I was a bit shocked to interact with a newly minted PhD in New Testament who was asking me what the various sigla in Nestle-Aland 28 meant, such as ⸀ ° ⸆ ⸋ ⸌ ⸉ ⸊

It soon became clear to me that this new PhD in New Testament didn’t know how to read the NA28 apparatus.

To be fair, the student’s area of research and dissertation were not in textual criticism, but regardless — anyone with a PhD in New Testament should be able to read and use the NA28 apparatus.

I suspect that there may even be professors and teachers who learned how to read NA27/28 during their MDiv or PhD studies, but have now forgotten because they don’t practice textual criticism very much.

I don’t want to pass judgment since there are plenty of things outside my own research interests that I don’t understand well. We all have our own areas of interest and areas of weakness. I’m thankful to be able to ask experts in other fields to explain their areas of expertise to me as if I’m a five year old 😬

However … don’t tune out if you already know how to use NA28’s apparatus. Those who already know how to use NA28’s apparatus might learn some “advanced” features that are less well-known (e.g. the listing of “minor” variants, the punctuation apparatus, the accent apparatus).

But first — why is a “for dummies” guide to the NA28 apparatus even necessary?

Three reasons:

(1) Many people read the Greek New Testament without ever looking at an apparatus.

A while back, I spoke with a friend of mine from seminary, who was a senior pastor. We went to the Master’s Seminary together from 2008-2011, where two full years of Greek were required. He really was trying hard to keep up his Greek — albeit by using Bible software (which I still think is better than nothing, pardon the blasphemy 😬).

I couldn’t resist the urge to chime in and ask if he ever used the NA28 textual apparatus and did some textual criticism during sermon prep.

He said, “Oh, I didn’t know you could see the apparatus in my Bible software.”

In Accordance Bible software, the NA28 text and the NA28 apparatus are two separate modules, so by default — the NA28 text opens without an apparatus. And so, most people won’t make the extra effort to open the apparatus module (I’m not a Logos Bible software user, so maybe someone can tell me if Logos does the same).

In contrast, it is impossible to dodge the apparatus in a physical copy of NA28.

But we all know that reading in general is becoming digital, so I think most people probably don’t even own a physical copy of NA28 (and it’s expensive too!). Rather, most people will read NA28 in Bible software, where they may never even open the apparatus module.

I know a lot of Greek classes still require students to buy a physical copy of the Greek New Testament, although I so often see students who finish their MDiv and immediately sell a lot of their textbooks. This is understandable when most students move after seminary (I myself hate moving books!).

Maybe someone wants to lead a movement to Make Printed GNTs Great Again. If so, I say: “May the odds be ever in your favor.”

Another manifestation of the trend of reading the GNT without apparatus can be seen in the popularity of Reader’s Editions of the Greek New Testament (the Zondervan edition and the Tyndale House edition seem to be most popular).

Because these Reader’s Editions have parsing and vocab aids in the lower margin, they don’t have space for a textual apparatus. So users will read the GNT without encountering an apparatus.

(2) Biblical-theological training tends not to require much study of textual criticism.

I don’t know this for sure (chime in if you are a prof), but I think undergrad and grad students are getting less and less teaching on textual criticism.

I looked at past syllabi of our NT survey class here at New Orleans Baptist Seminary, and students get only one lecture on textual criticism in their whole MDiv (unless they take a textual criticism elective). And the required textbook for NT Survey only gave an overview of the discipline, with no explanation of the NA28 apparatus.

Even I’m only giving one lecture on textual criticism in my NT survey class because there is so much other material to cover.

This is unfortunate because:

1. Most people are highly unlikely to teach themselves how to read the NA28 apparatus because it’s so technical and complex.

2. Even New Testament PhDs/profs are probably too embarrassed to ask for help — so a “for dummies” guide doesn’t seem to be needed.

But as any good teacher should say to students: there are no stupid questions.

(3) While material already exists that explains the NA28 apparatus, it is complex and/or very brief.

NA28’s own introduction and appendix 1 explain its own apparatus (pp. 54*-61* and 879-90). And there is also some secondary literature that explains the NA28 apparatus.1

But most of these resources don’t actually walk through the full process and “translate” the sigla into language for normal people (although see the exceptions in the videos in footnote 1 above).

But even if students read the NA28 Introduction, the introductory material is written by the editors who are experts in textual criticism, who already understand what they have created, and who haven’t written their introduction at a “popular” level. This is not meant as a criticism since NA28 is a scholarly tool, so it should be explained at a scholarly level that is beyond the level of most students.

A great exception to this trend is the highly accessible and easy-to-read introduction by Dirk Jongkind, An Introduction to the Greek New Testament, Produced at Tyndale House, Cambridge (Crossway, 2019). But Jongkind obviously doesn’t cover NA28.

As for myself — I learned to “translate” an apparatus through repeated practice and in a class with Septuagint scholar Peter Gentry. I still fondly remember taking Gentry’s class on the Septuagint and him requiring us to read and explain the Göttingen LXX apparatus in class:

What class participation entailed was “translating” all the information in the tightly packed apparatus. And one line of apparatus would take several minutes to explain and would require a lot of flipping back and forth to the Einleitung (introduction), which was written in German. (p.s., I love the kophleiste feature in the Göttingen LXX, which Tregelles’ GNT also did — listing all the manuscripts extant for the variants on each page).

This seemed so basic, but we were nervous and initially had no idea what we were doing. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think the Göttingen LXX apparatus is the most difficult textual apparatus to read. A few years back, I even had a senior NT scholar email me and ask for help in reading the Göttingen LXX apparatus; that was definitely a demonstration of humility and I was glad to help.

So if you want to have some fun after mastering the NA28 apparatus, climb the Mt. Everest of apparatuses and read the Göttingen LXX apparatus. 😬

This article has 6 parts, which explain:

1. The text-critical sigla in NA28’s text and apparatus such as ⸀ ° ⸆ ⸋ … ⸌ ⸉ … ⸊

2. The sigla/abbreviations for manuscripts, versions, and church fathers

3. NA28’s apparatus layout: lemma + textual variations

4. The punctuation and accentuation apparatus in NA28

5. Using the NA28 apparatus in Accordance Bible Software

6. Two examples from Ephesians 1:1, where everything is explained

1. The text-critical sigla in NA28’s text and apparatus

The first thing anyone needs to know are the sigla and some of the most common abbreviations used in NA28.

“Sigla” (the plural of “siglum”) are signs and symbols used to denote other words.

Sigla are not the same thing as abbreviations (like om. for omit); sigla are symbols or signs (for example, NA28 uses the siglum ° for a one-word omission).

To understand the purpose of sigla, we must first recognize that in textual criticism, there are really only four types of textual variation:

• Addition

• Omission

• Transposition (word order change)

• Substitution

NA28 represents these four types of textual variation with 6 sigla:

• Why does NA28 have 6 sigla to cover 4 types of textual variation? Because omissions and substitutions are sub-divided into omissions/substitutions of one-word and of two or more words.

• Note that three of these sigla are pairs: ⸋ … ⸌ ⸉ … ⸊ ⸂ … ⸃

  • In the main text, you will always need to look for the second part of the pair

  • However, in the apparatus — only the first part of the pair will be found: ⸋ ⸉ ⸂

• The substitution of two or more words ⸂ … ⸃ can get tricky in some instances, where italicized numerals are used to represent the words

  • For example, in Mark 1:2 we see — ἐν ⸂ τῷ Ἡσαΐᾳ τῷ προφήτῃ ⸃

  • The first textual variant in the apparatus reads: ⸂ 2 3 4 ⸃

  • There are four words in this variant ⸂ τῷ Ἡσαΐᾳ τῷ προφήτῃ ⸃ so what 2 3 4 mean is that the variant has words 2-4, namely: Ἡσαΐᾳ τῷ προφήτῃ (the first word, τῷ is omitted).

