Translations and the Greek Text
http://www.bibleviews.com/authority-6.html#_Toc397722011
Papyrus Shows all Text Types Are Old
Our understanding of the early New Testament text has greatly improved in the twentieth century, making many of Westcott and Hort's ideas obsolete. Gregory's third volume of his Prolegomena published in 1884 mentions only one papyrus (Q) containing fragments of I Corinthians,[85] so it is understandable why Westcott and Hort made no mention of any papyrus. The time of papyri was still in the future. The papyri discovered since the 1890's are the Oxyrhynchus papyri in 1896ff., Chester Beatty papyri in 1930-31, and Bodmer papyri in 1956ff. They represent a 600 percent increase,[86] and 31 are pre-300 a.d.[87] The more important ones (P45, P46, P47, P66, P72, and P75--these are equivalent to one-third B text and represent every New Testament book except 1 and 2 Timothy)[88] represent a several thousand percent increase as far as their importance. They give important evidence that was not available to Westcott and Hort. Actually, they never mentioned papyri in their
Introduction book. In summarizing the importance of these papyri, Colwell wrote in 1961:
The Chester Beatty Papyri and Bodmer Papyri--to mention--takes us at least a full century closer to the originals than the previous oldest copies did. [These papyri] while not complete, are extensive enough to establish the text-type they represent for these parts of the New Testament. In date they are close together--all but one from the late second to early third century, which is significantly earlier than the great parchment codices, Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, from the fourth century.
These documents have revolutionized our understanding of the early history of the manuscript tradition of the Greek New Testament. Present day concepts of the great text-types differ markedly from those held before the publication and study of these documents. The words "Caesarean," "Alexandrian," "Western"--and even "Byzantine" or "Syrian"--have changed their significance as labels for groups of manuscripts in the last twenty-five years.[89]
The finding of many early papyri New Testament texts in the twentieth century has shown that
the Byzantine, the text behind the Textus Receptus, has very early support. Colwell wrote:
All the text-types
began earlier than we had assumed. The Bodmer John (P66) and even more Bodmer Luke-John (P75) are essentially witnesses to the Beta text-type (Hort's "Neutral"), but are far from being in agreement with the consensus of the later witnesses to this text-type.
But the Bodmer John (P66) is also a witness to the early existence of many of the readings found in the Alpha text-type (Hort's "Syrian"). Strangely enough (according to our previous ideas), the contemporary corrections in the papyrus frequently change an Alpha-type of reading to a Beta-type of reading (Hort's "Neutral"). This indicates that at this early period readings of both kinds were known.[90]
Zuntz also found P46 to be a witness to the existence of Byzantine readings in the second century. Zuntz wrote:
To sum up. A number of Byzantine readings, most of them genuine, which previously were discarded as "late," are anticipated by P46 [footnote: The same is true of the sister-manuscript P45]. Our inquiry has confirmed what was anyhow probable enough: the Byzantines did not hit upon these readings by conjecture or independent error. They reproduced an older tradition. The existence of this tradition was in several cases borne out by some versions or patristic quotations; but where such evidence is not forthcoming, the inference proved no less certain. How then--so one is tempted to go on asking--where no Chester Beatty papyrus happen to vouch for the early existence of a Byzantine reading? Are all Byzantine readings ancient? In the cognate case of the Homeric tradition G. Pasquali[91] answers the same question in the affirmative; and, indeed,
it seems to me unlikely that the Byzantine editors ever altered the text without manuscript evidence. They left so many hopelessly difficult places unassailed! Their method, I submit, was selection rather that conjecture.[92] (italics added).
Later Zuntz writes:
Purely Byzantine readings, as we saw before,
may be ancient. We can now add: Byzantine readings which recur in Western witness
must be ancient. They go back to the time before the Chester Beatty papyrus was written; the time before the emergence of separate Eastern and Western traditions; in short, they reach back deep into the second century."[93]
Zuntz is not a defender of the TR but still writes:
Were it not for the deserved authority of the admirable Griesbach, one might well wonder how the other view--namely that they were added later--could ever be held. Scholars apparently never paused to think of the historical implications. Could a Byzantine patriarch in the eighth or ninth century be supposed to have sent envoys to some Greek monastery in Sicily or south Italy in order thence to procure some obsolete manuscripts and from them to intrude a number of Western readings into the sacred text which his authority made prevail among Orthodox?[94]
Zuntz concludes his study of the epistle's text by stating that after around 150 b.c. the oldest papyri "rather suddenly . . . give a text which substantially agrees with that of the extant Byzantine manuscripts."[95] Thus Zuntz acknowledges that the Byzantine readings "are far older than the manuscripts which attest them."
