Some of our readers may know that Martin Heide, one of our blog members, has written on Erasmus. His book Der einzig wahre Bibeltext? Erasmus von Rotterdam und die Frage nach dem Urtext (The Only True Bible Text? Erasmus of Rotterdam and the Quest for the Original Text) is now in its fifth edition. Martin has worked extensively in the languages over the years, contributing to and producing numerous critical editions of the versions.
For those who don’t read German, you can sample his work on Erasmus in his new article at the Text & Canon Institute website: “Erasmus and the Search for the Original Text of the New Testament.” Here’s a taste:
The Novum Instrumentum was the only printed and published Greek text available at the onset of the Reformation and it has done the church a great service. The success and deep impact of the Reformation and its aftermath would be unthinkable without this new spiritual and intellectual basis of the New Testament text. Moreover, no cardinal doctrine is jeopardized by its obvious shortcomings. However, the Greek of the Novum Instrumentum, or the “Received Text,” as it was later called, “soon became, as it were, stereotyped in men’s minds; so that the readings originally edited on most insufficient manuscript authority, were supposed to possess some prescriptive right, just as if … an apostle had been the compositor” (Tregelles).
LOVED the article. Wish the book were in English!
ReplyDeletedidn't mean to post the previous comment as anonymous. Thanks for all the work you guys do with textual criticism. It's a big encouragement to me as a pastor.
Delete"Erasmus introduced ... some Latin readings into the Greek text. For example, in Acts 9:5–6 ... this phrase ... is actually found in some later Latin manuscripts and in the printed Latin editions of Erasmus’s time"
ReplyDeleteAnd I would think we should point out that this is not just a late Latin reading, it is an ancient text that the LaParola apparatus lists as 7-1 inclusion in the Old Latin line, considered to be from the 2nd century, some versional support and Lucifer Ephraem Ambrose Theophylact in the early church writers from the 4th century. Perhaps Hilary as well.
The textual critics do like to overlook evidence that supports Textus Receptus readings that are not supported or weakly supported in the extant Greek manuscripts.
Jan Krans writes some helpful background on p. 58-61 of Beyond What is Written with the normal spin and similarly omitting early evidences for the text.
Thanks!
AVERY:
Delete"Erasmus introduced ... some Latin readings into the Greek text. For example, in Acts 9:5–6 ... this phrase ... is actually found in some later Latin manuscripts and in the printed Latin editions of Erasmus’s time"
And I would think we should point out that this is not just a late Latin reading, it is an ancient text that the LaParola apparatus lists as 7-1 inclusion in the Old Latin line, considered to be from the 2nd century, some versional support and Lucifer Ephraem Ambrose Theophylact in the early church writers from the 4th century. Perhaps Hilary as well.
ME:
"Perhaps?" You mean you don't know?
1) Hills himself says: "This reading is absent here from
the Greek manuscripts but present in Old Latin manuscripts and in the Latin Vulgate known to Erasmus. It is present also at the end of Acts 9:4 in E, 431, the Peshitta, and certain manuscripts of the Latin Vulgate. In Acts 26:14, however, this reading is present in all the Greek manuscripts. In his notes Erasmus indicates that he took this reading from Acts 26:14 and inserted it here."
Did you not know this?
Or did you know this and hide the information?
AVERY:
The textual critics do like to overlook evidence that supports Textus Receptus readings that are not supported or weakly supported in the extant Greek manuscripts.
ME:
Hills isn't hostile to the TR, and even he disagrees with you.
AVERY:
Jan Krans writes some helpful background on p. 58-61 of Beyond What is Written with the normal spin and similarly omitting early evidences for the text.
ME:
All I see here is a lot of poisoning the well from your comment - as well as a refusal to concede even the one pro-TR textual critic doesn't agree with you.