A final comment about text-critical sigla — Christian Askeland has a great blog post on most of the sigla used in textual criticism:

I previously would copy & paste from his blog post, but I have now created my own list of symbols/sigla for textual criticism; I have added many more things beyond his list (e.g., complex Greek numerals like the sampi and koppa, ECM Revelation’s special sigla for textual divisions, sigla unique to the Göttingen LXX, and Greek punctuation).

2. Explanation of the sigla/abbreviations for manuscripts, versions, and church fathers

The other sigla/abbreviations (which you must know to read NA28’s apparatus) are those which indicate witnesses that support each textual variant, namely:

• manuscripts

• church fathers, and

• “versions” (the early translations of the New Testament, such as Latin and Syriac).

2.1 PAPYRI

• Papyrus manuscripts are indicated with: 𝔓 + a numeral (𝔓75 = papyrus 75).

• Technically, papyri are written in majuscule script, so this group is described by its writing material not its script.

2.2 MAJUSCULES

• These manuscripts were written in a capitalized/upper case script (e.g. ΙΗΣΟΥΣ ΧΡΙΣΤΟΥ). These majuscules were written on parchment (animal skins), so this group is described by its script and not by its writing material (like with the papyri).

• Many majuscule manuscripts are indicated by capital letters (A = Codex Alexandrinus; B = Codex Vaticanus; etc.).2 But there is an exception with Codex Sinaiticus, which is indicated by the Hebrew letter aleph (ℵ).3

• Other majuscule manuscripts are indicated with 0 + a number (037, 0171, etc.). Although technically, all majuscules have 0 + a number (A = 02 = Codex Alexandrinus), but the NA28 apparatus still uses capital letters for the oldest majuscules. NA29 will switch to all numerals for majuscules.

2.3 MINUSCULES

• These manuscripts were written in a lower case/cursive script beginning in the 6th century, eventually becoming dominant in the 9th century onwards.4

• Minuscule manuscripts are indicated by Arabic numerals (1, 337, 1739, etc.). Notice no zero in front to distinguish from majuscule manuscripts.

• Minuscules are “grouped” in various ways in NA28:

  • Some minuscules are grouped into families (for example, family 1) and these use the siglum ƒ + a number (ƒ1 = family 1, ƒ13 = family 13).

  • NA28 uses the siglum 𝔐 to indicate the text of the majority of manuscripts, which will usually coincide with the so-called “Byzantine” text (but not always). Among surviving manuscripts, the super majority are minuscules.

  • Sometimes the Majority text is split (there is no clear majority), so NA28 uses the Latin abbreviation pm = permulti (“many”) to indicate the split. Two of these should appear in the variant unit.

  • In Revelation, the Majority text splits into two main groups: the Andrew text and the Koine text indicated by the sigla 𝔐ᴬ and 𝔐ᴷ

  • In only the Catholic Epistles of NA28 (which follow the abbreviations in the Editio Critica Maior), the siglum 𝔐 is no longer used, but rather the abbreviation “Byz” instead. When the Byzantine text is split, you will see Byzᵖᵗ for two different readings to show the split.

2.4 LECTIONARIES

• These are indicated with the siglum 𝑙 + a numeral (so, 𝑙 844 = lectionary 844).

• Lectionaries are written in minuscule script, so these manuscripts are categorized according their function and not their script.

2.5 VERSIONS AND CHURCH FATHERS

For the versions (Latin, Syriac, etc.) and for the church fathers, there is a list of their abbreviations in NA28’s introduction on pp. 67*-81*.

Information about the versions and patristic evidence can be found in Bart D. Ehrman and Michael W. Holmes, eds., The Text of the New Testament in Contemporary Research: Essays on the Status Quaestionis, NTTSD 42 (Brill, 2013).

2.6 WHERE TO FIND INFORMATION ABOUT MANUSCRIPTS

You can find basic descriptions of each manuscript in the NA28’s Introduction, pp. 61*-81* as well as on pp. 792-819 (which is Appendix I). NOTE: the pagination in NA28’s Introduction is always written with an asterisk, hence 61*-81*

• NA28’s information on each manuscript is very basic (date, contents, holding library). This is not a criticism since NA28 is a one-volume hand edition.

• Much fuller information and bibliography on each manuscript can be found using the INTF’s Liste; type in the manuscript’s abbreviation in the “Name” field (such as P75, 03, 1739). And you’ll be provided with very full information on the manuscript. Although I think the Bibliography provided is a bit over the top; if the manuscript is mentioned in even just one or two pages of a book/article, that book/article will be listed.

• NOTE: capital letters for majuscules (such as A, C, D) will not work in the Liste; only numbers with a zero in front (A, C, D = 02, 04, 05).

2.7 THREE MORE IMPORTANT SIGLA/ABBREVIATIONS

There are many more sigla and abbreviations, but I want to explain three more that I think are important to know in order to read the NA28 apparatus well:

(1) A manuscript with an asterisk * indicates the original reading (the first hand) in a manuscript where this is a correction. For example: B* means the original reading or first hand of B (Codex Vaticanus). These asterisked readings should always be accompanied by a corrected reading (but sometimes are not, like when there is only a negative apparatus, i.e. witnesses for the main text are omitted).

(2) Many corrected readings are indicated by a superscripted number such as B¹, B², B³ = the first, second, and third correctors of B (Codex Vaticanus). NA28 describes these correctors in its introduction on p. 59*. These should always be paired with an asterisked number (but sometimes are not).

• The date and quality of these correctors are hotly debated, which is why…

• NA28’s description of correctors should be supplemented by specialized studies on correctors, such as The Codex Sinaiticus Project website and Dirk Jongkind for Codex Sinaiticus, Jesse Grenz and Pietro Versace for Codex Vaticanus, and David Parker for Codex Bezae.5 There are also several studies of correctors in papyri or just focused on one specific passage.6 These specialized studies will often differ from NA28’s assessment of correctors.

• Some corrected readings are not specifically identified into groups (B¹, B², B³), so just a superscripted ᶜ is used such as 037ᶜ

(3) Sometimes a manuscript is damaged or faded and so the editors were uncertain about the precise transcription/reading in the manuscript. Editors indicate such palaeographic uncertainty with the Latin abbreviation vid = videtur (“it seems, it appears”), which will be superscripted, for example: 𝔓64 ͮ ͥ ͩ

TL;DR SUMMARY:

2.8 THE NA28 INSERT

The abbreviations for manuscripts and versions, the Latin abbreviations, and the text-critical sigla are also found in the small insert that accompanies NA28 (which is easy to slip out and lose!).

But the list of church fathers is only in NA28 Introduction, pp. 80*-81* and not on the insert 🥲

Click here for a PDF of the NA28 insert (which you can print out if you lost yours!). There is an English version, then a German version.

3. NA28’s apparatus layout: lemma + textual variations

3.1 HOW NA28 PRESENTS VARIANTS

The lemma is the heading of a variant unit. Put another way, the lemma is the text adopted by the editors and printed in the main text.

In NA28, the lemma is at the end of the entry and is indicated by the abbreviation txt.

Before the lemma, NA28 lists the textual variants differing from the lemma.

For example, in the case of the famous Mark 1:1 ‘son of God’ variant, the text (lemma) adopted in NA28 is υἱοῦ θεοῦ, but four other variants are listed:

lemma: υιου θεου

variant 1: υιου του θεου

variant 2: υιου του κυριου

variant 3: omit the lemma

variant 4: omit the lemma and omit the preceding two words (Ιησου Χριστου)

But … this is not how NA28’s apparatus presents the evidence.

