Textual Variation: Theological and Social Tendencies? 9781593337896, 2008009294, 1593337892

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TEXTUAL VARIATION: THEOLOGICAL AND SOCIAL TENDENCIES?

TEXTS AND STUDIES: THIRD SERIES 6 General Editors David Parker and David Taylor

Textual Variation: Theological and Social Tendencies? Papers from the Fifth Birmingham Colloquium on the Textual Criticism of the New Testament

EDITED BY H. A. G. HOUGHTON AND D. C. PARKER

GORGIAS PRESS 2008

First Gorgias Press Edition, 2008 Copyright © 2008 by Gorgias Press LLC All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise without the prior written permission of Gorgias Press LLC. Published in the United States of America by Gorgias Press LLC, New Jersey ISBN 978-1-59333-789-6 ISSN 1935-6927

GORGIAS PRESS 180 Centennial Ave., Suite 3, Piscataway, NJ 08854 USA www.gorgiaspress.com Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Birmingham Colloquium on the Textual Criticism of the New Testament (6th : 2007) Textual variation : theological and social tendencies? : papers from the Fifth Birmingham Colloquium on the Textual Criticism of the New Testament / edited by H.A.G. Houghton. and D.C. Parker -- 1st Gorgias Press ed. p. cm. Includes indexes. 1. Bible. N.T.--Criticism, Textual--Congresses. I. Parker, D. C. (David C.) II. Houghton, H. A. G. III. Title. BS2325.B57 2007 225.4’86--dc22 2008009294 The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standards. Printed in the United States of America

TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Contributors.............................................................................................. vii Introduction............................................................................................................ ix List of Abbreviations............................................................................................ xv 1 Scribes and Variants – Sociology and Typology ULRICH SCHMID ............................................................................................. 1 2 Kings or God? Towards an Anthropology of Text RICHARD GOODE ........................................................................................ 25 3 Singular Readings in Sinaiticus: The Possible, the Impossible, and the Nature of Copying DIRK JONGKIND.......................................................................................... 35 4 Scribal Behaviour and Theological Tendencies in Singular Readings in P.Bodmer II (66) PETER M. HEAD .......................................................................................... 55 5 Theological Creativity and Scribal Solutions in Jude TOMMY WASSERMAN .................................................................................. 75 6 The Ethics of Sexuality and Textual Alterations in the Pauline Epistles JEFFREY KLOHA .......................................................................................... 85 7 Towards a Redefinition of External Criteria: The Role of Coherence in Assessing the Origin of Variants KLAUS WACHTEL ...................................................................................... 109 8 A Brief Study of Variations on Proper Names in Lectionaries W.J. E LLIOTT .............................................................................................. 129 9 Opting for a Biblical Text Type: Scribal Interference in John Chrysostom’s Homilies on the Letter to Titus MARIA KONSTANTINIDOU ...................................................................... 133 10 On Revisiting the Christian Latin Sondersprache Hypothesis P.H. BURTON ............................................................................................. 149 11 Scribal Tendencies and the Mechanics of Book Production D.C. PARKER .............................................................................................. 173 Index of Manuscripts ......................................................................................... 185 Index of Biblical Passages.................................................................................. 187 Index of Subjects................................................................................................. 191 v

LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS P.H. Burton is Lecturer in New Testament Studies and Biblical Languages at the University of Birmingham. His book, Language in the Confessions of Augustine, has recently been published by Oxford University Press. He is currently overseeing a new edition of the Vetus Latina Iohannes. W.J. Elliott is one of the co-editors of the International Greek New Testament Project. He has long combined his research into the text of the New Testament with ministry in the Church of England. Richard Goode holds a doctorate on Textuality in First and Second Century Christianity from the University of Birmingham. He is director of the Syneidon Project, which aims to bridge the gap between academic biblical studies and interested amateurs. Peter Head is Sir Kirby Laing Senior Lecturer in New Testament at Tyndale House and the Faculty of Divinity in Cambridge, and a Fellow of St Edmund’s College. He has published widely in the area of New Testament Studies, and runs the Early Greek Bible Manuscripts Project. Hugh Houghton is an AHRC-funded Research Fellow at the University of Birmingham working on the Vetus Latina Iohannes. He is also a committee member of the International Greek New Testament Project. His study of Augustine’s Text of John will be published by Oxford University Press in 2008. Dirk Jongkind is Research Fellow in New Testament Greek at Tyndale House and a Fellow of St Edmund’s College, Cambridge. His monograph, Scribal Habits in Codex Sinaiticus, has been published by Gorgias Press, and he has also written on the Gospel of Thomas.

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Jeffrey Kloha is Associate Professor of Exegetical Theology at Concordia Seminary, St Louis. His doctoral study was supervised by J.K. Elliott at the University of Leeds. He is now working on the Vetus Latina edition of 1 Corinthians. Maria Konstantinidou is an Onassis Fellow in the Faculty of Classics at the University of Oxford and a member of Lincoln College. She is a researcher on the “Traditions of the Fragment” Project, studying the reception of Greek Literature between 300BC and AD800. D.C. Parker is Edward Cadbury Professor of Theology at the University of Birmingham, and a director of the Institute for Textual Scholarship and Electronic Editing. He is one of the editors of Texts and Studies (third series) and the International Greek New Testament Project. Ulrich Schmid is a Research Fellow at the University of Birmingham and Associate Professor at the Kirchliche Hochschule Wuppertal/Bethel. He is also employed on the Virtual Manuscript Room Project in the Institut für Neutestamentliche Textforschung in Münster. He has recently edited the volume of Majuscule Manuscripts of John for the International Greek New Testament Project, and has published monographs on Marcion and the Diatessaron. Klaus Wachtel is a Research Associate at the Institut für Neutestamentliche Textforschung in Münster. He is co-editor of the Editio Critica Maior of the Greek New Testament. In addition to his publications on textual criticism, he contributed to the volumes of Text und Textwert. Tommy Wasserman is the Academic Dean and Lecturer in New Testament Exegesis at Örebro Theological Seminary in Sweden. He is also co-chair of the SBL International Meeting program unit “Working with Biblical Manuscripts (Textual Criticism)”. He has published a major critical edition of the Epistle of Jude and worked on a number of New Testament manuscripts.

