Philip W. Comfort and David P. Barrett, eds. The Complete Text of the
Earliest New Testament Manuscripts. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1999. Pp. 652 + 41
plates. ISBN 0-8010-2136-7. US $49.99.
1. This book is a presentation of transcriptions of all those mss, papyrus
and parchment, which the editors deem to have been produced before the
fourth century. It generated a certain amount of interest in the files of
the TC-list. In order to avoid any prejudice, I avoided studying the
correspondence until I had completed my own survey. I turned to it after my
own examination, and shall deal with the principal issues at the end of this
review. Sundry footnotes dealing with points from the list were added later.
General Description, Selection of Witnesses and Identification of Mss
2. The contents of the book include a list of the manuscripts in their
canonical order, so that one may see which are extant in any given portion;
an introduction with bibliography; transcriptions of 55 mss, each with an
introduction; plates of 41 of them; and an index of names. While we are on
the subject of names, I shall refer to this book by the first editor alone
since, in spite of the two names on the title page, the Acknowledgements and
the introductory material to each ms are generally written in the first
person singular (e.g., 'My studies' [p. 494], 'My opinion' [p. 599]),
although 'we' is also found in the first part of the introduction.
3. The volume describes itself as providing the 'complete text of the
earliest New Testament manuscripts'. The first question is therefore one of
selection. The mss included are
* Papyri 1, 4/64/67, 5, 9, 12, 13, 15/16, 17, 18, 20, 22, 23, 24, 27, 28,
29, 30, 32, 35, 37, 38, 39, 40, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49/65, 50, 52, 53, 66,
69, 70, 72, 75, 77/103, 78, 80, 86, 87, 90, 91, 92, 95, 98, 101, 102,
104, P. Ant. 2.54
* Majuscules 0162, 0171, 0189, 0220, 0232
That is a total of 50 papyri and 5 majuscules. P. Ant. 2.54 is an amulet
containing the Lord's Prayer, and as an amulet has no Gregory-Aland number.
Lacking, presumably on grounds of content, is 0212, the Dura harmony
fragment. The criterion for inclusion is one of date, with 300 as the
terminus ante quem. This has to be rather more approximate than it seems,
allowing for plus or minus some years on either side. It is not clear why
[P]7, dated to III/IV in the MŸnster Liste (Aland 1994), is excluded, while
[P]13, [P]18, [P]37, [P]72, [P]78 and [P]92, which are given the same
dating, are included. Some of the mss that have been included are dated in
the Liste to the fourth century: [P]17, [P]24, [P]35 (with a ?), [P]86. But
a number of other possible fourth century candidates that have been excluded
are [P]6, [P]8, [P]10, [P]62, [P]71, [P]81, [P]88 and [P]89. The inclusion
of [P]17 and [P]24 seems to be on the grounds that datings by Grenfell and
Hunt (Grenfell and Hunt, eds. 1898-) tend to be too late (more of this in a
moment). [P]35 has had various dates between the third and seventh centuries
given it, and here the third is preferred. There is no explanation given for
the inclusion of [P]86. It would have been helpful to have learned, perhaps
in the Introduction, why [P]6, etc., are not included.
4. [P]50, dated in the Liste to IV/V, has been given various dates. Comfort
follows the editors of the Yale papyri in preferring a date of c. 300 (Oates
et al. 1967: 15-21).
5. The first four of the majuscules included are datable to c. 300. The
fifth was dated by Roberts to III (Roberts 1950:24-26), and more recently by
K. Aland to V (Aland 1967:92). There is no tendency to push parchment mss
dated IV in the Liste back to III/IV, comparable to that just noted for the
papyri.
