Do Later Manuscript Discoveries Ever Support Proposed Interpolations?

written by Dr. Bart D Erhman

It is fine, I think, for a post on the blog every now and then to get technical and into the nitty-gritty of scholarship.  And so I have no qualms about the following.

Yesterday I posted a response to a question about “textual emendation” by Jan Krans, a New Testament textual expert who teaches in the Netherlands.  The same blog reader had a second question that I have also directed to Jan, and here I give both the question and the answer.

The question has to do with my claim that there are some words/passages in the New Testament that *look* like they were added after the original was published, but for which we have NO manuscripts that lack the words/passage (so that there is no hard evidence that they were added after the text was originally published).   But has it ever happened that after a scholar suggested such a thing, a manuscript has turned up that provides actual evidence?  Here’s the interesting question about that, and Jan’s intriguing response.

QUESTION:

Do you know of any case where an interpolation has become a corruption, i.e. a part of the text that many scholars believed was not “original,” but was not missing from any of the known manuscripts, was found to be missing from a subsequently discovered manuscript?

JAN’S RESPONSE:

This question asks for conjectures for which attestation has been discovered after their publication, and then specifically conjectures that involve an omission (when the corruption is an interpolation, the conjecture is an omission). Whether interpolation has to involve a larger omission is left out of consideration. The issue of wider support for the conjectures will be addressed later.

If some less interesting cases are excluded, as well as those where the critic should or could have known about manuscript attestation, but did not bother looking for any—Friedrich Blass is known for this practice—, the following can be listed (in almost all cases, more information can be found by entering the cj numbers in the Amsterdam Database at NTVMR):

[I – Bart – need to explain what Jan is doing in the following lines.  He first gives the verse where the words can be found; he then gives the Greek words themselves.  I have translated them in boldface.  After the square bracket ], he indicates that a scholar has suggested that they were not originally found in the text by designating them with “om” which means – “omit”.  That is followed by the abbreviation “cj” which means a conjecture  (i.e. a scholar has conjectured, without any manuscript evidence, that the words were not originally in the text).  Following that he gives the name of the scholar who proposed the omission, followed by a cj number – which designates which proposed emendation this is in the data base maintained at Amsterdam.  He then in parentheses gives the date that the emendation was proposed, followed by a statement of which manuscript or manuscripts were later discovered which omitted the word(s) in question.  So there’s a lot packed into every line here!]

– Matt 23:35 υἱοῦ Βαραχίου = son of Barachiah] om. cj Hammond (cj11258) (1653), attested in ℵ01*

– Matt 26:42 μου = my] om. cj Blass (cj16341; not yet online) (1901), attested in 𝔓37(there is also versional and patristic evidence)

– Matt 27:9 Ἰερεμίου = Jeremiah] om. cj Beza (cj12376) (1556), attested in Φ043 33

– Mark 2:26 ἐπὶ Ἀβιαθὰρ ἀρχιερέως = when Abiathar was high priest] om. cj Beza (cj12696), made by Beza in 1556, who himself discovered, before 1582, that the omission was attested in D05

– Mark 10:30 οἰκίας καὶ ἀδελφοὺς καὶ ἀδελφὰς καὶ μητέρας … μετὰ διωγμῶν = houses and brothers and sisters and mothers … with persecutions ] om. cj Pearce (cj11325) (before 1774), attested in ℵ01*

– Luke 3:36 τοῦ Καϊνάμ = the son of Chainan ] om. cj Beza (cj10149) (1556); as at Mark 2:26, Beza conjectured the omission before finding it confirmed in D05

– John 7:22 διὰ τοῦτο = for this reason] om. cj Schulthess (cj11943) (1833), attested in ℵ01*

– John 7:32 οἱ ἀρχιερεῖς καὶ οἱ Φαρισαῖοι = the chief priests and Pharisees] om. cj Semler (cj11947) (1771), attested in min. 118

– John 10:26 καθὼς εἶπον ὑμῖν (TR/𝔐) = just as I said to you ] om. cj Erasmus (cj10526), attested in 𝔓66c.75 ℵ01 B03 etc.; here, taking his cue from the Vulgate, Erasmus conjectures an omission that is now the text of our editions

