Registration Now Open

I’m happy to report that registration for our 2024 TCI Colloquium at Yarnton Manor is now open. The fee is $100/person and includes lunch both days. I hope to see some of our readers there. You can register at textandcanon.org/events/text-types/

2024 Colloquium at Yarnton Manor on NT Text-Types

I’m happy to share a project I’ve been working on for some time here at the Text & Canon Institute. Some readers may remember that back in 2021 John Meade hosted our first colloquium on Origen as  Philologist. As the papers for that near publication, we are pleased to announce our second colloquium will be this July on the topic of NT text-types. The event will be hosted at Lanier Theological Library’s beautiful Yarnton Manor just outside Oxford, England on July 18–19. We hope to open registration for attendees in the coming weeks. For now, here are the details of the speakers.

Held just outside Oxford, England, the Text & Canon Institute’s second colloquium will bring together an international group of textual scholars to take stock of the current debate, present fresh avenues of understanding, and discuss the implications for New Testament studies. You can find more details at the conference page.

Speakers and topics 

Titles are subject to change of course

silvia castelli 
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
The Origin and Early History of Text-Types

peter j. gurry 
Phoenix Seminary
What Are Text-Types For?

klaus wachtel 
Institute for New Testament Textual Research
The Text-Type Theory in Light of the CBGM

andrew edmondson 
University of Birmingham
The Contribution of Phylogenetics

peter m. head 
University of Oxford
The Alexandrian Text

peter lorenz 
University of Münster
The Western Text

maurice a. robinson
Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary (Emeritus)
The Byzantine Text

stephen c. carlson 
Australian Catholic University
The Caesarean Text

dirk jongkind 
Tyndale House, Cambridge
In Defense of Text-Types

peter malik & darius müller
Kirchliche Hochschule Wuppertal/Bethel
Text-Types in the Book of Revelation

h. a. g. houghton
University of Birmingham
Text-Types in the Latin Tradition

The Problem of P38 and the ‘Western’ Text in Acts

In his published dissertation, Eldon Epp was interested in theological tendencies in Acts. In particular, he was interested in theological tendencies in the “Western” text. (From here on, I’ll forgo the quotation marks because they get tedious.) His method, however, was to study one particular witness of the Western text, namely, Codex Bezae.

The problem for Epp is that Codex Bezae could not be treated as a simple proxy for the earlier Western text. The reason is that Bezae sometimes reflected various accretions to the Western text. In order to address the problem, he compared Bezae “with those witnesses which, along with D, are recognized as the best ‘Western’ evidence” (p. 28). In this way, Epp could confirm where Bezae was or wasn’t likely preserving the earlier Western text-type.

Setting aside for a moment the risk of circularity here, I want to point out a serious problem with one of Epp’s key control manuscripts, namely, P38.

In discussing the proper use of D as a witness to the Western text, Epp cites P38 as a key reference point for determining whether a reading in D is, in fact, Western. He writes:

If P38, because of its earlier date, is ipso facto assumed more accurately to preserve the early “Western” text, then a comparison of D with this papyrus shows, as H. A. Sanders concluded, that “D is a very imperfect source for the ‘Western’, or second-century, text’. Granting this, however, it must also be emphasized that D and P38 show such a degree of agreement over against the B-text that the papyrus can be used, at the same time, to show that ‘the D text existed in Egypt shortly after A.D. 300’; A. C. Clark could call P38 ‘a text almost identical with that of D’. Codex Bezae, then, at many points is an imperfect witness to the ‘Western’ text, and yet on this account it does not lose its leading place among those witnesses.

Later, Epp cites D, P38, and the Harklean Syriac margin as “the outstanding ‘Western’ sources for Acts” and they form, with the (then) recently discovered Coptic G67 as an “élite group” (p. 31). Epp cites Clark approvingly that P38 has a text “almost identical with D” and Epp says this agreement is especially prominent “over against the B-text.”

The problem is that this isn’t the case when one compares these manuscripts in more detail. Here are the results from the recently-released ECM for Acts:

	P38	03/B	05/D
P38	—	69.4% (43/62)	59.0% (36/61)
03/B	69.4% (43/62)	—	68.4% (3,514/5,140)
05/D	59.0% (36/61)	68.4% (3,514/5,140)	—

P38 is, of course, fragmentary, containing only Acts 18.27–19.6, 19.12–16. This means that there is far less text to compare with B and D. But the problem for Epp’s Western text should be obvious. Far from P38 showing strong agreement with D “over against the B-text,” P38 actually agrees more with B than with D! And yet, Epp says that P38 is a member of the “élite group” of Western witnesses.

Now, perhaps Epp would argue that these texts shouldn’t be compared in all these places in our effort to identify the Western text. But until we can agree what variant points should be used and why, we cannot agree on whether or not P38 should assigned to the same text-type as D. If it should not be, then it obviously cannot be used to confirm that D’s readings are early Western readings and Epp’s thesis will need some revision.