6. The precise number of separate papyri continues a matter of debate. Quite
properly, Comfort treats [P]4/64/67 as a single entity. But not all
identifications have been generally accepted. That [P]15 and [P]16 have the
same scribe is a matter which has been debated. Comfort believes that they
belong together. Unfortunately, he only says that 'a close study reveals
their common identity' (p. 85). Without properly set out grounds for the
view, one is not able to refute it properly. The plate of [P]16 is not
terribly good, and, if the hand is the same as that of [P]15, then the two
photographs must be to different scales, so one is not much the wiser from
the information provided. This question will have to be looked at
separately. There is a little more detail when we come to [P]49/65. I remain
to be convinced, however, that these two leaves share a common scribe. Alpha
is quite different in appearance and formation, and that alone should give
one pause for thought. It is a pity that there is no beta in [P]65 for
comparison with the small bowed form in [P]49. However, there is no room
here for a proper comparison, which again will need to be undertaken
elsewhere, so I content myself with declaring the matter sub iudice. The
identity of [P]77 and [P]103 (P. Oxy. 64.4403), considered possible by the
editors of this recent Oxyrhynchus volume (Handley et al., eds. 1997: 6), is
affirmed as 'far more likely than not' (p. 599) by Comfort, who brings
textual as well as palaeographical evidence into play.
The General Introduction
7. It consists of some general comments on the papyri, an account of the
editorial rules followed, a six page discourse on palaeography and the
dating of mss, a bibliography of general works, a list of the nomina sacra
and numerical values of letters, and a list of 'handwriting types' which is
repeated from the palaeographical section. The appearance of a beginner's
guide to dating mss is rather strange in what should be a technical work. It
is pitched at a low level. So far as it goes, it is tolerably accurate,
although it does suggest that attempts at early dating encounter 'immediate
opposition because it is believed that the time lapse between the autograph
and the copy is too short' (p. 17). It has also to be said that some
attempts at an earlier dating owe more to apologetics than to palaeography.
I make this statement generally, and not with reference to Comfort's work.
In fact his rejection of the dates given to [P]46 by Kim (Kim 1988) and to
[P]4/64/67 by Thiede (Thiede 1995), and his opinion of Hunger's dating of
[P]66 at 150 (Hunger 1960) show him to be properly cautious.
The Plates
8. The plates are fairly clear, though for some reason many seem rather
dark. There is rarely a scale (photographic departments are not always very
helpful in this regard).
The Individual Introductions
9. The introduction provides brief helpful information under the headings
'Contents', 'Date', 'Provenance', 'Housing location', 'Bibliography',
'Physical features' and 'Textual character'. For most this is supplemented
with a discussion, of varying length. Sometimes the palaeography is dealt
with. The tendency here is for there to be a lack of detail, and sometimes
bad argumentation. For the former I take the instance of [P]46, where in
quite a full discussion we are told that the editors find similarities
between it and a number of other mss, but with comments such as 'very
similar', or 'many similarities' (p. 195). Without being told what these
likenesses are, we have all the work to do again if we are to evaluate the
decision. With regard to the argumentation, I return to the question of
Grenfell and Hunt. Since Grenfell and Hunt thought that the codex form was
only introduced in the fourth century, they sometimes date in that century a
ms whose hand could (they observe) be dated earlier. But it does not follow
that all mss which they dated to the fourth century must be older. This
would only be the case if there were palaeographical grounds for an earlier
dating. In such instances, one is justified in following up their suggestion
and looking at a possible earlier dating, now that we know the codex form to
have been adopted much earlier. Thus, on [P]24, we read that 'Grenfell and
Hunt dated [P]24 to the earlier part of the fourth century. Since it was
part of a codex, it could be slightly earlier' (p. 105). Some of their
fourth-century datings are correct.
The Transcriptions
10. The manner and accuracy of the transcriptions is of course central to
the success or failure of such a book. The manner is to provide
transcriptions with restored material in square brackets. Sometimes large
amounts of text which are missing are restored; for example, in the
transcription of [P]28 the first fourteen lines of text on the recto and
thirteen on the verso,1 which are missing, have been provided in full within
square brackets. It is hard to see a justification for this. Although most
transcriptions restore all the text missing on each line, in some only the
partially extant words at either end are supplied. There is no explanation
of this variation in presentation.
