A Comprehensive Introduction to the Coherence Based Genealogical Method

During the Münster colloquium last year, Gerd Mink presented the Coherence Based Genealogical Method (CBGM). The plan was to upload that presentation, but now the INTF announces that they have posted not only the original presentation, but a comprehensive step-by-step introduction to the Coherence Method.

You will find the download page here.

See my previous reports from the Münster colloqium here, here, here and here.

Münster Colloquium, Images, and CBGM Software and Database

Recently, I have written some reports from the Münster Colloquium zur Textgeschichte des Neuen Testaments, 3-6 August. On the homepage of the INTF, there are now also pictures available from the conference, including a nice group photo in front of the city hall of the town (check out the tall guy in the back row, and his short friend on his left side). In the inner room of this city hall (and in a neighbouring town, Osnabrück), piece negotionations took place for some years (1644-1648), and one part of the piece treaty after the Thirty Years' War was signed here, resulting in the Peace of Westphalia. The interior of that inner room is still intact (but it was temporarily moved during the Second World War). On the wall, several portraits of kings and delegates were hanging. A local and very skilled guide explained who they were (though, I had to find the Swedish king for myself...) and gave us exciting glimpses from this part of history. Although I have been to Münster five times, I have never been inside this room. It was apparently a great privilege to be let in there. In fact, during these days the organizers of the conference made us text-critics feel almost as important as these delegates on the portraits.

On the last day of the conference, Gerd Mink demonstrated the Coherence Based Genealogical Method with practical examples, using the software and database that he and the INTF have developed. A prototype is now also available here, "loaded" with the database of the Catholic Epistles and the textual decisions and stemmata in 3046 variation-units. Researchers are encouraged to try out the software for themselves. This prototype, however, is not the whole software package. It is just the part, "Genealogical Queries," that was used for the demonstration at the colloquium. It is useful to get an overview of what the software can do, in order to learn more. (Unfortunately, there is no English guide, only German.) At this point, one can check and change an individual decision (in the light of the total data from 3045 other decisions made, or in the light of the data in an individual book). It is not possible to go through the text and make independent textual decisions and local stemmata from scratch.

Update: Klaus Wachtel from the INTF announces in the comment section, that a guide in English to the online application of the CBGM will be available in the course of next week.

Münster Colloquium on the Textual History of the Greek New Testament Day 1-2

Unfortunately, I am now under time pressure, since I have a train to catch, and it will take me over 20 hours to get home, so I will not be able to give extensive reviews of the other papers at this point. [PMH: I shall add some comments in brackets]

The next session treated “Causes and forms of variation” and two papers were presented by David Trobisch and Ulrich Schmid. In Trobish’s paper, “What is there in a picture? Analyzing scribal practices of structuring the text,” he mainly pointed out that the documentation of the evidence has to come first, not the authoritative interpretation.

[He also argued that manuscripts are produced not only by scribes, but by a combination of author, scribe, editor, publisher and reader/corrector. Variants can originate at any of these levels - but they ought to be carefully distinguished, especially in the construction of stemma. He argued that a critical edition ought to facilitate the reconstruction of ‘the text of the first edition’ (other methods would be required for determining the ‘authorial’ text). He urged that transparency, of method, display and evaluation of material was very important so that errors would not be hidden, but would be identifiable. He began to ask the question: what if there is more than one textual archetype, e.g. the DFG text in Paul alongside the 01 ABC text - how should a critical edition handle this? But unfortunately he ran out of time and we never heard the answer.]

He posed a number of critical questions and heartily welcomed the new initiative of the Virtual Manuscript Room under development at the INTF in Münster (in fact, I think Trobisch was involved in the idea of the VMR). Read more on the INTF homepage.