Perhaps the issue of definition will move toward some resolution at this year’s SBL meeting in the ECM sessions. We shall see. But those in attendance will certainly want to read the ECM’s article (which I haven’t seen yet) on the Western text along with Epp’s recent, data-filled argument in NovT for its existence there.

What are text-types?

Do text-types exists or not? Tregelles and others thought not, CBGM folk don’t like the term either, but most scholars in the 20th century were perfectly fine with it.

Martini (1977) surprised me with the following analysis of what text-types are:

“(a) A distinctive text-type is primarily not a group of manuscripts, but a set of readings.

(b) This set is limited; it does not cover all the readings of the NT. This view is entirely different from the silent presupposition which seems to be common today in textual treatments of the New Testament.”

And what surprised me more is that Martini is analysing Westcott-Hort at this point.

Martini, Carlo M. “Is There a Late Alexandrian Text of the Gospels?”. New Testament Studies 24 (1977-78): 289.

Looking for advice on “Categorizing MSS”

Good morning from St Paul, where we finally got some rain on our parched gardens,

I am re-writing a textbook for beginners on TC of the Bible. The OT part was pretty good, but the NT part needed to be re-done. I’m now in the section that introduces some of the important MSS. We only introduce the most commonly discussed ones and otherwise suggest to the reader to go to the other established resources like Metzger & Ehrman, Parker, Aland & Aland, and the GNTs.

Originally the book had charts, one each for the papyri, majuscules, and minuscules.

Here are the first lines of the papyrus chart:

Table 4.1: Important New Testament Papyri
Number	Date	Textual Tendencies	Contains	Name/Collection
𝔓1	3rd century	Alexandrian	Matt 1:1–9, 12, 14–20	P. Oxy. 2, Univ. of Penn.
𝔓4, 64, 67	Early 3rd century	Alexandrian	Portions of Luke and Matthew	P. Oxy. 208, British Lib., Oxford
𝔓13	Early 3rd century	Alexandrian	Portions of Heb 2; 10–12	P. Oxy. 657
𝔓20	Early 3rd century	Alexandrian	Jas 2:19–3:9	P. Oxy. 1171
𝔓22	3rd century	Independent	John 15:25–16:2, 21–32	P. Oxy. 1228
𝔓23	ca. 200	Alexandrian	Jas 1:10–12, 15–18	P. Oxy. 1229
𝔓24	3rd century	Alexandrian	Rev 5:5–8; 6:5–8	P. Oxy. 1230
𝔓27	Early 3rd century	Alexandrian	Portions of Rom 8–9	P. Oxy. 1355
𝔓29	Early 3rd century	Possibly Western	Acts 26:7–8, 20	P. Oxy. 1597

There are about 30 total papyri listed.

When I hit the papyrus chart I wrote the following to the editor:

“Table 4.1: Important New Testament Papyri. I find myself wondering if this ought to be included. The main reason for it would be to provide the textual tendency of many of the papyri, but most textual critics are now frowning on the over-simplicity of assigning each MS to a text type. If we don’t list the textual tendencies, I don’t really see a reason for the chart at all. We can refer the reader to the more extensive list of NT MSS in the back of the NA28. This would lead to a similar decision about the other charts for the majuscules, etc.”

He wrote back the following:

“I know tables and charts tend to oversimplify, and I want our text to address the text type categorization issue directly. However, there may still be heuristic value in identifying what text type those MSS have been traditionally associated with. That is, we are indicating the classification solely as a help for the reader who might come across those categorizations if they read previous scholarship on NT TC. Our text will prepare them for the reality that those are now not as widely accepted, but knowing of them may help them evaluate future work that appears stuck in the past methodologically.

“I think some of the charts are helpful but perhaps too long to include in the chapters themselves, so I was considering moving them to appendices. They could also be edited to not be presenting as “important papyri” but maybe more as “representative papyri.” That is, giving students a quick reference for well-known MSS.”

My request from you my colleagues is to hear not only your opinion on whether papyri ought to be categorized. I am going to try to talk him out of that. (Though his point about students encountering previous scholarship is valid.) But also whether such a chart is helpful in a book for beginners. Please stay in the beginners mindset when you evaluate this.

Responses much appreciated. Amy

Defining the Byzantine Text

As a follow-up to my post about text-types from last week, here is an example of how our definitions of texts can influence our thinking about textual criticism. It matters particularly when it comes to comparing one “text” to another.