11. Conspicuously absent is the use of dots beneath a letter to indicate
that it is uncertain, or of a dot beneath a space to indicate traces of ink.
This is due, we are told, to 'publishing constraints' (p. 14). What these
restraints might be, the present reviewer is at a loss to imagine. It takes
no time at all to create a font with such markers, and the ability to show
various degrees of uncertainty is essential if a book like this is to be
helpful. As it is, we are given the impression of certainty in many places
where certainty is unattainable.
12. We are given chapter and verse (the latter inserted into the text), but
not line numbers. Chapter numbers are given at the beginning of a papyrus,
or where a new one begins, but not at the beginning of each page.
13. How were the transcriptions produced? We are told that each
transcription accords with the editio princeps produced by those
editors who first published the work. However, we often deviate
from their transcription when we disagree with the editors on the
reading of the text as we saw it - whether viewing the actual
manuscript or the photographs [p. 14].
Unfortunately, we are not told which mss the editors had actually examined,
and for which their authority might thus count for more. The reference to
inspection of 'several manuscripts' (p. 11) suggests that the answer is not
very many. It has to be said that the first part of this description does
not make perfect sense. It says 'The transcriptions follow the first
editors, but frequently deviate from them'. Only one or the other half of
this statement can be true.
14. The process of checking all the transcriptions would require a lot of
work--quite often a visit to some pleasant but unfortunately distant library
in order to peer at a fragment. Here we run up against the problem of
reviewing this kind of book, where detailed knowledge of the mss is
necessary if one is to offer an informed opinion. The problem is increased
here, since one of the aims of reviewing in the electronic journal is to get
the review out quickly. One needs to find an approach which does justice to
the book while avoiding doing all the work over again. Fortunately, I am in
a good position to produce a detailed analysis of at any rate a part of the
materials. Having spent some years working on the papyri of John as editor
of the IGNTP (Elliott and Parker, eds., 1995), I have been able to apply the
detailed knowledge, frequently based on my own examination of the MS or on a
detailed report of an inspection in answer to my questions, to the Johannine
fragments. There are a good number for comparison: [P]5, [P]22, [P]28,
[P]39, [P]45, [P]52, [P]66, [P]75, [P]80, [P]90 and [P]95. The IGNTP edition
of the papyri contains transcriptions of 9 of these (all except [P]66 and
[P]75), and collations of all 11.
15. [P]5 contains portions of chapters 1, 16 and 20. The IGNTP transcription
was produced and corrected against the ms, which is in the British Library.
There is one place where I think, on reflection, that we have all been wrong
so far: on line 20 of the recto of the second fragment, 16.20, ed. pr.2 and
Comfort read l[[o]]uphqh, that is lophqh corrected to
luphqh; IGNTP reads louphqh without a correction.
Looking again, there is evidence for the deletion of the omicron, but it
also appears that the upsilon is a correction of an iota. So the correction
is loip- to lup-, just as it is in line 22. Elsewhere
also, Comfort always follows ed. pr. where it differs from IGNTP. This
includes several tremata where there is none in the ms, and restoring
petrou at 1.40 where there is too little room for it. Comfort
differs from both ed. pr. and IGNTP at a further 5 places: bracketing the
final letter of duo in 1.37; reading the omega of
[w]ra in 1.39; reading a trema over upsilon in
u?[mwn at 16.22; reading k_ in
[k_e_ at 20.15; reading upsilon of ou]k at
20.24. Three of these are not absolutely beyond debate, but the third and
fourth are definitely wrong.3
16. One finds more problems with [P]22. This is a rather difficult fragment
of a roll. It is a ms on which my fellow-editor (W. J. Elliott) and I spent
some time, and we are confident that we read everything that could be read.
