Prof. Bruce Metzger's "Text of the New Testament:" (1) Book Materials

Metzger, Bruce Manning. The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption and Restoration, 2^nd Edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968.

When catechetized, e.g. the Westminster Confession of Faith, learning is a corollary concern in life; it’s natural; additionally, this means the fear of the LORD and a three-fold call: humility, humility, humility.

 

Available at http://www.amazon.com/The-Text-New-Testament-Transmission/dp/019516122X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1389071401&sr=8-1&keywords=metzger+new+testament :

 

CONTENTS

 

PART ONE: THE MATERIALS FOR THE TEXTUAL CRITICISM OF THE NEW TESTAMENT

 

1.      THE MAKING OF ANCIENT BOOKS

 

I.                   THE MATERIALS OF ANCIENT BOOKS

II.               THE FORMS OF ANCIENT BOOKS

III.            ANCIENT SCRIBES AND THEIR HANDIWORK

IV.            “HELPS FOR READERS” IN NEW TESTAMENT MANUSCRIPTS

V.                STATISTICS OF GREEK MANUSCRIPTS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT

 

2.      IMPORTANT WITNESSES TO THE TEXT OF THE NEW TESTAMENT

 

I.                   GREEK MANUSCRIPTS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT

II.               ANCIENT VERSIONS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT

III.            PATRISTIC QUOTATIONS FROM THE NEW TESTAMENT

 

PART TWO: THE HISTORY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT TEXTUAL CIRITICISM AS REFLECTED IN PRINTED EDITIONS OF THE GREEK NEW TESTAMENT

 

3.      THE PRE-CRITICAL PERIOD: THE ORIGINAL AND DOMINANCE OF THE TEXUS RECEPTUS

 

I.                   FROM XIMENES AND ERASMUS TO THE ELZEVIRS

II.               THE COLLECTION OF VARIANT READINGS

 

4.      THE MODERN CRITICAL PERIOD: FROM GRIESBACH TO THE PRESENT

 

I.                   THE BEGINNINGS OF SCIENTIC TEXTUAL CRITICISM OF THE NEW TESTAMENT

II.               THE OVERTHROW OF THE TEXTUS RECEPTUS

 

PART THREE: THE APPLICATION OF TEXTUAL CRITICISM TO THE TEXT OF THE NEW TESTAMENT

 

5.      THE ORIGINS OF TEXTUAL CRITICISM AS A SCHOLARLY DISCIPLINE

 

6.      MODERN METHODS OF TEXTUAL CRITICISM

 

I.                   THE CLASSICAL METHOD OF TEXTUAL CRITICISM

II.               REACTIONS AGAINST CLASSICAL TEXTUAL CRITICISM

III.            STATISTICAL METHODS OF TEXTUAL CRITICISM

IV.            LOCAL TEXTS AND ANCIENT EDITIONS

V.                ECLECTICISM, OR “RATIONAL CRITICISM”

VI.            METHODS OF DETERMINING FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS AMONG MANUSCRIPTS

VII.         CONJECTURAL EMENDATION

 

7.      THE CAUSES OF ERROR IN THE TRANSMISSIN OF THE TEXT OF THE NEW TESTAMENT

 

I.                   UNINTENTIONAL CHANGES

II.               INTENTIONAL CHANGES

 

8.      THE PRACTICE OF NEW TESTAMENT TEXTUAL CRITICISM

 

I.                   BASIC CRITERIA FOR THE EVALUATION OF VARIANT READINGS

II.               THE PROCESS OF EVALUATING VARIANT READINGS

III.            THE TEXTUAL ANALYSIS OF SELECTED PASSAGES

 

APPENDIX: CHECK-LIST OF THE GREEK PAPYRI OF THE NEW TESTAMENT

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

ADDITIONAL NOTES FOR THE SECOND EDITION

GENERAL INDEX

INDEX OF THE NEW TESTAMENT PASSAGES

 

PART ONE: THE MATERIALS FOR THE TEXTUAL CRITICISM OF THE NEW TESTAMENT

 

THE MAKING OF ANCIENT BOOKS.  Variously in history, clay, stone, bones, wood, leather, metals, pottery, potsherds, parchments (vellum) and papyri have been the substratum for human notations. It’s an ancient form of Facebook, as it were.  Human beings are writers and note-takers.

 

THE MATERIALS OF ANCIENT BOOKS. Papyrus arose in the marshlands of varied areas, notably, Egypt. The plant was 12 to 15 feet high with a triangular root the size of a man’s wrist.  It would be cut in 1 foot sections, sliced into strips, crisscrossed, and compressed into a few layers.

 

Pliny the Elder in his Natural History, 13.2ff., notes that King Euemenes (197-159 BC) in Mysia, Asia Minor sought to be build a library that rivalled the Alexandrian library of King Ptolemy (205-182 BC).  As a result, the Ptolemy placed an embargo on papryi to Asia Minor

 

A note on a definition.  Parchment = vellum.  These were made from the flayed skins of cattle, sheep, goats, antelopes, etc. They were de-haired, washed, and smoothed.  Some would be dyed with purple with gold or silver ink.