In their new book on NT textual criticism, Stanley Porter and Andrew Pitts make a common argument against the Majority Text position which could apply to the Byzantine Priority position as well. Porter and Pitts write:

Several other questions are left unanswered by the Majority text approach as well. Statistical probability of documents simply cannot explain why no distinctively Byzantine readings are identifiable in the Greek manuscripts, church fathers, or version from the first several centuries—certainly some remains would have been left, even if the manuscripts were in constant use. If the Majority text most accurately reflects the original, we would expect some traces of it chronologically close to the original. These significant obstacles to the Majority text approach still have not been convincingly overcome by its adherents (pp. 91–92 n. 3).

Now I admit that I find a form of the chronological argument against the Majority Text and the Byzantine text persuasive. But what I want to point out here is that this particular form of the argument hinges entirely on something that Porter and Pitts do not provide us with, namely, a definition of “distinctively Byzantine readings.”

To illuminate the problem, let’s consider how the Editio Critica Maior (ECM) defines the “Byzantine text.” You have to read it very carefully, but the ECM actually has two definitions. In the introduction (§3.1) we read that “the term Byzantine or Koine text refers to the form of text defined by those readings which are attested by the majority of the manuscripts and differ from the established text” (emphasis original). The supplementary volume gives complete lists of just these readings for each book of the Catholic Epistles (pp. 10ff).

But the ECM also has a second, more implicit definition. On the same page (p. 10) of the supplementary volume we read about “the undivided (ungespaltene) Byzantine text” which differs from the initial text in only 61 of about 700 places in James. In the editors’ words, this undivided Byzantine text is, “apart from these 61 passages, an important witness to the early text” (p. 10; emphasis mine).

So we have two definitions: (1) the Byzantine text as all the shared readings found in the majority of Greek witnesses; and (2) the Byzantine text as that set of readings found in these same witnesses which differ from the initial text. The first entity is an important witness to the early text whereas the second is defined in distinction from essentially that same early text.

Now the problem should be obvious. An argument like that of Porter and Pitts risks circularity on this second definition and it is simply false on the first. There are hundreds of readings found in Byzantine manuscripts that are also found “chronologically close to the original.” In fact, according to the ECM, there are over 630 readings just in James that are the original or at least very close to it (depending on how you identify the initial text).

Now, perhaps Porter and Pitts have a definition of “distinctively Byzantine reading” that isn’t circular. From what they’ve written we simply don’t know because they don’t define their key term.

And that’s just the problem. Good arguments about the history of the text can only be made where we have clarity about what constitutes the textual entities—whether text-types or otherwise—that we are trying to relate to one another. Porter and Pitts have two texts they relate (“original” and “Majority/Byzantine”), but since they don’t define them, the relationship they propose is meaningless.

This isn’t to pick on Porter and Pitts. They just provide a good illustration of the problem of not defining the texts we claim to relate to one another.

What Are Text-Types For?

In his book Textual Criticism and Editorial Technique (1973), Martin West raises an important issue for the use of text-types in NT textual criticism. 

Here is West:

When the critic has established that no stemma can be constructed, how is he to proceed? He must, of course, see what groupings are apparent among the manuscripts, and whether the individual groups can be analysed stemmatically… (p. 42).

Here we should pause and note that, as Colwell noted in his essay on the genealogical method, this is exactly what Westcott and Hort did in rejecting the “Syrian” text. They applied stemmatic principles, not to individual manuscripts, but to groups. Having done this, they were able to exclude the Syrian text from consideration on the principle that it was purely derivative. We might call this principle eliminatio textuum descriptorum.

Westcott and Hort’s stemma has since been modified and the results have not usually been treated with such stemmatic rigor. But West goes on to explain how such groupings can still be useful to the critic:

…even if they [groups] cannot [be analysed stemmatically], he can treat them as units in his further cogitations, provided that they have a sharply defined identity. Thus he reduces his problem to its basic terms.

This reduction of the problem is a major reason why text-types have been so valuable in NT textual studies. Where you have four manuscripts in a tradition, you don’t need to reduce the material. But for the NT such reduction is a huge benefit, even a necessity. No one can keep dozens let alone hundreds of manuscript relations in their head and then apply them to specific variations. But three or four relationships is no trouble at all. Hence the value and appeal of text-types. They “reduce” the problem.

But note the key qualification in West’s sentence. The critic can treat groups as units in his further cogitations, provided that they have a sharply defined identity.

If this is true, then it would seem that the use of text-types in our text critical “cogitations” is in trouble since no such definition exists. Even Eldon Epp in his excellent essay on “textual clusters” says that “the tricky issue, of course, is determining, in percentage terms [West’s ‘sharply defined identity’], what extent of agreement in readings joins members into a group, and what degree of separation in agreements determines the existence of a separate group” (“Textual Clusters: Their Past and Future,” [2013], p. 571). 

Unfortunately Epp doesn’t have an answer to this “tricky issue” which makes me wonder if our failing effort to define text-types is an indication that we’re trying to solve the wrong problem. Maybe trying to reduce the problem is our problem and we should start looking for ways to use more manuscripts (not less) in studying the history of the text.