Subject: Differences in MSS Re: 1 John 5:7

From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 14 Aug 1996 13:30:25 -0400

Questions Concerning Differences in Manuscript Evidence

Greek Manuscript listings for the Comma Johanneum in 1 John 5:7
as listed in “A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament”
by Bruce Metzger©

			1st Ed. 1971                                       2nd Ed. 1994__
			MS 	Date				MS	    Date	    
			61	16th C				61   early 16th C
			88vr, lh 	12th C 				88vr, lh16th   14th C
			629	14-15C 			221vr, lh    10th C
			635vr,lh 17th 11C 			429vr, lh    16th C
								636vr, lh    16th C
		 						918         16th C
		 						2318       18th C

Note: vr = variant(marginal) reading, lh = later hand
Questions:
1)  Why aren’t MSS 629 and 635 also listed in the second edition; was there a
typographical error
that transposed 629 to 429, and 635 to 636? 
2)  Why and how does the dating for MSS 61 and 88 change (and possibly 629,
429, 635,& 636). 

Submitted by RE [email-masked]

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From: "Robert B. Waltz" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 14 Aug 1996 12:52:11 -0700

On Wed, 14 Aug 1996, [email-masked] wrote:

[snip]

>1)  Why arenít MSS 629 and 635 also listed in the second edition; was there a
>typographical error

Since I don;t have all the editions of Metzger, I can't comment
in full. But I can speak of some of these manuscripts.

629, a Greek-Latin diglot, contains *part* of the comma, presumably
derived from its late Vulgate parallel.

The dating for 61 did not change; the fact is, 61 is the manuscript used
to force Erasmus to include the comma in his text. Therefore it
dated before Erasmus's 3rd edition. Hence it *must* be early XVI (or
earlier, but of course the evidence is that it was written just to
confute Erasmus).

I don't believe the dating for 88 has changed; the dating applies to
the comma only, which is inserted in 88 in a late hand. Since the
insertion is short, it is probably hard to date it exactly.

635, according to Richards, does not contain the comma.

429 and 636, according to NA27, contain the comma in the margin.
Nestle lists a few other mss. with the reading.

I suspect that some of the confusion relates to the conversion of
Tischendorf and von Soden numbers to Gregory numbers. You should
check those editions against a Gregory conversion table.

I hope this helps somewhat.

Bob Waltz
[email-masked]

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From: Deke Barker <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 15 Aug 1996 00:03:37 -0700 (MST)

>From Bob Waltz:

> earlier, but of course the evidence is that it was written just to

According to the latest (third) edition of Metzger's _The Text
of the New Testament_, there is NO evidence that 61 "was written
just to confute Erasmus".  In a note in the appendix, Metzger
states that his original statement (still in the text) was in
error:  Erasmus specialist H. J. de Jonge found "no explicit
evidence that supports this frequently made assumption".

Of course, that doesn't mean that the assumption is incorrect;
the circumstances surrounding 61 (especially its apparent date)
are at the least interesting.

NOTE: The text of the 3rd edition still supports your statement,
as the text hasn't been changed since the 1st edition.  Both
revisions have merely added an appendix containing the updated
information, with marginal references to the appendix next to
the original text.  I can see the benefit to this approach,
especially for struggling seminarians (it eliminates the cost of
re-typesetting and replating the entire manuscript), but I was
disappointed to see it repeated in the THIRD edition.

Deke Barker
[email-masked]