Inhalt PREFACE 7 A MODEST EXPLANATION FOR THE LAYMAN OF IDEAS RELATED TO DETERMING THE TEXT OF THE GREEK NEW TESTAMENT 8 Abstract 8 Introduction: on paper, ink and writing styles 8 What New Testament manuscript groups exist today 11 Why there are differences between manuscripts 11 The two main texttypes 13 The eclectic approach to recovering the original text 14 The basics of Byzantine priority 16 How we evaluate internal evidence 17 How we evaluate external evidence 20 Some objections to the theory of Byzantine priority addressed 23 Summary and conclusion 25 Glossary 26 Bibliography 29 SCRIBAL HABITS AND THE NEW TESTAMENT TEXT 30 Studies into Scribal Habits 30 Objections 37 The History of the Transcriptional Canons 41 Scribal Habits and the History of the Text 44 Corrections and the History of the Text 46 Scribal Habits and the Praxis of Textual Criticism 49 Prospect 50 20140318 Festschrift.indb 1 18.03.2014 21:25:57 A TRANSLATOR TAKES A LINGUISTIC LOOK AT MARK’S GOSPEL 52 Introduction 52 Discourse Analysis 52 Using Discourse Analysis in the Textual Criticism of the Gospel of Mark 54 Conclusion 59 Works Cited 59 EARLY TEXTUAL RECENSION IN ALEXANDRIA 62 Introduction 62 Summary of Fee’s arguments 63 Evaluation 65 References 66 THE RELATIONSHIP OF THE VATICANUS UMLAUTS TO FAMILY 1 68 The Make-up and Textual History of Family 1 71 The Date of Family 1 and its Ancestors 73 An Evaluation of the Data 75 Establishing a Connection between Vaticanus and Family 1 79 Conclusion 86 VARIETIES OF NEW TESTAMENT TEXT 87 Introduction 87 The Hand Copying Process 87 Comparing Texts 88 Data Sources 89 Statistics 90 Scope of this Study 91 Exploratory Analysis Techniques 91 Ordering 92 Multidimensional Scaling 95 Divisive Clustering 97 20140318 Festschrift.indb 2 18.03.2014 21:25:57 Partitioning 98 A Few More Witnesses 100 Discussion 101 Conclusion 104 Bibliography 104 THE ALEXANDRIAN PRESUMPTION OF AUTHENTICITY REGARDING THE MATTHEW 27:49 ADDITION 106 Modern Eclecticism: Its Definition and Claims 107 External Evidence 108 Internal Evidence 112 Possibility of an Early Liturgical Recension 113 THE TEXTUAL CRITICISM OF LUKE 24:53 AND ITS IMPLICATIONS 115 Introduction 115 The Texts of English Translations 115 The Manuscript Evidence RE: LUKE 24:53 116 Applying Canons of Textual Evidence for Luke 24:53 117 Conclusion 123 THE ADULTERESS AND HER ACCUSERS 124 Introduction 124 The Style and Vocabulary of the PA 124 The PA Interrupts John Chapters 7 and 8 130 Summary 140 Conclusion 141 ‘BURNED UP’ OR ‘DISCOVERED’? 143 Introduction 143 The Problem of 2 Peter 3:10 144 The Argument from Internal Evidence for Byzantine Reading 151 Conclusion 152 20140318 Festschrift.indb 3 18.03.2014 21:25:57 ARGUMENTS FOR AND AGAINST THE BYZANTINE AND ALEXANDRIAN TEXT TYPES 154 Competing text types 154 Conclusion 189 References 190 BYZANTINE BIBLIOGRAPHY 192 Articles 192 Books and Dissertations 203 Greek New Testaments 207 Internet 208 20140318 Festschrift.indb 4 18.03.2014 21:25:57 20140318 Festschrift.indb 5 18.03.2014 21:25:57 PREFACE Early in his seminary career, a young student had the opportunity to pursue additional study under a noted professor of textual criticism. As they were discussing the development of the Greek New Testament text, and noting some dissatisfaction with the then-current state of New Testament textual criticism, the professor referred to something he had previously written that changed the course of the young seminarian’s life: “We must have a critical history of transmission. Some new angle, some novel experiment must be tried.” The discussion regarding that comment then set in motion what has become a lifetime pursuit of digging for the truth. Maurice A. Robinson received his undergraduate degree in English and Secondary Education from the University of South Florida in Tampa, Florida. Being called into the ministry, he attended Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, North Carolina, where he obtained his Master of Divinity degree. That is when he had the privilege noted above of studying one-on-one with noted textual critic Kenneth W. Clark at Duke University. These studies whetted his appetite for scholarly endeavors, leading him to continue into the Master of Theology program at Southeastern, and the Doctor of Philosophy program at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas. Dr. Robinson has been engaged in various forms of teaching and research ministry for over thirty years. He currently is Senior Professor of New Testament and Greek at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, where he has served for the past 22 years. He has presented numerous papers in various venues, with many of these being published, and has spoken frequently at various symposiums and seminars on topics that deal with New Testament textual criticism. Robinson is best known for his defense of the Byzantine-priority theory of New Testament textual criticism. As he has stated, that position evaluates internal