Textual criticism of the New Testament

There are three main types of witnesses of the New Testament: Greek witnesses, ancient translations and early quotations. Greek witnesses (Metzger and Ehrman 2005: 52–94) total approximately 5700 and include papyri, majuscules (manuscripts written in majuscule script) and minuscules (manuscripts written in minuscule script). The oldest extant Greek witness is a small papyrus fragment of the Gospel of John dating to the early second century, which is thought to be less than 100 years after its composition. The oldest complete extant Greek witness is the Codex Sinaiticus, a majuscule dating to the fourth century. Ancient translations (Metzger and Ehrman 2005: 94–126) of the New Testament were made into numerous languages, such as Syriac, Latin, Coptic and Armenian. Because some of these translations were made in the second and third centuries, they are of considerable importance to textual critics. The numerous early quotations (Metzger and Ehrman 2005: 126–134) of the New Testament in commentaries, treaties and sermons help situate particular readings within a specific time and place. In some instances one or more variant readings are quoted, which provide important historical information on the process of textual transmission. New Testament witnesses are often described as belonging to one of three text types:5 _{the Western text, the Alexandrian} text and the Byzantine text (Metzger and Ehrman 2005: 276–280, 306–313). The Western text is a loose collection of witnesses resulting from the “wild” textual growth of the second century. This text type is characterised by paraphrasing, harmonising and additions from apocryphal material. The primary Alexandrian text is a somewhat shorter form of the New Testament which was carefully transmitted

5 _{A text type is a cluster of witnesses which are judged to contain a similar textual form and believed}

in the city of Alexandria. In contrast to the Western text, the Alexandrian text has been subjected to few stylistic revisions and most scholars believe that this text type preserves the earliest form of the New Testament. The Byzantine text is a later development marked by conflated readings6 _{and harmonised passages. Partly owing} to this stylistic polishing, it became a very popular form of the New Testament by the early Middle Ages and the great majority of extant Greek witnesses belong to this category.

A minority of textual critics favour the Byzantine text on the basis that it is represented by the majority of witnesses with a high degree of textual uniformity (Metzger and Ehrman 2005: 218–222). Scholars of this approach, which is often termed the Byzantine priority, argue that representing a historically popular text type in an edition’s base text is an attractive alternative to a purely eclectic approach that, according Robinson (2002: 139), produces a “resultant text that reflects a piecemeal assemblage created from disparate variant units otherwise unrelated to each other”. However, it has been pointed out that major disruptions to the transmission of the other text types might have played a greater causative role in the eventual popularity of the Byzantine text than any supposed inherent superiority of this text type (Metzger and Ehrman 2005: 220). In addition, as previously noted, the Byzantine text is itself usually regarded as a conflated text based upon readings from disparate textual traditions. Instead, most contemporary textual critics of the New Testament have embraced eclecticism as a means to reconstruct the earliest possible textual form. Tov (2000: 203) has commented that eclectic editing is more suitable for New Testament material than Hebrew Bible material, stating, “the textual evidence [of the New Testament] is more extensive and a shorter interval separated the time of the autographs from our earliest textual evidence. The range of textual variation is also probably much smaller in the case of the New Testament than in that of the Hebrew Bible”.

Scholars preparing eclectic editions of the New Testament assess two main types of evidence when evaluating the relative strength of a variant reading: external evidence and internal evidence (Metzger and Ehrman 2005: 300–315).

External evidence refers to information external to the words of a text. Readings from witnesses copied at a comparatively early date are favoured since these have had less opportunity to accumulate transmission changes. Perhaps more importantly, readings belonging to a comparatively early text type are favoured. Most scholars believe that, in general, the Alexandrian text type contains the earliest readings. Readings from witnesses found across a geographically diverse area are favoured, provided they do not simply represent a single text type which gained widespread popularity (i.e. the Byzantine text). Internal evidence refers to information internal to the words of a text and is to be examined after external evidence. The most basic and important guideline for assessing internal evidence is that the reading which most easily explains the development of the other readings is likely to be the earliest. Based upon the observation that scribes tended to “correct” readings they did not fully understand to simpler forms, more difficult (but not more unlikely) readings are favoured. Similarly, because scribes occasionally attempted to make a text smoother and more polished, readings which are less refined, less elegant, or less familiar are favoured. Finally, in general, shorter readings are favoured since scribes tended to add rather than omit; however, this guideline needs to be used with caution since numerous instances have been documented in which the longer reading appears to be the earlier.

Different approaches to eclecticism have been developed as a result of different attitudes towards external and internal evidence. Thoroughgoing eclecticism (Elliott 2002; Metzger and Ehrman 2005: 222–226) pays much more attention to internal evidence than external evidence. Scholars who have adopted this approach argue that the earliest wording of a passage could theoretically be preserved in any of its witnesses and that therefore these witnesses need to be assessed without allowing external evidence to prejudice text critical decision making. Reasoned eclecticism (Holmes 2002) places equal importance on external and internal evidence. The scholars who use this approach, that is, the majority of New Testament textual critics, believe that external evidence provides important information on the transmission history of readings and therefore ought not to be ignored. All eclectic specialists, however, appear to agree that the guidelines

pertaining to external and internal evidence should not be rigidly or indiscriminately followed and that, above all, an intimate knowledge of the witnesses is required in order to make appropriate text critical decisions.