Where the Priority Lies in Byzantine Priority

Last Saturday was the textual criticism conference at Clearview Church with myself, Maurice Robinson, Dave Black, and Abidan Shah. You can read Dave’s recap here. I can add my thanks to our hosts for taking such good care of us and to my fellow speakers for sharing with us. 

I was grateful for the opportunity to explain why I’m a reasoned eclectic in a forum like this. I haven’t ever done that and it was a good exercise. What made it especially fun is that none of the other presenters agreed with my position! (Although, by my definition, Dave Black’s Sturzian approach is still a form of reasoned eclecticism; he just has a different approach to external evidence than mine but that’s for another day.) This meant that I not only got to hear how others perceived my view, but I also got to hear their reaction to my perception of their view. That is always a helpful diagnostic and, in this case, I learned something from Maurice that I want to explain here.

The speakers. Photo from Dave Black

In my talk, I argued that the Byzantine Priority view could accurately be called Byzantine Exclusivism since there is never a place where the Byzantine prioritist thinks that the clear majority of manuscripts is flat wrong and the minority is right (e.g.). Even where the majority is split, their choice will always be within the split, never outside it. It is this consistent preference for one group of manuscripts over all others (where they disagree, of course) that sets it apart from all forms of eclecticism—reasoned or thoroughgoing or even Sturzian. This is where the clarification came in.

In his presentation, which followed mine, Maurice pointed out that the priority in “Byzantine Priority” does not mean the Byzantine reading gets priority at each point of variation, but rather that the Byzantine textform existed prior to the other textforms. This may seem like a trivial distinction, but I think it is important for two reasons.

First, it is a reminder that the Byzantine Priority position, as held by Maurice, is based fundamentally on a view of the text’s history not on some preconceived preference for pet readings. What that means is that, if the method is right, it’s right because of its view of history. If it’s wrong—as I think it is—it’s wrong for the same reason. I happen to think this is what all methods share in common, actually. But it was helpful to see it afresh.

Second, I think this should mean that there is no reason, in principle, why a Byzantine prioritist should be unwilling to reject Byzantine readings. The fact that this textform is earliest does not logically entail that it is always right anymore than thinking the Alexandrian text is earliest requires one to think it is always right. 

Now, I say it should mean this because in practice, as I noted, Byzantine prioritists are unwilling to accept any reading that is in the clear minority against the Byzantine majority. So, we are back to the question of whether or not it is really a method of prioritization or of exclusivism. I would be happy to be educated further on this and would love to hear from any Byzantine prioritists who think the Byzantine textform is sometimes wrong even when it’s unified (in which case they would be akin to James Snapp’s view).

One final observation, this experience was a fresh reminder of the danger of misinterpreting other people’s views because we have unwittingly filtered them in some way through our own starting assumptions. In my case, I was hearing the term “priority” through the lenses of my own reasoned eclecticism. What I heard was something like “the Byzantine reading is always prior at every place of variation” when what is meant is “the Byzantine textform is historically prior to the other text forms.” The first does follow from the second, but the order is important. I should have been more careful.

And for anyone wondering, Maurice and I had a grand time together. We have sparred many times over these things at various conferences, over meals, and even at his Smokey Mountain chalet. I always appreciate our conversations and leave them thankful for his sharp mind and his careful work.

Lessons from a Neglected Variant

Last week I was asked to present some research to doctoral students in Southern Seminary’s 1892 Club. I presented on work I am currently doing on Eph 5.22 (see here). For this audience, I wanted to draw out some specific text-critical lessons aimed at budding NT scholars. Here’s what I told them.