– John 11:11 πορεύομαι ἵνα = I am going in order to ] om. cj Dieffenbach (cj12085) (1816), attested in min. 1186

– John 11:12 οἱ μαθηταὶ αὐτῷ = the disciples … to him] om. cj Griesbach (cj11962) (1775/1777), also attested in min. 1186

– John 19:20 τῆς πόλεως = the city ] om. cj Holwerda (cj10829) (1869), attested in min. 1313

– Acts 14:8 ἀδύνατος ἐν Λύστροις τοῖς ποσίν = in Lystra who could not use his feet] ἐν Λύστροις just retain the words “in Lystra” cj van de Sande Bakhuyzen (cj12019) (1880), attested in mins. 1611 1890 2138 (ECM)

– Acts 20:9 κατενεχθεὶς ἀπὸ τοῦ ὕπνου = being overcome by sleep ] om. cj Owen (cj10013) (1782), attested in mins. 206* 429 522 630 1509 1891 2200 (ECM); interestingly, in the apparatus of the Nestle editions, attestation (N21-NA28) has replaced Owen’s name (N13-20)

– Rom 8:38 οὔτε δυνάμεις = nor powers ] om. cj Fritzsche (cj10928) (1839), attested in min. 462

– 2 Cor 3:3 καρδίαις = hearts] om. cj Holwerda (cj10142) (1853), attested in 0243 630 1739; similar to Acts 20:9, earlier Nestle editions mention Holwerda (N11-NA25), whereas from NA26 onwards only attestation is given

– Gal 2:3 ὁ σὺν ἐμοί = who was with me] om. cj van Manen (cj14767) (1887), attested in 𝔓46

– Col 2:14 τοῖς δόγμασιν = with its legal demands] om. cj Baljon (cj10109) (1885), attested in min. 1881; again, the Nestle editions are interesting: Schmiedel (perhaps incorrectly so) is mentioned as author of the conjecture (N13-NA27); in NA26 the attestation is added, and in NA28 Schmiedel’s name is omitted

– 1 Pet 2:5 πνευματικάς = spiritual [sacrifices] ] om. cj Mill (cj15144) (1707), attested in ℵ01

– 1 Pet 3:4 ἄνθρωπος = person ] om. cj Bentley (cj11129) (around 1720), attested in min. 629

– 1 Pet 3:20 τοῦτ’ ἔστιν ὀκτώ = that is, eight] om. cj Wassenbergh (cj11132) (1815), attested in min. 88

– 1 Pet 3:21 ὅ = which [in reference to baptism]] om. cj Semler (cj16123) (1783), attested in 𝔓72 ℵ01* etc. (ECM)

– 2 Pet 2:12 γεγεννημένα = born] om. cj Bentley (cj14640) (around 1720), attested in 𝔓72

Jan now gives some reflections:

If I may briefly comment on this list, some patterns emerge. First, in general, most or all manuscripts tend to suffer from accidental omission, so it may be due to coincidence when one such omission agrees with a scholarly conjecture. Here the wealth of Greek manuscripts that we have is simply bound to produce a number of such instances. Second, and more specifically, the first hand of Codex Sinaiticus has many omissions, and since this manuscript is large and was discovered late in the history of scholarship, a number of conjectured omissions can be found here. Third, it is tempting to speak of “scribal conjectures” for some instances (e. g. Mark 2:26 and Luke 3:36), that is, a scribe may have left out some words for similar reasons as the critic who conjectured the omission.

It would seem that omissions are the more probable category for these patterns, but the Amsterdam Database does not confirm this. Conjectured additions are just as often found attested, and substitutions even more often, whereas conjectures that involve transpositions and more complicated operations very rarely turn up in manuscripts.

As for the scholarly reception of these conjectures, only the ones on Matt 23:35, Matt 27:9, Mark 2:26, Rom 8:38, 2 Cor 3:3, and to a lesser degree 1 Pet 3:4, have found considerable support. The ones on Matt 23:35, Matt 27:9, Mark 2:26 are clearly harmonising and grounded in hermeneutical principles that are no longer seen as critical. In my view, only Holwerda’s conjecture on 2 Cor 3:3, which I could have mentioned at the first question, is a serious candidate for the original text.