Pickering[96] discussed the papyrus evidence, stating there was no entire papyrus for either the Western or Alexandrian text-types; they may share peculiarities, but there are still substantial differences. He gave data showing that P66 and P75, which are generally considered Alexandrian, agree more often with the Traditional Text than with Aleph or B. (SA: doutbful on P75) He then quoted Birdsall:
In these third-century manuscripts, whose evidence takes us back into the mid-second century at least, we find no pristine purity, no unsullied ancestors of Vaticanus, but marred and fallen representatives of the original text. Features of all the main texts isolated by Hort or von Soden are here found--very differently 'mingled' in P66 and P45.[97]
Colwell noted that different scholars tried to avoid giving certain text-types a date-of-origin, making it appear they date back close to the New Testament autograms. He wrote:
Hort's assumption (now held to be invalid) that the Neutral text-type is an unedited preservation of the original placed its origin at the beginning.[98]
As mentioned earlier, text-types began earlier than first assumed and the Bodmer Luke-John (P75) and John (P66) have many readings that witness to the Byzantine text. It is true that P66 is not a fully Byzantine text, yet it is true it is not fully Alexandrian or Western either.[99] All three of the text-types existed side-by-side in the papyrus. Epp also finds support for the Byzantine text in later papyri (P42, P68, P74[?], P84).[100] One should not be surprised that a full Byzantine text was not found in Egypt if a local text was widely used there. Others, in contradiction to Epp, have found support for the Byzantine text in early papyri.
Sturz's List I shows 150 "distinctively Byzantine readings . . . those supported by the bulk of the later manuscripts but which at the same time are opposed (or not supported) by the principle manuscripts and witnesses to the Alexandrian and Western text"[101] that have early papyri support. He emphasizes that these papyri are from the second century, preceding the time of Lucian (the "acknowledged" editor of the Byzantine text) by one hundred years, and thus they are not a fourth-century recension. "It is startling from the standpoint of the WH theory to find that so-called 'Byzantine' readings not only existed early but were present in Egypt before the end of the second century." Sturz makes a third point that "the Old Uncials have not preserved a complete picture of the second century. . . . have not retained all of the second-century tradition. . . . [This] is underscored further when P45, P66, P72, and P75 are also seen to confirm early and wide-spread existence of [Byzantine] readings which are neither Alexandrian nor Western." Sturz concludes that Westcott and Hort were "mistaken in regard to their insistence that all the pre-Syrian evidence for readings was to be found in the Alexandrian, Neutral, and Western texts, i.e., that these three text-types and their chief witnesses preserved the complete second-century picture of the textual tradition on which the Syrian editor(s) built. . . . The Byzantine text-type has preserved second-century tradition not preserved by the other text-types."[102]
The early papyri Byzantine readings give additional evidence that Hort's conclusion that the Syrian text was a revision is wrong. Pickering stressed this when he wrote:
Hort's notion of a Lucianic revision has now been abandoned by all scholars (as far as I know). . . . Scholars now generally recognize that the "Byzantine text-type" must date back at least into the second century. But what chance would the original "Byzantine" document, the archetype, have of gaining currency when appeal to the Autographs was still possible?
Candidly, there is only one reasonable explanation for the Majority Text that has so far been advanced--it is the result of an essentially normal process of transmission and the common source for its consensus in the Autographs. Down through the centuries of copying, the original text has always been reflected with a high degree of accuracy in the manuscript tradition as a whole.[103]
Colwell quoted Zuntz to support that.
The Alexandrian work in the text of Scripture (in the Epistles) was a long process rather than a single act. Its beginnings were inconspicuous, and roughly 150 years passed before it culminated in the Euthalian' edition. . . . they resulted in the emergence of a type of text (as distinct from a definite edition) which served as a norm for the correctors in provincial Egyptian scriptoria. This final result was the survival of a text far superior to that of the second century, even though the revisers, being fallible humans, rejected some of its correct readings and introduced some faults of their own.;104]
Birdsall in the conclusion of his study "An Eclectic Study of the Texts of Acts" wrote:
We have not sought to decide for one or another kind of text as a whole but have tried to consider each reading on its merits. Where readings remain unclassified we have found that no one text has a monopoly of error or of truth. The same is true for kinds of variation. . . . No manuscript or type of text is uniformly right or wrong.