The text of Comfort is almost identical to that of the first editors,
Grenfell and Hunt (P. Oxy. 10.1228), including a typographical error: at
Fragment 1, line 1 (15.25) they and Comfort read
sk]adalisqhte.4 The reconstruction should be
skand]alisqhte, with delta supplied and the bracket
after it. See the plate in the IGNTP volume. There are in all 19 differences
between IGNTP and ed. pr. Comfort follows ed. pr. in all but two. At
Fragment 2, line 6 they agree with IGNTP in placing trema rather than single
dot over u in umwn. And at line 20 ed. pr. reads
p_[r_s_, IGNTP p?_[r_s_, and
Comfort p_r_s_ [. This is probably a typo: it is quite clear from
the plate that only the beginning of the superline and the left of the
crosspiece of pi are visible. There is another error in the transcription of
the nomen sacrum at line 3 of the first fragment (15.26), where
p_s_ is read instead of p_r_s_. The editors have not
provided a reconstruction of the whole of the missing text (the lines were
evidently rather long), but only of the partially extant words at the
beginning and end of each partial line. This is justifiable, but the user
deserves an explanation of what has been done.
17. Turning to [P]28, we find that the text is again identical with ed. pr.,
except that on line 21 of the verso it reads all of de at the end
of the line, rather than d[e. In the other ten places
where IGNTP disagrees with ed. pr., it follows the latter.
18. The next ms is [P]39, and here we find some places where Comfort differs
from both ed. pr. and IGNTP: at line 24 of the verso, he reads
martu[rwn, whereas ed. pr. and IGNTP read
martur[wn. At line 3 of the recto ed. pr. and IGNTP
read e[legon, whereas Comfort has [elegon.
Otherwise it agrees with ed. pr. in the eight places where IGNTP differs.
19. [P]45 is a ms whose Johannine leaves I and my co-editor examined rather
carefully over some days (that is, we worked with the ms). There are several
problems with the edition of Kenyon (Kenyon 1933). One is that the
punctuation includes medial and low points and the double point like our
colon, all of which were represented by Kenyon as a high point. Another is
that two fragments of F17 are in the wrong place, so that the plates are
misleading. The first fragment was correctly placed by Kenyon in his
transcription, but the second was not. Comfort follows Kenyon. This leads
them astray on both sides of the leaf, at 11.32 and 54. In the recently
edited fragment containing verses from chapters 4 and 5 (Skeat and McGing
1991), Comfort follows ed. pr. The same is true of F16v, except that there
is a typo at line 26, where ekuklwsan should read
ek[uklwsan. This is a serious mistake, since it
implies that the ms contains the rest of the line (three complete words)
where there is really only the beginning of the first of them. And at line 5
egw h[lqon should read egw d[e
hlqon (there is a variant at stake here), and a point should be
included in lines 5 and 7. The same pattern of following ed. pr., even where
there are quite significant failings, is found elsewhere in the
transcription. There is more visible in the first line of F16v than is
given, and one letter of line 32 is also visible. Similarly, the first and
last lines of both recto and verso of F17 contain legible letters which are
ignored by ed. pr. and Comfort.
20. Coming to the oldest fragment, [P]52, it is surprising to find that the
seven extant lines on each side have been supplemented with another 11 on
each side (thus hypothetically filling the gap between recto and verso).
This is a fruitless and potentially misleading exercise. The verso is
identical with ed. pr. and IGNTP in what it transcribes, and agrees with
IGNTP in assuming the omission of eis touto in line 2. But the
recto (on which ed. pr. and IGNTP agree) contains two aberrations. The
second omicron in i+oudaioi is not bracketed, even though there
is a hole where it would be, and in the next line we find
lo[gos instead of l[ogos.
Comfort may have been misled by what appears to be a trace of ink on the
edge of the fragment as it appears in the photograph. In fact it is not ink
at all.
21. [P]80 is a tiny fragment, containing more hermeneia than Gospel. Note
the false insertion of a space before tau in
r[hma]t[a in line 2 of the
verso. Otherwise the text is that of ed. pr.
