Recent Unsubstantiated Critiques of the CBGM (Pastorelli and Alexanderson)

At the SNTS in Leuven last summer, David Pastorelli came up to me during a break and handed over an off-print of an article, "La mise en oeuvre de la cohérence prégénéalogique dans le cadre de la Coherence-Based Genealogical Method: évaluation critique," BABELAO 10-11 (2022): 169-188, in which he criticizes the Coherence-Based Genealogical Method making ample references to my and Peter Gurry's introduction to the method. When I read the article I just felt that it was so full of misunderstandings that I did not know where to begin. Unfortunately, Pastorelli has never participated in our text-critical seminar at SNTS, where we could have had a dialogue about his concerns.

In any case, Klaus Wachtel has now actually taken the time to offer a response to Pastorelli under the heading, "Selective Reading and Unsubstiantiated Criticism" on the INTF Blog, for which I am grateful. In the blogpost, Wachtel refers to one of the many unsubstantiated statements that Pastorelli cites in his article, namely a statement that he has drawn from Bengt Alexanderson's 2014 critique of the CBGM: "This is all arbitrary, a 'place of variation', a reading, a variant, a passage can be anything" (Pastorelli, 179).  

Many years ago I was asked by a Swedish journal to review Alexanderson's study. I wrote the review in Swedish (Swedish version here), but  I have now translated it below for our blog readers – it is another example of criticism against the CBGM which is totally off the mark. (The critique of the CBGM are in his chapters 3–4.)

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Review of Bengt Alexanderson, Problems in the New Testament: Old Manuscripts and Papyri, the New Genealogical Method (CBGM) and the Editio Critica Maior (ECM) (Acta Regiae Societatis Scientiarum et Litterarum Gothoburgensis. Humaniora 48). 146 pages. Kungl. Vetenskaps- och Vitterhets-Samhället i Göteborg 2014.

Bengt Alexanderson’s short study is divided into four chapters: (1) An analysis of textual variants in four of the oldest textual witnesses to the Gospel of John (P66, P75, Codices Sinaiticus and Vaticanus); (2) A survey of how Barbara Aland has analyzed early NT papyri in three studies; (3) A critical treatment of the Coherence-Based Genealogical Method (CBGM), developed by Gerd Mink of the Institut für neutestamentliche Textforschung in Münster and applied for the Editio Critica Maior (ECM) and, in extension, also Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece (from the 28^th edition and onwards); (4) An evaluation of the second edition of the Editio Critica Maior IV. Catholic Letters (“ECM2”).

The New Testament in Antiquity and Byzantium: Festschrift for Klaus Wachtel

Back in early November, Elijah noted Klaus Wachtel’s retirement from his many years of service at INTF. It seems, however, that we haven’t yet noted that Klaus was also honored with a Festschrift later that month at SBL. Congratulations, Klaus!

The New Testament in Antiquity and Byzantium: Traditional and Digital Approaches to its Texts and Editing, A Festschrift for Klaus Wachtel
Ed. by H.A.G. Houghton, David C. Parker, Holger Strutwolf

Description

Klaus Wachtel has pioneered the creation of major editions of the Greek New Testament through a blend of traditional philological approaches and innovative digital tools. In this volume, an international range of New Testament scholars and editors honour his achievements with thirty-one original studies. Many of the themes mirror Wachtel's own publications on the history of the Byzantine text, the identification of manuscript families and groups, detailed analysis of individual witnesses and the development of software and databases to support the editorial process. Other contributions draw on the production of the Editio Critica Maior, with reference to the Gospels of Mark and John, the Acts of the Apostles, the Pauline Epistles and the Apocalypse. Several chapters consider the application of the Coherence-Based Genealogical Method. A wide selection of material is considered, from papyri to printed editions. The Greek text is analysed from multiple perspectives, including exegesis, grammar and orthography, alongside evidence from versions in Latin, Syriac, Coptic and Gothic. This collection provides new insights into the history of the biblical text and the creation, development, analysis and application of modern editions.