This conclusion applies as much to the Byzantine text, represented by HLPS and many minuscules, as to the Western text and the Old Uncials. The outright condemnation of the Byzantine text and Westcott and Hort was one of the main errors in practice of their work.[105]
When one considers that there are only a minority of the various text-types that vary, they all must have a common ancestor. Thus those who reject the Byzantine text do not have an easy task to prove their position. Their position is much more difficult than Hort thought.
Actually, early papyri evidence indicates that the common text-types did not exist very early. Aland writes, "The text of the early period prior to the third/fourth century was, then, in effect, a text not yet channeled into types, because until the beginning of the fourth century the church still lacked institutional organization required to produce one."[106] Only one of the papyri, P75, with a third-century date, closely transmits the Vaticanus (i.e., Alexandrian) text.[107] This suggests that the early papyri do not give full support to any text-types, even those types found in Egypt, unless they come from the same time period, then they may give
close support. Thus papyri should not be labeled as an Alexandrian, Byzantine, or Western type. They may be
proto-Alexandrian (i.e,
pre-). If
full papyri support is not found for an Alexandrian text-type in Egypt, one cannot necessary expect to find Byzantine-papyri support there.
Colwell proposed the following "sharp" statements for discussion in the 1960s. Some of these statements have found general support today. Let us use brief summaries of four of his ten statements as a summary of text-types:
1. A text type is a process, not the work of one hand.
3. The Greek vulgate--the Byzantine or Alpha text-type--had in its origin no such single focus as the Latin had in Jerome. Like Jerome's Vulgate, it had several revised editions.
6. The Beta text-type (Hort's "Neutral") is a "made" text, probably Alexandrian in origin, produced in part by the selection of relatively "good old mss," but more importantly by the philological editorial know-how of Alexandrians.
10. As in dating documents, so in dating text-types. What is needed is a datable witness to the type, not only to some of its readings, for the overwhelming majority of readings were created before the year 200. But very few, if any, text-types were established by that time.[108]
In our studies so far, we have found that both geneology and conflation failed to identify clearly the best Greek text. Let us look at another external evidence, the Church Fathers, to see if they can help.
85 Kurt Aland, "New Testament Textual Research Since Westcott and Hort," Hyatt, op. cit., p. 326.
86 Epp and Fee, op. cit., p. 84.
87 Ibid., p. 92.
88 Ibid., p. 95, reference to Aland, "The Significance of the Papyri . . . ," pp. 325-46.
89 Colwell, op. cit., p. 45.
90 Ibid., pp. 47, 48.
91 G. Pasquali, Storia del Tradizione, p. 241.
92 Gunther Zuntz, The Text of the Epistles, London: Oxford, 1953, p. 55.
93 Ibid., pp. 150-51.
94 Ibid., p. 151.
95 Ibid., p. 281.
96 Pickering, op. cit., pp. 55, 56.
97 J. N. Birdsall, The Bodmer Papyrus of the Gospel of John, London, 1960, p. 17, quoted by Pickering, p. 56.
98 Colwell, op. cit., p. 47.
99 Philip Wesley Comfort, Early Manuscripts & Modern Transla-tions of the New Testament, Grand Rapids: Baker, 1990, p. 14.
100 Eldon Epp, "The Significance for Determining the Nature of the New Testament Text in the Second Century: A Dynamic View of Textual Transmission," in William M. Peterson, ed., Gospel Traditions in the Second Century, Notre Dame, Ind.: Notre Dame Press, 1989, p. 84.
101 Sturz, op. cit., pp. 61, 62.
102 Ibid., pp. 62-64.
103 Pickering, op. cit., p. 119.
104 Colwell, op. cit., p. 48.
105 J. Neville Birdsall and Robert W. Thompson, Biblical and Patristic Studies, New York: Herder, 1963, p. 76.
106 Aland, op. cit., p. 64. Aland believes major text-types were due to the demand caused by Diocletianic persecution and to it being fulfilled in Constantine's times. See p. 65.
107 Ibid., p. 57.