22. [P]90 is a papyrus that is tricky in places. On the whole, the editors
follow ed. pr. The only surprise is that in line 8 of the recto (18.37) they
read gegennhma[i, where ed. pr. has
ge?g?e?n?n?h?[mai and IGNTP reads
gegenn[hmai. Apart from the obvious problem with the
lack of dots, this seems overconfident in what it can restore--see the plate
in IGNTP!
23. [P]95 is pretty straightforward to read. The main problem is what to
read in the missing part of line 2 on the recto. There is the wrong amount
of space for any known reading. Ed. pr. left a space. IGNTP read autw
tw uiw. Comfort takes the way out of not restoring complete lines
(again without explanation).
24. We come finally to the two most extensive witnesses, [P]66 and [P]75.
With regard to [P]66, Comfort and a group of his students assisted in the
IGNTP edition by providing the first check on the collation (for some reason
this contribution is incorrectly described on p. 374 as 'proofreading' on a
'new transcription'). It would be quite inappropriate for this reviewer to
make use of his knowledge of Comfort's contribution to a piece of teamwork,
and it is hard to find a way of assessing the work which did not. So I shall
concentrate on an area which was not reflected in that checking, and to
which Comfort did not refer at the time, but which comes to the fore in the
volume under review: his assessment of the corrections. The description of
earlier work (pp. 374-376) is reasonably accurate, in that most scholars
have assumed that all the corrections were the work of the first hand.
However, one correction by another hand has always been known at 13.19, and
IGNTP identified another at 14.22 (see page 6 of that volume). Comfort
claims that both Colwell and Rhodes believed there to have been more than
one hand at work (Colwell 1965, Rhodes 1967-1968). In fact, in spite of the
ambiguity of Colwell's statement (Colwell 1965: 118), neither writer
explicitly identifies the mass of corrections with a second hand. This,
however, is what Comfort has done. He divides the corrections between c1
(the first hand), c2 (the official corrector, who was responsible for the
pagination to 99 and 'made several substantive corrections'), and c3 (who
did the rest of the pagination and 'made small corrections'). It is at c3
that I will look first.
25. The change in page numbers from 100 onwards looks good. The fact that
the ink looks much blacker in the facsimile is not an infallible guide. But
the identification with the corrector at 13.19, the larger of the two
additions by this hand recognised by earlier work, is not convincing. The
hand at 13.19 writes a good square hand, with alpha in three strokes,
whereas in page r_a_ it is in two, with a curved bow. Admittedly
at page r_i_a_ it looks more like the 13.19 correction.
26. Turning to the other corrections attributed by Comfort to c3, they all
come after page r_ (96 in ed. pr., leaf 50 verso in Comfort;
there is a mistake in the pagination of the ms, hence the inconsistency).
The addition of au[twn] at 15.25 does not look (so far
as it is visible) different from the majority of corrections. All the others
are on pages 99 and 100. That is, the IGNTP identification of the
kai compendium at 14.22 is not accepted (in fact, Comfort
attributes it to the first hand). In addition to the obvious 13.19
correction, he finds five more c3 corrections:
1. 13.20 the addition of epsilon before an (their note
describes it as the alteration of me to eme, but
that is a mistake; the ms reads eme anyway)
2. 13.24 the alteration of k(ai) legei autw ti
estin to puqesqai tis an eih
3. 13.24 the change of legei to eipen
4. 13.25 the change of anapeswn to epipeswn
5. 13.26 insertion of emba to read embayas
1, 3 and 4 are not convincing. The other two are, especially on the grounds
of alpha, which is like no such letter in the first hand or the other
corrections. In the fifth, mu has been written awkwardly to avoid the psi
beneath. The evidence for a couple of corrections by a considerably later
hand is thus increased. Yet one has also to note that since a correction
such as the insertion of ti at 13.7, ascribed by Comfort to c1,
could almost be attributed to 'c3', there is a lot still to be considered
before reaching a conclusion.
