Do the longer readings in Gk. always multiply themselves?

[BlueFalcon]

Many NT Greek scholars argue that the text of the later MSS, namely the Byzantines, is in fact a late text, that it is longer simply because longer readings tend to multiply themselves, etc. This is of course turning a blind eye to the long-identified scribal habits of early Egyptian scribes, that they tended to omit material rather than add it. Cf. the classic article on this subject, E.C. Colwell, “Scribal Habits in Early Papyri: A Study in the Corruption of the Text”, The Bible in Modern Scholarship, ed. J.P. Hyatt (Nashville 1965) 370-389; and of course a more recent study with the same conclusions, Peter M. Head, "The Habits of New Testament Copyists. Singular Readings in the Early Fragmentary Papyri of John" Biblica 85 (2004) 399-408.

But when one opens his Gk. NT he finds many, many cases where the Byzantines did not add material. This is enough to nip in the bud once and for all the fallacy that longer readings in and of themselves always tend to propagate. Matthew 28, for example, shows a few examples of this.

Mt. 28:2 - Byz does not add KAI (p. OURANOU)
Mt. 28:15 - Byz does not add HMERAS (p. SHMERON)
Mt. 28:18 - Byz does not add THS (p. EPI)
Mt. 28:19 - Byz does not add OUN (p. POREUQENTES)

One may also cf. Mt. 27:49 and 1 Jn. 2:23 for longer examples of the same thing.

With the fact that the longer readings do not always tend to propagate and the fact that the early scribes (at least in Egypt) tended to omit material, the benefit of the doubt should be given to transmissional dominance of the ancient text in the entire MS tradition as exhibited in large part by the Byzantine Textform.

Yours,

BlueFalcon

[Jaltus]

28:2 - Byz adds either apo thV quraV or else apo thV quraV tou mnhmeiou.

28:6 - Byz adds o kurioV

28:9 - Byz adds wV de eporeuonto apaggeilai toiV maqhtaiV autou

28:20 - Byz adds amhn

The list could easily go on.

[BlueFalcon]

28:9 - Byz adds wV de eporeuonto apaggeilai toiV maqhtaiV autou

I'm glad you brought this one up, because it evinces a most probable unintentional scribal deletion by way of homoioteleuton. After writing apaggeilai toiV maqhtaiV autou in 28:8, the scribe's eye jumped to the end of the same words in 28:9, i.e. apaggeilai toiV maqhtaiV autou, thus omitting the material in between (wV de eporeuonto apaggeilai toiV maqhtaiV autou). This kind of deletion error is extremely common among MSS, but these kinds of errors never tended to propagate themselves to the point of dominating the entire rest of the mainstraim textual tradition.

Mt. 10:37 is another example of this exact kind of error, where B D and others omit kai o filwn uion h qugatera uper eme ouk estin mou axioV (due to uper eme ouk estin mou axioV which precedes the deleted material), and p19 omits kai o filwn uion h qugatera uper eme ouk estin mou axioV kai oV ou lambanei ton stauron autou kai akolouqei opisw mou ouk estin mou axioV (due to ouk estin mou axioV which preceded the deletion). Mk. 11:26 is another example of this kind of error, except here it happens to be an entire verse that is deleted.

Yours,

BlueFalcon

[Bib Lit Major]

I'm glad you brought this one up, because it evinces a most probable unintentional scribal deletion by way of homoioteleuton. After writing apaggeilai toiV maqhtaiV autou in 28:8, the scribe's eye jumped to the end of the same words in 28:9, i.e. apaggeilai toiV maqhtaiV autou, thus omitting the material in between (wV de eporeuonto apaggeilai toiV maqhtaiV autou). This kind of deletion error is extremely common among MSS, but these kinds of errors never tended to propagate themselves to the point of dominating the entire rest of the mainstraim textual tradition.

Again I acknowledge my lack of expertise, but from a GRAMCORD search of Matthew's usage of wV, he never uses it in a construction to denote a temporal sense, which is what the Byzantine reading seems to suggest.

[BlueFalcon]

Again I acknowledge my lack of expertise, but from a GRAMCORD search of Matthew's usage of wV, he never uses it in a construction to denote a temporal sense, which is what the Byzantine reading seems to suggest.

Of course you're not saying that he did not know how to use it thus, or that he couldn't have used it thus, because the fact is that if he could have used it thus, and the MSS show evidence of a homoioteleuton error among them, the benefit of the doubt must go to Matthew that he certainly could have used the expression and in fact did use it. How many expressions are there among all the writers of Scripture that are only used once? How many words among them are only used once? These kinds of things happen quite frequently among them, and can in very few instances be argued against their ability to use "new" or "unique" words whenever and however they please.

Yours,

BlueFalcon

[BlueFalcon]

The reason of this post was to refute a commonly held fallacy, summed up brilliantly by Jaltus in another thread:

Errors which lengthen the text tend to accumulate, not vice versa, in Holy Writ. The only time this is not true is the Western Text of Acts as seen in Beza Catabrangensius (sp).

