The Ancestors of Aleph/B: Synoptics

Now that we've collated all the probable accidental errors for the Synoptics, and grouped them by column-width, we can arrange them also by probable age based on the same factor, and compare the independent early history of each gospel in the hands of the Alexandrians, and in particular the Caesareans.

The following chart-pieces can be clicked on to enlarge, and you can navigate back using the back-button in your browser.

Luke (20 - 25 chars per line)

It appears that Luke took a uniquely bad beating during the earliest copying phase, when wider columns were popular.   These omissions were not so much the result of bad copying (all copyists make these errors), but rather a result of little or no systematic proof-reading techniques, and lack of experience with the kind of errors most commonly found.    This discovery is not particularly surprising, given that Luke would be most popular among Gentile converts and Jews of the Diaspora, where professional scribal technique would be lacking, and a learning-curve would be in operation.

Matthew and Mark have only suffered half as many losses in this period, probably due to the greater experience and care Jewish-Christian copyists were able to exert on the task.

Matthew (17-19 chars per line)

Next, in an intermediate period, while the Gospels were still being copied independently in double or triple columns, Matthew now takes a savage beating from the same loose environment lacking adequate error-correction techniques.   The others suffer moderate losses at the hands of different copyists.   All of this could have been accomplished in a single manuscript in which either different sources were used for each gospel, or different scribes copied the sections.

Mark and Luke (14-16 cpl)

Mark now gets hit hard in this later period, involving MSS with 3 to 4 columns per page.  Luke also suffers significant damage at this time, probably early in the 3rd century.  Matthew, probably due to better error-checking, suffers only moderate damage during the same phase.   These differences must now be traced to either individual scribes or correctors responsible for each gospel, since they will now most likely be bound together in single books containing all four gospels.

Mark (11 -13 chars per line)

Mark now takes one last pounding, at the hands of some scribe or lazy corrector, while being copied from a MS having 4 columns per page, like Codex Sinaiticus.  Luke's Gospel also takes significant collateral damage in this line of transmission.

It may be significant that these two gospels are usually physically adjacent and in the middle of the book, in copies of the four gospels.  One can picture a corner-cutting corrector or scribe only proof-reading the first part of the book (Matthew) and possibly the last (John), so that an overseer might be fooled into believing the entire MS has been properly corrected.

Finally, minor omissions of unknown date and circumstance also accumulate in the gospels, on a smaller scale.

The picture is interesting, but tells a sad story, in which Gospels like Luke and Matthew, immensely popular once they were published, took an early beating at the hands of inexperienced scribes using inadequate error-correction techniques.

Conversely, and perhaps more importantly, the damage that Mark suffered seems to have mostly occurred in the later period of multiple-column manuscripts.

It seems that someone in Caesarea, or perhaps Alexandria,  mistakenly took an older copy of Mark for a more accurate text.  But this text was already badly mutilated from its own recent history of inadequate correction.   The reputation of this copy seems to have been acquired from a misplaced trust in its source, perhaps Origen or some other bishop.  This lapse in judgment led to several manuscripts like Sinaiticus and Vaticanus being produced with an inferior text of Mark. 

This same copy was also probably the source of the missing ending of Mark, which had likely lost its last page.

It is somewhat ironic that many textual critics imagine that the Alexandrian text of Mark is a relatively older and purer form of the text, when it appears to have suffered most of its damage in the latest era of its peculiar textual transmission history.   This text apparently originated sometime in the early 3rd century, when MSS were being copied in narrower columns.   As far as accidental omissions of significant parts of the text, the Aleph/B text of Mark is probably the worst surviving text known.

Luke has also suffered serious damage in the Alexandrian stream of transmission, but being a much larger book, this damage is perhaps less on a percentage basis, than that suffered by Mark. 


mr.scrivener

Ancestors of Aleph/B: Matthew Overlaid

When we turn to Matthew, and place the layers on the same chart, we see immediately that there is a small but significant difference between the line-widths in the first two proposed ancestors, in comparison to Mark.

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Had this involved just one or two variants, it could be assumed to be a normal variation from average.  But plainly the average length itself is different, and this suggests different master-copies in these two first steps.   

