On the Essence of a Byzantine-priority Method

I do not mean to flog the Byzantine method on this blog, I promise. But I am writing on the topic of method right now and some things just fit better on a blog than in a footnote and I want to record them before I forget. 

In this case, I want to set two sets of quotes side-by-side to show what I think is the flaw in the Byzantine priority method. Recall, first, however, that in my last post on the subject, I pointed out that the Byzantine method rests on a fundamental historical claim and that it should stand or fall on that claim. I think that is crucial. 

The method is not to be judged on its occasional (mis)assocation with various disreputable “onlyisms” or whether it’s held by a minority of scholars or whether it accepts the two famous large variants (Mark 16:9–20; John 7:53–8:11) or whether it’s the underdog or whether Maurice Robinson has an enviable rock ’n’ roll CD collection (which he does). It is to be judged on its historical claim. 

What is that claim? Here is what Robinson says is the “essence” of the method in his seminal essay (emphasis his).

12. The real issue facing NT textual criticism is the need to offer a transmissional explanation of the history of the text which includes an accurate view of scribal habits and normal transmissional considerations. Such must accord with the facts and must not prejudge the case against the Byzantine Textform. That this is not a new procedure or a departure from a previous consensus can be seen by the expression of an essential Byzantine-priority hypothesis in the theory of Westcott and Hort (quite differently applied, of course). The resultant methodology of the Byzantine-priority school is in fact more closely aligned with that of Westcott and Hort than any other. Despite his myriad of qualifying remarks, Hort stated quite clearly in his Introduction the principles which, if applied directly, would legitimately support the Byzantine-priority position:

As soon as the numbers of a minority exceed what can be explained by accidental coincidence, ... their agreement ... can only be explained on genealogical grounds[. W]e have thereby passed beyond purely numerical relations, and the necessity of examining the genealogy of both minority and majority has become apparent. A theoretical presumption indeed remains that a majority of extant documents is more likely to represent a majority of ancestral documents at each stage of transmission than vice versa.

13. There is nothing inherently wrong with Hort’s “theoretical presumption.” Apart from the various anti-Byzantine qualifications made throughout the entire Introduction, the Westcott-Hort theory would revert to an implicit acceptance and following of this initial principle in accord with other good and solid principles which they elsewhere state. Thus, a “proper” Westcott-Hort theory which did not initially exclude the Byzantine Textform would reflect what might be expected to occur under “normal” textual transmission.

It is this claim to a “normal transmission” that I take issue with. But more than that, it is what Westcott and Hort take issue with and they do so on the very page that Robinson quotes. Also, they do so not because they jump to anti-Byzantine qualifications. Instead, the very next sentence after the section Robinson quotes says, “But the presumption [i.e., the essence of the Byz position] is too minute to weigh against the smallest tangible evidence of other kinds.” Why is this? Because 

At each stage of transmission the number of copies made from each MS depends on extraneous conditions, and varies irregularly from zero upwards: and when further the infinite variability of chances of preservation to a figure age is taken into account, every ground for expecting a priori any sort of correspondence of numerical proportion between existing documents and their less numerous ancestors in any one age falls to the ground. This is true even in the absence of mixture; and mixture, as will be shown presently (§§ 61, 76), does but multiply the uncertainty. (p. 45).

Robinson writes that only the activity of a “formal recension” would undermine the principle behind the Byz priority position. That is, of course, exactly what WH did with the Syrian text and Robinson is right to reject it, as do most of us today. But, importantly, a formal recension is not what WH here say undermines their “theoretical presumption.” What they point to instead is a factor that is just as serious and happens to be well documented for the NT, namely, contamination or mixture. Contamination, as we know, can wreak havoc on a simple genealogy and the notion that a majority of later manuscripts reflects a majority of early ones is nothing if not simple (NB: I did not say simplistic or dumb or naïve). In other words, the NT text does not follow a normal transmission process. 

The implication for WH is that, “For all practical purposes the rival probabilities represented by relative number of attesting documents must be treated as incommensurable.” (pp. 45–46). The theory of a majority of later manuscripts reflecting a majority of earlier ones does not fit the facts. There is no safety in numbers. Contamination does not allow for it. 

The Byzantine priority position, then, is not wrong because it gives preference to the Byzantine witnesses; it is wrong because of why it does so.