Bad stream of NT manuscripts?

[Bluefalcon]

Codeces Aleph and B are two MSS from the same ancestral archetype evidenced by the peculiarities they share. But was the mother MS from which they descended very pure?

At Mt. 12:47 they (and thus their mother MS) omit the verse due to a common scribal error called homoioteleuton (h.t.), skipping the text from the LALHSAI of 12:46 to the LALHSAI of 12:47.

After Mt. 27:49 they insert a passage of 13 Greek words inspired from Jn. 19:34 ("...but another taking a spear pierced his side, and water and blood came out.")

And so taken together Aleph and B cannot be worth any more than the one MS from which they descended, which was itself not the most pure, and thus at other places the readings of this one MS and those connected to it should not necessarily be trusted, such as, e.g., in Mt. 6:13 where they omit a passage of 15 Greek words ("...for yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever, amen.").

We should not trust a relatively bad and minority stream over against the Consensus of all Greek MSS. Where the minority streams are lacking the Consensus of all Greek MSS supplies the need, the Original Text.

Yours,

Bluefalcon

 

[Phillip]

BlueFalcon, aren't you making an assumption that homoioteleuton is a cause of an error, while in fact the other manuscripts may have derived from mother documents with exactly the opposite problem?

I'm not really debating the issue here, but I am questioning how you arrive to your conclusion that the documents you mention are indeed the documents in error?

 

[Ziggy]

Philip, studies have been made (by Colwell, Royse, Head, and others) regarding the scribal habits of the early papyri and uncial manuscripts, deriving their results from the "singular readings" (i.e. those found in no other manuscript) found within each manuscript.

On the basis of this type of examination, certain types of scribal errors pertinent to each particular manuscript are recognized. In general, the conclusions unanimously reached by the various studies show that the scribes of the early manuscripts were far more prone to omit than to add, and that accidental omission by homoioteleuton was a very frequent cause of omission.

So on this issue, BF does seem to have a point.

 

[Phillip]

Sooooo, does this mean that the Alexandrian manuscripts are NOT the best manuscripts?

(. . . dare I say this and have a KJVo jump in the middle. )

 

[Phillip]

Uh, another question. . . Don't most modern versions add the missing portions anyway, although they may footnote it?

For example, the ending of Mark is in every new version I have, even though the footnote may say that "the best manuscripts may or do not contain...blah, blah, blah.).

Or, in the case of the Lord's prayer, it may not be in the body, but it is mentioned in the footnote as "some manuscripts say.....this.......".

Don't most modern versions try pretty hard to at least make a notation of the differences?

 

[robycop3]

Bluefalcon: ...in Mt. 6:13 where they omit a passage of 15 Greek words ("...for yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever, amen.").

Wonder if the same words were left outta Luke 11 in the Textus Receptus?

 

[Bluefalcon]

Originally posted by robycop3:
Bluefalcon: ...in Mt. 6:13 where they omit a passage of 15 Greek words ("...for yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever, amen.").

Wonder if the same words were left outta Luke 11 in the Textus Receptus?

How can the same words have been left out in Lk. 11 if they were never there to begin with? Not even one scribe of thousands even attempted to add the words there, which doesn't make sense if they were so willing to add them in Matthew, and such is just another reason to accept the words as genuine in Matthew.

Yours,

Bluefalcon

 

[Bluefalcon]

The main point of this thread is that what are considered the "best" MSS by scholars may not necessarily be the best, but they are still followed in critical matters of the text. For example, Codex Sinaiticus, when compared to the NA27 critical Greek NT, leaves out words or groups of words over 100 times in the first 20 chapters of Matthew alone. So Aleph is not followed blindly, the editors will say, but in any given passage if it is Aleph and a couple others against the Consensus of all Greek MSS, Aleph may well be followed regardless of its relatively inaccurate record when compared even with the pro-Alexandrian modern Greek NT. Why is this so? The omission of text is a common characteristic of the text of Aleph (even when compared with the text of NA27), so it cannot be trusted to give an accurate testimony when any question of omitted text arises.

Yours,

Bluefalcon

 

[Bluefalcon]

One rather hilarious tidbit is that Aleph alone omits Mt. 24:35: "Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away." How ironic is that! HAHAHAHA!

Yours,

Bluefalcon

 

[Phillip]

Okay, Bluefalcon, you appear to be a good scholar of ancient manuscripts. I admit that I am not a scholar of ancient manuscripts, but in my understanding there are two main streams that we are considering here (correct me if I am wrong) and that is the Alexandrian (supposedly older and better, by many scholars) as opposed to what we would now call the "TR" (from Syria)? (which other scholars such as yourself feel are better due to words lost in the Alexandrian manuscripts.

