Explaining a Discrepancy in the Number of Greek NT Manuscripts

In my post last week, I pointed to a blog by the folks at INTF giving the number of known Greek NT manuscripts. Their number was 5,700. But some eagle-eyed readers may remember reading in Jacob Peterson’s chapter in Myths and Mistakes that there are more like 5,100–5,300. 

Why the discrepancy?

The short answer, I believe, is that Peterson used an extrapolation that turned out not to hold true across all categories. To get his total, Peterson went through the majuscules carefully to note places where manuscripts had been counted twice or added without warrant. From the original number of 323 (the highest majuscule number assigned when he wrote his chapter), he found 41 had been stricken from the Liste (p. 58). 

He further noted cases where the actual manuscript’s whereabouts are lost or unknown and that brought the number down from 282 to 261. From there it was a simple extrapolation to the other categories (see p. 68, esp. n. 44). From a total of 5885 numbers in the Liste, the result would be 5138. Given that minuscules and lectionaries might not suffer as much from the problem of double counting, he was happy to say it might be closer to 5,300.

As it turns out from INTF’s recent work, that number is not steady and the minuscules and lectionaries have suffered far less than the majuscules from the problems of mis-cataloguing. By comparing Peterson’s numbers to INTF’s, we can see the difference clearly.

	Highest Number in Liste	MSS Removed from Liste	Rate of difference
Papyri	141	6	4%
Majuscule	326	43	13%
Majuscule (Peterson)	323	41	13%
Minuscule	3019	159	5%
Lectionary	2555	133	5%

As you can see from this, Peterson and INTF got the same 13% rate of difference for majuscules. But since minuscule and lectionaries turn out to have a far smaller rate of difference, Peterson’s extrapolation undershot the total by hundreds. 

So, that’s the why. What about the so what?

Two things. First, Peterson notes 21 majuscules whose whereabouts are unknown. Incorporating them would have taken him below 5,100. I don’t see that category factored into INTF’s numbers. We could have a good debate about whether those should be counted or not. But part of Peterson’s goal was to question the usefulness of trying to attain an exact number.

That leads to the second point. The reason Peterson didn’t go through the minuscule and lectionary data is because there’s no point apologetically. As he says, “Arriving at a range this precise for the thousands of minuscules and lectionaries would be a monumental task and one that, as will hopefully become clear in what follows is not worth undertaking—at least not for apologetic purposes” (p. 58). Why? Because, as he says in his conclusion, “finding one more minuscule is not going to convince someone Christianity is true” (p. 68). 

Personally, I’m happy to use INFT’s numbers going forward. Perhaps a future edition of M&M could be updated to note all this. Which brings me to the conclusion of Peter Rodgers’s very nice review of M&M in the latest Filologia Neotestamentaria, “It is clear from my last few paragraphs that a wider audience should be in view than simply apologists for this fine collection of essays by upcoming scholars in New Testament textual research. It is hoped that periodic updates in further editions will address a broader range of issues for a more diverse readership.”