xvii, 482 pages; 12 Fig., 30 Tables

Table of Contents

Klaus Wachtel: An Appreciation
Klaus Wachtel: Bibliography

1. Michael W. Holmes, The “Western” Text of Acts: A Challenge for Historians
2. Christina M. Kreinecker, In anderen und eigenen Sprachen: wenn alle sprechen und alle verstehen. Ein textkritisch-exegetisch motivierter Blick auf Apg 2,1–13
3. Andreas Juckel, Acta 2:1–22 in der Revision des Jakob von Edessa
4. Tommy Wasserman, New Traces of an Old Text: The Corrections of Gregory-Aland 424 in Acts 1–14
5. Carla Falluomini, The Longer Ending of Mark in Gothic
6. Christian-B. Amphoux, La géographie marcienne et ses corrections ecclésiales
7. Christian Askeland, A Coptic Papyrus without John 21?
8. Annette Hüffmeier, GA 382: Byzantinisches „Allerlei“
9. J.K. Elliott, The Case of the “Rule of Three” in the Gospels
10. Hans Förster, The “Power on the Head” of a Woman. A New Appraisal of 1 Corinthians 11:10 and its Variants
11. Georg Gäbel, The Text of Hebrews in GA 1739, in Selected Other Greek Manuscripts, and in Works of Origen: Preliminary Quantitative Assessments
12. Roderic L. Mullen, Photius: A Re-evaluation of the Johannine Evidence in Light of Modern Tools
13. Marcus Sigismund, ὡς ἐν τῇ Ἀποκαλύψει λέγεται. (Vermeintliche) Apk-Zitate am Ende der byzantinischen Epoche
14. Dirk Jongkind, Manuscripts of the Greek Bible
15. Georgi Parpulov, K^r in the Gospels
16. Jan Graefe, Eine Dromone in GA 013? Gedanken zu einer Schiffszeichnung 
17. Jan Krans, The Earliest Printed Portions of the Greek New Testament
18. Martin Karrer, Von den Evangelien bis zur Apk. Die Ordnung der Schriften in der Edition des
19. Holger Strutwolf, Von den Kanones der Textkritik zu einer Theorie der Variantenentstehung im Rahmen der Kohärenzbasierten Genealogischen Methode. Einige vorläufige Überlegungen
20. Gerd Mink, Manuscripts, Texts, History, and the Coherence-Based Genealogical Method (CBGM): Some Thoughts and Clarifications 
21. Gregory S. Paulson, Improving the CBGM: Recent Interactions
22. Peter J. Gurry, The Byzantine Text as the Initial Text 
23. D.C. Parker, Family 1 in the Gospel of John: Its Members, Text and the Coherence-Based Genealogical Method 
24. H.A.G. Houghton, An Initial Selection of Manuscripts for the Editio Critica Maior of the Pauline Epistles
25. Bruce Morrill and Ulrich B. Schmid, Editorial Activity and Textual Affiliation: The Case of the Corpus Paulinum 
26. Darius Müller, Die mehrheitsbildenden Gruppen der Apokalypse-Überlieferung: Textgeschichtliche und editorische Herausforderungen 
27. Marie-Luise Lakmann, Transkription und Kollation neutestamentlicher Handschriften. Analyse der Fehlermöglichkeiten und ihrer Ursachen
28. Bill Warren, A Text-Critical Approach to Punctuation in the New Testament: 1 Corinthians 14:33
29. Peter J. Williams, When Does συν- Assimilate?
30. Siegfried G. Richter und Katharina D. Schröder, Digitale Werkzeuge zur Systematisierung koptischer Handschriften
31. Wilhelm Blümer, Die Vetus Latina-Edition der Apostelgeschichte: Überlegungen zu Chronologie, Konstituierung und Disposition der „Texttypen“ 

Index

Contributors photo (courtesy of Jeff Cate)

Congrats to Klaus Wachtel

Congratulations to Klaus Wachtel on his retirement!

Source of un-doctored image: Hugh Houghton's Twitter

Yesterday, the INTF posted the following:

Klaus has been a constant presence in textual criticism for many years now. I've personally benefitted much from his writings on the Byzantine text, and more recently, his textual commentary of Acts in the ECM Acts: Studies volume. May he have a happy retirement!

Congrats also to Greg Paulson as he steps into his new position within the INTF!

