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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2009
In his important study on the origin of text-types, Ernest C. Colwell concludes with ten suggestions for further investigation and criticism. The ninth of these suggestions reads: ‘The textual history of the New Testament differs from corpus to corpus, and even from book to book; therefore the witnesses have to be regrouped in each new section.’ A corollary to this suggestion is the fact that certain manuscripts also differ from book to book—and even within books—as to the type of text they represent. Codex W, which makes a distinct change from a Neutral to a Byzantine type of text at Luke viii. 12 and is Western in Mark i. I–V. 30, is an example of this kind of ‘divided’ MS. Therefore, in the latest manuals text-type groupings which both regroup from corpus to corpus and recognize the ‘divided’ nature of certain MSS, appear as a matter of course.
page 23 note 1 ‘The Origin of Text-types of New Testament Manuscripts’, Early Christian Origins, ed. Wikgren, A. (Chicago, 1961), p. 138Google Scholar.
page 23 note 2 The terms Western, Neutral, and Byzantine will be used without quotation marks to refer to the three major text groups. It is to be understood that the terms always mean ‘so-called’.
page 23 note 3 See Sanders, Henry A., The Washington Manuscript of the Four Gospels (New York, 1912)Google Scholar.
page 23 note 4 Metzger, B. M., The Text of the New Testament (1964), pp. 213–16Google Scholar, and Greenlee, J. H., Introduction to New Testament Textual Criticism (Grand Rapids, Mich., 1964), pp. 117–18Google Scholar.
page 23 note 5 The New Testament in the Original Greek, 2nd ed. (London, 1896), II, 151Google Scholar.
page 24 note 1 Göttingen, 1913, 1, 1, 917–35Google Scholar.
page 24 note 2 For example in chapter iv alone, he includes but five occurrences and leaves out the following six: iv. 11 om. 
; iv. 14 ό δέ πίνων l. 
iv. 17 
; iv. 27 add. 
, post είπμν; iv. 38 άπέσταλκα l. άπέστειλα iv. 42 μαρτυρίαν l. λαλιάν.
page 24 note 3 Codex B and Its Allies, a Study and an Indictment (London, 1914), 2 volsGoogle Scholar.
page 24 note 4 Metzger, , op. cit. p. 116Google Scholar. Cf. Gregory, C. R., Canon and Text of the New Testament (Edinburgh, 1907), p. 337Google Scholar; and Greenlee, , op. cit. p. 116Google Scholar.
page 24 note 5 ‘Le papyrus Bodmer II’, R. B. LXIV (1957), 363–98Google Scholar.
page 24 note 6 One should note at this point how close Colwell came to this conclusion, before rejecting it, in samplings of variants in John, viiGoogle Scholar. See ‘Method in Locating a Newly-Discovered Manuscript within the Manuscript Tradition of the Greek New Testament’, Studia Evangelica, ed. Aland, K. et al. , (Berlin, 1958), pp. 766 fGoogle Scholar. His final conclusion that in terms of ‘gross statistics… S[N] is closer to B than to D’ in John vii is worthy of note, inasmuch as this is both contrary to the conclusions of Boismard's coincident analysis, and was based on an insufficient methodological principle in an article whose main force was methodology. It should be further noted, however, that Colwell was using this as an illustration to warn against partial comparisons. This present paper, and Colwell himself, in collaboration with Tune, E. W., in a later paper on method (‘The Quantitative Relationships between MS Texttypes’, Biblical and Patristic Studies in Memory of Robert Pierce Casey, ed. Birdsall, J. N. and Thomson, R. W. [Freiburg, 1963], pp. 25–32)Google Scholar, argue that there is also danger in ‘gross statistics’, which frequently tend to distort actual textual affinities.
page 25 note 1 Op. cit. (henceforth cited as Quantitative Relationships).
page 25 note 2 For a more detailed examination of the history of method, see Hills, E. F., ‘The Inter-relationship of the Caesarean Manuscripts’, J.B.L. LXVIII (1949), 141–59Google Scholar. The greater part of this paper deals with the history of method. Hills' divisions as to what constitutes differences of method seem open to question; and his conclusion in favour of sampling from variations from the TR stands directly opposite the position taken in this paper. For a more recent survey of the history, see Porter, C. L., ‘A Textual Analysis of the Earliest Manuscripts of the Gospel of John’, unpublished doctoral diss. (Duke University, 1961), pp. 98–104Google Scholar, and Metzger, , op. cit. pp. 179–81Google Scholar.
page 25 note 3 ‘Method in Locating a Newly-Discovered Manuscript within the Manuscript Tradition of the Greek New Testament’, Studia Evangelica (Berlin, 1958), p. 757Google Scholar.
page 26 note 1 ‘The Caesarean Text of the Gospels’, J.B.L. LXIV (1945), 486 and 488Google Scholar. This article now appears, with some up-dating, In Chapters in the History of New Testament Textual Criticism (Grand Rapids, Mich., 1963), pp. 42–72Google Scholar. The words enclosed in brackets in the succeeding quotations indicate the changes found in the latest edition.