This is what the NA28 apparatus looks like at Mark 1.1:

• The lemma (main text) is placed at the end of the entry with the abbreviation txt.

• The variants precede the lemma and each variant is separated with a broken vertical line ¦

• The parentheses (…) indicate minor variants, which I will explain later.

3.2 HOW OTHER EDITIONS PRESENT VARIANTS

Older editions (Tischendorf, Legg), the United Bible Societies Greek New Testament, 5th ed. (UBS5), and the Tyndale House Greek New Testament (THGNT) also use a lemma + variations format.

But the lemma is placed first and the variants come after the lemma (instead of before the lemma in NA28).

For example, in Mark 1:1, the THGNT looks as follows:

The lemma (υιου θεου) is in bold and comes first (instead of last in NA28). Elsewhere, you will see the lemma separated by a left-facing square bracket … ] like in the Göttingen LXX.

The textual variants in the THGNT are separated by a semi-colon (instead of ¦ in NA28). And there is only one abbreviation in the THGNT: vid for videtur (“apparently”). Thus, you will find omit in the THGNT (instead of om. in NA28); before in THGNT (instead of a. in NA28 for Latin ante); and after in the THGNT (instead of p. in NA28 for Latin post).

Finally, there is only one sigla in the THGNT — the diamond ◆ — which indicates uncertainty for the variant it is paired with (e.g. ◆ omit in Mark 1:1). In contrast, NA28 uses square brackets [ … ] for uncertainty, while the Editio Critica Maior / Catholic epistles in NA28 also use a diamond ◆ for uncertainty, like the THGNT.

3.3 HOW NA28 INDICATES “MINOR VARIANTS”: METHOD #1

Technically, based on the two ¦ in the NA28 apparatus for Mark 1:1, there would seem to be only two variants listed. However two additional “minor” variants are added in parentheses:

The first minor variant is on the first line after υιου του θεου, where we see:

(κυριου 1241)

This means that there is a minor variant in minuscule 1241 that makes a substitution for the preceding word: κυριου is substituted for θεου. But this is a sub-variant of υιου του θεου, so the full reading in minuscule 1241 is υιου του κυριου (vs. υιου θεου in NA28).

You can see how it takes me 99 words to explain 2 words in NA28’s apparatus!

NOTE: with minor variants, you will see:

• + for an addition

• - for an omission

• no sigla indicates a substition with the previous word, for example: υιου του θεου (κυριου 1241) in the example above means that θεου is substituted with κυριου in minuscule 1241.

The second minor variant is on the second line.

We see:

(et. om. Ιησου Χριστου Ir Epiph)

Several abbreviations and sigla need explaining here:

• There are two church fathers mentioned (Ir = Irenaeus, Epiph = Epiphanius); see pages 78*-81* in NA28’s Introduction for abbreviations of the church fathers (NOTE: the pagination of the NA28 Introduction has an asterisk after each page number).

• This minor variant is found within the variant omitting the lemma (υιου θεου); NA28 indicates the omission of υιου θεου by using a dash –

• NOTE: NA28 goes back and forth between a dash – and om. to indicate omission

• The actual minor variant is described as et. om. Ιησου Χριστου. The Latin word et means “and.” The abbreviation om. is Latin for omittit/omittunt which means “omit” or “omits.” Latin abbreviations are explained in NA28’s Appendix IV, pp. 885-90.

In summary, the second minor variant in Mark 1:1 — (et. om. Ιησου Χριστου Ir Epiph) — indicates that Irenaeus and Epiphanius omit υιου θεου and also omit Ιησου Χριστου in Mark 1:1.

You can see how it took me 159 words to explain 6 words in NA28!

3.4 HOW NA28 INDICATES “MINOR VARIANTS”: METHOD #2

NA28 has a second method of indicating “minor” variants and we can see an example in Mark 1:8:

The siglum ⸆ indicates that the variant concerns adding the preposition ἐν before ὕδατι in Mark 1:8 (maybe an attempt to make a plain dative ὕδατι more explicit, which is the norm in Koine Greek).

Among all the witnesses given, notice that D (= Codex Bezae) is in parentheses: what is NA28 indicating here?

• As seen earlier, parentheses indicate a minor variation from the main variant that it is found within (in this case, adding the preposition ἐν before ὕδατι).

• But there is no additional information inside the parentheses other than the witness D (= Codex Bezae). The earlier minor variant we saw in Mark 1:1 had et. om. Ιησου Χριστου, but there is no additional information here in Mark 1:8.

• In this case, we have to turn to Appendix II (Variae lectiones minores) in NA28, pp. 820-35, which lists “minor textual variants from Greek codices, which the critical apparatus puts in parentheses” (this heading is written in Latin in NA28: Variae lectiones minores e codicibus graecis quos apparatus criticus in parenthesi exhibet).

• Within Appendix II, we look for Mark 1:8 and find this:

• There are four Latin words here (again, you can find Latin abbreviations in NA28’s Appendix IV, pp. 885-90):

  • sed means “but”

  • pon. is a Latin abbreviation for ponit/ponunt meaning “put” or “puts”

  • a. is a Latin abbreviation for ante meaning “ahead of, before”

  • vs. is a Latin abbreviation for versus meaning “verse”

• What all this is saying is — D (Codex Bezae) is considered part of the variant omitting the preposition ἐν before ὕδατι in Mark 1:8, but it has a minor variant where εγω μεν υμας βαπτιζω εν υδατι is placed before ερχεται in verse 7.

You can see how it took me 284 words to explain one word in NA28 at Mark 1:8! 🤣 😭

4. An explanation of the punctuation apparatus in NA28

This is not well-known, but NA28 also indicates alternative punctuation in its textual apparatus by using two raised up (supralinear) colons ܃ sample text ܃

An example can be found at Ephesians 1:4:

This is an interesting syntactical issue that has a substantial impact on interpretation and is discussed in most exegetical commentaries.

Does ἐν ἀγάπῃ at the end of Eph 1:4 belong with what comes before, or with what comes after?

1. Is God acting so that Christians become “holy and blameless before him in love”?

2. Or has God “in love, predestined us to adoption through Jesus Christ”?

NA28’s main text has a comma after ἐν ἀγάπῃ, which forces the reader to understand ἐν ἀγάπῃ as belonging with what comes before (option #1 above).

But NA28’s apparatus has a punctuation alternative here where a comma is placed before ἐν ἀγάπῃ and the comma after ἐν ἀγάπῃ is removed (option #2 above).

This is indicated both in the text with two supralinear colons ܃ ἐν ἀγάπῃ ܃

And in the apparatus, the punctuation alternative is indicated inside square brackets [ … ], as can be seen below:

• The comma means to add a comma after the first ܃

• The dash means to remove the existing punctuation in the main text after ἐν ἀγάπῃ

I have a small list of punctuation apparatus entries in NA28: Matt 4:15; 7:11; 8:7; 11:7, 8; 25:15/16; 26:44; 27:11; Mark 2:15; John 1:3/4; 8:25; 16:31; Eph 1:4, 10; 5:20/21; 1 Tim 3:1; Rev 9:12/13. But this is far from comprehensive.

Does anyone else have a list of punctuation apparatus entries in NA28?

Furthermore, NA28 also has apparatus entries on alternative accentuation. Greek students learn that for liquid verbs (such as κρίνω), the difference between the future and the present tense-form is solely determined by accent:

• κρίνω = present

• κρινῶ = future

I won’t go into detail describing accentuation apparatus entries in NA28, but I have a partial list of where these occur: Mark 4:8, 20; John 14:17; 1 Cor 3:14; 6:2; Rom 2:16; 8:34; Col 4:15; Jas 1:12, 15; 3:3[2x] (NA27 only); 1 Pet 1:11; 5:8 (NA27 only); 2 Pet 3:8 (NA27 only); 3:9; 1 John 3:17.