This is almost precisely what is to be expected.   The copying history of the two Gospels should be different in the first stages, and only should they strongly correlate when they have been combined in a single manuscript, such as a copy of the Four Gospels.   Such a copy, like the typical papyrus P75, would then begin a united line of transmission in which the column widths will converge.

Thus for the final leg of their journey, these two Gospels begin to suffer errors with common widths, generated from the same manuscript which is carrying both, and probably two other Gospels as well.

mr.scrivener

The Many Ancestors of Aleph/B

With all the many discussions of a 'common ancestor' for Aleph/B, one can be pardoned for beginning to believe there actually was such a thing, in the manner described.

Here we present for the first time a realistic picture of the Ancestor(s) of Aleph and B:

Click to Enlarge this picture

The first problem that confronts us is that Aleph and B are whole Bibles, each having a rather full set of NT books. 

These NT books of course originated from diverse sources.   More importantly for the purposes of Textual Criticism, each of these books had its own textual history and a long period of separate circulation as independent works.

Then came an equally long period, in which the Gospels were collected into a single manuscript, probably post-Marcion (c. 200 A.D.).   Likewise, the letters of Paul circulated first separately, then were early gathered into a collection, which, with a few later additions, also circulated separately for a long time.   Also, it seems likely that Luke/Acts were originally circulated together, then split up, with Luke being gathered with the other Gospels, and Acts being collected with the Catholic Epistles (James, Peter, John etc.).   Revelation seems to have had the longest independent circulation.

Finally, these collections were gathered into a single volume (a New Testament) for the use of churches, sometime in the early 4th century, and that seems to be where Sinaiticus (Aleph) and Vaticanus (B) originate.

Hort himself acknowledged that a single "common ancestor" for Aleph/B was actually an artificial construct, meant more as a convenience in discussing common readings, than as an actual single ancestor:

 "Whatever be the mutual relation of א and B, each of them separately (א in the apocalypse excepted), is found...to be in fact essentially a text of the 2nd century or early 3rd century.  This fact, which is independent of the coincidences of אB, so that it would remain true of  א if B were unknown, and of B if א were unknown, suggest the most natural explanation of their coincidences.   They are due...to the extreme antiquity of the common original from which ...the two MSS have diverged, the date of which cannot be later than the early...2nd century.   ...So high an antiquity would of course be impossible if it were necessary to suppose that the 'common original' was a single archetypal MS comprising all the books as they now stand.    But, ...there is reason to suspect that the great MSS of the Christian empire were directly or indirectly transcribed from smaller exemplars which contained only portions of the NT; so that the general term 'common original', which we have used for the sake of simplicity, must in strictness be understood to denote the several common originals of the different books or groups of books."

(Hort, Introduction, ¶ 301., p. 222-223). 

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Many Ancestors:

We know then for a fact that Aleph and B did not have a single ancient ancestor, but several. 

It is acknowledged for instance that the book of Revelation in Sinaiticus is unlike any other version.

 "The Apocalypse in codex Sinaiticus is a striking example of a fourth-century text that differs substantially from modern critical editions. It exhibits dozens of differences at key points, reflecting the concerns, interests, and idiosyncrasies of its earliest copyists and readers. Taken as a whole, Sinaiticus’s text of Revelation may constitute one of our earliest Christian commentaries on the book, disclosing its fourth-century milieu and anticipating the later concerns of Oecumenius and Andrew of Caesarea." (Juan Hernandez Jr., 2009)

   In John 1:1-8:38  (the first 8 chapters) Codex Sinaiticus differs from Vaticanus and all other Alexandrian manuscripts. It is in closer agreement with Codex Bezae (D) in supporting the Western Text-type.  Vaticanus on the other hand, offers a version of the Western Text-type for the Pauline Epistles.

This means that for various books, or collections of books, the two manuscripts have completely different ancestors. (at least three ancestors are involved in just the three sections mentioned).

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Common Readings:

On the other hand, the agreements, especially the 'agreements in error', that is unique agreements between Aleph/B against almost all other authorities, does indeed seem to point to common sources. 

This is no surprise in fact, when we know that the Four Gospels began to be collected together and produced as a single book,  beginning sometime in the early 3rd century.   It must have been after this time, that most of the common readings (especially the errors, unusual minority readings) between Aleph and B arose. 

