Tommy Wasserman on Mark 1:1 - homoeoteleuton

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Tommy Wasserman has examined Mark 1:1 closely, and comes to the conclusion that it is a probable omission due to homoeoteleuton.

In the picture above, one can see an early corrector re-inserting the lost words "Son of God" (in Nomina Sacra abbreviation) above the line.
Wasserman believes this is the earliest layer of correction, and hence contemporary with the manuscript itself, probably before it left the scriptorium. (This manuscript has many corrections, including the replacement of several whole folios by an overseer, which must have happened before it left the scriptorium also, because the Euse. Canons are missing from some replacement pages, but present on others.)


The Evangelical TC Blog has linked to his audio lecture below:

Tommy's excellent presentation on the text of Mark 1.1 is now available in audio via the CSCO website (where it is also described as argued persuasively):

Tommy Wasserman, ‘The “Son of God” was in the Beginning,’ lecture (44min)
Wasserman, Question and Answer, (28min)

 In his analysis, Tommy Wasserman notes that there are either 6 genitive endings of words in a row, or else 4 Nomina Sacra, creating an easy situation for error.  In his opinion, the argument that omissions are unlikely in the very beginning of a book is outweighed by both the textual evidence and the intrinsic evidence regarding Mark's style and purpose.

Codex א: Singulars - h.t. List from A.C. Clark (1914)

Chapter IV (p. 24 fwd) in A.C. Clark's book, The Primitive Text of the Gospels and Acts (1914) is not only loaded with a startlingly large list of rarely mentioned h.t. errors, (critics who push the WH text rarely call attention to the faults of  /B), but he shows how investigation into the column-width of the master-copy provides additional confirmation and insight into the h.t. process.

Clark explains:

"[Sinaiticus] is written in four columns with 48 lines per page and an average of 13-14 letters to the line. [this column-width is important for what follows] ...
The  internal evidence shows that א is derived from an ancestor with an average of 10-12 letters per line.

Examples:

Luke 11:1 διδαξον ημας προσευχεσθαι, καθως και Ιωαννης εδιδαξε τους μαθητας αυτου.  omit και Ιωαννης (10 letters) - א .
The words are necessary to the sense, since John has not been mentioned previously.

John 19:23  και εποιησαν τεσσαρα μερη εκαστω στρατιωτη μερος και τον χιτωνα ην δε ο χιτων αρραφος ... omit  και τον χιτωνα (12 letters) - א .


Sometimes we have multiples of the same unit in immediate proximity, e.g.;

Mark 13:8   

εγερθησεται γαρ 

εθνος επι εθνος 

 και βασιλεια

 επι βασιλεια- (ν)

εσονται σεισμοι 

κατα τοπους και 

 εσονται  λιμοι 

και ταραχαι αρ

χαι ωδινων ταυ-

τα...

 (1)  omit   επι βασιλεια- (11 letters) - א .

 (2)  omit  κατα τοπους  και εσονται  λιμοι  (22 letters) - א .

(homoeoteleuton).'

Clark gives over a dozen more examples, all multiples of similar line-lengths:

Jn 12:31 - omit   νυν ο αρχων του κοσμου τουτου  (24 letters) - א 
Jn 3:20-21 - omit   ουκ ... το φως και  (22 letters) - א 
Jn 3:20-21 - omit   ο δε ...τα εργα αυτου  (57 letters) - א 
The omissions [above] are due to the coincidence of h.t. with line division.  We may assign to this ancestor such short omissions as:

(10 letters, h.t. )  Matt. 23:35 - omit   [...Ζαχαριου]  υυ Βαραχιου    - א 
(12 letters, h.t. )   Mk 12:25 - omit   ουτε γαμουσιν   - א
(13 letters, h.t. )   Lk 12:18  - omit   [...α μου] και τα αγαθα μου    - א 

 "There is however, the possibility that there is a larger unit representing an intermediate ancestor.  We must therefore, take into consideration omissions of 14-19 letters.  The cases I have noticed are:

(14 letters, h.t.   - א )   Matt 28:3
(15 letters, h.t.   - א )   Matt. 16:9
                             Luke 6:14
(16 letters, h.t.   - א  )   Jn  1;25
                             Jn  8:20
(17 letters, h.t.   - א  )   Jn 17:17
(18 letters, h.t.   - א )   Matt. 27:56
                             Mark 10:33
 (19 letters, h.t.   - א )  Matt 7:27