 

Jerome inveighs against unneeded extravagance in a letter to Eustochium (Epist. xxii.32ff.):

 

“Parchments are dyed purple, gold is melted into lettering, manuscripts are decked with jewels, while Christ lies at the door naked and dying.”

 

Or, again, Jerome responds to an inquirer named Laeta who has asked how to rear her young daughter (Epist. cvii.12):

 

“Let her treasures be not gems or silks [Ed., like TFOs], but manuscripts of the holy Scriptures; and in these let her think less of gilding and Babylonian parchment and arabesque patterns than of correctness and accurate punctuation.”

 

So much for the ruthless repression of English vernaculars advocated by Canterbury Arundel, Oxford, and Rome over the Wycliffite vernaculars or the Anglo-Italians a century later in England.  Jerome advocated for biblical literacy for a young girl from unadorned texts.

 

A normal Greek scroll was 35 feet long.  Sometimes, long volumes would have several scrolls. Luke was probably one scroll.  The same for Acts.  There would be 2 to 3 columns.  The height would be the length of the stick. Scrolls, however, were somewhat inconvenient.

 

Early in the 2^nd century, the “codex” (leaf-form) came into extensive use in the church.  One could sew the leafs together.  All the Gospels and Acts could be put in one book or codex.

 

Constantine in 331 AD ordered 50 parchment (vellum or leather) manuscripts from Eusebius, the scholarly church historian of Caesarea.  These 50 volumes were anticipated for proposed church construction in Constantinople.  Cf. Eusebius’ Life of Constantine, iv.36. These were to be portable, convenient and legible.  They were to be produced by professional scribes.  Some have wondered if the Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus are two codices from this imperial order.  Metzger thinks that Vaticanus has an Egyptian rather than Palestinian provenance.

 

A formal style of writing emerged, called uncials.  This was a more deliberate or ornate form of writing.  By the ninth century, a scribal reform resulted in smaller letters writing more cursively, called miniscules. This became more popular. The volume would be smaller, more economical, and could be published more quickly.

 

A palimpsest was a recycled parchment (vellum/leather manuscript).  It would be cleaned, scraped, washed and reused.  For example, 83 sermons by Ephraem, a 4^th century leader, were erased in the 12^th century to produce a new New Testament.  It’s been called Codex Ephraemi.

 

In 692 AD, Canon 68 of the Council of Trullo, condemned using or converting Scripture-texts.  If guilty, one was to be excommunicated for 1 year.  Yet, of 250 uncial manuscripts, 52 are palimpsest manuscripts.

 

The early church was involved in manuscript production for churches, individuals and converts. Demand was high.

 

Once Constantine legalized Christianity, professional scriptoria (scriptoriums, if you will) arose.  A scriptorium would have several trained scribes equipped with parchment, pen and ink. They had a corrector called a διορθωτής.  They were paid according to the number of lines. Price fixing had been fixed earlier by Diocletian—25 denarii/100 lines for a first-rate copy and 20 denarii/100 lines for a second-rate work.  The Codex Sinaiticus, on this scale, would have cost 30,000 denarii.

 

In the Byzantine period, the Bible was prepared for monasteries as well as churches. It was an arduous, fatiguing, but an honored duty. 

 

A few quotes will give a sense of it:

 

1.      “He who does not know how to write supposes it to be no labour; but though only three fingers write, the whole body labours” (17).

 

2.      “Writing bows one’s back, thrusts the ribs into one’s stomach, and fosters general debility of the body” (18).

 

3.      “As travellers rejoice to see their home country, so also is the end of a bookd to those who toil [in writing]” (18).

 

4.      “The end of the book, thanks be to God!” (18)

 

5.      Cassiodorus, an Ostrogothic prince in Italy, later founder of a monastery at Vivarium, Italy, and scribe said: 

 

 “By reading the divine Scriptures [the scribe] wholesomely instructs his own mind, and by copying the precepts of the Lord he spreads them far and wide.  What happy application, what praiseworthy industry, to preach unto men by means of the hand, to untie the tongue by means of the fingers, to bring quiet salvation to mortals, and to fight the Devil’s invidious wiles with pen and ink! For every word of the Lord written by the scribe is a wound inflicted on Satan.  And so, though seated in one spot, the scribe traverses diverse lands and through the dissemination of what he has written…Man multiplies the heavenly words, and in a certain metaphorical sense, if I may dare say to speak, three fingers are made to express the utterances of the Holy Trinity.  O sight glorious to those who contemplate it carefully! The fast-travelling reed-poen writes down the holy words and thus avenges the malice of the Wicked One, who cause a reed to be used to smite the head of the Lord during his Passion” (18, citing Cassiodori Senatoris Institutiones, I.xxx.1).

 

A renown Studium existed at Constantinople under Abbot Theodore the Studite.  He had some severities for errant scribes.  (1) Bread and water only for that scribe becoming more interested in the subject-matter at the expense of copying, (2) 130 penances if the parchments were not neat and clean, (3) 50 penances for taking someone else’s parchment, and (4) 50 penances for making too much glue.