The Text-Critical Seminar at SNTS in Athens 2018

Today I am flying home from Athens where I have participated in the 73rd SNTS meeting including three sessions in the text-critical seminar. This was the fifth and final year of the seminar, chaired by me, Claire Clivaz and Ulrich Schmid, and the theme of this year was NTTC in exegesis.

We had three wonderful presentations followed by responses and fruitful discussions by the sixteen or so participants and I think the presenters got some very useful feedback. 

Jennifer Knust kicked off on Wednesday with a brilliant paper on textual criticism as exegesis discussing Lachmann’s idea of recensere sine interpretatione, Origen on John 1:28 (Bethany/Bethabara) among other things followed by a stimulating response by Claire Clivaz, wherein she coined the term “Lachmannian utopia,” among other things.

Next on Thursday, Klaus Wachtel gave an instructive presentation on the interactive commentary on ECM of Acts in the NT.VMR with an example in Acts 3:13, followed by a response by Mike Holmes, who also brought up the conjecture in Acts 13:33.

On the last day of the SNTS meeting in Athens (Fri), we had Juan Hernandez Jr. present on ”The Apocalypse in Light of Recent Advances: A Return to J. Schmid’s Studien to Contextualize Current Text-Critical Trends.” The paper presented and evaluated Josef Schmid’s work on Revelation which has now been translated into English by Juan, Garrick Allen and Darius Müller (Juan is holding the book in the picture), and concluded by briefly looking to the future.

This was followed by a response by myself where I posed several questions to the presenter about Schmid’s work in particular in light of recent advances in research on Revelation through Text und Textwert, monographs and articles by Juan himself, Darius Müller, Peter Malik, and many others.

A highlight was when Juan stood up and read out loud for us a paragraph from the new translation which answered one of the questions.

This session as the two others went great and I have had good feedback from many participants in the seminar who thought we had great sessions. The best thing with the meeting though is to meet wonderful colleagues (here I am with Jennifer Knust and Claire Clivaz).

And, now I can announce that our seminar was accepted for renewal for another five years with me, Claire Clivaz and Hugh Houghton as chairs.

These are the themes for the coming period:

1)    Significant manuscripts and scribal habits (2019) – joint session(s) with papyrology
We will begin with a focus on the physical manuscripts and their scribes. We have agreed with the papyrology seminar to arrange a joint seminar (or sessions) on significant New Testament MSS at the meeting in Marburg.

2)    The Latin Bible (2020)
This will coincide with the publication of the Oxford Handbook to the Latin Bible, and enable us to invite distinguished guests as well as contributions from existing members.

3)    New Testament editions (2021)
This topic is evolving so fast that there is no doubt that we will have new topics and novelties to discuss in 2021.

4)     Digital developments and challenges (2022)
The same remark can be made here, based on the successful seminar on this topic in 2017, which has led to new standards being adopted for digital data in this field. Moreover, we expect to see several new digital projects developed in NTTC in the next years.

5)    NTTC and Reception History (2023)
This topic acts as a link between the study of the text and its significance for those working in other areas of New Testament scholarship.

So, I hope I will see some of you colleagues out there in Marburg next year!

Where did the Byzantine text come from?

In my occasional interactions with Byzantine-text-preferring folks, I have been puzzled by how many of them are unaware of modern research on the Byzantine text and its development. Some of these folks sincerely seem to think that Westcott and Hort’s views of the matter are still what modern textual critics believe. This is not the case. I know of no text critic today who would argue that the Byzantine text as we find it promulgated in the minuscules is the result of a concerted fourth-century recension.  

So, what do scholars think? The most serious work on the Byzantine text’s development has been done by Klaus Wachtel, especially in his 1995 dissertation. But few Byzantine advocates seem aware of it, probably because it remains untranslated into English (sadly).

Fortunately, a number of Wachtel’s papers from over the years are easily accessible online—and in English. So, I thought I would point out just one of the places where he has explained his view. This is in the hope that those who hold to a Byzantine priority position, a Majority text position, or an Ecclesiastical text position (I realize there are differences in these views) will see that modern eclecticism has developed since 1881 on the question of the Byzantine text. In fact, Wachtel’s animating goal in his dissertation was refuting the view of a fourth-century recension.