 (20 letters, h.t.   - א )  Mk 12:30
 (21 letters, h.t.   - א )  Matt 19:18
                             Luke 8:47
 (22 letters, h.t.   - א )  Matt 27:52
                             Luke 16:16
                             John  3:20
 (24 letters, h.t.   - א )  Matt. 25:43
                             Mark 6:4
                             John 12:31
 (27 letters, h.t.   - א )  Luke 12:37
 (28 letters, h.t.   - א )  John 6:55
 (29 letters, h.t.   - א )  John 4:45
                             John 16:17
 (30 letters, h.t.   - א )  Matt 5:45
                             John 4:4
 (32 letters, h.t.   - א )  Matt 13:39
                             John  5:26
 (33 letters, h.t.   - א )  John  6:39                    
 (35 letters, h.t.   - א )  Matt. 10:39
 (42 letters, h.t.   - א )  Luke 17:9
 (43 letters, h.t.   - א )  Matt. 9:15
                             John  15:10
 (44 letters, h.t.   - א )  Matt. 15:18-19
 (45 letters, h.t.   - א )  Luke 12:52
 (47 letters, h.t.   - א )  Mark 6:8
 (54 letters, h.t.   - א )  Luke 10:32
                             Luke 14:15
 (57 letters, h.t.   - א )  John 3:21
 (60 letters, h.t.   - א )  Matt. 5:19
 (61 letters, h.t.   - א )  Mark 6:28
 (64 letters, h.t.   - א )  Luke 17:35
 (71 letters, h.t.   - א )  Matt. 26:62-63
                             John 16:15
 (84 letters, h.t.   - א )  Mark 10:35-37
 (92 letters, h.t.   - א )  Mark 1:32-34
 (101 lett.,   h.t.   - א )  John 20:5

 (192 lett.,   h.t.   - א )  John 19:20
 

A.C. Clark (1914) on homoeoteleuton

A.C. Clark produced two important works on NT TC, the first being The Primitive Text of the Gospels and Acts (Oxford, 1914), and the second, his Critical Text of Acts (1933).  Although his continued investigation resulted in modifications and additional details, his basic position remained committed.

Here are some exerpts from the first book (Primitive Text..):

"PREFACE

...Whenever the readings of two MSS ...are compared, ...one of them does not contain passages which occur in the other.   In all such cases there are two possible explanations, viz., that the words are spurious, ...inserted by an interpolater..., or that they are genuine, and have been accidentally omitted by the other [copy].  The hypothesis of accident [omission] is highly probable, when there is a reason which will account for the omission. 

One such reason is universally recognized, viz., homoeoteleuton. [h.t.]  When a similar ending, or word occurs twice in the same sentence, a copyist [could have] easily passed from the first passage to the second, omitting the intermediate words.  This saut du meme au meme ["jump from meme to meme"] is the most prolific cause of omissions. 

There is another reason which is not infrequently suggested by editors, viz., that the scribe has accidentally omitted a line, or several lines, of his model.  When we have two MSS, one which is known to be a transcript of the other, we find actual instances of such omissions.  In the vast majority of cases however, we have only the copy, not the [exemplar].   Since all scribes [copyists] are subject to the same errors, it is reasonable to suppose that omissions in a particular MS may represent a line or number of lines [skipped] in an ancestor... the problem is to find an objective criterion..to detect line-omissions. 

...[groups of] short passages...doubted on the ground of their omission by a MS or family, frequently contain the same, or nearly the same number of letters.  Longer passages in the same way [are] multiples of this unit.  The natural inference is that the unit [and longer omissions] correspond to [physical] lines in [the layout of] an ancestor.

Ancient Uncial MSS are written with few abbreviations and no space between words [with] the number of letters per line ...a more or less constant [average] quantity.

It was also easy for a copyist to omit other divisions in his [exemplar], viz., a colum, page, or folio [folded sheet].   Since it is usual for MSS to have the same # of lines per page, it follows that the contents of columns, pages, & folios are similar [in size]. 

...

The chief result of my investigation has been to show the falsity of the principle brevior lectio potior ("prefer the shorter reading").  This was laid down by Griesbach as a canon of criticism in the words:

"Brevior lectio, nisi testium vetustorum et gravium auctoritate penitus destituatur, praeferenda est verbosiori.  Librari enim multo proniores ad addendum fuerunt quam ad omittendum." 