INTRODUCTION “Are there any interesting or significant variations between biblical manuscripts? Do any of them alter the sense? Did scribes change the text as they copied it?” These are some of the most common questions which textual critics are asked by those outside the discipline, perhaps prompted by a modern predilection for conspiracy theories, especially in the domain of religion. Of course there are variations: this is a natural concomitant of the process of copying by hand. The primary interest of textual critics, however, has been to consider these variants as evidence for the history of the text, in order to identify the relationship between groupings of manuscripts and build up a picture of how the text of the New Testament was transmitted. The theological significance of these variants is often in inverse proportion to their claim to authenticity. For example, the omission of the word “not” may dramatically alter the sense of a verse, but is such a notoriously easy slip in copying that it is unlikely to give cause for remark. Similarly, the alteration of proper nouns in documents which claim to be written by eyewitnesses (e.g. Barnabas in place of Barabbas) may appear significant until the instability of names and the preference for more common forms is noted throughout the tradition. For a long time, then, the judgment of F.J.A. Hort has been allowed to stand, that even among the numerous unquestionably spurious readings of the New Testament there are no signs of deliberate falsification of the text for dogmatic purposes.1

The quest for the “original text” of the New Testament therefore relegated the significance of variants to little more than indications of genetic

B.F. Westcott and F.J.A. Hort, The New Testament in the Original Greek. Introduction. Appendix. London: Macmillan, 1896, 282. 1

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affiliation. In recent decades, however, there has been a shift to treat manuscripts as documents worthy of study in their own right, rather than simply as witnesses to a text. This has led to the identification of “tendencies”, based on recurrent features which seem to form a pattern. In turn, this directs our attention to the activity of the copyists, not just in terms of layout and spelling, or even the presence of corrections, but on a broader scale: to what extent do these documents reflect the social conditions under which they were created? Are there patterns of variation which, even though individual readings may not be particularly remarkable when compared with the rest of the tradition at a single point, when taken together could be described as a “theological tendency”? This is the topic of the present volume, offering analyses of individual manuscripts and selected biblical passages as well as studies throwing light on the nature of copying and the social context of the early Church. Ulrich Schmid, in the opening paper, sets out the importance of a typology of literary production which gives due weight to the different rôles of the people involved in this process. He criticises earlier studies which focus on variants without paying attention to the manner of their insertion into the text, demonstrating the pitfalls of assuming that the same alteration was made independently by “some scribes”. Instead, he emphasises the importance of distinguishing the editorial process from the work of copying, and also offers an interesting example of a “reader’s note” in the margin of 75. Richard Goode explores this from the perspective of treating variants as social constructs. Beginning from the papyrus codex of the “Unknown Gospel”, he develops a sociology of manuscripts which illuminates how life outside the scriptorium may affect the process of manuscript production. Dirk Jongkind provides yet another perspective, combining his analysis of singular readings in Codex Sinaiticus with insights into the psychology of copying from recent scientific research. He shows the problems inherent in categorising variants as “intentional” and “unintentional”, and suggests an approach which avoids such tendentious ‘insight’ into the mind of the scribe. Peter Head contributes a study of P. Bodmer II (66), for which widely differing assessments of the copyist’s competence have been offered. Identifying the scribe as a Christian, Head takes eleven singular readings which could be interpreted as theologically motivated. His analysis, however, demonstrates that these do not display a coherent Christological tendency or attitude to Judaism. Tommy Wasserman also treats singular readings, identifying clearer evidence of deliberate intervention by copyists in certain manuscripts of the Epistle of Jude. He describes some as

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“developed misreadings”, copying errors which have been reinterpreted by later scribes in a theologically creative way. Jeffrey Kloha examines in detail two passages from the Epistles of Paul to the Corinthians, whose teaching about sexual ethics has been modified in certain parts of the textual tradition. By considering evidence for contemporary attitudes and practices among both Christians and non-Christians, Kloha provides a context for the motivation behind such changes. He then evaluates the likelihood of intentional alteration of the text according to four criteria which combine text-critical and social data. Klaus Wachtel’s “Towards a Redefinition of External Criteria” analyses selected verses from the Catholic Epistles with reference to the Coherence-Based Genealogical Method. The recent development of this computer-assisted approach to analysing manuscript relationships involves establishing the direction of ‘textual flow’ between witnesses, In turn, this brings to light places where variation may have been introduced deliberately, and offers a means of assessing the likelihood that the same reading appeared independently. Bill Elliott’s study of proper nouns also addresses questions of textual affiliation, suggesting that differences of spelling may serve to distinguish groups among lectionary manuscripts. Turning to patristic witnesses, Maria Konstantinidou offers insights from her work on the textual tradition of John Chrysostom’s Homilies on Jude. She demonstrates how one branch consists of a ‘smooth’ recension, conforming to later norms of grammar and style, while another manuscript corrects Chrysostom’s scriptural quotations against a biblical exemplar. Nonetheless, there is no evidence of alteration motivated by theological concerns. Philip Burton revisits one of the principal theories of a social tendency manifested in certain texts, the idea that Christians used a characteristic form of Latin. Although the original Sondersprache hypothesis is no longer accepted by linguists, Burton draws attention to the use of certain words in Christian writings which appear to be distinct from the historical development of the Romance languages and may be inspired by biblical vocabulary. Latin material also features in the final paper, by David Parker, on the “mechanics of book production”. He considers sheets which appear to have been copied from other extant manuscripts, as well as patristic testimony about the transcription of books, in order to shed light on scribal practice. The spread of variant readings is likened to the process of evolution, whose speed may vary according to differing circumstances. All these papers were originally delivered at the Fifth Birmingham Colloquium on the Textual Criticism of the New Testament, held in the

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Graduate Institute for Theology and Religion of the University of Birmingham on April 16-19 2007. Since then, the contributors have been members of an online forum where drafts of the papers were posted, continuing the conversation and making connections between the studies. The present volume is therefore not simply a collection of ‘proceedings’, but a series of interrelated responses to the question of accounting for textual variation. The overlap between the different papers and the various methodological proposals put forward should provide a useful foundation for further study in this area. The Birmingham Colloquia have taken place regularly over the last ten years, and have attracted a wide range of international participants. Selected papers from the First Colloquium were published as the inaugural volume in the current series.2 Subsequent colloquia have considered the International Greek New Testament Project for the Gospel of John (1999), the legacy of Günther Zuntz fifty years after the publication of The Text of the Epistles (2003), and an interdisciplinary meeting, “Textual Criticism and ...” (2005). Participants in the Fifth Colloquium stayed at Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre, where J. Rendel Harris was Director of Studies: after the conference dinner, Alessandro Falcetta gave an illustrated account of Harris’ life drawing on his recently published collection of essays.3 There was also a trip to Hereford Cathedral to visit not only the Mappa Mundi and Chained Library but also the modern working library, where a number of codices from this important collection were examined. The editors would like to thank a number of people involved in the running of the colloquium and the production of this volume. Firstly, we are grateful to all the contributors, for their participation in the online forum and the revision of their papers. We should also express our gratitude to the other presenters and attenders at the colloquium. The organisation of the conference was ably assisted by Amanda Preston and Sue Bowen at the University of Birmingham, and Lisa Carr and Faye Fenton at Woodbrooke. We thank Sarah Tighe and Rosalind Caird for making our visit to Hereford Cathedral such a rewarding experience. On the publication side, we are grateful to David Taylor, co-editor of Texts and Studies, for accepting this book in the series, and to George Kiraz and Steve

2 D.G.K. Taylor, ed., Studies in the Early Text of the Gospels and Acts (Texts and Studies, Third Series 1) Birmingham: University of Birmingham Press, 1999. 3 Alessandro Falcetta, ed., James Rendel Harris: New Testament Autographs and Other Essays, Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2006.

