Some Remarks on the First Volume (The Epistle of James) of the Novum
Testamentum Graecum Editio Critica Maior
William L. Petersen
The Pennsylvania State University
The Netherlands Institute for Advanced Studies
1. The foundation of all biblical studies is today, as it has always been,
the text. As A. E. Housman once remarked in a lecture, it is not necessary
to claim that textual criticism is the crown and summit of all scholarship;
here today it is sufficient to observe that every other field within
biblical studies presupposes having a reliable and ancient text at its
disposal (cf. Housman 1921: 69 = Housman 1988: 326). As obvious and as
elementary as this is, it sometimes gets lost in the shuffle.
2. Permit me to offer an example from the gospels. While much ink has been
spilt on the Synoptic Problem, there can be no resolution until we can
recover the text of the gospels as they were known to the various
evangelists in the first century; otherwise we will certainly be misled by
modifications, harmonizations, and redactional features added to the text in
the late first and early second centuries. And a comparison of the gospel
text found in our earliest sources--Justin, Clement of Alexandria,
Irenaeus--with what we now find in our standard editions (UBS, Nestle-Aland,
or even Merk, Bover, von Soden, or Tischendorf) suggests that we should be
cautious about assuming we have recovered a first-century text (cf. Petersen
1994). So the foundational principle of biblical studies remains: first the
text, then the theorizing.
3. My remarks are divided into three broad categories: first, for
non-specialists, some very brief comments on the challenges of creating an
edition such as that before us today; second, an evaluation of the edition
itself; and, third, some remarks about the future--for this volume is only
the first of a series which will eventually cover the entire New Testament.
I. The Challenges of Creating Such an Edition
4. Most of you are familiar with the steps required for the preparation of
an edition: cataloging the manuscripts, then obtaining them or copies of
them, collating them, creating lists of variants and the manuscript support
for each variant. When the versions are included--and they are so very
important, and so very neglected--another crucial step is required: deciding
upon translation equivalencies. And if patristic material is employed--and
it should be--then it is necessary to classify the parallel (is it a
quotation, a paraphrase, or an allusion?) and determine its starting and
ending points. Only then may one commence constituting a critical text, with
reference, of course, to the author's style, the language of the period, the
language's syntax and idioms, etc. This is the part of the task with which
most are familiar; it is, however, only part of the task.
5. An equally challenging--perhaps even more challenging--aspect of the task
is to marshal this information into an apparatus. An apparatus is obliged to
be a butterfly and an elephant at the same time: an elephantine amount of
information must be conveyed in an exquisite minimum of space. The apparatus
must be instantly accessible to the user and understandable, transparent in
its clarity, without ambiguity. It must also be entirely accurate, convey
all of the readings of all of the manuscripts, Fathers, versions, and
apocryphal works collated; nothing can be omitted. Meeting these conflicting
challenges has hobbled editions past: one thinks of Hermann von Soden's
magnificent edition of the gospels (von Soden 1911-1913), often unjustly
maligned for errors in the collation (they are actually relatively minor),
but burdened with a ponderous apparatus constructed from new sigla, a
non-standard manner of citing variant readings, and references to undefined
groups of manuscripts.
6. In short, the obstacles to creating an editio critica maior are
monumental. Many of them are hidden to the end user--indeed, in the best
editions, they are invisible--which is all the more reason to draw your
attention to them today.
II. An Evaluation of the Present Edition
7. If I may paraphrase: "Nunc dimittis servum tuum, Domine, secundum verbum
tuum in pace, quia viderunt oculi mei editionem criticam maiorem...."
8. It is hard to imagine a more splendid job. Prof. Dr. Aland, Dr. Wachtel,
and Herr Mink, our thanks. You have set a standard which will remain
unsurpassed during our lifetime.
9. There are four aspects of the physical presentation which I wish to
emphasize. First, the numbering of each word and space between words in the
text is a stroke of genius, for it removes any ambiguity about the precise
location of a variant or interpunction. It should be adopted for all future
editions of complex texts--and the text of the New Testament is the most
complex extant.