Then it was time for Ulrich Schmid, ”Conceptualising ‘scribal’ performances.” Schimd started with describing the default assumption: was we physically find in a MS is the work of a scribe. Everything can be used to describe the scribe. Everything is a kind of scribal performance. The variants produced are the most obvious traces of scribal performance. However, not everyone who left prints in the MS were acting as scribe. There are other roles. Schmid pointed to the need for criteria for distinguishing scribal and non-scribal activity. One important criteria is to distinguish between different scripts, book-hand (readability, regular letter forms, few abbreviations) vs. documentary hand (speed of writing, effective use of space, varying letter forms and ligatures, more abbreviations). Marginal comments and readers’ notes would probably be written by a more casual informal hand. Then Schmid presented some compelling examples of readers’ notes. This phenomenon would also provide some explanation for the introduction of certain variants into the textual tradition, which may have been interpreted as theological interpretations and creations of the scribes (e.g., acting as “orthodox corruptors” - my remark).

[So Ulrich also outlined the process of literary production/reproduction in antiquity:
1. the authorial stage
2. the editorial stage (which places authored material into the public domain)
3. the manufacturing stage (the primary scribal stage)
4. the users stage]

[Some of this material is also covered in Ulrich’s paper at the 2007 Birmingham Colloquium, for our report, see here]

The next two papers were presented by Michael Holmes: ”Working with an open textual tradition: Challenges in theory and practice.” Holmes described the nature of an closed textual tradition (without contamination due to cross-colonization) and an open tradition. The Greek New Testament textual tradition is an open tradition. Then Gerd Mink read his paper, ”What does coherence tell us about contamination and coincidental emergence of variants.” This was a description of the CBGM method. Here I may refer the readers to a detailed account available on-line here. There is also a discussion about the concepts of “initial text” as opposed to archetype and the original text.

In the final session there were two more papers treating the criteria used in textual criticism; Eldon J. Epp, ”Traditional ‘canons’ of New Testament textual criticism: Their value, validity, and viability (or the lack thereof)” and J. K. Elliott: ”What should be in the apparatus criticus to a Greek New Testament?” [Epp ran through a survey of the development of lists of criteria and then distributed a sheet with his proposed summary of the key criteria. In his paper he did propose that in the final analysis, exegesis would be the final arbiter, citing a study of Rom 11.31 which dealt with Paul’s logic throughout the passage as a vital contribution to the old textual problem of the NUN there.] I will only cite Elliott’s opening sentences, “We text-critics are greedy people. We want all evidence in an apparatus criticus. That is the ideal.” [The selectivity of the NA edition could be misleading, e.g. you can’t reconstruct the reading of a particular manuscript through a passage; some types of variants, e.g. spelling, are excluded, and rigorous eclecticism needs more variants — since they tend to think that the genuine reading could be preserved in any manuscript.]

I am sorry that I have no time to summarize all the papers from the first day (perhaps some of my co-bloggers could help out?). Let me just say that the conference was of major interest and importance, and very well organized. One of the most important objectives was to present the CBGM method, developed by Gerd Mink. This was the main event of day two, and I think that this presentation was successful, although many questions of course remain. Unfortunately, there was little time or opportunity for me to take notes during day two, because all my braincells were very busy trying to understanding more about the method.

Münster Colloquium on the Textual History of the Greek New Testament, Day 1 Continued

The second paper was delivered by Holger Strutwolf, “Original text and textual history?”

In Klaus Wachtel’s introduction of Holger Strutwolf, who is now the director of the INTF, he described him as conservative in the sense that he still thinks the goal of textual criticism is to reconstruct the original text. Strutwolf began his paper with a brief overview of the history of textual criticism. One of the conclusions were that the contempt towards MSS on the part of some scholars, who see them as mere reservoirs of readings, is not acceptable. Strutwolf then stated that the quest for the original text, in spite of the alleged “multivalence” of the term (so Epp), is not obsolete. On the contrary, the concept of the author’s text is still useful in textual criticism.