As you can see, some of these accentuation alternatives were removed in NA28 and can only be found in NA27.

5. USING THE NA28 APPARATUS IN ACCORDANCE BIBLE SOFTWARE

It is far easier to use the NA28 apparatus in Accordance Bible software.

In Accordance, for minor variants (discussed in sections 3.3 and 3.4 above) — thankfully, you don’t have to turn to Appendix II. Instead, the Accordance version of NA28 has a right-facing arrow (→) at the end of a verse in the apparatus (but obviously there wont be a → if there is no minor variant).

The printed edition of NA28 does not have these right-facing arrows →

Here is an example in Mark 1:8:

If you click the right-facing arrow, you will be taken to Appendix II and directly to the part for Mark 1:8. Or you can hover over it and see the info in the Instant Details box.

For abbreviations (Latin, church fathers, versions) — you can hover over an abbreviation and the meaning of the abbreviation will be presented in the Instant Details box (or you can click the abbreviation to be taken to Appendix IV). This makes it much easier to read NA28’s apparatus without having to constantly turn to the NA28 Introduction, Appendix II, and Appendix IV 😎

I don’t use Logos, but I’m assuming it has similar functionality for its edition of NA28. Can someone confirm?

6. TWO EXAMPLES IN EPHESIANS 1:1

Here, I will fully explain everything (sigla, abbreviations, layout) in two variant units of Ephesians 1:1.

Eph 1:1 has three examples of a transposition ⸉ … ⸊, a one -word substitution ⸀, and an omission of more than two words ⸋ … ⸌

But I’ll just focus two: the transposition and the omission of two words because the one-word substitution isn’t very complex and everything in it has already been explained earlier.

6.1 THE LAYOUT OF THE SIGLA AND APPARATUS

• First, you see three text-critical sigla in the main text:

  • ⸉ Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ ⸊

  • ⸀ τοῖς

  • ⸋ ἐν Ἐφέσῳ ⸌

• Then you see the same sigla in the apparatus under the appropriate chapter/verse number, which is 1,1 in this case (NOTE: Germans separate chapter/verse numbers by a comma 1,1 — whereas most others separate with a colon 1:1).

• Each variant unit is separated by a solid vertical line | so there are three variant units here + two minor variants indicated by parentheses. Although — the minor variant in vg^(cl) is not found in Appendix II nor explained, so there seems to be an omission here in NA28.

• Inside each variant unit, each individual variant is separated by a broken vertical line ¦

6.2 EPHESIANS 1:1, VARIANT UNIT #1: ⸉ Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ ⸊

The apparatus entry for ⸉ Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ ⸊ reads:

There are only two variants in this variant unit, each separated by ¦

1. ⸉ = Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ (which is a transposition of NA28’s main text, Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ) and is supported by ℵ A F G K L Ψ 81. 104. 365. 630. 1175. 1241. 1739. 1881. 2464 𝔐 it vg^cl sy^p

2. txt = Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ (which is the lemma or main text of NA28) and is supported by 𝔓⁴⁶ B D P 0278. 33. 1505 b vg^st.ww sy^h; Ambst

Variant #1 is supported by:

• seven majuscules (ℵ A F G K L Ψ)

• nine minuscules (81. 104. 365. 630. 1175. 1241. 1739. 1881. 2464)

• the Majority text (𝔐)

• three versions/translations (it vg^cl sy^p)

To learn about the versions, you will have to look at the NA28 insert, NA28’s introductory section on versions (pp. 67*-78*), or hover over each abbreviations for versions in Accordance Bible software:

• it = the majority of Old Latin witnesses

• vg^cl = the Clementine edition of the Latin Vulgate

• sy^p = Syriac Peshitta

Variant #2 is supported by:

• one papyrus (𝔓⁴⁶)

• four majuscules (B D P 0278)

• two minuscules (33. 1505)

• four versions (b vg^st.ww sy^h)

• one church father (Ambst)

NOTE: NA28 does not present an exhaustive list of witnesses in all extant manuscripts, so there are almost certainly more manuscripts which support variant #2.

In NA28’s introduction, p. 64*, you will see the “consistently and frequently cited witnesses” for Ephesians in NA28. There are 30 manuscripts listed for Ephesians, which is only a handful of the 530 manuscripts of Ephesians catalogued in the INTF’s Liste (to find this out, click the link to the INTF’s Liste and set the “Indexed Biblical Content” to Ephesians.

Although … there are probably even more manuscripts of Ephesians since not all extant manuscripts have been indexed.

The final five witnesses of variant #2 are: b vg^st.ww sy^h; Ambst

• b can be confusing because there are two Latin manuscripts abbreviated b: (1) the Old Latin manuscript Codex Veronensis = Verona, Biblioteca Capitolare VI, but this is only in the Gospels; (2) the Old Latin manuscript designated as Vetus Latina (VL) 89 = Budapest, National Széchényi Library, Cod. Lat. 1, but this only covers the Pauline epistles. Since we are in Ephesians, b = VL 89.

• vg^st.ww = two editions of the Latin Vulgate: the 2007 Stuttgart Vulgate, 5th edition and the 1889-1954 Wordsworth-White Vulgate edition. Notice that the two editions are separated by a full stop (an American period), so really it is vg^st and vg^ww. You will not find vg^st.ww by itself.

• sy^h = Syriac Harklensis

• There is then a semi-colon followed by Ambst. The semi-colon indicates the end of Greek and versional witnesses and a transition to patristic witnesses. The list of church fathers is in the NA28 introduction, pp. 80*-81* and we find that Ambst = Ambrosiaster, a Latin church father from the fourth century.

• NA28 doesn’t provide the precise work where Ambrosiaster cites Ephesians 1:1, but we shouldn’t fault NA28 since it is a one-volume hand edition. As far as I know, Legg was the only editor to actually indicate where specifically the user could find a patristic citation.

• To find patristic citations, here are some resources:

  • The Biblindex website is the best resource for being able to input a specific passage and find patristic citations and basic bibliography. If you search for Ephesians 1:1, you will find Ambrosiaster along with 35 others who cite Eph 1:1. Biblindex even gives the exact book and page number you need to find Ambrosiaster’s citation of Eph 1:1 (CSEL 81.3, p. 71). But … Biblindex won’t give you the actual text where Eph 1:1 is quoted in Ambrosiaster; you’ll have to find CSEL 81.3 in a library.

  • Amy Donaldson’s 2-volume dissertation: “Explicit References to New Testament Variant Readings Among Greek and Latin Church Fathers” (PhD diss, University of Notre Dame, 2009) is free and downloadable at the link above. Donaldson quotes directly from the church fathers she analyzed, provides context, and provides an English translation. However, Donaldson’s scope is only passages where a church father is explicitly discussing a text-critical problem, not everywhere where a church father quotes the biblical text. These passages are interesting to read as a textual commentary.

  • Clavis Clavium (“key of keys”) provides very extensive bibliography for ancient and medieval authors and their writings. If you search for Ambrosiaster, you will find his Commentary on Paul, which is designated as CPL 184 in the Clavis database. The Clavis database provides much fuller bibliographic information than Biblindex — but again, you’ll have to find the resources in a library.

  • The one difficulty with Clavis is that you need to search names in Latin. For example, if you search “Augustine,” you’ll have zero results. His Latin name is “Augustinus.” But even searching “Augustinus,” there are 11 results. The most famous Augustine was the bishop of Hippo, so he is listed as “Augustinus episcopus Hipponensis” in the Clavis database.

  • Finally, there is the six-volume set: Biblia Patristica, Index des citations et allusions, edited by J. Allenbach (Paris: Éditions du CNRS, 1975-2000).

• Perhaps I’ll write a blog post on finding patristic citations to provide more detail and show examples of where exactly a church fathers quotes from the New Testament.