The following show where the mainstraim and vast majority of all MSS in the entire textual tradition did NOT propagate the longer readings in Matthew:

2:13 eiV thn cwran autou (p. autwn c. B)
3:6 potamw (p. iordanh)
3:12 autou (p. apoqhkhn c. B W etc.)
4:19 genesqai (p. umaV c. Aleph1 D etc.)
5:4 nun (p. penqounteV c. Aleph 33 etc.)
5:40 sou (p. imation c. Aleph 33 etc.)
6:1 de (p. prosecete)
6:2 amhn (p. amhn c. Aleph* 13 etc.)
6:8 o qeoV (p. gar c. Aleph1 B etc.)
7:22 polla (p. daimonia c. Aleph*)
7:29 autwn (p. grammateiV)
8:9 tassomenoV (p. exousian c. Aleph B etc.)
8:10 par (p. umin)
8:13 kai upostreyaV o ekatontarcoV eiV ton oikon autou en auth th wra euren ton paida ugiainonta (p. ekeinh c. Aleph* C etc.)
9:28 duo (p. oi c. Aleph* D etc.)
10:2 kai (a. iakwboV)
10:8 nekrouV egeirete (p. qerapeuete)
10:12 legonteV eirhnh tw oikw toutw (p. authn c. Aleph* D L etc.)
10:14 h kwmhV (p. polewV c. Aleph 892 etc.)
10:14 ek (p. koniorton c. Aleph C etc.)
10:15 gh (p. kai c. Aleph C etc.)
10:24 autou (p. didaskalon c. Aleph W etc.)
10:32 toiV (a. ouranoiV)
11:21 kaqhmenoi (p. spodw c. Aleph C etc.)
12:30 me (p. skorpizei c. Aleph 33 etc.)
12:31 umin (p. blasfhmia afeqhsetai c. B f1 etc.)
12:32 ouk (p. anqrwpou c. B*)
12:35 ta (a. agaqa c. Aleph C L etc.)
12:38 autw (p. apekriqhsan)
12:44 kai (p. scolazonta c. Aleph C* etc.)
13:15 autwn (p. wsin c. Aleph C etc.)
13:27 ta (p. ecei c. Aleph* L etc.)
13:30 tw (p. en c. Aleph* C L etc.)
13:33 legwn (p. autoiV c. Aleph L etc.)
13:35 hsaiou (p. dia c. Aleph* Theta etc.)
14:3 tote (p. hrwdhV c. B Theta etc.)
14:12 autou (p. ptwma/swma c. Aleph* D L etc.)
14:15 oun (p. apoluson c. Aleph C etc.)
14:19 kai (a. labwn c. Aleph C* etc.)
14:29 kai (p. udata)
14:34 eiV (p. ghn)
15:5 ouden estin (p. wfelhqhV c. Aleph*)
15:36 kai (p. icquaV)
15:38 wV (p. hsan c. B Theta etc.)
16:11 de (a. apo)
16:21 cristoV (p. ihsouV c. Aleph* B* etc.)
16:28 oti (p. umin)
17:1 ton (a. iakwbon c. Aleph D etc.)
17:26 o de efh apo twn allotriwn (p. allotriwn [17:25] c. Aleph etc.)
18:1 de (p. ekeinh c. B 0281 etc.)
18:10 tw (p. autwn en c. B 892 etc.)
18:12 kai (a. poreuqeiV)
18:12 probata (p. ennea c. B Theta etc.)
19:8 o ihsouV (p. autoiV c. Aleph Phi etc.)
19:14 autoiV (p. eipen c. Aleph C D L etc.)
19:21 toiV (p. doV)
19:22 touton (p. logon c. B 892c etc.)
19:24 oti (p. umin c. Aleph C L etc.)
20:4 mou (p. ampelwna c. Aleph C etc.)
20:5 de (p. palin)
20:10 to (p. elabon)
20:17 mellwn (at beginning of v. c. B f1 etc.)
20:18 eiV (p. auton c. Aleph)
20:21 h de (p. qeleiV c. B 209 etc.)
20:23 touto (p. emon)
21:5 epi (a. pwlon)
21:15 touV (p. paidaV)
21:25 to (p. baptisma)

I could go on, but what's the use. This many examples should be more than enough to prove my point, that longer readings do not propagate themselves, and neither do shorter ones. The readings that most likely propagate themselves are the ones that are the oldest and the ones that have been in the textual tradition the longest, period.

Yours,

BlueFalcon

[Bib Lit Major]

I could go on, but what's the use. This many examples should be more than enough to prove my point, that longer readings do not propagate themselves, and neither do shorter ones. The readings that most likely propagate themselves are the ones that are the oldest and the ones that have been in the textual tradition the longest, period.

A question arises into my mind as how the scribes themselves would've known which readings where in the tradition the longest. It's not as if there was an abundance of copies available to each scribe so that they could check and compare which ones are errors and which are not. Since MSS were expensive, it would seem to follow that more often than not, each copyist had one copy at their disposal. Thus, the errors and interpolations of the previous scroll could probably be seldom checked against other MSS. Only in those cases where multiple scrolls were readily available could it be checked. I also am led to believe that copying was probably seldom thoughfully carried out, where the copyist would be expecting what was to come, but merely copying. Thus, I have a feeling that additions would not be noticed very often. In the case that it would be noted as being a significant addition, I have a feeling the copyist tendency (regarding orthodox additions) would be to keep the additions, and not take them out, since it is one thing to leave something questionable in, but it might be considered sacrilegious to take something that might be authentic out of the Bible, but again, I am no textual expert.

Kevin