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Wiggins of Gorgias Press. Camera-ready copy and indexes were produced by Hugh Houghton; Oak Tree Software has kindly allowed us to use its Sylvanus uncial font, and we echo the gratitude of Ulrich Schmid (to K.G. Saur publishers) and Peter Head (to the Fondation Martin Bodmer) for allowing reproduction of the images of the Bodmer Papyri which appear in their articles. H.A.G. Houghton Birmingham, February 2008

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AnBib ANTF BDAG

Analecta biblica Arbeiten zur neutestamentlichen Textforschung F.W. Danker et al., A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, third edition. Chicago/London: University of Chicago Press 2000 BETL Bibliotheca ephemeridum theologicarum lovaniensium BNTC Black’s New Testament Commentary BZNW Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft BZ Biblische Zeitschrift CBQ Catholic Biblical Quarterly CSEL Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum ConBNT Coniectanea biblica, New Testament series ECM Editio Critica Maior ExpT Expository Times EvTh Evangelische Theologie GNT B. Aland, K. Aland, J. Karavidopoulos, C.M. Martini and B.M. Metzger ed., The Greek New Testament, fourth revised edition. Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft/United Bible Societies 1993 ICC International Critical Commentary JBL Journal of Biblical Literature JECS Journal of Early Christian Studies JSNT Journal for the Study of the New Testament Liddell & Scott H.G. Liddell, R. Scott et al., A Greek-English Lexicon ninth edition. Oxford: Clarendon Press 1996 NA27 E. Nestle, K. Aland et al., Novum Testamentum Graece, twenty-seventh edition. Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft 1993 NICNT New International Commentary on the New Testament NIGTC The New International Greek Testament Commentary NovT Novum Testamentum xv

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NRSV NTOA NTS NTTS NTTSD PBA PG RBL SBLNTGF SBLTCS SD SNTSMS TENTS TLL TU UP WUNT ZNW

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS New Revised Standard Version Novum Testamentum et Orbis Antiquus New Testament Studies New Testament Texts and Studies New Testament Texts, Studies and Documents Proceedings of the British Academy Patrologia Graeca [= Patrologiae cursus completus: Series graeca]. Edited by J.-P. Migne. 162 vols. Paris, 1857-1886. Review of Biblical Literature Society of Biblical Literature New Testament in the Greek Fathers Society of Biblical Literature Text-Critical Studies Studies and Documents Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series Texts and Editions for New Testament Study Thesaurus Linguae Latinae Texte und Untersuchungen University Press Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft

1 SCRIBES AND VARIANTS – S OCIOLOGY AND TYPOLOGY ULRICH SCHMID Let me start with a trivial observation. Scribes not only produced copies, they also produced variants. The infallible fallibility of human nature provides us with lots and lots of deviations between existing copies of texts from antiquity, the New Testament being no exception but rather a case in point. Such an observation as this has traditionally been dealt with by devising and employing critical methods that aim to reconstruct a text that comes as close as possible to the lost “autograph”.1 Within this exercise, variants serve on two levels. On the level of recensio, variants are used to build the so-called stemma codicum, the tree-type structure that relates the extant copies to one another as well as to the lost original. Arriving at a compelling stemma then allows for eliminatio codicum, the elimination of manuscripts that are derived from other extant copies.2 On the level of examinatio, variants serve as candidates from which to choose the reading of the autograph. Since examinatio is not restricted to places of variation as displayed by the extant copies, even passages without variation can be deemed “corrupt”, hence calling for divinatio, conjectural emendation.3 Notwithstanding the importance of conjectural emendation for the theory and practice of classical textual criticism, variants are still the prime candidates that serve to establish the text of the autograph. Despite the importance of variants for modern textual criticism, the copyists who are their presumptive creators have received comparatively less attention. Maas, for example, referred only rarely to scribes, usually in relation to the

1 For “Original”, see Paul Maas, Textkritik: Grundbegriffe 1, in Einleitung in die Altertumswissenschaft, ed. A. Gercke and E. Norden, third edition, vol. 1. Leipzig and Berlin: Teubner, 1927. 2 Maas, Textkritik, 3-12. 3 Maas, Textkritik, 13-22.

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question of contamination of different Vorlagen.4 I think it is fair to say that he was, in general, much more concerned with the distinct scribal products of “variants” and “readings” than with those who provided them. Within the realm of New Testament textual criticism, there have been important developments to this perspective over the last fifty years or so. Scribes have received more and more attention from two different angles, the first being the study of scribal habits (the names of Ernest Cadman Colwell,5 James Royse,6 and recently Kyoung Shik Min7 come to mind), the second being the study of theological/ideological intentionality behind variants (associated with the names of Eldon Epp,8 Bart Ehrman,9 and more recently Wayne Kannaday10). The turn of the millennium has even seen the publication of (as far as I am aware) the first monograph devoted to the sociology of early Christian scribes, Kim Haines-Eitzen’s Guardians of Letters.11 Thus it is fair to say that the scribes have received considerable attention in recent years as those who produce and mediate variants. In presenting my own train of thought on “scribes and variants” I shall proceed in three steps. My first step is devoted to the contribution that the study of theological/ideological intentionality has made to our perception of scribes. I shall argue that the works of Ehrman and especially

Maas, Textkritik, 6, 10. E.C. Colwell, “Scribal Habits in Early Papyri: A Study in the Corruption of the Text” in The Bible in Modern Scholarship, ed. J.P. Hyatt, 370-89. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1965. Reprinted as E.C. Colwell, “Method in Evaluating Scribal Habits: A Study of P56, P66, P75” in Studies in Methodology in Textual Criticism of the New Testament (NTTS 9) Leiden: Brill, 1969, 106-24. 6 James R. Royse, Scribal Habits in Early Greek New Testament Papyri (NTTSD 36) Leiden: Brill, 2007 (based on his Th.D. Dissertation, Graduate Theological Seminary, 1981). 7 Kyoung Shik Min, Die früheste Überlieferung des Matthäusevangeliums (bis zum 3./4. Jh.). Edition und Untersuchung (ANTF 34) Berlin & New York: De Gruyter, 2006. 8 E.J. Epp, The Theological Tendency of Codex Bezae Cantabrigiensis in Acts (SNTSMS 3) Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1966. 9 Bart D. Ehrman, The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture. The Effect of Early Christological Controversies on the Text of the New Testament. Oxford & New York: Oxford UP, 1993. 10 Wayne C. Kannaday, Apologetic Discourse and the Scribal Tradition. Evidence of the Influence of Apologetic Interests on the Text of the Canonical Gospels (SBLTCS 5) Atlanta: SBL, 2005. 11 K.J. Haines-Eitzen, Guardians of Letters. Literacy, Power, and the Transmitters of Early Christian Literature. Oxford & New York: Oxford UP, 2000. 4 5

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Kannaday consciously or unwittingly introduce a new concept of scribes, namely the concept of the scribe as author. This is, as far as my knowledge of sources goes, not backed up by standard role models for ancient scribal performances. In a second step I shall discuss the contribution of HainesEitzen in order to develop what I would call a typology of literary production/reproduction in antiquity. This is an attempt to frame the logistics of the distribution of texts in the manuscript era, with special attention to early Christian settings. I shall argue that a number of known and unknown individuals were responsible for the dissemination and occasional branding of early Christian literature that later received canonical status. Many of those individuals’ activities probably transcended what are usually considered scribal performances. In a third step I shall identify some items in our manuscripts as potential traces of such “non-scribal” performances by discussing the concepts of redactional variants and readers’ notes. I hope thereby to broaden our view on how variants actually got into our manuscripts, what they tell us about the context to which they refer, and, finally, who contributed to those activities.