1. Don’t assume that all text-critical work is done. The NA editors are clear to say that their edition is a “working text.” It should not just be accepted as correct de facto. Nor should we assume that it must be right because its editors are better text critics than we are. They may be, but they too have blind spots, they make mistakes, they may overlook evidence. As Martin West writes, “editors are not always people who can be trusted... [the reader] should be prepared to consider the facts presented in the apparatus and exercise his own judgment on them. He must do so in places where the text is important to him for some further purpose” (Textual Criticism, 8–9). 
2. Do not be afraid to challenge the consensus. Too many commentators do little beyond parroting Metzger on textual issues or (worse?) they simply repeat the commentators who came before them. Others show only little awareness of the details of textual criticism. Most have never spent serious time—if any—with a NT manuscript. Their knowledge of the mechanics of scribal work is almost always secondhand.
3. Even the best manuscripts have plenty of mistakes. The temptation of external evidence is that it seems so objective when it is not. When facing doubt about the internal evidence, it is often easiest to fall back on the “earliest and best manuscripts.” But even the earliest and best manuscripts have many mistakes! We may not know that because they are not all recorded in our NA apparatus. But there are plenty. There is no reason to think that P46 or B are infallible. They are not. No manuscript or group of manuscripts is. None should be sacrosanct in our text critical work.
4. Not all variants are insignificant. Finally, it is a good and important apologetic point to make that the vast majority of our variants do not affect the meaning and therefore do not affect Christian doctrine or practice. But this variant is a clear example of how some—admittedly very few—variants can and do have bearing on our theology and practice. [More on this point in my chapter here.] The lack of a verb in Eph 5.22 is cited regularly in evangelical debates about the nature of marriage. It is almost always used to clinch the argument that Paul commands mutual submission rather than unilateral submission in marriage. In other words, the textual decision has direct bearing for many on the very practical question of how spouses should relate to one another in Christian marriage.
5. Textual criticism is necessary to engage in. It cannot simply be left to the experts nor can it be set aside as a completed project as if there is nothing left to do. You too can correct the Nestle-Aland!

My thanks to Jonathan Pennington for the invitation and to the students and faculty for their questions and insights. 

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!

Lecture: Lee Irons on the the ‘Righteousness of God’ in Paul

This October, Charles Lee Irons will be speaking at Phoenix Seminary on what Paul meant by the “righteousness of God” (δικαιοσύνη θεοῦ). This was the topic of his book The Righteousness of God: A Lexical Examination of the Covenant-Faithfulness Interpretation (Mohr, 2015). His thesis challenges the interpretation of this term which has been crucial in the interpretation of Paul by scholars like N.T. Wright, Richard Hays, and others. For a positive review of Irons’s book, see Tom Schreiner’s here; for a strong critique, see John Frederick’s in JBTS (vol. 1)  with a response from Irons.

If you’re in the area, come join us. It’s free and open to the public. No registration needed. Register here.

Special ETS Session: Growing Up in the Ehrman Era

It’s just over ten years since Bart Ehrman published his bestselling Misquoting Jesus (reviewed here) and almost ten years since Christanity Today called textual criticism one of “the hottest issues in evangelical theology.” In that time, textual criticism, particularly of New Testament, has become a staple of Evangelical apologetics, with articles on the subject in study Bibles, popular apologetics, and books on the reliability of the Bible. Unfortunately, the apologetic output too often suffers from ignorance of what we all know to be a highly technical field. At times, the results can be quite embarrassing (for example). And the problem does not seem to be improving despite the increasing number of well-trained, Evangelical text-critics.

So, about a year ago, Elijah Hixson and I began planning a way to address this problem. The result is a book project that we are excited to say has recently been accepted by IVP Academic. (More on that later.) Today, as part of that larger project, we would like to announce a special session at this year’s Evangelical Theological Society meeting in Rhode Island. Rather than offering one more response to Ehrman and co., however, the idea is to hold an in-house discussion, one which takes stock of our apologetic efforts over the last decade.

The session is two-part. The first part offers selections from the forthcoming book and the second part is a panel of top Evangelical scholars who have written on the apologetic topic at hand. Elijah and I are especially excited that everyone we asked to join the panel has agreed. We actually adjusted our original schedule to give our panelists extra time. Readers will notice several fellow ETC bloggers on the panel and at least one who will be participating in ETS for the first time. Don’t miss it!

Time & Location

1:00–4:10 PM in the Omni – Providence I

Here are the details:

First Report from Birmingham Colloquium 2011

In spite of catching a terrible cold just before this meeting, which means a lot of sneezing and coughing, I am otherwise really enjoying the Seventh Birmingham Colloquium, as usual very well-organized by Hugh Houghton, David Parker and others, with good papers, discussions and, above all, good company including old friends and new acquintances.