 "The Shorter reading, unless the authority of the witnesses completely lacks a weight and age, is preferable to the verbose. Copyists were  much more prone to add than to omit."

[But] this statement has no foundation in facts.  I may also observe that it is not so easy to invent as it is to omit. 
...
I had been brought up to look on the Revised Text as final, to smile at persons who maintained the authenticity of St. Mark 16:9-20 or St. John 7:53-8:11, and to suppose that the 'vagaries' of the 'Western text' were due to wholesale interpolation.   The object which I had in view was merely to study the mutual relations of the oldest Greek Uncials, notably, the Vaticanus (B), Sinaiticus (Aleph), and Alexandrinus (A).  I was however, soon dislodged from this arrogant attitude, and irresistibly driven to very different conclusions. 
...
Nowhere is the falsity of the maxim 'Prefer the shorter reading' more evident than in the New Testament.  The process [over time in copying] has been one of contraction, not expansion.  The primitive text is the longest, not the shortest."

(- Clark, 1914,  Preface, iii-vii)

...

Whitney / Weiss on h.t. errors (part 1) Sinaiticus - א

S. W. Whitney's two-volume opus on the Revised Version fiasco, The Revisers' Greek Text (Boston, 1892) is a veritable gold-mine of textual-critical examples, well analyzed.

In his introduction he quotes Weiss:

"The commonest mistakes are in the omission of letters, syllables, words, and clauses in cases where the like or same followed,  and the eye of the copyist wandered from one to the other by homoioteleuton [i.e., in consequence of the sameness of endings].  The instances in which letters or syllables were doubled are much less frequent. .." (Weiss, Introduction to the NT, Amer. ed. Vol ii, pp. 405-406)

 After a concise but excellent discussion, Whitney moves on to examples of singular (as known at that time) readings of the major Uncial MSS:

Sinaiticus (א):
Mark 1:32-34 - 'They brought unto him all that were sick

                          [and them that were possessed with devils.  

                          And all the city was gathered together at the 

                          door.  And he healed many that were sick]

                          with divers diseases.'

οψιας δε γενομενης οτε εδυ ο ηλιος εφερον 

προς αυτον παντας τους κακως εχοντας 

και τους δαιμονιζομενους 33 και η πολις

ολη επισυνηγμενη ην προς την θυρανκαι

εθεραπευσεν πολλους κακως εχοντας 

ποικιλαις νοσοις και δαιμονια πολλα εξε-

βαλεν και ουκ ηφιεν λαλειν τα δαιμονια 

οτι ηδεισαν αυτον ...

 Mark 6:34 - 'because they were [as sheep] not having a shepherd.'

Mark 9:9 - 'he charged them that they should tell no one what they had seen, [unless] after the Son of man had risen from the dead.'

Mark 10:19 - "Thou knowest the commandments, [do not commit adultery],
Do not kill, do not steal, " etc.

Mark 11:2 - "Go your way into the village [that is over against you;] and..."

Mark 14:16 - 'And the disciples went forth [and came] into the city...'

Mark 15:47-16:1 -                       'And Mary the Magdalene  and Mary
                    [the mother of Joses beheld where he was laid. And when 
                      the Sabbath was past, Mary the Magdalene and Mary]
                      the mother of James, and Salome, brought spices.'...

Even if some cases have been the result of copying the errors of a previous copyist, or an intermediary copy (now lost), as would often happen,  the many examples give pause and indicate caution in taking any omission with such features as original simply because it is an old reading.

mr.scrivener

Codex א: Singulars - List from Godet (1864)

Here is another list of Singular Readings from Codex Sinaiticus, courtesy of Godet (transl. from the French).   Most of these were quickly identified as homoeoteleuton and similar errors by Godet himself, following Tischendorf and other textual critics:

From:  Classic Commentary Library

Commentary on the Gospel of John, Vol.2: ch6-end
by Godet

Footnotes starting on page 17

John's Gospel  (ch. 6 to end)