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S CRIBES AS AUTHORS?

Let me start with an observation made on the basis of Eldon Epp’s book The Theological Tendency of Codex Bezae Cantabrigiensis in Acts. In this study, Epp offers careful arguments for his case of theological/ideological intentionality. The focus is on one New Testament book in one manuscript (Acts in Codex Bezae) with one specific tendency, an anti-Judaic bias. Epp found that nearly forty per cent of the variants generated from this body of evidence supported such a tendency.12 In other words, the limitations of one book in one manuscript align well with yet more limitations, namely a single tendency exhibited by a large number of variants that are considered to be singular readings (peculiar to this very manuscript). It is not my intention here to discuss the validity of Epp’s case; I simply want to emphasise the relatively controlled design of the experiment. We are faced with results generated from the study of one complete book in one manuscript. The results can thus be tested against this background. They can be calculated and quantified.

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Epp, Tendency, 167-8, note 7.

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When we now move on to Bart Ehrman’s The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture and ask similar questions about the design of his famous study, we are faced with a rather different set-up. In the first place The Orthodox Corruption is not confined to one New Testament book only, but evidence is presented from twenty-two out of twenty-seven New Testament books. 13 Moreover, the subtitle “The Effect of Early Christological Controversies on the Text of the New Testament” makes abundantly clear that the scope of the study is the entire New Testament and not just a selection of books. Although this subtitle mentions only one theological/ideological theme, “Christological tendencies”, a glance at the table of contents reveals that we are dealing here with a complex issue that separates out into four different tendencies, namely “Anti-Adoptionistic, Anti-Separationist, Anti-Docetic and Anti-Patripassianist Corruptions of Scripture”.14 As a consequence, the evidence discussed is distributed unevenly throughout these four headings. I have counted sixty-four passages of variation taken from eighteen New Testament writings that Ehrman discusses in his main text (excluding the notes) as evidence for “Anti-Adoptionistic” corruptions,15 whereas those discussed under the “Anti-Patripassianist” header only amount to sixteen from ten New Testament books.16 How can such quantities be assessed? Is there a significant interest on the scribes’ parts for avoiding adoptionistic misunderstandings, whereas they were less concerned with patripassianist notions? Are there more passages in the New Testament that could be misunderstood by those with an adoptionistic axe to grind, compared to others with patripassianist inclinations?

13 Judging by the “Index of Scripture” only the two Thessalonian letters, James and 2 and 3 John had nothing to contribute to The Orthodox Corruption; cf. ibid., 303-5. 14 Ehrman, Orthodox Corruption, Table of Contents. 15 Matthew 1:16, 1:18, 1:25, 3:3 3:5 24:36; Mark 1:1, 1:3, 3:11; Luke 1:15, 1:17, 1:76, 2:26, 2:27, 2:33, 2:40, 2:41, 2:43, 2:48, 3:21, 3:22, 3:23, 4:22, 7:9, 8:28, 8:40, 9:20, 9:35, 20:42, 23:35; John 1:13, 1:18, 1:34, 6:42, 10:33, 12:41, 19:5, 19:40; Acts 2:30, 10:38, 20:28; Romans 1:3-4, 14:10; 1 Corinthians 10:5, 10:9, 15:47; Galatians 2:20, Ephesians 4:9, Colossians 1:22, 1 Timothy 1:1, 3:16; 2 Timothy 1:10; Titus 3:6; Hebrews 1:3, 2:18, 7:27, 10:29, 13:20; 1 Peter 5:1; 2 Peter 1:2; 1 John 3:23, 5:6, 5:18; Jude 5; cf. Ehrman, Orthodox Corruption, 54-96. 16 Mark 2:7, 12:26; Luke 7:16, 8:39; John 1:18, 14:9, 20:28; Acts 16:34, 20:28; Ephesians 4:15, 5:5; Philippians 2:9; Colossians 2:2; Hebrews 1:8; 2 Peter 1:1; 1 John 5:10; cf. Ehrman, Orthodox Corruption, 264-269.

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The problems with quantifying Ehrman’s evidence are multiplied by the fact that his search is not confined to one manuscript only or even to a limited number of consistently cited and checked witnesses. Rather, he harvests the entire textual tradition as available to him through modern critical apparatuses. Hence his sample is a mixed bag, comprising readings shared by any number of witnesses (including potential singular readings). Individual witnesses therefore appear on isolated occasions when they serve to make a point (e.g. minuscule 2766 at Luke 8:28 with the omission of one word).17 How can such an apparently singular reading from a late witness that, as far as I can see, is only invoked at one place in Ehrman’s study, be properly assessed, quantified and weighed? When compared with the design of Epp’s study, Ehrman’s set-up is remarkably disinterested in accounting for his findings against the background of the potentially idiosyncratic tendencies of individual witnesses. Instead, all the available evidence is called into court without cross-examining the individual witnesses for information as to whether or not the scribes involved exhibit any discernible tendency, such as dropping short words, which would permit the evaluation, for example, of the testimony of minuscule 2766 at Luke 8:28. In marked contrast to his reliance on some untested witnesses, in which sloppy scribal performance might be suspected, Ehrman is rather confident when it comes to describing conscious scribal activities. For example, we read: Some scribes of Acts 20:28 modified the phrase ‘the church of God, which he purchased with his own blood’ to read ‘the church of the Lord, which he purchased with his own blood’. (Orthodox Corruption, 264)

With the wording “some scribes modified” reading x to reading y, which Ehrman uses frequently,18 he suggests that it was the conscious decision of individual scribes to substitute reading y for reading x. In the case of Acts 20:28 this would have comprised, according to NA27, 74 02 04* 05 07 044 33 36 453 945 1739 1891 and alii, not to mention versional evidence from

Ehrman, Orthodox Corruption, 85. Cf. expressions like: “orthodox scribes interpolated...” (159); “a number of scribes have underscored the point by augmenting the text...” (160); “some scribes similarly saw fit to modify...” (160); “some scribes ... assimilated...” (211), etc., all referring to individual varied passages rather than commenting on a number of varied passages collectively. 17 18

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Latin, Syriac and Coptic and two patristic sources. Are we then to infer that “some scribes” refers to the scribes of the mentioned witnesses, not to mention even more whose testimonies are buried under the siglum alii? If we pause a moment and consider the implications of Ehrman’s “some scribes modified”, we might arrive at rather startling conclusions for one of the foundational principles of classical textual criticism. The famous Lachmannian principle “agreement in error is agreement in ancestry” 19 would not apply for readings that can be associated with a theological/ ideological agenda. Moreover, the genealogical method by which manuscripts are grouped according to the number of readings they have in common, firmly established on this Lachmannian principle, would collapse if it were constructed of theologically-motivated readings, because scribes are more likely than not to have produced such readings independently. Perhaps Ehrman does not want to be pressed that far. One could argue that his wording “some scribes modified” owes a lot to a colloquial style and is not meant to question the Lachmannian principle. The problem, at least in my view, is that the manner of speaking of “some scribes modified” easily enters our mind. After being stated and read many, many times, it captures our imagination to the effect that we are inclined to envisage every single scribe who penned such a potentially orthodox corruption as effectively executing that job (or “corruption”) right on the spot. We do not see just one scribe, who once created the variant that has subsequently been copied. We see “some scribes”, as many as there are witnesses to that reading, who willingly authored the corruption several times. Scribes as authors! Am I unfair in pressing that point? Consider the following example from Wayne Kannaday’s book Apologetic Discourse and the Scribal Tradition.20 Of the famous textual problem of Mark 1:2-3, where a combined Old Testament citation taken from Malachi 3:1 and Isaiah 40:3 is