10. Second, the identification of each variant by a letter results, once
again, in absolute clarity for the user. The sequence of the presentation of
the variants--first true variants (i.e., substitutions, interpolations),
followed by omissions, followed by a list of manuscripts which are defective
at this point--is also consistent and clear, as is the treatment of the
variants themselves: when the variant involves more than one word, one works
from the end of the variant backwards, towards the beginning.
11. Third, compared with all previous apparatuses, this one is like living
in Texas: there is lots of room. The spacious presentation will save users
from many errors of the eye.
12. Fourth and finally, the presentation of all the major variants
immediately below the text line, rather as Adolf Jülicher arranged his
edition of the Vetus Latina (Jülicher 1963-1976), relieves the user of much
work by (1) extracting the variants from the apparatus, (2) grouping the
relevant ones, and then (3) positioning them at the proper point in the
text.
13. Turning to the constitution of the text itself, I also have four
remarks. First, with typical diligence, the Münster Institut has carefully
surveyed the extant Greek manuscripts of James. Using a transparent
methodology worked out with great care in the Text und Textwert volumes
(Aland et al. 1987-), any manuscript which disagrees by more than ten
percent from the "Majority" text in the 98 "Teststellen" (cf. Dr. K.
Wachtel's excellent study of the Byzantine text of the Catholic Epistles:
Wachtel 1995) has been completely collated, and all of its variants are
presented in this edition.
14. This is an enormous advance over all previous editions, where the
selection of manuscripts was ad hoc: part Fingerspitzengefühl, part what was
at hand (an old tradition in New Testament scholarship, dating back to the
time of Erasmus and even earlier), and part what was already on the kitchen
shelf. Moreover, the presentation of evidence was, for most manuscripts,
incomplete. Now, in the Editio Critica Maior, the complete presentation of
all variants from a manuscript means that the full text of any manuscript in
the edition can be extracted from the apparatus.
15. Second, as the now decade-old first volume of Das Neue Testament in
syrischer Überlieferung on the Catholic Epistles demonstrated, the Münster
Institut has truly done its homework before including the evidence from the
versions. Because of their antiquity, especially the Latin and the Syriac
versions are among the most valuable for reconstructing the text of the New
Testament. They are, however, among the least used. One of the reasons is
the difficulty in deciding translation equivalencies, as well as in knowing
when and how much to allow for the unique syntax or idioms of one language
against another. Here, at least with the Latin (using the work of the Vetus
Latina Institute at Beuron) and the Syriac, work has been incorporated into
the Editio Critica Maior which, simply on its own, represents a major
advance in our knowledge of these versions. The methods employed are
exemplary and transparent. The result is that, for the first time in any
edition, the versions are accorded their proper value.
16. Third, the inclusion of patristic evidence--attempted in so many earlier
editions--has finally, for the first time since Tischendorf's editio octava
(1869-1890), been successfully achieved. Especially splendid is the list of
patristic editions employed, with full bibliographic references (given in
the second part, titled "Supplementary Material," of the two-fascicle work,
pp. B14-B20), and the full register--verse by verse--of patristic references
(ibid., pp. B20-B25). While patristic evidence is notoriously difficult to
handle, it nevertheless remains--as Krisopp Lake, Robert Blake and Sylva New
remarked more than fifty years ago--"the guiding star of the textual critic
in his [or her] efforts to localize and date a text" (Lake, Blake, and New
1928: 258).
17. The caution with which the versional evidence is presented is
commendable: a question mark "refers to a versional reading which differs
from the other variant readings and cannot be traced with confidence to a
Greek base" (IV.I.1 [Supplementary Material], p. 18*). Furthermore, in the
"Supplementary Material," there is a complete section--sec. 5.3: "Further
Information on Versional Witnesses (Marked ? or >)", pp. B35-B39--which
lists all unattested readings in the versions, with the variant given in the
original language (Latin, Coptic, or Syriac: no longer need one track down
the edition and find the reading for oneself) accompanied by both German and
English translations, and, where necessary, an accompanying note, such as
"Paraphrase" (at 2:1, words 2-30, a paraphrase in some manuscripts of the
Sahidic), or "Word 12 is lacking, but its omission can easily be explained
independently of its translation base" (at 3:17, Latin ms 66 [also known as
ms ff]). While this is not a foolproof method, and some translations may be
questioned, it is probably as close as we will come to perfection on this
side of the looking-glass, for these notes allow the user to evaluate the
translation and editors' decisions for him- or herself.