27. Turning to the c1 and c2 corrections, there are two questions. The first
is whether the two can be differentiated. After that one has to compare the
corrector(s) with the scribe. My first reaction was rather negative. I then
tried to devise a way of running an independent test on the theory, and hit
on the method of going through the corrections, trying to allocate them to
c1 or c2 according to Comfort's criteria. If I could make the distinction,
at least in the majority of cases, there was a possibility that there were
two hands. But if I could not, then I would not be convinced. Readers of
this review might want to make the same experiment for themselves. The
results of the test, which I ran for the first four or so chapters, turned
out to be mixed. The first quite certain identification of c2 in a larger
addition was the insertion of erxomenos at 3.31. But I then found
that the words added at 3.17 were also meant to be c2, and on reflection one
understood why. In about two-thirds of the places, I found the corrector
that Comfort did. The fact that the longer corrections are more easily
recognisable as 'c2' might conceivably be explicable as a rather more
mannered style in longer corrections.
28. There is, however, one further test which can be run very easily. In
examining a hand, one should always compare pages that are far apart in
order to see whether it changes or remains constant. For example, a scribe
might start to hurry and write more artificially, or he might have begun in
a script with which he was unfamiliar and as the copying progressed reverted
in some features to one that he knew better. Since the facsimile of [P]66 is
loose leafed, it is very easy to compare leaves from anywhere in the codex.
If one takes pages 5 and 94 of the facsimile and places them beside each
other, one is struck by several differences. The latter is written larger,
with fewer lines to the page, a pronounced upward slope and an apparently
more free style, with various hooks and loops that could be attributed to
speed of writing. The curious thing is that in detail a number of letter
forms are actually more formal. Alpha sometimes has something more like the
three stroke form of a square hand than the looped bow which one finds
earlier (e.g., its first occurrence in the last line of page 94). Mu is
occasionally, or so at least it seems to me, with a less curved and more
angled central part. One can at once see that at least most of the range of
letters found in Comfort's first and second hands as illustrated on p. 377
is found in the first hand. An exception, so far as I can tell, is the
vertical of rho without a slight thickening to the left at the bottom, which
according to Comfort is a feature of c2. The point is that the difference of
Comfort's c2 from the first hand is that it is more formal. The question is
whether the letter forms are so far removed from everything else that one
would have to conclude that it was the work of a different scribe. It has to
be borne in mind that a competent scribe would have had a number of
different styles at his disposal. Scribes did quite often use a different
style for Auszeichnungschriften, and perhaps these extensive corrections
should be placed in just such a category. Certainly, it is the larger
additions in the margins which are written most neatly, and this could be
due to a desire not only to mark them out as corrections, but also to write
them as neatly and therefore unobtrusively as possible.
29. There are thus a number of remaining questions with this proposed
division of the corrections, and room for further examination of the problem
by competent palaeographers. To deal fully with this would expand this
review beyond all conscience and delay it unacceptably. It should be added
that, since the Bibliotheca Bodmeriana does not permit study of the ms, the
matter is unlikely to be resolvable in the foreseeable future.
30. Finally, and very briefly, [P]75. The introduction here deals mostly
with a discussion of the character of the text (surprisingly, without any
reference to the foundational work of C. M. Martini [Martini 1966]). Since
the IGNTP does not contain a transcription of this ms, there is no direct
comparison to be made. But I note that at 7.18, where we found an evident
problem in ed. pr. (which wants to insert [doca]n at
the end of the line), Comfort agrees with IGNTP in omitting it. At 9.33
IGNTP reads o?utos against ed. pr., followed by Comfort,
a?utos.
Conclusions
31. My comments have hitherto tried to be descriptive rather than to offer
an opinion. In this last section, I shall try to draw some conclusions from
my observations.