19 “Lachmann did not formulate a method himself. Several text genealogists have worked out some of his fundamental ideas, which they called the method of Lachmann” (B. Salemans, “Building Stemmas with the Computer in a Cladistic, Neo-Lachmannian, Way. The Case of Fourteen Text Versions of Lanseloet van Denemerken.” Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Katholieke Universiteit Nijmegen, 2000, 19); see also S. Timpanaro, La genesi del metodo del Lachmann, second ed., Turin 1981 (1963), German translation: Die Entstehung der Lachmannschen Methode, second revised and augmented ed., translated by D. Irmer. Hamburg: Buske, 1971, English translation: The Genesis of Lachmann’s Method. Edited and translated by G.W. Most. Chicago & London: Chichago UP, 2005. 20 Cf. note 10 above.

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introduced by “As it is written in Isaiah the prophet” (%,t5 '"'4%7%- G1 7Œ Q6% w 7Œ 439#7{), Kannaday has this to say: ... it seems noteworthy that some fastidious scribes - whose efforts are represented by A W f 13 vg(mss) syh and the Latin rendering of Irenaeus intentionally replaced the erroneous attribution to Isaiah with a general and incontestable reference to ‘the prophets’. (Apologetic Discourse, 69).

Here, again, we find the “some scribes” phraseology that we know from Ehrman. In this case, however, the witnesses to the reading “the prophets” are somewhat crudely misrepresented. Kannaday seems either to have overlooked or deliberately ignored the siglum for the Majority Text that is also found in the NA27 apparatus for that reading. Fortunately, the Text und Textwert volume for Mark gives us the exact figures for the reading “the prophets” at Mark 1:2. From there we learn that 1510 witnesses read “the prophets”, and an additional five give the prophets the feminine article. 21 Does Kannaday seriously imply that at least 1515 scribes can be framed as having “intentionally replaced the erroneous attribution to Isaiah”? Very likely so, because he makes the following observation on the fact that the synoptic parallels Matthew 3:3 and Luke 3:4 both omit the Malachi quotation: ... (O)mission of Malachi 3:1 in the parallel texts of Matthew 3:3 and Luke 3:4 is not ‘puzzling’ if one proceeds from the premise (as most scholars do) that Matthew and Luke used Mark as their exemplar. As scribes of Mark, each of them could independently have noticed the conflated text and chosen to alleviate the problem by keeping the name of the prophet who was arguably the most important for Christians and simply omitting Malachi 3:1 ... Why, though, did these scribes not follow the lead of Matthew and Luke in how they handled the text? It is widely known that scribes often assimilated Mark to Matthew. Why, if the interest was only to polish the text editorially, did these scribes not imitate Matthew and Luke? ... Scribes could have chosen to delete Malachi 3:1 rather than erase the name of a well known prophetic authority. (Apologetic Discourse, 67).

Apparently, Kannaday not only envisages scribes as acting independently and arriving by coincidence at the same solutions to textual problems. He even goes so far as to parallel the activities of scribes with the editorial work

21 Text und Textwert der griechischen Handschriften des Neuen Testaments, IV (Die Synoptischen Evangelien), 1 (Das Markusevangelium), vol. 1.2: Resultate der Kollation und Hauptliste, ed. K. Aland and B. Aland. Berlin & New York: De Gruyter, 1998, 3.

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of the other Gospel writers on their presumptive source, Mark. From such a perspective, each and every scribe could indeed be perceived as an editor, likely to have other books at his or her disposal: not just the other Gospel books, but also a variety of Old Testament manuscripts (in this case, copies at least of Isaiah and the Minor Prophets). Furthermore, scribes would also know enough to be suspicious about the conflated nature of this citation, on account of which they would make the effort to check and verify the error and dare to edit it out. The model according to which scribes are portrayed here by Kannaday is that of authors and editors. This observation ties in very well with the cover illustration of Kannaday’s book, which reproduces a miniature found in a fifteenth-century manuscript. It is a typical author’s portrait, a way of depicting the author of a literary work that goes back to classical models. 22 In this miniature the author is surrounded by books, some of them open, intended to indicate his extensive reading and learning. His writing gesture and position in front of a writing desk does not by any means imply that he actually copied the book in front of him. It simply displays the process of writing a book, in this case a geographical treatise, for which information had to be excerpted and compiled from other sources. Any art historian would be surprised to view this miniature as an illustration for “scribal tradition”. Of course, authors of modern books can hardly be held fully accountable for the selection of a cover illustration. So I do not want to argue that this book cover has been chosen by Kannaday to represent how he conceptualises “scribal tradition” and thus the work of scribes. However, it nicely illustrates my point that in the work of Ehrman, and even more so in the work of Kannaday, scribes are effectively portrayed as performing the roles of authors or editors. It is important to note that they arrive at this result by looking only at variants. They do not try to back up this new and rather eccentric perception of scribes by seeking for supporting evidence either from New Testament manuscripts themselves (scribal hands, layout, corrections, marginalia etc.) or from other ancient sources. In other words, the concept of scribes as authors is entirely built on the interpretation of variants in almost complete isolation from their physical containers (the

22 A fine example of the classical model can be found in the Vergil manuscript of the Vatican Library, Romanus Vaticanus lat. 3867 (fol. 3v), dated to the second half of the fifth century; cf. R.M.W. Stammberger, Scriptor und Scriptorium. Das Buch im Spiegel mittelalterlicher Handschriften. Graz: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 2003, Tafel 1.

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manuscripts) and their sociological environment (the professional setting of those who produced them).