There are however several possible sources for the agreements between Aleph and B, and they must all be carefully considered in any given case:

(a)   readings common to the original copies.  These would be expected to be rather common readings also found elsewhere,  particularly in independent lines of transmission, such as other text-types.

(b)   readings (errors) which arose by coincidence because of an unfortunate feature built into the text, such as multiple instances of homoeoteleuton from varying layouts.

(c)   readings consciously modified by editors attempting to correct or improve the text, including spelling conventions and grammar corrections,  and especially omissions of parts of speech and phrases perceived to be ambiguous, wordy or clumsy.

(d)   readings deliberately chosen among already available variants, popular or preferred readings involving theological or doctrinal issues, or historical perceptions.

(e)    readings due to a mistake or selection made in a previous common ancestor.   Many readings may well be the results of accumulated errors in a common transmission-line.

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Striking Differences:

There are also however, many differences between Aleph and B, even within books that are assumed to have a common ancestor (e.g. the Gospels);  Hoskier for instance enumerated some 3036 differences between Sinaiticus and Vaticanus. 

Those who promote the text of Aleph/B draw attention to these differences and claim that this proves the 'ancestor' of Aleph/B goes back "several generations", perhaps as many as "ten" (this however is probably exaggerated).  The purpose of this notice is to drive back the proposed date of this 'ancestor' to the 2nd century:

"..their common ancestor must have been copied several generations before. ... Aleph and B are distant cousins from long after their common ancestor, which itself must go back several generations. Indeed, when they agree, their common reading usually is from the early 2nd century." (Wallace, Komoszewski, Sawyer, Reinventing Jesus (Kregel, 2006) p. 78. 

 However, like the common readings, these differences may also have multiple causes, some of the most obvious being:

(a)   mistakes by the scribes themselves who made Aleph and B.  Each of these (two or more) scribes must have contributed many errors to both manuscripts.  Singular readings are the prime suspects.

(b)    differences in policy or preference regarding grammatical constructions, or how to handle suspicious readings in the master-copy.

(c)   the work of correctors, who may not have left clear traces of their work.  In particular, B has been overwritten and re-inked throughout, and Sinaiticus suffers from the hands of at least 10 correctors.

(d)   inherited differences from previous generations of copying separating either manuscript from the common ancestor or master-copy.

(e)   differing usage of cross-references or secondary sources used for textual comparison.  Both manuscirpts show signs of editorial activity of various kinds in the compilation of their texts.  

From all this, and each possible cause involves real variants, it is clear that neither similarities nor differences can be easily categorized as to how they arose, or dated as to when.  

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 Three Important Eras:

Nonetheless, a natural and straightforward procedure presents itself, namely considering the three stages of transmission,

(1)  First Era:  Separate Works  -  Individual and independent circulation of the NT books, and the differences arising from varying circumstances between them in their transmission.

(2)   Second Era:   Early Collections  -  Circulation of the groups of books as collections,  and the features they would then share, and the errors arising from this format.

(3)  Third Era:  Whole NT Volumes  -  Circulation of the groups as complete copies of the NT, and the features and errors arising in this period.

It should be clear that the common readings shared between Aleph and B must belong to the first two periods of transmission, while the readings in which they differ will likely have arisen in the third period of transmission. 

We strongly doubt that "ten generations" of errors can be identified among the differences between these two manuscripts,  and prefer to identify the date of the nearest 'common ancestor' independently, based upon what is known about when these collections were popularized.   It is reasonable then, to date the nearest common ancestor of Aleph/B to about the beginning  or middle of the 3rd century, when it is known that such collections of the Gospels circulated, as P75 demonstrates.  

Consequently, we assign common readings between Aleph/B to this time and earlier, when they would have come together to form a common text spanning all four gospels.

Differences between Aleph and B we will primarily assign to the period from about 250 A.D. (c. P75) to 320 A.D.  (the inside date of manufacture for Aleph/B).