18. Fourth, for those concerned about the independence of the Münster
Institut from the Nestle-Aland edition, it is to be noted that at two places
in James (both, ironically, involve an inversion of word order: 1:22
[monon akroatai in NA27 becomes akroatai monon] and
2:3 [ekei h kaqou in NA27 becomes h kaqou ekei]), the
text of the new Editio Critica Maior disagrees with that of Nestle-Aland27.
This augers well for the independence of the Institut's work: it is not
simply a new printing of Nestle-Aland27, buttressed by a larger apparatus.
While the Institut's text of the gospels or the Acts will offer more
instances where a reappraisal is required (and will undoubtedly elicit more
comment than this text of James), this volume is undeniable proof that the
Institut is not tied to the Nestle-Aland text.
III. Looking Ahead: Future Fascicles
19. As for the future, I offer three observations. First, simply as a point
of aesthetics--but one which also touches on the matters of ease of use and
prevention of errors of the eye--only one verse should be presented per
page; indeed, in an ideal world there should be only one line of a verse per
page. Where there are multiple lines and/or verses per page, the possibility
of confusion increases, and the edition becomes less "user-friendly." While
the size and the cost of future volumes would increase slightly if this
suggestion were implemented, the pay-off in ease of use and prevention of
errors would be worth it.
20. Second, there are several places where subjective analysis enters into
the presentation of the materials. While this is inevitable in any edition,
and while these places have been noted by the Münster team, permit me to
make two of them specific, and explain why I feel uncomfortable with the
present handling of the materials.
21. (1) Quoting the English text of the "Introduction" ("Text," IV.I.1, p.
13*), one reads: "Readings attested exclusively by a Father are only rarely
recorded." This statement raises two problems.
22. (A) The editors' words, "only rarely recorded," immediately raise the
question of what criteria were applied to decide which readings were
recorded (and then "only rarely") and which were not? This opaque statement
begs for clarification and leads directly to a second problem with this same
statement.
23. (B) As the discovery of the Gospel of Thomas and work in Syriac and
Diatessaronic studies have taught us, what is today perceived to be a
"reading attested by only one Father" may tomorrow be discovered to have had
broader attestation in antiquity than we previously thought. It would,
therefore, be of enormous help to future scholars if every reading from a
Father--even if today he is the "only" known source of this variant--were
recorded. If this is not done, then future researchers will have to repeat
the work already done by Münster and search for these same parallels once
again, with the possibility that they may miss a parallel found long ago by
the Münster Institut, but not recorded in the Editio Critica Maior, simply
because it was (incorrectly) taken to be a "singularity." (Note that this
suggestion of recording every reading also solves the first problem [A,
above], by eliminating the undisclosed criteria by which "some" singular
patristic readings are recorded, but others are excluded from the edition.)
24. (2) A second example of subjective decision-making is found in the
following quotation from the "Introduction" (IV.I.1, p. 13* [emphasis
added]), and also concerns patristic evidence: "Variants are excluded from
the apparatus if they may be ascribed to a Father's stylistic tendencies and
are unlikely to have been in his manuscript source."
25. As someone who works with patristic texts, I think I know what the
editors mean, and I sympathize with their decision. An example is the Old
High German column of bilingual Codex Sangallensis (Sankt Gallen, Stiftsbib.
56), which commonly substitutes "der Heilant" ("the Savior") where the Latin
reads "Ihesus" as does the Greek. But I also see an enormous problem here:
how can one be certain that a reading is a matter of "style," or that it is
"unlikely" to have been found by the Father in a text from which he cites
it? My concern is for those gray areas where the editors ask us to trust
their decision--but new discoveries may show their decision to have been
incorrect.