Is this a decent summary or am I simplifying it too much?

If so, then it would be your opinion that those translations deriving from the Syrian manuscripts would be more accurate to the original manuscripts. In other words, the KJV, NKJV and any other "TR" based New Testament? Right?

Maybe I'm just totally confused, but when we start naming specific manuscripts that is where I get lost because I do not have a single listing of most of the manuscripts and their sources (except maybe in the back of my TR interlinear).

I realize this is not KJVonlyism. I understand that you are simply looking for the most accurate source manuscripts that we have available today.

Are my thoughts. . .
Right? Wrong? Indifferent? or totally Idiotic?

 

[Bluefalcon]

Originally posted by Phillip:
but in my understanding there are two main streams that we are considering here (correct me if I am wrong) and that is the Alexandrian (supposedly older and better, by many scholars) as opposed to what we would now call the "TR" (from Syria)?

Not exactly. I am basically bringing an attack against the so-called Alexandrian "stream" of MSS, but I do so from the consensus of all Greek MSS, which come from all corners of the ancient Greek-speaking world, not just from Syria where mainly Syrian MSS (i.e. the Peshitta) were used.

Originally posted by Phillip:
If so, then it would be your opinion that those translations deriving from the Syrian manuscripts would be more accurate to the original manuscripts. In other words, the KJV, NKJV and any other "TR" based New Testament? Right?

No, because (1) the Syrian MSS are not even primary witnesses to the NT (i.e., they're Syrian, not Greek), and (2) Syrian MSS have unique problems of their own, e.g., they omit 2 and 3 John, 2 Peter, Jude, Revelation, not to mention Jn. 7:53-8:11 and Lk. 22:17-18. You brought up TR, and as you can see it has nothing to do with being based on Syrian MSS at all. I am not pro-TR, although it does contain mainly pro-Byzantine readings. The TR is really nothing more than an old eclectic version (a picking and choosing of a few select MSS), and if out of those few selected MSS the original reading wasn't or could not be found, a different reading had to be chosen. When one moves from that to selecting the reading from the Consensus of all Greek MSS, the chances of choosing the correct reading go up considerably.

Codex Sinaiticus was found on Mt. Sinai in Egypt and demonstrates an Egyptian or rather Alexandrian type of text. My aim in this thread is to cast doubt on the accuracy not only of this MS but on all those that unite with it against the Consensus of all Greek MSS, especially in cases of its particular proclivity, the omission of text.

Yours,

Bluefalcon

 

[Bluefalcon]

Another Codex Sinaiticus (Aleph) omission: all the text from Mary Magdalene (Mk. 15:47) through Mary Magdalene (16:1), due to homoioteleuton (h.t.) error.

Yours,

Bluefalcon

 

[Phillip]

I know I sound like a third grader to you, but bear with me one more time if you would.

I believe I understand your attack of the Alexandrian manuscripts.

Are not most compilations of manuscripts today (including Nestle's, etc.) based primarily on these Alexdrian manuscripts?

Is there a legitimate compilation that is available to the public of non-Alexdrian manuscripts, by name (with the exception of the TR, which you seem to cast doubt on due to its mixture of manuscripts)?

Is there a modern translation that IS using the manuscripts that you consider to be better?

Sorry, don't know enough to debate you on the subject, just trying to learn something. I hope you can bear with me. Thanks.

 

[Bluefalcon]

Phillip, there's no official translation based on the Original New Testament according to the Byzantine Textform, although The Sword Project does have a translation available for free download called the Majority Text Version, but it was made by using the Thomas Nelson parallel Greek New Testament and isn't a translation proper. I think Maurice Robinson, now the chief editor of the The New Testament in the Original Greek according to the Byzantine Textform, is planning a translation within the decade ahead, but I don't think that has even been started yet.

Here are more blunders in Codex Sinaiticus:

Mk. 10:35b-37a is omitted due to h.t. error, the scribe skipping all the text from the INA ("that") of 10:35 to the INA of 10:37.

Mk. 11:26 is completely omitted possibly due to h.t. error, the scribe skipping all the text from TA PARAPTWMATA UMWN ("your trespasses") of 11:25 to TA PARAPTWMATA UMWN of 11:26, although perhaps this portion of Scripture was omitted intentionally?

Yours,

Bluefalcon

 

[Ziggy]

bf: "How can the same words have been left out in Lk. 11 if they were never there to begin with? Not even one scribe of thousands even attempted to add the words there, which doesn't make sense if they were so willing to add them in Matthew, and such is just another reason to accept the words as genuine in Matthew."