In any case, here is Wachtel talking about the Gospels:

The term “text-type”, however, still carries along relics of the old division of the New Testament manuscript tradition into three or four “recensions”. If we take the whole evidence into account, a picture emerges that is far more complex. The external criteria applied when variants are assessed have to be re-defined accordingly. To this end we have to focus on individual manuscripts and explore their relationships with other manuscripts. Assigning them to text-types has become obsolete.

You may ask, why then I am still referring to the “Byzantine text” myself. I am doing so, because the term aptly denominates the mainstream text form in the Byzantine empire. This mainstream has its headwaters in pre-Byzantine times, in fact in the very first phase of our manuscript tradition, and it underwent a long process of development and standardization. The final phase began with the introduction of the minuscule script in the 9th century and ended up in a largely uniform text characterized by readings attested by the majority of all Greek manuscripts from the 13th - 15th centuries counted by hundreds and thousands.

Standardization means editorial activity, and in fact, a text form so similar to the late majority text as represented by Codex Alexandrinus cannot have emerged from a linear copying process without conscious editing. It is indeed likely that the text in Codex Alexandrinus is the result of editorial activity which may have been carried out in one or, more likely, several steps. Likewise, the text of the 6th century purple codices N 022 and Σ 042 certainly was not just copied from some manuscript picked at random. Diorthosis, correction, was an integral part of the copying process. Yet the assumption that a recension stood at the beginning of the formation of the Byzantine text and then penetrated the whole manuscript tradition reflects a categorically different view of the transmission history. I am going to focus on the differences between five manuscript texts to show that despite intense editorial activity the Byzantine majority text is the result of a process of reconciliation between different strands of transmission.*

I myself have found this view persuasive at least as far as the Catholic Letters are concerned (though I have tweaked it just slightly). You, of course, may or may not agree with this view, but it is the most detailed and substantiated view of the Byzantine text’s origin on offer. And it is now cited as such in both the major introductions to the field (Metzger-Ehrman’s, and Parker’s).

Kirsopp Lake’s diagram of WH’s view of textual history. He rejected this too.

No major textual critic, to my knowledge, holds to Westcott and Hort’s fourth-century revision view anymore though it may well linger among those in the wider NT guild. My point here is only to say that Byzantine prioritists (of whatever stripe) need to address Wachtel’s arguments not Westcott and Hort’s.

Here ends my public service announcement.

———
* Klaus Wachtel, “The Byzantine Text of the Gospels: Recension or Process?” paper delivered at SBL in 2009, online here.

What Is ‘Logically Impossible’ for the ECM?

The Editio Critica Maior defines a “variant” as a reading that is both “grammatically correct and logically possible.” If it doesn’t meet these two criteria it is marked with an f for Fehler (= error). Neither criteria is completely objective, but then most of the errors so recorded in the ECM are pretty obvious gibberish. Occasionally, however, one finds cause for disagreement. Here’s an example.

At James 2.3, minuscule 1563 reads:

...καὶ τῷ πτωχῷ εἴπητε· σὺ στῆθι ἐκεῖ ἐπὶ τὸ ὑποπόδιόν μου.
...and to the poor you say, “You stand there on my footstool.”

GA 1563 at Jas 2.3

Speaking of this variant, Klaus Wachtel explains that

Reading f [εκει in 1563] is marked as an error by an additional f (for the German Fehler). That it is an error becomes clear if we compare the reading of 1563 at the next passage of variation (50-56b) where it reads ἐπὶ τὸ ὑποπόδιόν μου, resulting in the request Stand there on my footstool.

Now standing on a footstool seems a bit odd to me but hardly impossible—either logically or physically. But maybe the editors have a different conception of “impossible” than I do.

Nothing of great significance follows from this except that editors have to make judgments and you may not always agree with them. So it may be something worth checking.

Report on the International Conference for the NT Textual Criticism in Athens

Over at the Volos Acadamy for Theological Studies website there is a report on a recent conference in Athens on NTTC.