32. In general, the transcriptions which I have studied are far more
dependent on the editiones principes than the statement from page 14 quoted
above would have us believe. That this includes the typographical error by
the first editor of [P]22 is an instance of agreement in error which
establishes dependence. It is also quite strange that Comfort claims that
the IGNTP edition was 'an excellent help in the production of the
transcriptions' (p. 22). If he had either worked from the plates or the ms,
or used the IGNTP volume, he would have avoided this error in [P]22, and
would have produced a far more accurate transcription of [P]45. Of course, I
am not expecting that Comfort agree totally with IGNTP. Some readings will
always be so difficult as to leave room for more than one decision. But the
reproduction of failings in the ed. pr. is no use to anybody. Beyond this, I
found a sprinkling of slips which are too frequent for one to be satisfied
with the accuracy. These are two flaws with the transcriptions. The third is
the absence of dots for doubtful letters. One cannot take an edition lacking
these as an advance in the discipline. We thus have one failing in method,
another in accuracy, and a third in presentation.
33. The palaeographical parts of the book are too slight to be of much use,
with the exception of the fact that it raises several questions which will
now require resolution, including the possible identity of [P]49 and [P]65,
and the correctors of [P]66. Whether these will prove a distraction or an
advance remains to be seen.
34. The final judgement on a book of transcriptions will be of its accuracy.
It sometimes requires extensive use of such work before one can form that
final judgement. It may be the case that some of the transcriptions here are
acceptable. But there are enough errors in the ones that I have examined for
one to lack confidence in the others.
The TC-List discussion
35. It is very hard for scholars to achieve perfection. Yet the work of some
people working on their own is remarkable. One thinks, for example, of
Tischendorf in his editions of manuscripts and his editions, or of Scrivener
in his transcriptions and collations. One realises that they are two out of
many, and one then thinks of other figures of the past, whom out of charity
we may leave anonymous, whose accuracy left a good deal to be desired. But
to refer to past achievements and failings is no use, for we live in a very
different age. When one looks at the circumstances of Tischendorf and
Scrivener, one realises that they did not achieve their work simply as
magnificent individuals. The one had royal, the other ecclesiastical
patronage to provide the conditions to complete their work. In our own
world, accuracy is more likely to be achieved by a group than by an
individual editor. The superb achievement of the Editio Critica Maior of the
MŸnster Institut shows to what new heights an expert and well-equipped team
can raise the editing of NT texts. The fact is that individuals cannot
expect to match it, because today the funding situation for large
undertakings requires team projects with secure external funding. Within
such a structure, the work of every contributor (including the principal
editors) is subject to the scrutiny of colleagues. With the circulation of
electronic versions of a text, it is possible to eliminate errors without
creating new ones (unlike traditional typewriting). The result of this
should be a high standard of accuracy, achieved in an environment where
co-workers learn from each other. A single individual can never hope to
achieve the accuracy or the necessary skills without such a context of
scrutiny and care. The thesis that I am propounding is that the problems
with this book arise not because of shortcomings on the part of the editor,
but because such an undertaking is doomed to failure by its very nature.
There is nobody who could be expected to produce a sufficiently accurate
book of this kind under these conditions. I know that I couldn't.
36. I turn briefly to one point raised in the TC-List discussion, where the
production of a transcription was compared to the copying process of a
Byzantine ms. The case is not similar. Most scribes were producing a current
reading text, tending to eliminate non-Byzantine readings in the process.
The modern scholar seeks to produce an exact copy of the ancient witness.
Any error destroys the only purpose of the copy.
37. This leads to another question, a rather imponderable one: how many
errors does it take to make a transcription worthless? The answer,
scientifically, should be that even one is enough to do that. This is rather
uncharitable, and one should probably say that one in twenty or thirty pages
would be too many. I would certainly be pretty worried if anyone could point
to half a dozen clear errors in the IGNTP transcriptions of John papyri, or
even to four.5 It should be emphasised that an error can include a bad
omission or insertion of a dot, a bracket one letter too many to the left or
right, a misreading of a punctuation mark or a failure to record one, or a
typo. It does not matter whether the data may be 'textually insignificant',
something as apparently slight as a possible itacism or inclusion of a
movable nu. The job is to record the text of the ms as accurately as
possible. The fact that I have recorded errors in Comfort's transcriptions
of all the witnesses also transcribed in IGNTP except for [P]95, covering
about fifteen pages of his text, raises grave concerns. Even if one were to
be charitable and treat many of his readings as justifiable decisions, there
would still be a list of ten errors in these fifteen pages.6
38. A misunderstanding in the TC-List discussion should be corrected. The
precise use of dots is not to indicate that a letter is damaged, but that it
is uncertain. There are parts of some letters which could not be mistaken
for anything else in a particular hand: perhaps half an omega, or the top of
upsilon or even the top left stroke of it, or part of phi. Where one is
dealing with a literary text rather than a document, one is sometimes able
to record a letter quite confidently even where it is relatively incomplete.