So our fuller list of evidences that have the text in Acts 9:4 or 9:5-6, the key section in part or in full, includes from the ECW:
DeleteLucifer Ephraem Ambrose Theophylact Hilary Chrysostom and Petilianus Jerome Augustine, and Lucifer. Plus the early Peshitta is support with the early Old Latin and some Vulgate and more.
Quite a substantial support.
So it is not accurate to try to give the impression that this is a text that is only in play from later Latin Vulgate manuscripts, it has abundant early attestation.
The details can be complex, especially with the two spots where the variant is located, and some references that are not the full text, and some commentary from ECW writers.
In fact, Schaff has Didymus involved in the apologetics of Acts 9 and Acts 22.
" St. Hil. omits the clause durum est, etc. but has, tremens et pavens, etc.—“The voice of Paul:” Didymus in Cat. gives this as Chrysostom’s solution of the seeming contradiction between this statement and that of St. Paul in xxii. 9. “In the first narrative, they heard Paul’s voice, saying, Who art thou, Lord? But saw no man save Paul: in the second, they saw the light, but did not hear the voice of the Lord.”
As for Edward Freer Hills, quoted by Bill Brown, he is helpful (e.g. E and 431) but he did not place in any of the ECW (early church writer) support, which is wide and deep.
Also the Hill's text "In his notes Erasmus indicates that he took this reading from Acts 26:14 and inserted it here." does not look precise, again see Jan Krans, who has a good section on this question.
Thanks! Interesting studies :).
This weekend I came across the word "ἀσελγείαις" in 2 Peter 2:2 and realized the TR has "ἀπωλείαις". Most of the critical apparatuses don't give any Greek textual support for ἀπωλείαις. Was it a misreading by Erasmus? What do Erasmus's manuscripts say (1, 2815, and 2816)? (GA 1 looks like "ἀσελγείαις" to me, but the CSNTM image is not very clear.) Are there any Greek manuscripts from before Erasmus that read "ἀπωλείαις"?
ReplyDeleteIn cases such as these one has to turn to Andrew Brown’s edition of Erasmus NT texts. Brown writes (ASD VI-3, p. 442):
Delete“exitia ταῖς ἀπωλείαις (“luxurias” Vg.; “pernicies’ 1516 catchword). The Vulgate probably reflects a different Greek text, ταῖς ἀσελγείαις, found in codd. 1, 2816 and nearly all other mss. Erasmus here follows his cod. 2815. The suggestion in Annot., that his Greek mss. agreed with one another in reading ταῖς ἀπωλείαις or ταῖς ἀπολείαις (“Graeca exemplaria, quae sane viderim, consentiunt”), is demonstrably incorrect. In 1516 Annot., Erasmus had conjectured that the Vulgate was based on a Greek text having ἀσωτίαις. After objections from Stunica, who reported ἀσελγείαις from his cod. Rhodiensis, Erasmus inserted that reading into 1522 Annot., as an alternative source for the Vulgate rendering. In Apolog. resp. Iac. Lop. Stun., ASD IX, 2, pp. 250-2, ll. 418-–429, however (misquoting the variant as ἀσελγίαις), he repeated his suspicion that Stunica’s ms. had been emended to agree with the Vulgate wording. It seems more likely that his own reading, ἀπωλείαις, originated in cod. 2815 or one of its ancestors as a scribal harmonisation with the immediate context, influenced by ἀπωλείαις and ἀπώλειαν in vs. 1. This inadequately-supported variant remained in the Textus Receptus, partly because of Erasmus’ inaccurate statement in Annot. regarding his Greek mss. By a typesetting error, ἀπωλείαις became ἀπολείαις in 1519–35 Annot.”
I also discussed the reading in my dissertation (Beyond What Is Written, pp. 80–81), but I had no access to min. 2815 back then, and thought that the reading ἀπωλείαις was completely unattested. Following de Jonge I explained it similarly to the way Brown now thinks the error was made in min. 2815.
There are quite some other badly attested readings in the Textus Receptus, derived from min. 2815, by the way. See Brown …
Thanks, Jan. That was very helpful.
Delete