Textual Criticism, Assimilation and the Synoptic Gospels

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

TEXTUAL CRITICISM, ASSIMILATION AND THE SYNOPTIC GOSPELS

The main object of textual criticism is to establish as accurately as pos- [231] sible a text approximating to the original words of the original authors. As far as the text of the synoptic gospels is concerned, one of the main problems in establishing the text is the amount of cross-fertilization in the MSS whenever the gospels are in parallel. Scribes were prone to assimilate the gospel they were copying to a parallel text in another gospel. Professor Bruce Metzger in the companion volume1 to the third edition of the United Bible Societies’ Greek New Testament shows on numerous occasions how the committee responsible for produc- ing that text were aware of the problem of assimilation. As far as the gospel of Mark is concerned, Metzger explains that the committee claimed that harmonization was a contributory or a major factor in dismissing at least one of the secondary readings in each of the following verses: Mark 1:8 (bis), 11, 27, 29, 34, 39; 2:5, 9, 16, 22 (bis), 26; 3:16; 5:1, 36, 42; 6:3, 39; 7:24, 28; 8:10, 15, 16 (bis), 38; 10:2, 19, 34, 40, 46; 11:22, 24, 26; 14:4, 5, 20, 24, 25, 30 (bis), 41, 65, 72 (bis); 15:10, [12], 25 (bis), 28, 34 (bis), 39. In general the UBS committee seem to have reached the correct decision on the above variants. It is a useful and valuable rule of thumb in textual criticism to accept as the original text the variant which makes parallel passages more dissimilar, and to explain the secondary text as scribal harmonization. This principle does not seem to have been applied consistently in the formulation of the UBS text and [232] as a result several secondary readings have crept into that text. In the following places in Mark, Metzger’s Commentary reveals that the UBS

1 B.M. Metzger , A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (London, New York: United Bible Societies, 1971). 418 chapter twenty-five committee dismissed or disregarded the likelihood that assimilation to a parallel may have been responsible for scribal emendation:2

[1:40], [3:14], 5:[21], 22; 6:20, [41]; 7:6; 8:35; [9:42]; [10:1, 7]; [12:23]; 13:2, 22. At 7:6 it would have been relevant to point out that Matthew 15:8 has τιμᾷ firm in the textual tradition; that at 3:14 the shorter text could have resulted from assimilation to the parallel in Matthew (10:1), just as at 5:21 [ἐν τῷ πλοίῳ] the shorter text could have resulted from assimilation to Luke 8:40. At 13:2 Matthew 24:2 may have been the cause of scribes adding to their texts of Mark. (ὧδε has also been B to the text of Luke at this point, Luke 21:6.) UBS does א added by provide an apparatus at Luke 21:6 and the Commentary suggests there that ὡδε has come in either from Matthew or Mark. ὧδε in MSS of both Mark and Luke is likely to have come from Matthew.

The principles which were applied to some of the variants in Mark seem therefore not to have been consistently acknowledged in other variants. This observation ought to make us cautious in using the UBS3 text or of our accepting uncritically the explanatory notes in Metzger’s Commentary. Our concentrating here on the UBS3 text is significant, because the 9th edition of Aland’s Synopsis (= Syn9)3 has a text sub- stantially the same as UBS3 (which also agrees with Nestle–Aland in the forthcoming 26th edition of that text) whereas the 8th edition of Aland’s Synopsis was based on Nestle–Aland25 (= N–A25). The majority of scholars who will work on the synoptic problem in the future are likely to base their work on the text of Syn.9 It is important therefore to see how far that text is reliable and in particular to what extent assimilated readings have been allowed to appear as the text rather than as part of the marginal apparatus. One test which can be applied to Syn9 in this regard is to see how far this text differs from its immediate predecessor. An analysis of the changes between Syn8/N–A25 and Syn9/N–A26 has been attempted by

2 See further on the UBS text of Mark in J.K. Elliott, ‘An Eclectic Textual Commen- tary on the Greek Text of Mark’s Gospel’ in E.J. Epp and G. Fee (eds.), New Testament Textual Criticism: Its significance for Exegesis (Oxford: Clarendon, 1981). Reprinted as chapter 13 in J.K. Elliott, Essays and Studies in New Testament Textual Criticism (Cordova: El Almendro, 1992) (= Estudios de Filología Neotestamentaria 3). 3 K. Aland , Synopsis Quattuor Evangeliorum, 9th edition (Stuttgart: United Bible Societies, 1975).