2. WHO CONTRIBUTED WHAT AND WHEN TO A MANUSCRIPT? A T YPOLOGY OF LITERARY PRODUCTION/REPRODUCTION In marked contrast to the approach of Ehrman and Kannaday, Kim Haines-Eitzen directly sets out to research who the early Christian scribes were and the roles they played in the “(re)production, transmission, and interpretation” of early Christian literature.23 In the first three chapters of Guardians of Letters she discusses the ways of acquiring writing skills in antiquity, the professional settings of scribes, the use of different types of script (including the presence or lack of abbreviations), and the gender and social status of scribes. She is to be highly praised for what I would like to call the “empirical turn” when it comes to conceptualising the roles of scribes. In my view, though, it is a pity that she stopped short of a fuller empirical treatment by not addressing the question of “who contributed what and when to a manuscript?”, which almost forces her to ascribe every phenomenon encountered in the manuscripts to the activity of scribes, which is by no means self-evident.24 Let us ponder for a moment the various activities that constitute the production/reproduction of literary artefacts. For the sake of argument, we shall just accept that the first activity of authoring the texts is a given, without going into details of whether they have been dictated or penned down by the author. After the authorial stage we have the editorial process, which is based on the desire to get something out into the public domain. Editorial activities thus involve acquiring copies of texts and selecting and preparing them for publication, which could include adding titles and prefaces, subdividing longer texts into books or chapters, and even reworking the texts to fit the needs of a certain targeted audience. The third step is the manufacturing stage, which revolves around the physical work of creating the tangible artefacts, including preparing the sheets, the nib and the ink, ruling the pages and transcribing the texts. The fourth element is the use of the artefacts: reading the books, putting them on display, lending

Haines-Eitzen, Guardians of Letters, 4. Cf. my review of Haines-Eitzen’s book in: TC. A Journal of Biblical Textual Criticism [http://purl.org/TC] 7 (2002). 23 24

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or exchanging them, annotating them, even reusing them or dispensing with them altogether. The reproduction of the artefacts is, most importantly, a consequence of their use. It is not simply that an individual exemplar may become the Vorlage for further copies. Using books makes their content popular and creates the demand for additional copies, stimulating the business side of literary production/reproduction in order to reach new audiences and supply their needs.25 For example, different editions are required for the institutional use of texts in worship or education. All of these activities are known to have taken place in antiquity and are well documented from literary and documentary sources and from manuscripts themselves.26 To be sure, the stages of literary production/reproduction which I have mentioned are meant as a typological sketch. I do not claim that every literary text of antiquity underwent a long and complicated editorial process. Nor do I think every single copy has received the blessing of becoming a Vorlage, thus generating a huge offspring of its own. I want rather to highlight in a more or less orderly way the many activites that are involved in the process of literary production/reproduction. Against the background of that sketch we now ask our initial questions: “Who contributed what and when to a manuscript?” Is it likely that all the activities which have been mentioned were performed and executed by one and the same group of people, perhaps a professional guild or a socially well-defined body of specialists? Haines-Eitzen seems to argue exactly that: The central theses of the present study are that the scribes who copied early Christian literature were also the users of this literature and that

A similar point is made by Richard Goode on page 28 of the current volume. Christopher de Hamel has written a fascinating study, The Book. A History of The Bible, London: Phaidon, 2001, in which he discusses the many editorial changes (regarding format, size, selection of contents, use of illustrations, etc.) the Bible has undergone during the last two thousand years. Cf. also H. Emonds, Zweite Auflage im Altertum. Kulturgeschichtliche Studien zur Überlieferung der antiken Literatur. Klassischphilologische Studien 14. Leipzig: Harrassowitz, 1941. Prominent examples of Christian texts with a history of multiple editions are Tertullian’s books “against Marcion” (see Aduersus Marcionem 1.1.1-2, discussed in Harry Y. Gamble, Books and Readers in the Early Church. A History of Early Christian Texts, New Haven & London: Yale UP, 1995, 118-120), Eusebius’ “Church History” (cf. E. Schwartz, Eusebius: Werke 9.3: Einleitung [GCS] 1909, esp. Einleitung II: Die Antiken Ausgaben der KG), and Paul’s Letter to the Romans (see below). 25 26

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these scribes formed private networks for the transmission of early Christian literature during the second and third centuries. (Guardians of Letters, 16).

Thus the scribes, even a network of scribes, are seen as responsible not just for the manufacturing stage but also for the use and, by implication, for the editorial stages as well. Apart from the problem of the tiny evidence for the existence of scribal networks, Haines-Eitzen’s “scribes only” perspective cannot be consistently applied to our evidence. If the scribes of early Christian literature were also its users, is this equation also valid from the opposite perspective? Were the users of this literature also the copyists of New Testament manuscripts? Were teachers like Basilides,27 Heracleon, 28 and Justin29 the copyists of the Gospels they were using and commenting on? Were bishops such as Polycarp of Smyrna30 the copyists of the Pauline letter collection at their disposal? There is no need to labour the point any further. It should be obvious that, even if there were bibliophile scribes or individuals, this scenario can hardly account for the early Christian book production that put books into the hands of individuals and congregations throughout the empire at the same pace as the new religion spread. I think it is far more likely that the initiative for early Christian book production rested with individual Christians, who wanted the books to be at

Basilides was active in Alexandria before the middle of the second century, cf. Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis VII 106.4. According to Strom. IV 81.1 he wrote (at least) 23 books of K2+'+7-.!. 28 Heracleon was a pupil of Valentinus and is known for having authored the first commentary on the Gospel of John. This commentary is frequently cited in Origen’s Commentary on John; cf. the recent study by A. Wucherpfennig, Heracleon Philologus. Gnostische Johannesexegese im 2. Jahrhundert (WUNT 142) Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2002. 29 Justin was beheaded by Roman authorities, probably in 165 CE; cf. Acta Iustini 1-6 (The Acts of the Christian Martyrs, ed. H. Musurillo, Oxford: Clarendon Press 1972, 46ff.). He knows of “F301+031)?0%7% of the Apostles and of those who followed them”, “which are also called ]%''"/-%” cf. Apology 66.3. Accounting for the plurals in both cases, Justin apparently knew of (at least) four Gospel writings, (at least) two written by the Apostles themselves and (at least) two written by those who followed them. 30 Polycarp was executed by the Roman authorities in the arena of Smyrna, probably in 155 CE; cf. Martyrium Polycarpi 1-22 (Musurillo, Acts of the Christian Martyrs, 2ff.). He knew of letters of the “blessed and famous” Paul (cf. Polycarp, 2 Phil. 3.2) and he refers to Paul in other places, too. 27

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their or their community’s disposal. No doubt some may have been scribes by trade who were proud to serve their community by transcribing the books they wanted to share. Others collected or simply had the necessary funds to hire and pay a scribe for the copies they wanted to keep for themselves or donate to others. I would even assume that sponsorship by wealthy individuals was operative on a considerable level to maintain book production on a par with the pace of the spread of the movement. No doubt those wealthy individuals were the most likely users of the literature they sponsored, if only for the simple reason that wealthy people in those days were more likely than the poor to be literate. And of course, if they were not literate, they could pay somebody to read the books to them and others. But that does not make those individuals themselves scribes in any meaningful way, nor part of an informal private network. Let us consider the example of a wealthy sponsor of Christian communities in the mid-second century, for whom we have quite a number of details: his name is Marcion of Sinope.31 We know with some confidence that he was a very wealthy individual, and that during his time as a fellow member of the church in Sinope (and certainly later in Rome) he donated money to the churches. As a result of his separation from the church of Rome, Marcion received 200,000 sesterces that he had previously donated to them.32 He was not just responsible for starting his own church organisation. Marcion is best known for his edition of early Christian writings, arguably the first New Testament ever published, one Gospel plus ten Pauline letters in a very distinct and heavily edited version. This edition is very likely to have been available right from the start in a considerable number of copies, for two reasons. Firstly, Marcion perceived his edition as the restored edition of the true Pauline Gospel and the authentic voice of Paul, the only faithful apostolic authority. According to Marcion, Judaising false apostles had tampered with the Gospel and with Paul’s letters by interpolating and perhaps recasting passages. Therefore, he purged and restored the original text.33 If this was Marcion’s conviction, he must have felt the need to propagate the true Gospel and the authentic apostolos as urgently and efficiently as possible in order to call as many Christians and