We have already analyzed the pre-history for Mark and Matthew (see our previous posts on this), and shown it to be quite different for each book, as expected.  On the other hand, we can also combine our findings, and propose that there was a common ancestor in the line after the gospels were gathered into a collection, in which the columns were about 15 characters per line.   This narrow width suggests that the copy that generated this large group of shared errors spanning Mark and Matthew was rather recent, since narrow columns were a practice that came much later than the time of P75.    The final result of this analysis will naturally date this large group of errors to this late period, namely the late 3rd century.

We will post a list shortly.

mr.scrivener

Breaking out the Ancestors of Aleph/B: Matthew

Originally the NT books were written separately, and circulated separately, and only later gathered into collections such as the Four Gospels, or the Letters of Paul,  into one manuscript copy.

Rightly then has James Snapp Jr. insisted that the early textual history be analyzed separately, book by book:

"2. The text of the New Testament should be reconstructed in its component-parts: Gospels and Acts and Pauline Epistles and General Epistles and Revelation. Relationships shown by patterns of readings in one part should not be assumed to exist in the others."

 - James Snapp Jr., "Equitable Eclecticism", Pt 4, (internet, 2010)

Grouping and Organizing the Omissions of Aleph/B

If we take then the Gospel of Matthew in hand, and list all the significant omissions by Aleph/B followed by the modern critical GNTs, we make some amazing and enlightening discoveries.   

The omissions fall easily into three basic groups, with the missing letter counts being multiples of typical column widths for manuscripts from the late 2nd and early 3rd centuries.   In other words, we can reconstruct what some of the ancestors of the common ancestor of Aleph/B looked like, to account for these strong correlations in line-length and column-width.

Since earlier ancestors (late 2nd century) had wider columns, the groups of omissions can be ordered chronologically and traced to the copyist who used such a manuscript as a master-copy.

Ancestor 1: (late 2nd century)

The first group indicating the widest column-width is assigned to the earliest discernable ancestor of Aleph/B, which we will call "Ancestor 1":

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This first master-copy had all this text in place, but unfortunately, these half-verses were omitted by the copyist of this manuscript, and transmitted to subsequent copies, later to become incorporated in the ancestor of Aleph/B.

The letters per column of this master-copy varied from 20-22. Longer lines allowed more variation in the count, with lines containing many iotas and upsilons holding a letter or two more than average. 

Two of these seven omissions have already been identified as homoeoteleuton from their features.  The others haven't the prominent indicators, and were probably just random line-skips.  Such occurances were more common in the earlier copies, when quality of copying and proof-reading were less consistent, and where wilder texts seem to have abounded.   But the strong coincidence of exactly 20 characters in six of the lines, coupled with the non-significance of the text itself, indicates an accidental error based on column-width.

All of these omissions occur after Chapter 19 of Matthew, and suggest that the copy of this manuscript (which had the text included) was only proof-read and corrected up to chapter 19, again corroborating the likelihood of omission rather than interpolations. 

We have taken into account the likely presence of Nomina Sacra, for Matt. 25:13 above, which were in use from earliest times.

Matt. 20:23 may be explained alternately as a deliberate edit (see below, Ancestor 2), in which case its line-length may not be relevant, although it would still be an omission, rather than an insertion.

Ancestor 2: (Late 2nd-early 3rd century)

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The next group of readings displays a line-length and likely column-width of about 17-19 characters per line.  This is by far the largest group of such eye-skip type errors, with at least six being identified as homoioteleuton/arcton with high probability, from the features.  To their individual merit we can now add the fact that they all appear to based on the same column-width, about 18-19 characters per line. 

Worth special mention is Matt. 20:22, which is a variation unit that is connected to the almost identical omission at 20:23 from the previous chart above.  From the different line lengths, we believe that one or the other of the lines was dropped first, namely this one at verse 22, which presents homoeoteleuton features.  

When a subsequent scribe found only the one line at verse 23, it was deleted as an apparent insertion.  The original pairing of the sayings was not present to explain the line.   If these lines were insertions, they would both have to have been inserted together, and if that were the case, neither the homoeoteleuton features would be explained, nor would the deletion be as attractive to a scribe. 