5:26      Aleph (א) omits “you seek me”
5:38-39 Aleph (א) , C  omits “sent me...sent me”
5:22     Aleph (א) omits ”on account of this”
7:50     Aleph (א) omits “came to him by night”
8:20     Aleph (א) omits “teaching in the temple”
8:35     Aleph (א) , X, Γ,  omits “the son remains forever”
9:21     Aleph (א) omits “ask him”
9:38-39a Aleph (א) omits the whole verse
10:42     Aleph (א) omits “in the place”
12:31     Aleph (א) omits “now is the judgment of the world”
15:10     Aleph (א) omits “if...my love”
16:15     Aleph (א) omits the whole verse
16:17     Aleph (א) omits “micron …. palin
17:17     Aleph (א) omits “thy word is truth”
18:32     Aleph (א) omits “had spoken”
19:20-21 Aleph (א) omits the whole verse as far as 21 Alla (1 ½ vs. missing)
20: 4       Aleph (א) omits “and the other disciple”
20:5b-6  Aleph (א) omits whole verse
12: 20     Aleph (א) omits “akoluthontaos”

Most of these are both singular and plain h.t. errors.

Matthew 17:21 - haplography: Aleph - Scribe D

When we turn to Matthew 17:21 in Codex Sinaiticus, it turns out we don't actually have the original page written by Scribe A.  Folio 209 (and its cognate) is part of a replacement sheet inserted by Scribe D.

On that sheet, a third the way down in column 2, we see a well-known omission, of verse 17:21, "But this kind does not go out if not by prayer and fasting."

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This is incorrectly (or at least inaccurately) listed in the UBS4 apparatus as an omission by "א*" , that is, the omission is supposed to be the original reading, later corrected according to UBS4 by "Aleph-2"  (i.e. Corrector #2).  We won't get into the difficult problem of correctly identifying the dozens of correctors of Aleph at the moment.  We only want to point out that the fact that the whole page is a "replacement-sheet" has gone unmentioned.
We have no way of knowing the readings that may have been found in the two consecutive pages that have been here replaced.  Just having such a drastic alteration to the MS before it even got out of the Scriptorium is an alarm-bell and a warning not to take the readings on the replacement-sheet as representing the original sheet.

It is however, important to point out that this Variation Unit does show signs of being an accidental homoeoteleuton-type error, as we have shown in a previous post here on the homoioteleuton blog:

πιστιν ως κοκκον σιναπεως ερειτε τω ορει
τουτω μεταβηθι εντευθεν εκει και μεταβησ-
εται και ουδεν αδυνατησει υμιν
τουτο δε το γενος ουκ εκπορευ-
εται ει μη εν προσευχη και νηστεια
αναστρεφομενων δε αυτων εν τη γαλιλαια
ειπεν αυτοις ο ιησους μελλει ο υιος του
ανθρωπου παραδιδοσθαι εις χειρας ανων

Interestingly,  Scribe D and his corrector (probably the same person) provide us with two other, probably more interesting variants here:

(1) instead of the Traditional text αναστρεφομενων, 

                                        we have συστρεφομενων

and, 

(2) instead of the TR reading:

     "τουτο δε το γενος ουκ εκπορευεται 

      ει μη εν προσευχη και νηστεια", 

we have: 

      τουτο δε το γενος ουκ εκβαλλεται

      ει μη εν προσευχη κ(αι) νηστεια

 

Both of these variants however, could simply be the scribe relying upon memory or a lectionary text, or even semi-conscious emendations.


What we can get out of this is the following.  While early 19th century textual critics were prone to exclaiming "look!  here is a piece of marginal gloss, being turned into text right before our eyes!" We are wise enough now (we hope) to realize that this is all but impossible, since the reading was known even to Origen (c.200 A.D.) over 100 years earlier than Sinaiticus.

On the contrary, this is just one of many unremarkable corrections, probably done by the scribe himself (Scribe D), while the manuscript was still in the scriptorium.  Nor is this small infraction likely to be the reason why Scribe D felt it necessary to replace an entire sheet (double-folio = 4 whole pages) of Scribe A's work.

Although we are no closer to knowing exactly what happened here to require a folio replacement, we do have another example of an accidental omission, and a typical solution.

Note the subtle but different meanings given to the two signs used for indicating the correction.  The larger straight obelisk indicates the line where the error occurred, and the smaller wavy obelisk indicates where in the main text the dropped phrase should be inserted.  The method is professional, and avoids any ambiguity.

peace
Nazaroo