The Most Common Misconception about the CBGM

The CBGM, invented by Gerd Mink, is not the easiest method to understand. I think we would all agree on that. Various attempts have been made to explain it including mine and Tommy's. Given the learning curve it takes to understand it, misunderstandings are inevitable. I addressed some of these in my PhD thesis. But what is the most common one? And what does the inventor think is the most common misunderstanding of his own method? Here is Mink's answer from the recent Festschrift for Holger Strutwolf:

The most common misconception when using the CBGM is that the role of potential ancestors in constructing stemmata is not understood, and the connections in textual flow diagrams are read like connections in a stemma. However, one must resist the suggestiveness of these graphs. The textual flow diagram is not a stemma. (p. 579)

I would agree with Mink on this. I found this to be the case in my dissertation. Here is what I say there in my chapter on the Harklean text:

textual flow diagrams should not be used for the purpose of studying the text’s overall development. Their simplicity can have a mesmerizing effect. But their clarity can become a hindrance to their proper use when it tempts one to make more of the distinct relationships than is appropriate. Most importantly, they should not be treated as stemmata. (p. 88)

In our intro to the CBGM, Tommy and I have a subsection in ch. 4 devoted just to this point. There we say this:

The fact that there is always far more genealogical data than is shown in the textual flow diagrams brings us to our second caution: a textual flow diagram is not a stemma. Textual flow diagrams reduce and simplify the total genealogical picture, somewhat like a map of the London Underground. They are very good for studying coherence at a point of variation, but they are not good for studying the history of the text on a larger scale. Because a textual flow diagram usually connects each witness with one potential ancestor and does so by agreement whenever possible, we need to resist the temptation to interpret it as a traditional stemma, giving us a map of the text’s historical development. (p. 92)

So, heed the warning: Do not use textual flow diagrams as if they were stemmas. They are neither designed nor intended for use in making simple historical judgments about manuscript relationships. Along with that, do not use them to try to critique the CBGM as being non-historical. In short, do not use them for historical judgments in a box with a fox or in a house with a mouse, do not use them Sam I am!

Call for Papers: 2026 CSNTM Conference

The next CSNTM Text & Manuscript Conference is scheduled for May 28-29, 2026 in Plano, TX (just north of Dallas). I went to the inaugural conference and really enjoyed it. This year's theme is on the ECM and the call for papers has just gone out. Here are the details:

New Article on Textual Criticism in the Reformation

A few years ago I presented a paper at ETS on textual criticism in the Reformation. The session was well attended and the feedback I received was positive. So I’m pleased to say that a revised version has just been published in my seminary’s journal, the Midwestern Journal of Theology. 

This article is not meant to be a comprehensive study by any means: it’s more of a potted history. But for those new to the subject, I think it provides needed historical and theological context for understanding how the Reformation debates influenced and encouraged textual criticism. 

You can read it on my Academia page or at the journal’s website. The entire issue is open access. (Sorry in advance for the typos.)

40% Conference Discount on The Oxford Handbook of Textual Criticism of the Bible

At the SBL in Boston I met my co-editor Sidnie White Crawford at the OUP booth to take a picture with our “baby” – The Oxford Handbook of Textual Criticism of the Bible which has just been published (see here for more details). 

There is an SBL/AAR promocode, EXAAR25, which is valid thru 9 December (three more days) which gives 40% discount! (which means $136 in US and only £69 in UK/Europe).

You will find the whole conference promotion list here. 

New article by Peter Rodgers On P75 and P4

New article by Peter Rodgers in Filologia Neotestamentaria, XXXVIII, 2025

P75 and P4 Reconsidered

Peter R. Rodgers

In recent years the dating of some early Christian papyri has been challenged. Brent Nongbri especially has questioned the value of paleographic dating, noting that several papyri, chiefly P75, could be placed as confidently in the fourth century as in the second/third. This essay seeks a new criterion for assessing the dates of early Christian manuscripts: Nomina Sacra. The abbreviation/suspension of sacred names began with only the four or five, and gradually expanded to include other words treated in this way. Those papyri with fewer Nomina Sacra should be dated early, whereas those that include an expanded list should be deemed to be later. The staurogram is also important in this calculation. On this reckoning, P4 may be placed in the second century, P75 in the third. 

Keywords: Papyri, dating, paleography, Nongbri, Nomina Sacra, Staurogram.