26. Here, as with the matter of "singular" patristic variants, I would argue
that these variants should be included in the apparatus. And if it is
decided that the inclusion of these readings burdens the apparatus to an
unacceptable degree, then the information should be recorded in a list,
arranged by verse, and printed in the "Supplementary Materials" volume--as
this edition already does with "obvious errors" (the "Fehlerliste" or
"f-list", in IV.2.1, sec. 2.4, pp. B12-B14 [this "f-list" is another point
where subjective judgments have been made; while such decisions are not too
complex in the case of James, they will be much more difficult in the case
of the gospels]) in the Greek manuscripts. Whatever solution is decided
upon, under no circumstances should the readings be discarded: they must be
included in the edition. (It should be pointed out that in both of these
instances, it is the editors who, in their characteristically open fashion,
have candidly disclosed their procedures and thus permit one to offer such
suggestions for improvements. This "full disclosure" of procedures is unique
among editions of the New Testament, and is, perhaps, the single most
significant feature of these volumes.)
27. My third major concern is the volume of material and its means of
distribution. The Epistle of James contains only 108 verses; only 44 have
"significant variants" (so Johnson 1995: 6). James' text also has a high
degree of uniformity: no "Western Text" of James is extant. Our manuscript
evidence is also relatively meager (for example, no Vetus Syra version
exists, perhaps because James only entered the Syrian canon with the
Peshitta [early fifth cent.]). Patristic citations are also modest in
number, owing in part to the apparent lateness of James (Origen [early third
cent.] is apparently the first father to cite it).
28. How does this compare with the Acts of the Apostles, where we have a
very different "Western Text"? Or with Matthew, which has 1071 verses--ten
times the number found in James? The number of "significant" variants in
Matthew is certainly much higher as well. Additionally, we have more
versional evidence and older patristic evidence for Matthew. James' 108
verses generated 141 pages of text; if one multiplies only by a factor of
ten for Matthew, then one arrives at a volume 1,400 pages long. Allowing for
the greater complexity of the text (more variants, with more witnesses), it
would appear that a Matthew volume would run more than 2,000 pages. This is
clearly an unmanageable mass of material. We all know that to err is human:
these volumes on James contain errors, and any work of more than 2,000 pages
will certainly contain errors, some of them major. It simply cannot be
avoided.
29. Therefore, I would urge the Münster Institut to investigate the
possibility of publishing--in addition to these magnificent paper
volumes--the Editio Critica Maior electronically. There are numerous
obstacles--the representation of the characters of the odd languages
required (although the new "Unicode" initiative [which permits the direct
keyboard entry of the characters of virtually any language, with the proper
diacritical markings] may obviate this problem) and the precise formatting
(and by that I mean the alignment, both vertically and horizontally) of the
display are only two of the most obvious--but the rewards are great. Tasks
such as searching the text or extracting the text of a certain manuscript or
Father would be facilitated, as would the introduction of corrections or
newly discovered evidence (think of [P]100: what a tragedy if these volumes
had gone to press six months earlier, and the evidence from this
newly-identified Oxyrhynchus papyrus could not have been included...). The
ease of use, ability to correct and update, and the ability to search and
extract whole "lines" of evidence, these are all advantages inherent in the
electronic form of publication. The paper edition should not be abandoned,
but it should be augmented by a electronic edition: each has its own
strengths and its own weaknesses.
30. In closing, let me simply state once again what an enormous advance this
is over all previous editions. The thoroughness and the precision with which
the volumes have been researched and presented are exemplary; the clarity of
the apparatus is a marvel. It is clear that Kurt Aland's greatest gift to
scholarship is yet to come, and the James volumes are--literally--only the
first glimmer of what awaits.
31. For the masterful stewardship of your husband's legacy, as well as for
your own significant contribution to the Editio Critica Maior, we all are in
your debt, Frau Dr. Aland; the Institut für Neutestamentliche Textforschung
in Münster clearly remains--as it has been virtually since its founding--the
world's preeminent centre for New Testament textual studies: these volumes
are merely one more proof among many.
This paper is a revision of a presentation given to the New Testament
Textual Criticism Section of the Society of Biblical Literature at the 1997
annual meeting in San Francisco, Michael W. Holmes, presiding. Presentations
by Barbara Aland (general editor of the Editio Critica Maior), Peter H.
Davids, Bart D. Ehrman, D. C. Parker, and Klaus Wachtel (co-editor) also
appear in this issue of TC. See also the critique of the volume by J. K.
Elliott.
© TC: A Journal of Biblical Textual Criticism, 1998.
Bibliography
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