It turned out that Strutwolf by chance happened to have chosen the same example as did Parker, i.e., the passage in the Lord’s prayer in the Lukan version, Luke 11:2-4. He concluded that the shorter form was clearly the older, and that other witnesses had assimilated the passage to Matthew; D (05) to the highest degree. Moreover, he could not detect a theological motivation for the omission because of an anti-marcionite reason. If one agrees that the short form is older, then the hypothesis that we have reconstructed the oldest form of Luke in this passage is plausible. In the same passage another reading appears which some scholars think Marcion was behind, ELQETW TO PNEUMA SOU TO hAGION EF hHMAS KAI KAQARISATW hHMAS, attested in 162, 700 Gregory of Nyssa, Maximus Confessor. Several scholars have argued for the authenticity of this addition, because it is anti-harmonistic. Strutwolf points out that scholars agree in one point, that it is a reinterpretation of ”Thy kingdom come,” but a less apocalyptic interpretation. Where and when did this phrase originate? Does it stem from the author or is it a reinterpretation by later scribes/editors? Strutwolf thinks the substitution was not made by the author, but that it was introduced later.

As we can see in P75 and B, they are almost free of harmonization of Luke to Matthew. This is confirmed in general, so it is plausible to assume that the issue here is not about harmonization. Moreover, there can be suspected theological reasons for the substitution as well as the omission. For example, Tertullian and Origen seem to be at unease with the apocalyptic, realistic way that God’s reign is coming. Origen says in interpreting, ”Thy kingdom come” that it does not come observably, but that the kingdom of God is within us, referring to Jesus. In the thought of Origen the dwelling can only come by the indwelling of God by his spirit. This interpretation may have occurred, first as a gloss in a manuscript, and then it moved into the text. This latter explanation actually tied in neatly with a later presentation by Ulrich Schmid on the conceptualizing of scribal practices, and the need to distinguish between scribes and readers. Some variants (like this one) may have arisen due to reader’s notes. One basic assumption for both Schmid and Strutwolf (and many others, including the scholars working at the INTF) is that the default scribal activity is to copy one’s Vorlage. (In fact, this is a basic assumption in the CBGM.)

To summarize Strutwolf’s first part, ”The concept of an original text is not obsolete, but a necessary one. The quest of the original remains a vital task.”

In the second part a more general description of the CBGM was offered (developed later by Mink both on the first and second day of the conference). I will not summarize that part here.

The bottom line of the whole presentation in relation to what Parker had said was that as long as we have no evidence for a major break between the original and initial text, the hypothesis that the initial text is approximate to the original stands. [Here is where the interpretation of other material comes in, e.g., patristic witnesses which have a text not attested in the Greek manuscript tradition – my remark.] Strutwolf, then, was prepared to admit that the initial text may not be the original where there is some evidence of uncertainty. In such cases we can also leave the question to literary criticism, etc., but otherwise we may assume that the initial text is equal to the original.

Then there was a very friendly but lively and interesting discussion between Strutwolf and Parker. Parker responded by pointing out somewhat enigmatically, at least in my view, that ”an author is never an individual but a process,” i.e., the text emerges out of a number of people (if I got that right). In any case, he thought there were immense difficulties with a single authorial text. Instead there is a process of construction. For Parker, Strutwolf’s statement, ”We want to know what Paul wrote”, does not mean that the question is possible to answer. Parker referred to their common coincidental example from the Lord’s prayer in Luke saying that we just do not know what Luke’s original gospel was.

To me it seemed as if Parker denied, or was very sceptic of the use of internal criteria, i.e., the intrinsic evidence. Before we can say that this or that is Lukan, or Pauline, we have to be aware of the fact that we are reconstructing not what the author wrote, but a collection, a snapshot later on, removed from the author. Strutwolf (and I) was not happy with this over-scepticism to leave everything open. Instead he thought we need positive reasons for doubt. On the one hand there was much variation, but on the other hand there was a strong tenacity in the tradition. One should start with the positive one (the tenacity), instead of the negative (the manifold variation). I totally agree, and I return to the question that the initial text is really a reconstructed collection of a corpus of the NT, e.g., the fourfold gospels collection. I think it is not. In fact, at one point, Parker seemed to anticipate that the results of the work in John pointed to the fact that this gospel had a distinct textual history to other gospels. The same is apparent in the Catholic epistles, where it seems, judging from the results of the CBGM, that the individual books have a distinct textual history.