In any case, the majority of the homoeoteleuton examples here are independently quite convincing, and this lends weight to the likelihood that 5:44a, 5:44b  and 6:13 were all simple eye-skips by the same scribe who omitted so many other lines of the same length throughout the manuscript.  ( 5:44a and 5:44b  should be taken together as one Variation Unit because of their close proximity and identical line-length.)

 Ancestor 3:  (late 2nd - early 3rd century)

Finally, we have Ancestor 3, which seems to have been a manuscript very similar to both Vaticanus and Sinaiticus, presenting much narrower columns, of about 15-16 letters per line.   The even shorter omissions (especially the homoeoteleuton at 23:4) could have happened by the scribe losing his place on the very same line, due to similar phrases on the same line.

Because of this, it is hard to say just where the last few omissions belong (i.e., 23:4, 5:27, 18:2), since they could have happened anywhere at any time.

Nonetheless, it appears at least one ancestor of the master-copy of Aleph/B was a recent narrow-column copy.

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We are now in a position to posit a plausible copy-generation scenario:

Ancestor 1 would decend ultimately from the original, but the number of generations between it and the original Matthew is indeterminable at this time.

This manuscript would have contained a nearly complete and full version of Matthew and was 20-22 characters wide per column.  It was copied by Ancestor 2, who unfortunately dropped the lines listed in chart One above.

Ancestor 2  (or a copy of it) was used by the scribe of Ancestor 3.   Ancestor 2 (or a copy of it) had columns about 17-19 characters wide, which led to Ancestor 3 dropping another eleven segments of text.  Most of these were actual homoeoteleuton errors (6/11), but some were just random slips. 

Aleph/B  Now the actual ancestor of Aleph/B took a turn, copying Ancestor 3.  Unfortunately, due to Ancestor 3 (or a copy of it) being about 15-16 characters wide, the ancestor of Aleph/B lost another half-dozen short lines by a combination of homoeoteleuton and simple eye-skip from fatigue.

This ancestor, perhaps one or two generations away from Aleph and B, had accumulated all the errors of the previous scribes (the ones not caught and corrected, which amounts to our list).

Proposed Genealogical Chart of Descent

Ancestor 1: 2nd Cent.Copy of Matthew	This copy is about 20-22 chars per line, and was probably a very good copy of Matthew, containing most lines omitted by Aleph/B.
	Somewhere along the line, a copyist used Ancestor 1 as a master-copy, but dropped Matt. 20:7, 20:23, 22:13, 23:11b-14, 25:13, 26:60, 28:9. Some copy of this became...
Ancestor 2: later 2nd Cent. Copy	This copy is about 17-19 chars per line, and is probably a copy of the 4 gospels. Unfortunately, it was uncorrected post-chapter 19.
	At some point, Ancestor 2 was used as a master, but the copyist was prone to homoeoteleuton, and lost text again in about 11 instances: Matt. 5:44, 6:13, 12:47, 13:51, 15:8, 17:20, 18;11, 20:16, 20:22, 27:35. It was not proof-read ...
Ancestor 3: Early 3rd Cent.Copy	The errors of two or more scribes have gathered in a line isolated from other copying centers. Soon a 15-16 char per line copy is made.
	The new format introduces another cluster of undetected errors: Matt. 15:5, 19:20, 23:5, 26:3, 19:9. The copyist introducing this last group has created the final common ancestor of Aleph/B for Matthew.
Proto-Aleph/B: 3rd Cent.Copy of Matthew	This master-copy used by the copyists of Aleph and B probably resided in the scriptorium at Caesarea where Aleph and B were made.

While Hort was undoubtably right in attributing the majority of these omissions to the ancestor of Aleph/B, and hence to an earlier text (and a significant number of these omissions to the earliest traceable ancestor of this line), it is a grave methodological error to correct the 'working NT text' using any intermediary text without first correcting it by removing all the identifiable and probable errors from it.

Had Hort's text been left on the academic shelf as a reference for further reconstruction, no harm would have been done, and it could have been of some use in future research.  But no intermediary text, no matter how early, can be naively used "raw" to correct a working text. 
 
It is the step from a 'critical text representing a 2nd-3rd century ancestor of Aleph/B' to modern Bible translations meant for use by Christians which is simply an epic failure of trust, and method, ultimately fatal to restoring the text.

mr.scrivener