and external evidence in the light of transmissional probabilities. This approach emphasizes the effect of scribal habits in preserving, altering, or otherwise corrupting the text, the recognition of transmissional development leading to family and texttype groupings, and the ongoing maintenance of the text in its general integrity as demonstrated within our critical apparatuses. The overriding principle is that textual criticism without a history of transmission is impossible. To achieve this end, all readings in sequence need to be accounted for within a transmissional history, and no reading can be considered in isolation as a ‘variant unit’ unrelated to the rest of the text. 1 His various papers and presentations both support his theoretical position as well as critique and oppose current critical views regarding New Testament text-critical praxis. A tangible result of his text-critical theory is his co-edited edition of The New Testament in the Original Greek: Byzantine Textform 2005. A current major research project involves the collation of all available Greek manuscripts and lectionaries in relation to the Pericope Adulterae interrelationships among those manuscripts, with a goal of demonstrating an archetypal form of that pericope, detailing its further (Jnrelationship 7:53-8:11), to thelisting Gospel all of variants, John. with the intent of defining and establishing the textual In addition to these accomplishments, Robinson has also been a pioneer in the area of computerized study of the Greek New Testament. In this regard, beginning in the mid-1980’s, he created electronic editions of a number of Greek New Testament texts, with grammatical lemmatization and parsing data. These were originally prepared for the Online Bible software program, but have also been incorporated into various major Bible software programs (including Bibleworks), with raw ASCII/DOS versions of these texts in CCAT-based format also available freely from dozens of internet web sites worldwide. This book consists of various essays gathered in honor of Dr. Robinson’s sixty-sixth birthday. The authors share his scholarship by being included in this work. his esteem for the Biblical text and recognize his unique contributions to the field and have chosen to recognize Mark Billington --- Peter Streitenberger 1 Maurice Robinson, “Appendix: The Case for Byzantine Priority,” in The New Testament in the Original Greek: Byzantine Text- form 2005, by Maurice A. Robinson and William G. Pierpont (Southborough, MA: Chilton Book Publishing, 2005), 544. 6 20140318 Festschrift.indb 6 18.03.2014 21:25:58 A MODEST EXPLANATION FOR THE LAYMAN OF IDEAS RELATED TO DETERMING THE TEXT OF THE GREEK NEW TESTAMENT by Timothy Friberg Abstract There are almost 6,000 partial or complete manuscripts of the Greek New Testament extant. It is possible, by the application of certain principles outlined in this essay, to weed out errors that crept into the manuscripts during the process of copying and thus to reconstruct a text that is identical to — or at least very close to — the original text. This resulting text is called the Byzantine Textform, which we attempt to show is superior to the text arrived at by the other main approach to textual criticism, i.e., the eclectic approach, which seems to be an arbitrary “pick and choose” process. The Byzantine Textform has been dominant through the centuries of the church and, we believe, deserves that dominant position today, not because it is the result of some research, though extensive research supports it, but because it has always been there with historical and transmissional integrity in its favor. Note: few of the following thoughts are original to the writer. He is only trying to facilitate for nonspecialists a wider understanding of the thoughts of others, largely through simplification and bibliography.restatement. Technical terms italicized in the text are defined in the glossary at the end of the paper. All quotes not identified in the text are taken from the writings of Maurice Robinson, as noted in the Introduction: on paper, ink and writing styles Things weren’t always as easy as they are now. This is especially true in the area of written communication: personal computers (1970s), typewriters (from 1874), indeed even printing presses with movable type (1440s) just did not exist. Documents were written by hand, whether personal letters and notations or a time. official decrees. If there was a need for multiple copies, additional handmade copies were made one at At the time of the writing of the individual books of the New Testament, the most common form of “paper” used was papyrus sheets (from about 2400 BC), frequently put together into longer rolled scrolls. Ink was made of different substances, some as common as lampblack; and pens were made of sharpened reeds and, later, quills. Animal skins (vellum, parchment), properly prepared, were also used as writing material (from as early as 1468 BC).