It turned out that most scholars who expressed their opinions sided up with Strutwolf. For example, Tjitze Baarda urged that we should really try to get somewhere. He told us a remark about a liberal scholar in Leiden in the 18th century. He started reading in Roman 1:1, and immediately asked, ”Did Paul ever wrote a letter to the Romans? Did not Markion write this...?” We do not know that Paul ever wrote Romans, but we take it for granted that he did. So we take it for granted that the initial text is the original. If we return to scepticism we might as well go back to the 18th century.

Münster Colloquium on the Textual History of the Greek New Testament, Day 1

First I should say that the organization of the conference is excellent thus far. And I doubt that anyone have seen so many textcritics gathered together in one and the same place. Someone made the funny remark that if the roof fell in, textual criticism would be back in the 19th century. Anyway, most of the scholars working in the field are here.

In the first session two papers by David Parker and Holger Strutwolf were presented on the topic of ”the initial text: construction or reconstruction?”

David Parker delivered the first paper titled, ”Is ‘Living Text’ compatible with ‘Initial Text’? Editing the Gospel of John”

Parker described his own involvement in the International Greek New Testament Project (IGNTP), and the changes the project had undergone in recent times. In 1997 at the SBL in San Fransisco the IGNTP started to co-operate with the INTF in Münster in order to produce the Editio Critica Maior (ECM) of John and some other related studies in the Principio Project. This meant that the old outline of the IGNTP edition (see the edition of Luke) was abandoned. Parker’s work as a critical editor during this time has posed new challenges to think through his views about the text of the Gospels, outlined earlier on in his monograph The Living Text of the Gospels. Would the result of the employed Coherence Based Genealogical Method (CBGM) show flaws in his living text theory? During the presentation it seemed clear that Parker’s view of the “Living Text” has not been altered in any significant way, and he thinks it is compatible with the idea of an initial text (Ausgangstext), which is the text to be reconstruced in the ECM.

He described the initial text as a kind of snapshot of the textual transmission at a certain point in time. Parker defined the initial text as ”the text from which the readings in the extant MSS are genealogically descended.” It is not an authorial text. Issues like, for example, the literary history of the fourth gospel and issues like whether chapter 21 was added later are not significant for the reconstruction of the initial text.

Then Parker developed his ideas about the living text. There is a significant body of variation in the gospels, which represent interpretations of the gospel in the early church. The variants are there, and the notion of the ”living text” is an attempt to account for them. He emphasized that textual and oral transmission worked in a double interaction during the early period of transmission. Many variants originated very early. For example, Parker discussed the passage in Luke’s version of the Lord’s prayer where we have the reading ”Thy holy spirit come upon us and cleanse us.” Parker thinks there is a ”pre-second century gulf” that prevents us to say much about the text in earlier times. Our reconstruction of an initial text then, in Parker’s view, seems to be a reconstruction of an archetype dated to some time in the second century.

We may find ”pre-genealogical evidence”, for example in John 7:53-8:11, but this should be left out from the initial text. After the reconstruction we can always pose historical questions about previous and, particularly later stages in the development of the text. He thinks the new CBGM method and other methods (e.g., phylogenetic analysis) provides tools for dealing with problems like contamination in the tradition and that we now will be able to observe the textual history of the NT throughout the ages in the ECM.

Note that this is my rephrased summary. I hope I have made justice to the contents of the presentation.

In the time for questions I brought up the issue of intrinsic evidence. In a paper at the SNTS in Halle 2005 (I think it was), Parker and Wachtel described the initial text as something more than he archetype but something less than the autograph. (This distinction is also found in Mink’s works.) Since we are appealing to intrinsic evidence when we ask ourselves what the author most likely wrote in light of his style and theology we are moving beyond the archetype of the textual tradition, and trying to reconstruct what the author wrote. But I wonder if Parker’s living text theory permits us to do this, since we cannot be certain at all what the author wrote. If Parker is right, we only know the snapshot from around 200 C.E. and cannot tell what had happened to the text by then. I am afraid I received no answer to my question about the appeal to intrinsic evidence in relation to the living text theory.