6.3 EPHESIANS 1:1, VARIANT UNIT #2: ⸋ [ἐν Ἐφεσῳ] ⸌

This is a well-known and important variant, concerning whether the letter to the Ephesians is actually even addressed to the Ephesians.

I will not explain this variant fully because Zachary Cole already has a good video working through the NA28 apparatus for this variant, so go check it out.

There are only two variants here:

1. omit ἐν Ἐφεσῳ indicated by ⸋ [ἐν Ἐφεσῳ] ⸌

2. include ἐν Ἐφεσῳ indicated by txt

I’ll just mention a few fun things here in summary fashion:

• The square brackets around ἐν Ἐφεσῳ are not text-critical sigla, but indicate editorial uncertainty about including or omitting ἐν Ἐφεσῳ.

• There are two asterisks indicating the original hand of ℵ* (Codex Sinaiticus) and B* (Codex Vaticanus), plus two corresponding corrections from the second hand of the same two manuscripts (ℵ² B²).

• There is a Latin word I haven’t mentioned: vel (“or”). The reading in Mcionᵀ and Mcionᴱ could either be Λαοδικεις or Λαοδικεας.

• There are two Latin abbreviations I haven’t mention: cf (“compare” from Latin confer) and Inscr. (“title, or heading” from Latin inscriptio). This is telling us that for Mcionᵀ and Mcionᴱ, we need to look at the variant title for Ephesians.

• There is a minor variant in Marcion indicated with parentheses:

  • The minor variant references an Inscription (title) of Ephesians found in Mcionᵀ and Mcionᴱ.

  • What do Mcionᵀ and Mcionᴱ mean? They mean that we don’t have Marcion’s actual writings for his alternative title of Ephesians (προς Λαοδικεις). We only have Marcion according to Tertullian (Mcionᵀ) and Marcion according to Epiphanius (Mcionᴱ).

• The minor variant in Marcion is actually quite interesting because his title is not “to the Ephesians” (προς εφεσιους) but “to the Laodiceans” (προς Λαοδικεις).

THE END: “CHEAT SHEET” RESOURCES

If you made it through that fire hose of content, here’s a condensed summary of all that I’ve covered. This is “cheat sheet” also for those who thought tl;dr (“too long, didn’t read”) and jumped to the end:

Click here for a PDF of the NA28 insert, which is found in physical copies of NA28. It’s in both English and German.

Let me know if there are any errors, inaccuracies, or anything still unclear.

But he went further — he was open to the possibility that the Long Ending of Mark was “an inspired process” similar to the editorial seams of the Old Testament (such as the account of Moses’s death in Deuteronomy 34, which couldn’t have been written by Moses himself). And thus, he was open to maybe receiving the Long Ending of Mark as canonical Scripture — even though it was not an original part of Mark’s Gospel.

I had never heard this view before and I asked him if anyone had published something expressing this viewpoint and he couldn’t think of anything — except maybe that Jonathan Borland (PhD, New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary) had expressed this view in a conference paper presentation.

In search of an advocate for the Long Ending of Mark as an inspired, canonical addition to Mark’s Gospel

I had an inkling that it had to be someone outside of the modern period, someone like Samuel Tregelles from the 19th century since he was a strong conservative with a high view of Scripture (esp. on inspiration).1

After some searching, yes … Tregelles has a similar view as my friend. Tregelles only briefly discusses the Long Ending of Mark in his Introduction to New Testament Textual Criticism.2 But he gives a fuller treatment in his 1854, An Account of the Printed Text of the Greek New Testament.3 The book is public domain, so you can read it on archive.org (see pages 246-81).

Tregelles was no friend of the Textus Receptus (TR), yet he accepted the Long Ending of Mark as canonical

Tregelles is an interesting case because he was not a Textus Receptus (TR) advocate; he was one of the first to break away from the TR in his edition published in six volumes:

• Matthew & Mark (1857)

• Luke & John (1861)

• Acts & Catholic Epistles (1865)

• Romans - 2 Thessalonians (1869)

• Hebrews - Philemon (1870)

• Revelation (1872) — although he published an earlier edition of Revelation as well in 1844.

These were published after Lachmann’s decisive break from the TR in 1831, but Tregelles’ edition was also published several decades before Westcott & Hort published their monumental and highly consequential edition in 1881.

So, despite not being a TR advocate … Tregelles still considered the Long Ending of Mark to be authentic, divinely inspired, canonical Scripture.

Precisely because Tregelles was not an advocate for the Textus Receptus and aimed to produce a text with “proven antiquity,” I find Tregelles to be a compelling voice to listen to regarding the Long Ending of Mark.

What does Tregelles say about the Long Ending of Mark?

After practicing traditional textual criticism — surveying external and internal evidence, including patristic discussions — Tregelles concludes:

I. That the book of Mark himself extends no farther than ἐφοβοῦντο γάρ, xvi. 8.

II. That the remaining twelve verses, by whomsoever written, have a full claim to be received as an authentic part of the second Gospel, and that the full reception of early testimony on this question does not in the least involve their rejection as not being a part of Canonical Scripture.4

Tregelles does not think that Mark wrote the Long Ending, but an anonymous scribe (pp. 258-59). And he thinks it was created during the “apostolic period” — a term which he doesn’t define, but presumably this would be late first century, and could maybe be stretched into the early second century.5

Tregelles then discusses how it is difficult for some scholars to accept an anonymous document as Scripture (p. 259). Tregelles counters by saying: “if inspired, the true and potential author was God, and not the individual writer, known or anonymous” (p. 260). Tregelles concludes by saying:

[Certain writings] which were originally received on good grounds as such [i.e. claiming apostolic authority and eyewitness testimony], and which have been authentically transmitted to us, we may confidently and reverently receive, even though we may not know by what pen they were recorded.6

In other words, despite not knowing who wrote the Long Ending of Mark, Tregelles was still willing to affirm the Long Ending as authentic, divinely inspired Scripture.

What arguments does Tregelles give?

Tregelles’ argument is quite complex and I won’t go deeply into it (you can read Tregelles yourself on archive.org, pages 246-61). Tregelles has a section on why the Long Ending was not original to Mark’s Gospel and there is no need to reiterate those arguments (pp. 253-58). But here are some observations on Tregelles’ other arguments:

(1) Tregelles points to the Old Testament precedent of “anonymous yet canonical additions”

On page 259 of An Account of the Printed Text of the Greek New Testament, he writes:

I thus look on this section [Mark 16:9-20] as an authentic anonymous addition to what Mark himself wrote down from the narration of St. Peter (as we learn from the testimony of their contemporary, John the Presbyter); and that it ought as much to be received as part of our second Gospel, as the last chapter of Deuteronomy (unknown as the writer is) is received as the right and proper conclusion of the books of Moses.

It is hard to affirm that Moses wrote about his own death in Deuteronomy 34, and even conservatives accept that Deut 34 was written by an anonymous figure sometime after Moses completed his work on the Pentateuch.

I will label this as an “anonymous yet canonical addition” to the Old Testament, even though Tregelles doesn’t use this exact terminology.

This idea reminded me of an article on “inspired textual updating” by my MDiv professor, Michael Grisanti: “Inspiration, Inerrancy, and the OT Canon: The Place of Textual Updating in an Inerrant View of Scripture,” JETS 44 (2001): 577–98. Grisanti gives many examples of anonymous textual updates that are nevertheless received as canonical (Gen 14:14; Gen 11:28, 31; Deut 2:10-12; Deut 3:8-11; Gen 36:31; Gen 15:2b).