page 26 note 2 ‘Eusebius’ New Testament Text in the Demonstratio Evangelica', J.B.L. LXXIII (1954), 167–8Google Scholar.
page 26 note 3 ‘Papyrus Bodmer II und seine Bedeutung für die Textgeschichte des Johannes-Evangeliums’, B.Z. II (1958), 219Google Scholar. Aland's collation appeared as ‘Papyrus Bodmer II, ein erster Bericht’, Th. L. Z. LXXXII (1957), 161–84Google Scholar.
page 26 note 4 Papyrus Bodmer II: Évangile de Jean, chap. 1–14 (Genève, 1956)Google Scholar.
page 26 note 5 Cf. Aland, , op. cit. pp. 164–8Google Scholar.
page 27 note 1 Op. cit.
page 27 note 2 Ibid. pp. 104–5.
page 28 note 1 Op. cit. p. 19 n. 25Google Scholar.
page 28 note 2 Their presentation of two tables (pp. 30–1), one showing percentages with singular readings included and the other without, is sufficient demonstration that they are correct in the exclusion of singulars from the tabulation.
page 29 note 1 The term ‘variation-unit’ is defined by Colwell and Tune as ‘referring to a length of the text wherein our MSS present at least two variant forms; it is that passage in which differences occur1 (‘Variant Readings: Classification and Use’, J.B.L. LXXXIII [1964], 254)Google Scholar.
page 29 note 2 See especially Porter, C. L., ‘Papyrus Bodmer XV (p75) and the Text of Codex Vaticanus’, J.B.L. LXXXI (1962), 363–76Google Scholar. Cf. the writer's unpublished doctoral diss., ‘The Significance of Papyrus Bodmer II and Papyrus Bodmer XIV–XV for Methodology in New Testament Textual Criticism’ (University of S. Calif., 1966), pp. 192–222Google Scholar.
page 31 note 1 Chapter iv was chosen as the test section for very practical reasons. It is the first chapter where D is complete, and one of the only chapters where C is complete. Moreover, 
75 begins to have considerable lacunae after this chapter.
Whereas chapter division is rather arbitrary, this chapter does include two independent pericopes, and perhaps a third, if one wishes to divide the ‘harvest sayings’ from ‘the Samaritan woman’.
page 31 note 2 The full collation of these 61 variation-units, as well as the singular readings in John, ivGoogle Scholar, may be found as Appendix I in the writer's unpublished diss., pp. 273–81.
page 31 note 3 Quantitative Relationships, p. 29Google Scholar.
page 33 note 1 Another reading of a similar nature, but less important, is at iv. 33, where the majority of MSS read 
after 
Here 
* (as the only Greek MS) sides with d (against D) e sye in omitting the conjunction. D, on the other hand, reads δέ with a b q r1. One wonders whether D, by adding the ‘wrong’ conjunction, is witnessing to a ‘Western’ tradition which originally omitted it. The fact that it is only a conjunction, where most MSS tend to be quite independent, lessens the strength of such a suggestion.
page 36 note 1 See, e.g., the statistics for John, xiGoogle Scholar in Colwell, and Tune, , Quantitative Relationships, p. 31Google Scholar.
page 36 note 2 In chapter xiii, for example, has a 41·4 per cent relationship with B, 43·2 per cent with D, 48·3 per cent with TR, and 51·7 per cent with A. Almost all of its readings with D are also shared by A and the Byzantine tradition. C, on the other hand, has a 72·5 per cent relationship with B and a 43·1 per cent with A; and L has a 69 per cent relationship with B and a 41 per cent with A.
page 39 note 1 The sudden increase in agreement between 66 and is the result of a change in 66, not .
page 41 note 1 This is one of the readings selected by Boismard (op. cit. p. 369)Google Scholar to substantiate his D text-type.
page 42 note 1 The reading of ό Ίησούς for 66* in iv. I is not self-evident; it is not so noted in the editio princeps, nor in the articles calling attention to corrections missed in the edition (see Boismard, M.-E., R. B. LXX [1963], 120–33Google Scholar; Aland, K., ‘Neue Neutesamentliche Papyri II’, N.T.S. X [1963], 62–4Google Scholar; and Fee, G. D., ‘Corrections of Papyrus Bodmer II and the Nestle Greek Testament’, J.B.L. LXXXIV [1965], 66–72)Google Scholar. But the correction seems quite certain. One may observe how unlike every other kappa on this page is the kappa of the 
. (Note also the kappa in the 
on the following page in iv. 11.) Moreover, the downstroke of what is now a kappa is identical to the iota of the 
directly beneath it.
page 42 note 2 66 vi. 7, 58, 64, 64; vii. 3, 13, 23, 28, 30, 32, 39, 45, 46, 50. 66 D vi. 10, 40, 53, 57, 62; vii. 12, 14, 35, 42.
page 44 note 1 See, e.g., Metzger, , Text of the New Testament, p. 255Google Scholar.