It is where the traces could be the remains of one of several possible
letters that the dot should be employed. This is important where there is
known textual variation in assessing the likelihood that a witness supports
a particular reading.
39. There seemed to be a point of view expressed on the list, that the
provision of accessible transcriptions is so far more useful for those
without access to a specialist library than the widely scattered existing
versions, that it outweighs any problems with the accuracy of the volume.
This is, however, not the case. Certainly, putting all the information in
one volume is a good aim. But, once again, without accuracy there is no
gain. What is virtually the transcription of an editio princeps with a
sprinkling of new errors in a reasonably cheap ($50) edition has the
potential to do a great deal of harm. It is seriously to be hoped that those
many subscribers to the TC-List who have a great interest in the discipline
but are not living over the road from a research library will not use this
volume just because it is cheap and accessible. There are several
indications that they are too sensible to do so. One message (Clayton
Stirling Bartholomew, 23 May, 19:57:41) raised the associated issue of the
intended readership and suggested that for this volume it is an 'empty set'.
Another message (Robert Waltz, 11 June, 11:14:05) indicated that he was not
going to buy the book until he was satisfied that it was worth it.
40. The book's introduction asks for any comments that 'will help make the
book better' (p. 15). It also stated that the collection will be expanded as
more evidence becomes available. I hope that the editor will seriously
consider using his energies in a better way. The reason is simple. To be of
any value, the book should (1) include dots beneath uncertain letters, (2)
be based on the mss, with far less dependence on earlier editors and (3) be
much more accurately produced. To achieve these targets would require doing
the work all over again. The very sad conclusion is that it would be better
for the editor to throw his energies and abilities into some more useful
contribution to NT textual criticism.
© TC: A Journal of Biblical Textual Criticism, 1999.
Endnotes
1Throughout this review I use the words recto and verso in their
papyrological sense, the former referring to the side of the ms with
horizontal, the latter to that with vertical fibres. [Image]
2Ed. pr. is the standard abbreviation for editio princeps, the first edition
of a text. [Image]
3I must exonerate Comfort, though, from being wrong in reading
[qew]rei at 20.11. Maurice Robinson (e-mail of 23 May,
21:50:36) thinks it reads ]rai. But the epsilon is certain.
[Image]
4I have used lunate sigma throughout this review, though Comfort uses medial
and final forms. [Image]
5There is only one place where the need to emend the transcriptions will be
recorded in a list of corrigenda to the papyri in the IGNTP majuscules
volume (the correction is [P]5 at Jn 16.20, noted above). There will be four
corrections to the restorations and notes. I am grateful to Dr. Comfort for
drawing several to my attention. [Image]
6There is little to be added to the discussion over 'accurate passages'
against errors, conducted between Jim West and Maurice Robinson. In reply to
the former, one would have to agree that it would be incredibly hard to
produce a transcription in which the majority of the words, or lines, or
even verses were wrong. Not to produce at least the occasional page without
errors (and one should certainly get the first page of [P]66 right, when one
is fresh and there are no lacunae) would be heinous. But the problem is that
once we know there are a lot of errors, then we will suspect an editor on
every occasion, because there is no way of knowing where the errors will be.
[Image]
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D. C. Parker
Reader in New Testament Textual Criticism and Palaeography
Department of Theology
University of Birmingham