Tregelles’ appeal to “anonymous yet canonical additions” to the Old Testament also reminded me of a similar point made by James Snapp in his “A Case for the Longer Ending of Mark”:

[The Long Ending of Mark] may be auxiliary, but it is still original, authentic, and canonical. In this, it is like various other passages in the Bible such as Deuteronomy 34:5–12, Joshua 24:29–33, Proverbs 30–31, Jeremiah 52, etc.

However, neither Tregelles nor Snapp provide criteria by which to identify an “anonymous yet canonical addition.”

Perhaps some sort of “criteria of canonicity” could be applied to the Long Ending of Mark? 🤔 These are criteria such as apostolic origin, orthodox doctrine, catholicity (wide acceptance), and usage in worship/church.

(2) On internal grounds, Tregelles argues that the Long Ending of Mark seems to be “authentic history” given its difficulties and seeming contradictions when compared to the other Gospels.

On page 258 of An Account of the Printed Text of the Greek New Testament, Tregelles says:

the contents of this section [Mark 16:9-20] are such as preclude its having been added at a post-apostolic period, and that the very difficulties7 which it contains afford a strong presumption that it is an authentic history: the force of this argument is such that I do not see how it can be avoided;

for even if a writer went out of his way to make difficulties in a supplement to St. Mark’s Gospel, it is but little likely that his contemporaries would have accepted and transmitted such an addition, except on grounds of known and certain truth as to the facts recorded.

If there are points not easy to be reconciled with the other Gospels, it is all the less probable that any writer should have put forth, and that others should have received, the narrative, unless it were really authentic history.

Elsewhere, Tregelles says something similar: scribes “presume to add and alter in order to remove contradictions, but not in order to make them.”

In other words, Tregelles seems to be using a prefer the “more difficult reading” in favor of the Long Ending of Mark. According to Tregelles, why would someone create a Markan supplement that seemingly contradicts the other Gospels? And why would scribes continue to copy and transmit such difficulties?

For Tregelles, the best explanation is that the difficulties suggest that a genuine, authentic history was created and continuously copied.

(3) Tregelles puts much value on the positive reception of the Long Ending of Mark in the church fathers.

On pages 251-53 of An Account of the Printed Text of the Greek New Testament, Tregelles surveys patristic evidence that demonstrates the existence and reception of the Long Ending of Mark in the second and third centuries:

• Irenaeus quotes from Mark 16:19 in Against Heresies 3.10.6 (and Irenaeus seems to accept Mark 16:19 as Scripture)

• Celsus maybe knew and accepted the Long Ending of Mark, as described in Origen’s Against Celsus 2.59 and 2.70. I haven’t seen Celsus mentioned before as evidence in favor of the Long Ending of Mark, so this was interesting. Against Celsus 2.70 especially seems convincing that Celsus knew Mark 16:9. But Tregelles notes that Origen was confused about Celsus’ objection and tries to refute Celsus from Matthew’s Gospel (suggesting that Origen didn’t know of Mark 16:9).

• Hippolytus in his ‘Apostolic Tradition concerning the gifts’ (περὶ χαρισμάτων ἀποστολικὴ παράδοσις) quotes from Mark 16:17-18 — although this comes to us through a later writer who incorporates Hippolytus into the Apostolic Constitutions Book 8.

Finally, Tregelles mentions (but does not expand upon) the use of the Long Ending of Mark during the fourth and fifth centuries in Cyril of Jerusalem, Ambrose, Augustine, and Nestorius (as cited by Cyril of Alexandria).

There is, of course, far more patristic testimony on the Long Ending of Mark, but Tregelles only cites the aforementioned individuals.

For Tregelles, this patristic evidence is enough to convince him that the Long Ending of Mark is authentic: “the early reception and transmission of this section [Mark 16:9-20], uphold its authenticity, and as it has been placed from the second century, at least, at the close of our second canonical Gospel.”8

Evaluating Tregelles on the Long Ending of Mark

I am intrigued by Tregelles’ view, but still have some unanswered questions:

1. By what criteria can we identify an “anonymous yet canonical addition”? There are several other passages that could fit this category (e.g., doxology of Romans; John 5:3b-4; Pericope of the adulteress).

2. Is Tregelles hinting towards canon controversies as being applicable to the Long Ending of Mark? Tregelles doesn’t bring up what we call “criteria of canonicity” (apostolic origin, orthodox doctrine, catholicity/wide acceptance, and usage in worship/church) — but maybe that is what he had in mind?

   Because the issue is not just about a church father knowing or having the Long Ending of Mark in his biblical text; the issue is whether a church father accepts and quotes from the Long Ending of Mark as scripture (e.g. like Irenaeus and many others in the fourth/fifth centuries).

   This is the same reasoning used to establish a canon consciousness in the first and second century: books that would eventually become canonical were quoted as Scripture and were read as Scripture in church.

   In other words: Was the Long Ending of Mark quoted as scripture and read as scripture in the early church? The preliminary answer is yes (at least in the case of Irenaeus and maybe Justin Martyr and Tatian), but what is unclear is how widespread this was.

3. What does Tregelles mean by “authentic”? He obviously does not think that “authentic” = “original” since he explicitly says the Long Ending of Mark isn’t original to Mark. So does he simply mean that the events narrated in the Long Ending of Mark actually happened? Tregelles believes that the Pericope of the Adulteress was a true account of Jesus’s life, yet rejected it as Scripture/canonical. Tregelles seems to mean something like “authentic = canonical or divinely inspired” — maybe? I don’t know.

4. Has someone else published something with a similar view as Tregelles? (That the Long Ending of Mark is not original to Mark’s Gospel, but should still be considered authentic and canonical).

What do you think? Is Tregelles off the rails? Or is he on to something worth further developing?

EDIT #1: Peter Gurry mentioned that the ETC blog had some discussion on this back in 2016: https://evangelicaltextualcriticism.blogspot.com/2016/05/is-longer-ending-of-mark-inspired-with.html

FOONOTES

You can see that original post here:

Several people have already posted on Facebook groups that the 4-volume ECM Revelation is available as open access PDFs through the University of Wuppertal (where Karrer is on faculty):

1 - Text (introduction only, 78 pages) https://elekpub.bib.uni-wuppertal.de/ubwhs/content/titleinfo/8166792.

2 - Supplementary Material https://elekpub.bib.uni-wuppertal.de/ubwhs/content/titleinfo/8166806

3.1 - Studies on the Text https://elekpub.bib.uni-wuppertal.de/ubwhs/content/titleinfo/8166814

3.2 - Studies on Punctuation and Textual Structure https://elekpub.bib.uni-wuppertal.de/ubwhs/content/titleinfo/8166818

Thanks to William Chong for updating me on this.

ECM Revelation had a different funding source than the rest of the ECM volumes (Acts, Catholic Epistles, Mark) — so those other ECM volumes will not be available as open access PDFs 🥲

But ECM Pauline Epistles might become open access…??? (given that the chief editor, Hugh Houghton, has other major research projects which have made their results open access)

The German funding body behind ECM Revelation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft [DFG]) wanted the 4-volume edition to be made open access after 1 year:

I emailed the publisher and University of Wuppertal in July 2025 (one year after the July 2024 publication) — but neither knew what was going on, so it’s nice to see everything available now.

I think it took them about 1.5 years to get the PDFs out because I noticed that they incorporated some “updates” and “corrections” into these open access PDFs.

The “updates” and “corrections” to ECM Revelation can be a bit frustrating for those who spent a significant amount of money to buy the physical ECM volumes in 2024 or 2025; those physical volumes are nearly obsolete.

I say “nearly” obsolete because the open access PDFs only include the introduction to vol. 1 and omit the text and apparatus of Revelation.

Why omit the text and apparatus?

Because the INTF website is hosting the text of the ECM volumes: https://ntvmr.uni-muenster.de/ecm (something which not everyone knows!) In other words, you don’t have to buy the ECM volumes to access the ECM text and apparatus.

