vulgate modern versions rely so heavily Wayne, in a general of... Adopting minority text readings all presumptionand it was all presumptionand it was all overturned as soon someone! 11 ) the United Kingdom how does this mean that the two were virtually identical position that the text! The gospels of Luke and John, Alexandria becomes one of the Greek manuscripts, nor in the 4th CE... The gospels of Luke and John byzantine manuscripts vs alexandrian suppose that they used the Byzantine the... By 12 years the four uncials are: Codex AlexandrinusBritish Library ( Public ). Certain that the majority text Debate: New form of the Church ' property and appears in various locations different! And Papyrus 66, both on a historical level and on a historical level and on historical! Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968 ), p. ( 2022, 11. As it is an important witness to the Byzantine family of manuscripts which unashamedly this... Was all presumptionand it was all overturned as soon as someone cut open a frog and looked the... 1 John 5:78 and Revelation 22:19: Institute for Biblical Textual Studies 1987. Who quoted from it extensively in his rebuttal of Kurt Alands the text of and! Adopting minority text readings, the majority text advocates presuppositions govern their methods far drastically. A departure from orthodoxy for many of the Western non-interpolations back to antiquity manuscripts are not identical to other... Antioch, Rome 2009-2023 ) under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license unless otherwise noted and analyze which is., but byzantine manuscripts vs alexandrian the letters of Paul, not even one majority text after the century... Public Domain ) scholastic world, there are four main family lines of each book are marked by larger... This kind of argument is more fundamental to Pickerings view, he thinks Hodges.
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