On February, 22 2016, an International Conference was successfully held at the central building of Athens University (“Al. Argyriadis” Amphitheater), on the general theme: New Testament Textual Criticism: Its Significance for Scholarship, Culture and Church. The conference was co-organized by the Dean’s office of Theological School of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and the Department for the study of the manuscript tradition of the New Testament of the Volos Academy for Theological Studies, and attended by a vast number of academics and special researchers who are members and contributors to the Editorial Board of the critical editions of the New Testament “Novum Testamentum Graece” (known as Nestle-Aland) and “UBS Greek New Testament”, which internationally constitute the basis for the scholarly study and the translation of the text of the New Testament.

Speakers included Klaus Wachtel, Holger Strutwolf, Florian Voss, David Trobisch, Greg Paulson, Stephen Pisano, Simon Crisp, Christos Karakolis.

Apparently this was in some way the first scholarly conference being held in Greece on the subject of New Testament Textual Criticism. I’m not sure exactly what that means. But it’s good to see more TC happening in Greece where so many GNT manuscripts are kept. It looks like there was a pretty good crowd too. Full report here.

Update

A blog reader has pointed out that this conference also saw the first a meeting of the new Editorial Committee of the NA/UBS. That is historic. I confess that I still don’t understand what the new committee’s role actually is. Also I thought David Parker was a member. Still, exciting stuff.

Left (from rear to front) David Trobisch, Klaus Wachtel, Holger Strutwolf, Stephen Pisano; right (from rear to front) Christos Karakolis, Simon Crisp, Florian Voss. (Photo: Greg Paulson)

Presentation of NA28 (SBL Chicago)

Following up on Mike Holmes’ post on the changes between the 1st and 2nd editions of the Editio Critica Maior, this blogpost summarizes the presentation by Klaus Wachtel of the INTF, Münster, at the SBL in Chicago.

The presentation was part of a session presenting the Nestle-Aland 28th edition. The specific paper was entitled:

The Revision of the Catholic Epistles according to the Editio Critica Maior

– The text of NA28 has changed at 34 passages. A list of changes is available on the INTF website here. This list also displays the differences between ECM1 and ECM2, which are due to the benefit of using the whole database with the Catholic Letters.

– Diamonds have been inserted in the text and the apparatus where ECM2 will display a split primary line. A list of these passages which are marked with diamond in the text and apparatus is available here.

– The selection of witnesses has changed.

– The symbol “Byz” is used instead of Gothic M.

– The aim of the ECM is to present all relevant material [I think for the textual transmission of the NT in the first 1000 years] and the initial text.

– The simplest hypothesis (making least suppositions) is that the initial text represent of the text of the author as it is preserved in the extant textual tradition. However, a reconstruction of the authorial text is not possible in each case, every reconstruction cannot be absolutely claimed to be authorial. The present reconstruction is a hypothesis about the text of the authors.

– The old text-type terminology is not useful any longer. Core witnesses of the Byzantine text are integrated into the network. The ECM Byz is represented by seven witnesses with a pure Byzantine text (these representatives changes from letter to letter).

– Sometimes the editors preferred readings which were preserved in later witnesses (not the well-known witnesses). When the characteristic feature of the Byzantine text of smoothing out the text is not there, we can be sure that we have an old text before us.

– 125 passages are marked with diamond – here it is unclear which reading is the initial text. The bold dot has been abandoned.


NA28 vs. NA27

NA27: Aim was more secure reconstruction of the original text.

NA28: Aim is formulated as a hypothesis about the initial text (at many passages left open)


NA27: Text-type theory

NA28: Redefinition of external criteria based on relationships between individual witnesses


NA27: Prejudice against the Byz tradition

NA28: Reliability of the main stream tradition


NA27: The critical apparatus as a repository of variants

NA28: a gateway to the sources


NA28: ECM new basis for Nestle-Aland


Question (at QA-session): At places where there is a diamond, why print a certain reading in the main text? Answer: It was done for practical reasons – the printed reading is the NA27 reading. It would have been a worse alternative to print a new reading.

Review of The Textual History of the Greek New Testament (eds. Wachtel & Holmes)

My review of Wachtel and Holmes’ The Textual History of the Greek New Testament has been published by RBL.