On Marcion see B. Aland, Marcion/Marcioniten, in TRE 22 (1992) 89-101. Tertullian, De praescriptione haereticorum 30.1-2; Aduersus Marcionem 4.4.3. 33 Marcion seems to have been inspired by Paul’s own reports about the false apostles in Jerusalem and incident in Antioch (Galatians 2); cf. Tertullian, Aduersus Marcionem 4.3.1-3. 31 32

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churches back to the unaltered truth as possible. Since he had the necessary funds at his disposal, it seems natural to assume that he started off his new church organisation with as many copies of his new edition as he deemed necessary. Secondly, Marcion’s edition remained intact and stable from about the year 200, when Tertullian got hold of a copy and took issue with the Marcionite Bible, until the 360s, when Epiphanius of Salamis acquired another copy which he also used to contest with Marcionites. Both copies still carry the same number of writings (one Gospel and ten Pauline letters), the same order of the Pauline letters, the same titles (to the Laodiceans instead of to the Ephesians), and, so far as I can tell, basically the same text.34 In my view, that calls for a jump-start with a high number of identical copies right from the beginning, and a rigid control exerted in Marcionite circles in order to maintain their brand of sacred texts throughout two centuries and probably even longer.35 In any case, Marcion’s New Testament was the project of a wealthy individual, which he heavily edited and branded himself. But it seems inconceivable that one and the same person transcribed all the many copies with his own hands. Generally stated, a private network of scribes is neither likely as the place of origin of such a project nor as the channels by which it was transmitted. After this longish excursus let me come back to the stages of literary production/reproduction I outlined above: the editorial stage, the manufacturing stage, and the stage of using the artefacts. There is no reason to force ourselves to think that all the activities involved in these stages were undertaken by a single group of individuals, let alone that all who are involved in that business should legitimately be called scribes. Instead, we should be open to the possibility that various individuals performing different roles have contributed to what we find in our manuscripts. Let me now take my third and final step by introducing variants that are selected to illustrate this last point.

Cf. U. Schmid, Marcion und sein Apostolos. Rekonstruktion und historische Einordnung der marcionitischen Paulusbriefausgabe (ANTF 25) Berlin: De Gruyter, 1995. 35 Arabic sources betray knowledge of Marcionites and a specific Marcionite Gospel differing from other Gospels as late as the eleventh century; cf. M. Frenschkowski, “Marcion in arabischen Quellen”. In Marcion und seine kirchengeschichtliche Wirkung/Marcion and his impact on Church History (TU 150), ed. G. May, K. Greschat, M. Meiser, Berlin & New York: De Gruyter, 2002, 39-63. 34

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3. KINDS OF VARIANTS - A CASE FOR REDACTIONAL VARIANTS AND READERS’ NOTES Anyone who has read a few pages from our most ancient copies of the New Testament text, such as 46 or 66, has encountered scribal idiosyncracies such as non-standard orthography, slips, and odd abbreviations. Browsing critical apparatuses of the Greek New Testament, we are confronted with a selection of variants which modern editors judge to be important. And when we mull over these variants we usually employ the routines of our guild, assessing transcriptional probabilities, authorial intentions or style, widespread attestation, text-type affiliations and so on. Rarely, if ever, do we consider editorial activity, even complex editorial decisions, as the source of variants. However, the textual tradition of the New Testament does provide us with passages that are best understood as editorial variants. Editorial Variants What are editorial variants and how are they to be identified? Editorial variants should meet two criteria. Firstly, they should display conscious action based on comparison of different versions of texts or literary reasoning. Secondly, redactional variants cannot be created just in passing during the copying process. They need longer than just a little pause, a slightly longer lift of the pen than would have been necessary to re-ink the writing tool, in order to be generated. Instead, they must have been consciously prepared beforehand. Such a redactional variant - or I should better say, place of multiple redactional variation - is found at the end of Paul’s letter to the Romans. Kurt Aland has this to say about it: “Das schwierigste Problem, welches der neutestamentlichen Textkritik überhaupt gestellt ist, ist durch den Schluß des Römerbriefes gegeben”.36 On Aland’s count there are at least fourteen different versions extant in the tradition. They all differ regarding the extant and combination of the following portions of text:

“Der Schluß und die ursprüngliche Gestalt des Römerbriefes”. In K. Aland, Neutestamentliche Entwürfe, München: Kaiser, 1979, 284. 36

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A = Romans 1:1-14:23 B = Romans 15:1-16:23 B1 = Romans 15:1-33 B2 = Romans 16:1-23 C = Romans 16:24 C1 = Romans 16:24 abbreviated D = Romans 16:25-27.37

For our present purpose I will leave out discussion of element C (16:24), and concentrate on the doxology (16:25-27, element D) with its various positions. I will also not question Aland’s stemma of the supposed textual developments.38 My main intention is to discuss the redactional status of some of the different versions with special emphasis on element D. Aland, along with Harry Gamble 39 and most modern commentators, assumes that element D originated in order to provide a solemn, proper ending to one that would otherwise be harsh: “Everything that is not out of faith is sin!” (14:23). Various commentators, including Niels Alstrup Dahl, 40 have investigated the language and structure of the doxology, and concluded that it follows a certain well laid out pattern, employs loaded vocabulary and betrays sophisticated theological concepts. In short, it is a purposeful creation, very well thought through. It is therefore highly unlikely that it has been created by a scribe on the fly, just after he or she had reached the abrupt ending B0%47$% G67$1 (14:23). It is a conscious action that involves reasoning, preparation and resources in order to be carried out in the way that we find it in our tradition. Somebody had to

Aland, “Der Schluß”, 287-90. Aland, “Der Schluß”, 291. P. Lampe (“Zur Textgeschichte des Römerbriefes” NovT 27 (1985) 273-7) highlights some of the problems; cf. also D. Trobisch, Die Entstehung der Paulusbriefsammlung. Studien zu den Anfängen christlicher Publizistik (NTOA 10). Freiburg: Universitätsverlag, 1989. 39 H. Gamble, The Textual History of the Letter to the Romans. A Study in Textual and Literary Criticism (SD 42) Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977; for a critique of Gamble’s take on the doxology see L.W. Hurtado, “The Doxology at the End of Romans”. In New Testament Textual Criticism. Its Significance for Exegesis, Essays in Honour of Bruce M. Metzger, ed. Eldon Jay Epp and Gordon D. Fee. 185-199. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981. 40 Niels Alstrup Dahl, “Formgeschichtliche Beobachtungen zur Christusverkündigung in der Gemeindepredigt”. In Neutestamentliche Studien für Rudolf Bultmann, 3-9 (BZNW 21) Berlin: Töpelmann, 1954. See also E. Kamlah, Traditionsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen zur Schlussdoxologie des Römerbriefes, Diss. phil. Tübingen, 1955. 37 38

