Recension

The “Earliest and Best” Myth Addressed

James White has commonly made the claim that the early Papyri and Uncials are “all Alexandrian in form.” This may be hyperbolic, but it is inaccurate nonetheless. This is highly problematic, as there are Byzantine readings in both the Papyri and the Uncials. Wieland brings this fact to the forefront of his response to White by highlighting that this means Byzantine readings pre-date the Lucian recension.

The Lucian Recension Theory (hypothesis) was proposed by Westcott and Hort in part to prop up the supremacy of their new text. They argued that the Byzantine text emerged as a result of a text-critical effort led by Lucian which birthed the Byzantine Text, which was then propagated forth by way of Constantinople. That means that the Byzantine Text could not have been as early as the Alexandrian Text, and further was an adaptation or evolution from the earliest text types. At the time, this was a strong case for exchanging Westcott and Hort’s text for the previous standard, the Textus Receptus. While this is widely rejected within the text critical community now, the residual has stuck within the mainstream orthodoxy of text critical dogma.

Wieland addresses the claim that the Alexandrian Text is “earliest and best” by quoting scholars that are hostile to the Textus Receptus, Bruce Metzger and Gunther Zuntz. It is possible that the reason so few have interacted with Wieland is due to the fact that he uses scholars critical of the Textus Receptus to support his arguments. The quotes are quite lengthy so I’ll post partial quotes here. If you wish to see Wieland’s full presentation, I provided the link to the video in the introduction.

“During the past decades several papyri have come to light which tend to increase one’s uneasiness over Hort’s reluctance to acknowledge the possibility, though it be absent from all great uncial manuscripts. Since the discovery of the Chester Beatty Papyri (P45 and P46) and the Bodmer papyrus II (P66), proof is available that occasionally the later Byzantine text preserves a reading that dates from the second or third century for which there had been no other early witness.”Metzger, Bruce. New Testament Studies, 189-203.

“To sum up, a number of Byzantine readings, most of them genuine, which previously were discarded as “late,” are anticipated by P46. Our inquiry confirmed what was anyhow probable enough: The Byzantines did not hit upon these readings by conjecture or independent error. They reproduced an older tradition.”Zuntz, Gunther. The Text of the Epistles, 55-56.

It may come as a surprise to many people, but the Papyri are actually quite powerful in contesting Alexandrian priority, which is in large part responsible for the footnotes, asterisks, and brackets in modern bibles. I imagine this is why White continues to say that the Papyri overwhelmingly prove his point, because if people found out the Papyri actually do not support his claims, they would begin to be skeptical of his presentation overall. He assumes his audience will not look into it, and for the most part, they don’t.

Wieland notes that the “testimony of a hostile witness” carries more weight than that of a friendly witness, and he’s right. If the scholars critical of the TR are saying that the textual data shows the antiquity of the Byzantine tradition, there is credibility in what those in the TR camp are saying, even if the scholars and apologists for the critical text won’t admit it or mitigate the importance of this reality.

He makes another great observation when he points out that manuscript age is not all that important, it is the age of the reading is what matters. Seeing as this was made in 2012 it shows that Wieland was far more up to date in his knowledge of textual scholarship than White, or at least that White was not willing to discuss the challenges to his position. Having been on the receiving end of White’s critiques many times, I can attest to this personally. The point is, that it doesn’t matter how old the paper of the manuscript is if the readings can be shown to be ancient. In the case of Alexandrian vs. Byzantine, this is extremely important.

Conclusion

Wieland concludes by making the point that it is not responsible to say that Alexandrian readings are necessarily more ancient than Byzantine readings. In his first video on his YouTube channel, he delivers a powerful blow to the common orthodoxy of the critical text dogma. If the Alexandrian readings are not necessarily earliest, what ground is left for the modern critical text apologists to stand on? The two positions might as well be on the same playing field as it pertains to antiquity.

The problem is that modern critical text apologists commonly conflate the antiquity of a manuscript with the antiquity of a reading when they present their argument at a layman’s level. Most honest scholars will admit that the point Wieland made is valid, while arguing that the later date of the Byzantine manuscripts implies that the readings are late as well. It is possible that critical text advocates and scholars tend to avoid this fact because it is extremely problematic to the entire structure of the critical text methodology. If the Byzantine Text is as old as the Alexandrian Text, the case for the modern critical text becomes much less relevant. I’ll conclude with this: if the Byzantine tradition, which is commonly labeled as a later evolution of the Alexandrian Text, is actually as old as the readings which make up the modern critical text, the case for using modern bibles in the church all but falls apart.

One thing that you will not get from reading my analysis of Wieland’s videos is his tone and charitable demeanor. I highly recommend for my reader, if you haven’t, to watch his videos and see what I’m talking about. Wieland had the amazing ability to deliver powerful arguments in such a way that disallowed critics to go after his character. I hope you have enjoyed the first article in this series, and I look forward to what lies ahead.

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Sunday, June 5, 2011 Metzger on the Lucianic Recension

[Metzger] does a good job of summarizing the evidence regarding Lucian, and his recension of the Old and New Testaments:

“I. ANCIENT TESTIMONIES TO LUCIAN AND HIS TEXTUAL WORK

The earliest references to Lucian are two brief and highly favorable estimates which Eusebius includes in his Church History. Here Lucian is described as a presbyter of Antioch, “whose entire life was most excellent (aristos)” (VIII.xiii.2), and as “a most excellent man in every respect, temperate in life and well-versed
in sacred learning” (IX.vi.3).