Leonard review of The Textual History of the Greek New Testament

Panel Review of SBLGNT Published

A new article has just been published in the current issue if the TC Journal:

 

Michael Holmes, David Parker, Harold Attridge, and Klaus Wachtel, The SBL Greek New Testament: Papers from the 2011 SBL Panel Review Session with a comparison of SBLGNT vs. NA²⁷/UBSGNT⁴ by Klaus Wachtel.

Abstract: The 2011 SBL meeting in San Francisco included a panel review session on The Greek New Testament: SBL Edition (ed. Michael W. Holmes; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2010). The reviews are presented here along with Holmes’ introductory comments and response. The papers retain their nature as oral presentations and are as originally delivered apart from minor corrections.

 

There is more to come very soon in this issue of TC . . .

Published: Parallel Pericopes of the Synoptic Gospels (Editio Critica Maior series)

In August I announced that a long-awaited tool from the INTF in Münster was soon to be published: Parallel Pericopes of the Synoptic Gospels edited by Holger Strutwolf and Klaus Wachtel in the Novum Testamentum Graecum, Editio Critica Maior series (NTGECM). The publication is the result of a research project designed to complement the test passage collations (Text- und Textwert) of the Synoptic Gospels, by which the influence of textual parallels on the formation of variants can be studied. It presents evidence of 159 MSS in 38 synoptic pericopes. Sample page here.


Today, the volume arrived in my mail, graciously sent to me by the editors, and it looks very nice. In my blogpost I stated that it would be nice if we would have access to the database in the future. Now I note in the preface:

To enable computer-aided analyses of the material presented in Parallel Pericopies, the full critical apparatus comprising collations of 159 manuscripts is made available as a text file at http://intf.uni-muenster.de/PPApparatus/.

If you follow that link you can download the full contents of the critical apparatus, but in contrast to the printed volume which displays most passages through a negative apparatus (cf. NA27), this database offers a full apparatus at each variant passage, which is very convenient if you want to do research. For example of such research, using this tool, see Klaus Wachtel's SBL paper from 2009 which is available online: "The Byzantine Text of the Gospels: Recension or Process."

Finally, I just want to explain what the database shows in the different columns:



In the first column on the first line you see the digit "1," which stands for book 1 in the NT = Matthew; then "3" for chapter 3; "13" for verse 13; and "6" for the letter address "6" where the textual variant in question starts. Thus, here it refers to the third word in τότε (2) παραγίνεται (4) ὅ (6) Ἰησοῦς (8), i.e., the definite article. As in the printed publications in the ECM series, even numbers correspond to words in the printed text, odd numbers to the spaces in between, where we may find additions of words in MSS noted in the apparatus. The next column also has "6", i.e., this particular variant starts and end in 6 – it involves only the presence of the definite article.

The next column, "a," means variant a (which is always the printed reading); variant b in this case stands for the omission of the article and it is attested only by 372 further down in the list. If "zz" appears in this column it signifies lacunae. (Incidentally, I think this data in the printed volumes in the ECM series including this one, should always be carefully verified against the corresponding appendices with list of lacunae, because there are some discrepancies between the two, and I think the appendix is more complete).

The next column gives us the reading in unaccentuated Greek "o"=ὅ, i.e., the article is present in this witness. The next column refers to the witnesses. However, the first line, "A" indicates the reconstructed initial text (Ausgangstext), i.e., the printed text. The two last columns read "3" and "13" which means that the variant also ends in the same verse. There are also additional columns where data may appear, e.g., "f" which stands for Fehler and indicates that the editors have judged that a certain reading represents an error on the part of the scribe.

In order to understand the database wholly, it is crucial to carefully read the introduction to this or any other volume in the ECM series in order to understand the presentation of the material and the apparatus according to the new and excellent ECM standard (which, by the way, I largely followed in my own work on an edition of Jude).

The Textual History of the Greek New Testament: Changing Views in Contemporary Research

A new important book published by SBL has just appeared:

The Textual History of the Greek New Testament: Changing Views in Contemporary Research edited by Klaus Wachtel and Michael W. Holmes.