Today there were several good papers and I hope that my own presentation on Mark 1:1 with some emphasis on the patristic evidence counts among them.

Jeff Kloha presented on "The NT Text of Nicetas of Remesiana (with special reference to Luke 1:46)" and it turned out that Nicetas attributes the magnificat to Elisabeth instead of Mary in Luke 1:46 (Jeff referred to it as a piece of "unorthodox corruption") – a tradition otherwise reflected in some VL MSS (3 4 11). Kloha identified a textual connection with 3, 4, 11 and 14 in several other passages, e.g., Luke 10:42; John 5:29; 14:13. Kloha suggested that the rather peculiar reading reading "Elisabeth" in Luke 1:46 may reflect a stream of the Greek tradition.

The next paper was offered by Claire Clivaz, "The Same Words, but not the Same Readings: Early Christian Readings of Lk 22,43-44." Clivaz opened by stating that after writing 640 pages on this passage (in her published dissertation) she still is confident that new early readings of the passage (=interpretations of the text rather than variant readings) could be discovered. The paper focused mainly on the ambivalence of the noun ἀγωνία from the second century CE onwards, as well as the association of struggle and sweat in a religious context.

In my own presentation on the textcritical problem in Mark 1:1, whether the phrase ‘Son of God’ was accidentally omitted from an original or added by some scribe(s), I focused in particular on the patristic evidence (given the theme of the conference), and attempted to demonstrate the marked tendency on the part of some fathers to abbreviate the text. Moreover, I argued for the plausibility of an accidental omission, even in the opening of a book, in the light of observable scribal habits in the extant tradition. Unfortunately, Peter Head, who has written an article defending the short version, wasn't here to argue with me :-(, but another co-blogger from Tyndale House, Dirk Jongkind, stepped in and posed a good question about the correction in Sinaiticus in Mark 1:1 and other corrections in this Gospel, and whether they can be shown to have been made from another exemplar or not.

Gary Pence offered the next paper on the "Citations of St. John's Gospel in the Writings of Basil of Caesarea" which was basically a good demonstration of the lack of good critical editions of Basil's various work which are necessar preconditions for further work of evaluating the patristic citations.

As the cream on the cappuchino, Ulrich Schmid offered a very stimulating paper on "Marcion and the Textual History of Romans: Early Editions of New Testament Writings and Corpora". It was so interesting that I did not at all mind that he went slightly over the alotted time, and for me personally I would have loved to here more. But, then there was time for lunch and the afternoon excursion to Lichfield Cathedral. More on that later perhaps.






In the picture: Ulrich Schmid and Rachel Kevern (presiding)


I took more extensive notes during Schmid's presentation, which I may publish in a separate post. However, Schmid posed three basic challenges relating to his subject – Marcion and the textual history of Romans:

1. How can we reconstruct Marcion’s text?
2. Marcion’s heavy theological agenda may have interferred with other (previous) editorial activity. So how can we tell who has edited what, and when, and for what purposes?
3. What is the appropriate reference point for interpreting editorial variation? We must remember that we cannot deal with individual writings and neglect that they have been transmitted in collections, and a collection is itself an editorial activity. At least one person (the collector) has affected the book in terms of editorial activity.

Schmid then went on to elaborate on this challenges and offer some preliminary answers. I will return to that in another post. However, the very quick answer to the first challenge, of course, is to read Schmid's 1995 monograph, Marcion und sein Apostolos: Rekonstruktion und historische Einordnung der marcionitischen Paulus-Briefausgabe (Arbeiten zur neutestamentlichen Textforschung 25; Berlin: De Gruyter, 1995). This fine treatment of Marcion's text of the Apostolos (in Marcion's case the Pauline Epistles) has unfortunately often been overlooked in scholarly discussions. It certainly deserves more promotion.

How to Avoid Boring Your Audience with Dry Data

Can we as text-critics (and teachers), often working with dry data, learn something from this Swedish professor Hans Rosling? If nothing else, we could get some inspiration for our conference presentations.



That was the best presentation of stats I have ever seen. Want to see more? Here is a more conventional talk, using the same software (and entusiasm):