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sense the problem of the harsh ending. He or she must have had the guts to do something about it. Moreover, a proper ending had to be conceived, either from scratch, which I find rather unlikely, or on the basis of liturgical formulae which then had to be adapted to fit the context of the Pauline Epistle, i.e. “personalised”.41 Finally, it had to be put down at the end of Romans 14:23, with the result that this redactional element was so well received that it penetrated the entire tradition. Moreover, this insertion gave subsequent readers ample reason to take even more editorial action. Once the two versions AB and AD were available and put next to each other, it was possible to combine the two versions in several ways, all of which present in the tradition: ADB, ABD, AB1DB2 and, even the hybrid version ADBD as a combination of ADB and ABD. Again, the genesis of every subsequent version involved reasoning, judgment, preparation and action, which was more likely to be done in advance than on the fly. I don’t want to pursue the other versions here. I simply want to emphasise the point that our New Testament textual tradition clearly exhibits redactional variants. It is a methodological consequence of this that we should include in our arsenal of text-critical rules the quest for the editorial stage described in the previous step. In other words, we have to take seriously the fact that our tradition, at least partially, came down to us through the mediation of early editions, and we must start studying early editions. In favour of this plea allow me to cite Niels Alstrup Dahl: I have also found that early editions of biblical texts is a neglected field of study, probably because of the separation of textual criticism from the history of the New Testament canon, and of both these disciplines from the history of book production, illuminations, prologues, colometrical writing, and Bible editions in general.42

Readers’ notes It has long been suspected that users of early Christian literature have left their traces in the textual tradition. In fact scholars who engage in conjectural emendation quite routinely appeal to marginal notes of readers

Cf. Dahl, “Beobachtungen”, 4-5. “0230 (=PSI 1306) and the Fourth-Century Greek-Latin edition of the Letters of Paul”. In Studies in Ephesians, ed. D. Hellholm et al, 211-230 (WUNT 131) Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000. (Quoted material from 227). 41 42

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as possible sources of material which appears to them to be wrongly placed in the text.43 Today, conjectural emendation is a largely neglected exercise, not least because Kurt and Barbara Aland strongly opposed it with reference to the textual tradition of the New Testament: Die Lösung von Schwierigkeiten im Text durch eine Konjektur oder die Annahme von Glossen, Interpolationen usw. an Stellen, wo die Textüberlieferung keine Brüche aufweist, sollte nicht gestattet sein, sie bedeutet eine Kapitulation vor den Problemen bzw. eine Vergewaltigung des Textes.44

The question of readers’ notes or marginal comments, however, has come to the fore from a different angle, that of Latin textual criticism in antiquity. Several articles by Michael Holmes have brought to my attention the work of James Zetzel,45 who has the following to say about classical manuscripts from this period: Our manuscripts are those of amateurs and wealthy book-lovers; and like modern readers, they wrote comments in the margins, made corrections of errors where they noticed them, and generally created a book that was of service to themselves. (Latin Textual Criticism, 238).

Holmes thinks this might not only be a useful analogy but actually apply to the New Testament as well.

For a very fine study of sixteenth century conjectural emendations see Jan Krans, Beyond What is Written - Erasmus and Beza as Conjectural Critics of the New Testament (NTTSD 35) Leiden: Brill, 2006. In modern times the issue of marginalia that might have intruded into the text at a later stage is discussed most prominently with Paul’s letters: see for example F. Müller, “Zwei Marginalien im Brief des Paulus an die Römer” ZNW 40 (1941) 249-254; W. Schmitthals, “Zwei gnostische Glossen im Zweiten Korintherbrief” EvTh 18 (1958) 552ff. (= Die Gnosis in Korinth, third ed. 1969, 286ff.). There is also recent discussion of the famous mulier taceat passage at 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 in G.D. Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (NICNT), Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987, and P.B. Payne, “Fuldensis, Sigla for Variants in Vaticanus and 1Cor 14:34-5” NTS 41 (1995) 240-262. 44 K. and B. Aland, Der Text des Neuen Testaments, second ed., Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1989, 284. 45 J.E.G. Zetzel, Latin Textual Criticism in Antiquity, New York: Arno Press, 1981; the most recent article of Holmes is Michael W. Holmes, “The Text of P46: Evidence of the Earliest ‘Commentary’ on Romans?” In New Testament Manuscripts Their Texts and Their World (TENTS 2), ed. T.J. Kraus and T. Nicklas. Leiden: Brill, 2006, 189-206. 43

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As far as I know, however, nobody has pointed to a manuscript and spotted a marginal reading that might legitimately be called a candidate for a reader’s note. The obvious question to ask would be: How do you know that this actually was a reader, and not another scribe? A manuscript may contain writing in several hands, but most if not all of these are likely to have been written by other copyists. The most likely candidate for a note written by a reader, as opposed to a scribe, is one not just in a different hand, but in a different type of script. In antiquity copies of literature are often written in what are called “book hands”. These are scripts that are geared towards readability and pleasing to the eye, exhibiting regular letter forms with few abbreviations. Typical book hands use majuscule letter forms. In contrast to this type of script, we find “documentary hands” which are geared towards speed of writing and effective use of space. Documentary hands exhibit ligatures, varying letter forms and abbreviations. Typical documentary hands employ a cursive type of script.46 Generally speaking, book hands are much slower to write than documentary hands. Moreover, book hands also require a certain type of expert knowledge that seems not to have been available to every individual who knew how to write. Now, who would use what type of script when leaving traces in a manuscript? I would expect a reader/user to employ a more casual and informal hand. In fact, I would make this distinction a decisive test. To approach this question from the opposite angle, a reader of a manuscript in antiquity was not bound to use a formal book hand for his or her occasional marginal comments, certainly not if he or she were more or less contemporary with the production of the manuscript. In sum, readers’ notes, in order to be properly identified as such, should employ a type of script distinct from the book hand text they refer to. A page of the famous Papyrus Bodmer XIV recently transferred to the Vatican Library, better known to us as 75, provides what appears to be a perfect illustration of a reader’s note.47 In the seventeenth chapter of the

46 For a useful introduction to these issues, see H. Hunger, “Griechische Paläographie” in H. Hunger, ed., Geschichte der Textüberlieferung der Antiken und mittelalterlichen Literatur, vol. 1, 72-107. Zürich: Atlantis, 1961, esp. 72; cf. HainesEitzen, Guardians of Letters, 61-3. 47 Papyrus Bodmer XIV: Evangile de Luc chap. 3-24, Bibliotheca Bodmeriana 1961, 123 (= La collection des papyrus Bodmer, vol. 3: Graeca biblica et christiana, vol. 8: Planches de toutes les pages originales 1-400, München: K.G. Saur, 2000). The image on the next page is taken from the latter volume, by kind permission of K.G. Saur.

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Papyrus Bodmer XIV (image used courtesy of K.G. Saur)

Gospel according to Luke, we read the story of the cleansing of the ten lepers. In verse 14, Jesus addresses them by just saying: “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” No sign of compassion is expressed. Moreover, we do not even find a healing command. A note in the lower margin of 75 fills this void, reading: )/< .%,%4-6,+7) .%- )8,)