However — Karrer expressed in his 2024 BNTS presentation that the INTF was having a difficult time incorporating into the website one of the main innovations of ECM Revelation: an apparatus of segmentation (i.e. punctuation and paragraphing). And it looks like they still haven’t figured out a way to put the segmentation apparatus into the ECM website (I don’t see it when I use the website).

So you won’t have access to the ECM Revelation segmentation apparatus unless you have the printed volumes.

It’s not the easiest thing to use; I constantly need the abbreviations and sigla next to me when I use it.

But there is some really good stuff in the ECM Revelation segmentation apparatus, although it also some problems … as I pointed out in my presentation at SBL this past November:

You can download my powerpoint slides: https://bit.ly/3YIV3Q8

And download my own audio recording of the presentation: https://bit.ly/3Lye2tE

This comes from a blog post on Goeman’s website, but was also part of a Twitter/X thread, entitled “What is the longest book of the Bible?”

Peter himself read through this post and said:

Peter and I have the same alma mater for our M.Div degrees, so this is not a major or fundamental disagreement. I like what he posts on Twitter/X and I’m sure he’s a great guy. This is just a humble attempt towards greater accuracy. I hope this can be an ‘iron sharpening iron’ (Prov 27:17) sort of exercise.

Is an exact word count of biblical books possible? No.

As a New Testament textual critic, I have to chime in with the caveat that producing word counts of biblical books is very difficult:

I would say it’s impossible to have an exact word count of biblical books since we only have manuscript copies (that disagree with one another) and modern editions based on those manuscripts. In other words, we don’t have the original autographs. Possessing the original autograph would be the only way to have an exact word count of a biblical book.

No one would dare say that we have the exact wording of the original Greek New Testament autographs in NA28 (or any other edition) — yet often we’ll see even scholars putting out exact word counts of the biblical books based on NA28 🤔

But … there is a careful and responsible way that we can approximate the word count of biblical books (just as we approximate the New Testament text through textual criticism).

Five issues to consider:

1. What edition/translation will you count from? And does your Bible software count non-biblical text?

Peter Goeman is probably using the Nestle-Aland 28 Greek New Testament for his word counts (but he doesn’t say). This is fine, but the edition used should be stated explicitly since there are other Greek texts available, such as the Tyndale House Greek New Testament, SBL Greek New Testament, Robinson & Pierpont’s Byzantine Textform, and the Textus Receptus.

These will all have different word counts than NA28.

And one issue of using Bible software to count words is that it’ll usually include the books titles as well (e.g. προς Ρωμαιους), so these need to be subtracted out to get a precise count for NA28. I use Accordance and it will count book titles when you use an asterisk (*) in a word search and limit the search to one biblical book. Another example of counting non-biblical content is the THGNT, which has a marginal note from minuscule 1 on the long ending of Mark, which needs to be subtracted out from a Bible software’s word count of Mark.

The same applies to the Hebrew Old Testament, but that’s not my speciality so I’ll focus on New Testament.

2. What will you do with the Byzantine text, Textus Receptus, and Western text?

Yes, you could say these are all wrong and just follow NA28, but these texts still exist nonetheless and you have to account for them.

2.1 Robinson & Pierpont’s Byzantine New Testament text is substantially longer than NA28’s text (the lower margin of Robinson & Pierpont’s edition list all textual differences from NA27, so you could have fun on your next vacation and count how much longer the Byzantine text is 😬).

And NA28 has not 100% shut the door on longer Byzantine readings. There are UBS5 {B} or {C} ratings with longer Byzantine readings, which means the editors were open to their inclusion. In other words, some longer Byzantine readings rejected in the main text by NA28/UBS5 could be the original text and would thus increase word count. (This is what the ECM does in a limited number of cases).

2.2 The Western text of Acts is about 8-10% longer than Westcott & Hort’s text of Acts, which is fairly close to NA28 (see Metzger’s Textual Commentary, p. 223). In the early 20th century, there were some who thought Western text of Acts was truer to the original (e.g. Albert Clark). But I don’t think anyone really thinks so anymore (if I’m wrong, please correct me).

In any attempt to provide word counts of biblical books, I think we should acknowledge the alternative texts and say explicitly if we are rejecting these alternative texts.

3. What will you do with the ECM and THGNT?

Both the new Editio Critica Major (ECM) and Tyndale House Greek New Testament make small moves towards longer Byzantine readings, and thus might have increased word counts compared to NA28.

The ECM text of Acts, Mark, and Revelation will be adopted in NA29, so the word count will change once again.

On the other hand, sometimes these two texts will be shorter than NA28 — but either way, these two editions should be accounted for.

4. A cross-comparison of editions is a decent starting place for producing a word count of a biblical book…

I prepared this for a paper presentation on Acts in 2024:

It’s a Google sheet than you can view: “Word count of Acts?” Everyone who views the spreadsheet has commenting privileges, to help fix mistakes or raise some other issue.

4.1 I added in the Latin Vulgate just for fun since our modern chapter system was created based on the Latin Bible, not the Greek Bible. Stephen Langton (who created the modern chapter divisions for Acts) wanted to create chapters of roughly equal length. The only way to test how well Langton did is to do a word count of the Latin Vulgate text of Acts (which won’t be Langton’s exact text, but it’s good enough as a start). But it is striking how the Latin Vulgate text of Acts is roughly 2,000 - 2,200 words shorter than the various Greek texts. This can’t be accounted for just by grammatical differences among the two languages. I need to look into this more by finding studies on the Latin text of Acts. But … Langton did not do a good job in making the chapters of Acts to be of roughly equal length 😩

4.2 Codex Bezae is a major representative of the Western text (yes, yes — this is disputed, but the basic point holds). Unfortunately, Bezae is not extant for all of Acts, so we can’t do an overall comparison. But you can compare specific chapters where Bezae is fully extant (* indicates the chapter in Bezae is fragmentary).

For example, Acts chapter 15 has 94 more words in Bezae than NA28. That’s substantial — although almost no modern text critic would favor the Western text of Acts.

I don’t include the ECM of Acts because there is no searchable version of ECM Acts.

5. But even my chart has problems — what about brackets in NA28 and {C}/{D} ratings in UBS5?

5.1 There’s hundreds of single bracketed readings [] in NA28, which indicate editorial uncertainty and which could have been omitted by the editors. In other words, the editors had a difficult time deciding between including or omitting the bracketed words.

If you omitted some or all of NA28’s bracketed words, there would be a substantial difference in word count.

5.2 NA28’s double brackets [[ ]] indicate passages that are clearly not original (according to the editors), but they chose to still include it in the main text (such as the long ending of Mark and Pericope of the Adulteress). Bible software will include these doubled bracketed texts in a word count, so these definitely should be subtracted out and will substantially change the word count of Mark and John.

5.3 There are {C} and {D} ratings in UBS5 which didn’t receive brackets. This is a major inconsistency that has been constantly pointed out in reviews going back to UBS1. Every {C} and {D} rating should theoretically receive brackets, but that’s not always the case in the UBS editions. These {C} and {D} ratings indicate high editorial uncertainty, so these are even more words that could be omitted and thus reduce word count in NA28 even further.

My chart of Acts above doesn’t take into account bracketed words and non-bracketed {C}/{D} ratings because it’s quite tedious work. But doing so would further improve my chart.

Does this all really matter??? 🧐

If we’re just interested in knowing the length of books, not really.

The fluctuation among editions will usually be a small amount. But Acts is a special case because the Textus Receptus and Western text are hundreds of words longer than NA28 (and the Byzantine text ends up adopting some of these Western readings while rejecting several Textus Receptus readings).