At this passage BF has a real point -- the doxology in Mt 6:13 is *claimed* to have been added by Byzantine scribes "in order to adapt the Prayer for liturgical use in the early church" (Metzger).

Yet in Lk 11, nearly all Byzantine longer readings within the Prayer are similarly claimed to be expansions designed "to assimilate the Lukan text to the much more familiar Matthean form" (Metzger).

But -- *if* the Byzantine scribes indeed had done as Metzger claims, and harmonized on various phrases in Lk 11 due to a desire to make the text equivalent to Mt 6, it is passing strange that those same "harmonizing" scribes utterly failed to add the *same* doxology which they were blamed for creating in Matthew.

Bottom line is that something is inconsistent within eclectic praxis on this point.

 

[Ziggy]

bf: "there's no official translation based on the Original New Testament according to the Byzantine Textform"

Besides the Nelson-based EMTV that BF mentioned, the online WEB Bible NT and the ALT NT are based on the Byzantine or majority text. The quality of translation in all three could stand some improvement, however.

 

[Boanerges]

I have a question that may be kind of dumb, but if the Catholic church had charge of these earlier Alexandrian texts for so many years, why did they choose to copy their Latin translations from the Byzantine Greek texts. Could someone please shed some light on this as it has puzzled me for some time.

 

[Johnv]

Originally posted by Bluefalcon:
... they (and thus their mother MS) omit the verse due to a common scribal error...

If the verse is present only in later texts, it is incorrect to say that they "omit" the verse. The only conclusion one can make is that later manuscripts have inserted the verse.

Interestingly, the Dead Sea Scrolls support very closely the OT of the MSS over the TR. That lends credence to the claim that the NT portion of the MSS is likewise as reliable.

 

[Phillip]

Originally posted by Boanerges:
I have a question that may be kind of dumb, but if the Catholic church had charge of these earlier Alexandrian texts for so many years, why did they choose to copy their Latin translations from the Byzantine Greek texts. Could someone please shed some light on this as it has puzzled me for some time.

I don't know this for a fact, but the books I have concerning manuscripts say that they were found in old library/monastary buildings at a much later date. The evidence shows that the manuscripts far exceed the age of the Byzantine manuscripts which makes some scholars feel that "the closer to the originals, the more accurate, among other factors". One the other hand, those such as BlueFalcon feel the manuscripts were more corrupted due to location and apparently the scribes that kept them.

It was understood that Jews who moved to Alexandria to avoid the Roman empire were in charge of these documents and many say they were just as careful-if not more so, than scribes up North in keeping the documents faithful. However, as you can see this is what is being debated.

On one hand, BlueFalcon and others claim parts were left out, while on the other hand other scholars claim the other documents had parts added which may have started out as margin notes and became scripture through years of copy. Or well intended scribes tried to either harmonize the gospels or clarify the text.

THIS is the essence of the arguments. Many of the Alexandrian manuscripts are relatively recent finds compared to other manuscripts, but were kept well preserved by the dry Egyptian climate. Same as the Dead-Sea Scrolls. Relatively new finds of quite old manuscripts.

 

[Boanerges]

[/QB]I don't know this for a fact, but the books I have concerning manuscripts say that they were found in old library/monastary buildings at a much later date. The evidence shows that the manuscripts far exceed the age of the Byzantine manuscripts which makes some scholars feel that "the closer to the originals, the more accurate, among other factors". One the other hand, those such as BlueFalcon feel the manuscripts were more corrupted due to location and apparently the scribes that kept them.

It was understood that Jews who moved to Alexandria to avoid the Roman empire were in charge of these documents and many say they were just as careful-if not more so, than scribes up North in keeping the documents faithful. However, as you can see this is what is being debated.

On one hand, BlueFalcon and others claim parts were left out, while on the other hand other scholars claim the other documents had parts added which may have started out as margin notes and became scripture through years of copy. Or well intended scribes tried to either harmonize the gospels or clarify the text.

THIS is the essence of the arguments. Many of the Alexandrian manuscripts are relatively recent finds compared to other manuscripts, but were kept well preserved by the dry Egyptian climate. Same as the Dead-Sea Scrolls. Relatively new finds of quite old manuscripts. [/QUOTE]

Ok, so did the Catholic church use these texts in their later translations, and does anyone know which ones? Also, isn't Alexandria the area where the texts known as the lost gospels came out of, and wasn't these writers considered gnostic heretics by the early church? This is what I read someplace.