Next was Holger Strutwolf on ”Original text and textual history,” but since it is now after midnight that will have to wait.

SBL in San Diego VI: IGNTP Presentation

My next report is from the IGNTP project presentation, led by David Parker. The most significant change in the IGNTP in recent times is of course the collaboration with the INTF in Münster. This collaboration started with the so-called Principio project focused on the Gospel of John (some of the publications are already out/on-line, as reported on this blog). Now this fruitful collaboration will continue in other parts of the New Testament as well and within the framework of the Editio Critica Maior. In addition to volunteering collators in the US and UK there are currently 25 co-workers (not counting the committee). All this also means that the IGNTP is no longer an exclusively American/British undertaking, but international, better reflecting the name.

Klaus Wachtel from the INTF in Münster announced some very good news in the session. Looking back, he stated that it took the INTF 10 years merely to edit the Catholic Letters. Now, however, given the co-operation with IGNTP and funding for 23 years (sic) by a grant from Academy of Sciences in Germany, the plan is to get the whole work done in these 23 years!

Naturally, the work will proceed through several stages:

Stage 1: INTF+IGNTP, Gospel of John (to 2013);
Stage 2: INTF+IGNTP, Pauline (to 2026);

Unfortunately, the presentation went so fast that I did not have time to note stage 3, but it included Revelation (2031). (I know that Jan Krans took a picture of the slide so he can fill in [PMH: see now here]). During this time the INTF will also complete the ECM for the rest of the Gospels and Acts (the latter I believe is another collaborational project). Wachtel also took the opportunity to announce that there will be a colloquium in Münster after the SNTS, 2008 (which, BTW is in Lund, Sweden). The colloquium will focu on the CBGNT, and other notions such as the "initial text", Ausgangstext, etc. The editors of the ECM are very aware that the Coherence Based Genealogical Method (CBGM), that plays a vital role in the new edition needs to be explained and evaluated by other text-critics and scholars, hence the colloquium. Wachtel also mentioned a few words about the NT transcripts on-line. The number of transcriptions on-line is constantly growing, and the website will eventually include both Greek MSS, versions and patristic evidence.

Then David Parker presented "The virtual manuscript room" which will provide an environment for working with manuscripts (far wider than just the NT, it will contain MSS of any text in any language), i.e. images, digitized microfilm, transcriptons, fully searchable databases with bibliography (something like a virtual Kurzgefasste Liste), paleographical and codicological data, textual data and analyses, discussions, etc. It will be possible to go directly from the eletronic edition (like the NT transcript prototype) into the virtual manuscript room.

Anyone can participate! It is a collaborative concept (cf. Wikipedia) where areas of manuscript research will be "colonized". But some areas will need some kind of ackreditation. The initial structures of the "colony" are being created in Birmingham and Münster. The INTF has funding for two posts for two years to develop the GNT manuscript content.

Thus, primary resources will become available everywhere in the world. This will give opportunity to develop collaborative projects which will catalogue large populations of MSS, e.g. the Latin Vulgate, MSS of John Chrysostom. It will provide a common forum for full-time manuscript scholars.

Then presentations followed from a number of scholars working with various areas of the IGNTP of John. I will just list them shortly below:

Ulrich Schmid: the majuscule book and website
Jon Balserak: Vetus Latina Iohannes (=the Verbum project).
Christina M. Kreinecker (an associate of Karl-Heinz Schüssler at the University of Salzburg: Transcription of some 20 Coptic MSS containing the Gospel of John
Peter Williams: Old Syriac; Andreas Juckel: Peshitta, Harclean with retroversion

Further research on the Greek material
Alison Welsby: Family 1 in the Gospel of John
Jac Perrin: Family 13 in the Gospel of John
Chris Jordan: the lectionaries in the Gospel of John (focus on 8-11th century)
Rod Mullen: Greek Patristic Evidence
Bruce Morrill: methodological questions like comparison of the Claremont Profile Method, with the Teststellen-method.