Full text found on Academia.edu

ETC Anniversary Blogdinner 2025 with Speech

Here are some photos from the ETC blogdinner held at the Tremont Temple Baptist Church. Peter Gurry welcomed the 60 guests and held a quiz with fabulous bookprices including Peter Montoro’s Brill book (800+ pages), two copies of Hugh Houghton’s new Textual Commentary, T.C. Schmidt’s new book on Josephus and Jesus, book packages on Simondes the forger and others.

Blogdinner speech by Tommy Wasserman 

The ETC blog celebrates its 20th year anniversary! And I have attended all the blogdinners through the years except for last year (was there a blogdinner last year?).

Founding father Peter Williams published the first blogpost on  October 14, 2005 titled “What this blog is about”. Essentially, he said, “what I’m wanting to do is to create a blog for those who wish to discuss textual criticism of the Old or New Testament from an evangelical perspective. There are many textual critics out there who are evangelicals and here I am trying to create a forum for us to discuss ideas together.” 

What an excellent idea! We have of course returned to the question what is evangelical textual criticism, but this has remained the foundation … we are a bunch of qualified textual critics who are evangelicals and we are discussing ideas together. I will not try to define what evangelical is – the label has many connotations these days, but, let’s say we have room for many different evangelicals, who have in common a high view of Scripture, inspired by God. At the same time, we acknowledge that the Bible did not fall down from the sky in the blessed year of 1611, but it was penned by authors on parchment and papyri and copied through generations by fallible scribes – as Peter Head once remarked, “It is because many scribes did their job well that we are able to study those who did not.” And, as I tell my students, each individual biblical manuscript, in all its fragility, is a witness to the word and we are surrounded by a cloud of witnesses.

What actually sparked Peter Williams to start the blog, does anyone remember? It was the publication of Bart Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus, a book that really made Peter angry and he reviewed it in December that first year and for long it was our most read blogpost. It was the most read when we celebrated our 10 year anniversary in Atlanta.

Peter Head wrote his first blogpost on 26 Oct, although he had already made these pertinent and characteristic comments to the first post:

“I think a white background would be more appropriate for an evangelical blog:
a) more echoes of positive biblical symbolism;
b) better approximation to brightness of original manuscripts (both parchment and papyrus);
c) better reflection of the history of the Bible as a published book;
d) I could probably read it without squinting.”

I personally joined the blog in 2006. I was asked to join the team and Pete actually phoned me from Aberdeen to interview me before I was admitted. In the end of 2006, blogfather Williams was appointed the new warden of Tyndale House, and from about that time he handed over the main responsibility for the blog to Peter Head and myself.

In October 2014, Peter Gurry, then PhD student in Cambridge, joined the blog and helped us give it the current nice new look.

For many years I was very active, and could post long summaries in several parts of entire SBL sessions, and all sorts of stuff. As I got older and more busy, and as new and younger blogmembers like Peter Gurry, Elijah Hixson, Peter Malik, and now recently Peter Montoro, came on board, I took a step back and lost some pace, but I like to post occasionally.

And I am also happy to note that my own post on the Top Ten Essential Works in New Testament textual criticism is back on the top; in particular because for quite some time Peter William’s April Fools Joke that archaeologists had found Q was on the top). The blog, in general, has lost pace and so has many biblioblogs, many have been discontinued, but we are still out there.

So far this year we have posted 36 blogposts with 216,844 views. In 2006, we would have posted nearly ten times as many posts, but 36 are better than none. Nowadays, more people read our blog. When we celebrated our 10th anniversary, we had had 2.7 million pageviews. The last time I held a speech at a blogdinner, a few years ago, we had 4.8 million views, so we have nearly tripled since then. Now, the blog has had over 12 million views and over 23,000 comments on blogposts.

The blog was for many years, especially when blogs were the big thing, a great venue for me personally to contribute to the discipline of biblical studies in general and textual criticism in particular, and in some ways, it helped my academic career for which I am thankful.

In any case what I appreciate most with the ETC blog is actually the relationship with the fellow bloggers, and by extension our followers and fans (you all here)! This month Oxford University Press published my Oxford Handbook of Textual Criticism of the Bible and seven ETC bloggers have chapters in that handbook and two more bloggers were offered to write chapters…

Finally, when I think back on my most memorable blogposts they are closely related to my dear friend Peter Head who is not here today, and his alternative career as an athlete (you can go ahead and read about that yourself on the blog, just type in “Britain’s new hope in racewalking” in the Google search box.