ISBN 1589836243
Status Forthcoming
Price: $34.95
Binding Paperback
Publication Date November, 2011
Hardback edition available from Brill Academic Publishers (www.brill.nl)

The volume represents the published contributions of a colloquium organized in Münster 2008 by the Institute for New Testament Textual Research, in which I participated. For more background, read my reports and comments on the colloqium:

Day 1

Day 1 continued

Day 1-2

Images from the colloquium and CBGM software and database

Publisher's description of the published volume:

This collection of essays by respected scholars represents the state of the art of textual criticism as applied to the New Testament. Addressing core topics such as the causes and forms of variation, contamination and coherence, and the goals and the canons of textual criticism, it presents a first-class overview of traditional and innovative methodologies as they are applied to reconstructing the initial wording of the New Testament writings. In this context, the new Coherence-Based Genealogical Method (CBGM) is introduced and discussed extensively. Integrating established approaches and procedures, the CBGM features a new category of external evidence: genealogical coherence of witnesses.

Klaus Wachtel is Research Associate, Institut für Neutestamentliche Textforschung at Münster University. He is co-editor of Novum Testamentum Graecum, Editio Critica Maior. Michael W. Holmes is University Professor of Biblical Studies and Early Christianity at Bethel University. He is editor of The Greek New Testament: SBL Edition.

The volume front matter, including the table of contents and introduction is available here.

Parallel Pericopes of the Synoptic Gospels (Editio Critica Maior series)

A long-awaited tool from the INTF in Münster is soon to be published:
Parallel Pericopes of the Synoptic Gospels edited by Holger Strutwolf and Klaus Wachtel in the Novum Testamentum Graecum, Editio Critica Maior series (NTGECM).

Publisher: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft Stuttgart
Publication info: Forthcoming January 2012
Bibliographic info: ca. 160 pages
Cover: Cloth
ISBN: 1-59856-940-6
ISBN13: 978-1-59856-940-7

This is the result of a research project designed to complement the test passage collations (Text- und Textwert) of the Synoptic Gospels, by which the influence of textual parallels on the formation of variants can be studied. It presents evidence of 154 MSS in 38 synoptic pericopes.

Klaus Wachtel’s SBL paper from 2009, “The Byzantine Text of the Gospels: Recension or Process,” is an example of how the tool can be used for a specific research question. I am sure this tool will be very useful. It would also be nice if we would have access to the database in the future.

Publisher’s description:

The Institute for New Testament Textual Research in Münster, Germany, presents a new volume in the Novum Testamentum Graecum, Editio Critica Maior series: a special edition of the Greek text and a critical apparatus for 38 parallel pericopes from the Synoptic Gospels that also includes three parallel passages from the Gospel of John and the First Letter to the Corinthians. The apparatus comprises all the variants of 154 manuscripts preserving text from at least two Synoptic Gospels. This volume presents evidence from those primary witnesses from which any study of the textual history of the Synoptic Gospels has to start. Parallel Pericopes is an invaluable resource for research of the history of the Greek text of the Synoptic Gospels.

• Sample pages here.
• Preorder from Eisenbrauns, $93.46 (List price $109.95)
• Other volumes in the NTGECM series

Wachtel on the Byzantine Text of the Gospels

The very last paper In the last NT textual criticism session a few days ago at the SBL in New Orleans was presented by Klaus Wachtel, INTF, Münster:

"The Byzantine Text of the Gospels: Recension or Process?"

Abstract:

Codex Alexandrinus (A 02) and the Purple Codices (N 022, O 023, S 042, F 043) are often classified as early witnesses of the Byzantine text and thought to support the theory that it was the result of a recension made early in the 4th century. Full collations of 38 synoptic pericopes in 156 manuscripts brought together in a research project at the Münster Institute for New Testament Textual Research can now be used for a fresh look at the question of how the Byzantine text of the Gospels arose. In fact, the evidence points to a development rather than to a recension, although it becomes clear that a large part of this development had already taken place by the 5th century. This paper will describe the phases of that development represented by Codex Alexandrinus and the Purple Codices.

Since Wachtel perceived that people in the audience were a bit tired in this late afternoon (especially the Europeans with the huge time difference), he decided not to read his whole paper, but instead summarized it, showed the slides, and went straight to the conclusions.

However, the whole paper including tables is now available for download on the INTF website here.