Later in the fourth century Jerome makes three references to Lucian which differ considerably in temper and appreciation of his work. The differences are no doubt to be accounted for by considering the several contexts and Jerome’s immediate purpose in referring to Lucian. On the one hand, when Jerome is comparing his own work as reviser of the Old Latin text with similar work by others in Greek, he is rather severe in his judgment of Lucian. Thus in his Preface to the Four Gospels, which takes the form of an open letter addressed to Pope Damasus and which was composed perhaps about the year 383, he refers somewhat contemptuously to the “manuscripts which are associated with the names of Lucian and Hesychius, the authority of which is perversely maintained by a few disputatious persons.”  

Continuing in the same vein Jerome condemns the work of Lucian and Hesychius as infelicitous:  

“It is obvious that these writers could not emend anything in the Old Testament after the labors of the Seventy; and it was useless to correct the New, for versions of Scripture already exist in the languages of many nations which show that their additions are false.” (1a)

 Subsequently, in the Preface to his translation of the books of Chronicles, Jerome makes a more temperate allusion to the work of Lucian and other Biblical scholars. In referring to the diversity of the editions of the Greek Old Testament, he declares that three are current in various parts of the Empire:

“Alexandria and Egypt in their [copies of the] Septuagint praise Hesychius as author; Constantinople to Antioch approves the copies [containing the text] of Lucian the martyr; the middle provinces between these read the Palestinian codices edited by Origen, which Eusebius and Pamphilus published.”(1)

In his valuable Lives of Illustrious Men, written soon after A.D.
392, Jerome is still more generous in his description of Lucian. Here, in a biographical sketch devoted to the martyr from Antioch, he characterizes him as “a man of great talent” and “so diligent in the study of the Scriptures that even now certain copies of the Scriptures bear the name of Lucian.” (2) 

What is of special importance is the declaration that copies of the Scriptures (and not just of the Septuagint, as Jerome is sometimes quoted) passed under the name of Lucianea.

Information of the widespread use of Lucian’s recension of the Psalter is contained in Jerome’s letter to Sunnias and Fretela (about A.D. 403). These two Gothic churchmen had inquired of Jerome why his own Latin Psalter (the so-called Roman Psalter) differed so frequently from the Septuagint. In his reply Jerome points out that they have been misled by their edition of the Septuagint, which varied widely from the critical text of Origen given in the Hexapla
and used by himself. Jerome writes:

“You must know that there is  one edition which Origen and Eusebius of Caesarea and all the Greek commentators call ‘Koine'[common], that is common and widespread, and is by most people now called Lucianic; and there is another, that of the Septuagint, which is found in the manuscripts of the Hexapla, and has been faithfully translated by us into Latin.” (3)

 Here Jerome distinguishes the Lucianic text from that of the Hexapla, and indicates that the former met with such universal acceptance that it received the name of the Vulgate or common text.

Later testimonies refer to Lucian’s competence in Hebrew. For example, Suidas and Simeon Metaphrastes (in the Passio S. Lucianimartyris) assert that “he translated [literally, renewed] them all [i.e. the books of the Old Testament] again from the Hebrew language, of which he had a very accurate knowledge, spending much labor on the work.” (4)

Though Lucian may have consulted Hebrew in connection with his revision of the Septuagint, this statement is obviously exaggerated in the manner of hagiographers.
 
More sober, and doubtless nearer to the truth of what Lucian
attempted to do, is the description of pseudo-Athanasius in his
Synopsis sacrae scripturae:

“Using the earlier editions [i.e. of Aquila, Theodotion, and Symmachus] and the Hebrew, and having accurately surveyed the expressions which fell short of or went beyond the truth, and having corrected them in their proper places, he published them for the Christian brethren.” (5)

Among testimonia of uncertain origin there is an unequivocal statement that Lucian concerned himself with the New Testament as well as the Old.  Under the date of October 15, the Menaeon of the Greek Church (this is a liturgical volume which includes short accounts of saints and martyrs to be read on their festivals) states that Lucian made a copy with his own hand of both the Old and New Testaments, written in three columns, which afterwards belonged to the Church in Nicomedia.(6)  Substantially the same information in a more extended hagiographical context is contained in the Synaxarium ecclesiae Constantinopolitanae for October 15. (7)

 This list of testimonies may be brought to a close with a reference to the condemnation of Lucian in the so-called Decretum Gelasianum, where mention is made of “Evangelia quae falsavit Lucianus, apocrypha, Evangelia quae falsavit Hesychius, apocrypha” (v, iii, 8-9).  It is generally agreed that this statement rests upon a misunderstanding of the critical remarks of Jerome. (8).

By way of summarizing ancient testimonies concerning Lucian’s textual work, we find that his contemporaries generally regarded him as an able scholar, entirely competent to undertake such a recension. As a native Syrian he could, of course, have consulted the Syriac version; he also appears to have had some acquaintance with Hebrew. As would have been expected, he made use of previous Greek translations of the Old Testament, and sought to adjust the Greek to the underlying Hebrew text. But we are told nothing as to the amount of revision which he undertook in either Old or New Testament text, the nature of the manuscripts which he consulted, the relation of his work to the Hexapla, and other similar matters. For information bearing on such problems, we must turn to the manuscripts which have been thought to contain the Lucian recension.”

(Metzger, Chapters in the History of NT TC, “The Lucianic Recension” (1963) p. 3 – 8)

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