But I think this whole exercise shows two things: (1) When people give an exact word count with no alternative texts and no accounting for textual uncertainty, they are assuming NA28 to be the original text and are making no effort to untangle difficult textual issues. By ignoring other editions, they overlook variants that NA28 rejected yet some of those rejected readings (esp. those with {C} or {D} UBS ratings) could be the original text and affect interpretation.

(2) We get a sense of why there was so much backlash against Westcott & Hort and critical text advocates in the 19th century by those who favored the Textus Receptus. If Westcott & Hort (and by extension, NA28) were just omitting 10-15 words in a book, meh — who cares, it wouldn’t affect much. But the Byzantine text of Acts is ~220 words longer than NA28 and the Textus Receptus of Acts is ~360 words longer than NA28. That’s a substantial amount of additional content.

In other words, the difference isn’t just about adding some conjunctions and articles and prepositions. Interpretation and translation are affected.

Here’s 12 passages in Acts where the Byzantine text and/or TR adds 4+ words and has a significant difference from NA28:

But even if we reject all the Byzantine longer readings in Acts (as both THGNT and NA28 do), we still recover reception history based on what scribes added and we learn how others read Scripture.

tl;dr — conclusion?

It’s really complicated to produce a word count of the biblical books because we don’t possess the original autographs.

What I would do is indicate which precise edition I am using and say something like “there are approximately 18,452 words in NA28’s edition of Acts, but this number could go down substantially if we took out bracketed text.”

I would also always include the Byzantine text as a comparison (which also has split Byzantine readings!) and say something like: “there are approximately 18,671 words in Robinson & Pierpont’s Byzantine text of Acts — roughly 219 more words than NA28. But this number could go down depending on how we handle split Byzantine readings.”

And usually the Textus Receptus and Byzantine text are pretty close in word count, but in the case of Acts, the Textus Receptus is roughly 140 words longer than the Byzantine text and 359 words longer than NA28.

So in the case of Acts, I would add something about the Textus Receptus: “there are approximately 18,811 words in the Textus Receptus — roughly 140 words longer than the Byzantine text or 359 words longer than NA28. This number could change depending how we handle minor variations among Textus Receptus editions.”

I know this isn’t as fun or as easy as giving an exact word count for all biblical books 😭 🥲

But my suggested method is closer to the truth and shows how important textual criticism is!!! 😬

p. s. — someone will probably object that Peter doesn’t say that he is giving an exact word count, which is true. But a sense of exactness is what comes across when where are no caveats, no language of approximation (e.g. “about/roughly/approximately 10,000 words”), no mention of other Greek editions.

p. p. s. — Back in April 2023, Patrick Schreiner did preliminary word counts for all the New Testament books; I had these same critiques of his initial version, so he revised it and produced a Word Count for New Testament Chapters (on Twitter/X). Patrick didn’t implement everything I suggest here, but he did take into account some of my points and offer more caveats.

p. p. p. s. — Our inability to give exact word counts should extend to Greek NT vocabulary lists. I’m maybe wrong, but the practice of giving exact word counts for NT Greek vocabulary seems to have coincided with the Nestle-Aland editions becoming a “new Textus Receptus” in the 1980s/1990s (e.g., many beginning grammars like Mounce; Wallace’s reader’s lexicon; Murray J. Harris on prepositions). Especially for words that occur very frequently (conjunctions and prepositions), it’s probably impossible to give a precise word count since even NA28/ECM/THGNT are so often uncertain about conjunctions and prepositions.

Also, thanks to Daniel Buck for pointing out an error (now corrected) on how much longer the Western text is.

Initial thoughts/observations:

1. Physically — it comes in at 590 pages + 36 pages of introduction, although it is the same small size as Metzger’s Textual Commentary and uses the same very thin “Bible-like” paper, so text from the other side “bleeds” through. Metzger’s edition had a leather cover, but this has a normal hardcover, so it feels less premium.

2. Houghton’s Textual Commentary is not a reporting of the UBS6 committee’s decisions, but it’s his own work. The UBS6 adopts all ECM textual changes in Mark, Acts, and Revelation. But elsewhere, the text remains the same as UBS5/NA28. So the UBS6 committee didn’t make any textual decisions — they simply adopted the ECM’s changes to NA28. Houghton does try and defend the UBS6 text while “indicating which of the alternative readings are worthy of serious consideration” (p. 35*).

3. The UBS6 editorial committee did, however, re-evaluate the letter ratings, so often levels of certainty will change between UBS5 and UBS6. And some readings with brackets in UBS5 were changed to having no brackets in UBS6. And there are still some diamond readings where the UBS6 committee did not reach a decision, but this is far lower than the number of split readings in the ECM volumes. There are only 47 diamond readings in UBS6. Compare with ECM Mark (126 split lines), ECM Acts (155 split lines), ECM Catholic Epistles (43 split lines), and ECM Revelation (106 split lines). Thus, whereas the ECM volumes present a far more uncertain text than UBS4/NA27, the UBS6 moves back towards a more confident text overall.

4. It’s very helpful that Houghton is aware of so much of the secondary literature, so he cites many places where you can go to find further discussion. And it’s not just pointing to ECM Textual Commentary, but to journal articles, book chapters, discussions within books on other topics, etc. Metzger didn’t do this. Houghton’s commentary becomes a very good first stop on the way to more textual research.

5. Houghton doesn’t attempt to list many witnesses, but consistently refers the reader to the Text und Textwert data. This is probably the right move since abbreviating the data can distort the external evidence. But not many people have access to all the Text und Textwert volumes. The UBS6 has its own apparatus, of course, but Houghton does discuss 224 passages not covered in the UBS6 apparatus.

6. Like many British commentators, Houghton’s style is to lay out all the options as fairly as possible — but often leaves you in suspense. You read through an entry, get a good sense of the different options, but you have no idea which option Houghton prefers. The letter ratings do help a bit (e.g. {D} rating means Houghton doesn’t prefer the main text reading like at Rom 5:1 and 2 Pet 3:10). But there are only 18 {D} ratings total in UBS6.

7. Houghton consistently interacts with the SBLGNT and THGNT and highlights when they differ from the UBS6 text. This gives the correct impression that there are viable alternative options. It de-monopolizes the UBS text and encourages readers to consult multiple editions. And it’s an act of “scholarly humility” in highlighting the work of other textual scholars.

Random Sampling of Textual Commentary

Matt 5:22 omit εἰκῆ {B} rating (UBS5 also had {B} rating). Houghton cites three studies arguing to include εἰκῆ. But εἰκῆ is missing from witnesses “which are early and weighty” (p. 8). Notice him using the term “weighty” witnesses rather than “Alexandrian.”

Mark 1:1 include υἱοῦ τοῦ θεοῦ {C} rating; UBS4/5 read υἱοῦ θεοῦ with {C} rating. Houghton gives arguments from the CBGM and cites several studies. There is a discrepancy here between the ECM and UBS6 editors: ECM had no uncertainty (i.e. no split line reading) in printing υἱοῦ τοῦ θεοῦ, but UBS6 editors have a {C} rating.

Mark 1:41 σπλαγχνισθεὶς {B} rating. Since ὀργισθείς is only found in the Greek-Latin manuscript Codex Bezae and a few other Latin witnesses, Houghton has a helpful observation: “the similarity between the two words in Latin (miseratus ‘moved with pity,’ iratus ‘moved with anger’) provides a means by which the word ‘anger’ may have been introduced into the Greek side of a bilingual manuscript” (p. 76). Houghton cites many studies here.

Luke 22:43-44 (Jesus sweating blood) {B} rating. Sounds like these verses will be removed from the text whereas NA28 had double brackets around the verses. UBS4 had {A} rating for omission, but UBS5/6 have {B} rating for omission, so Houghton is a bit less certain about omission.

Luke 23:34a (“Father forgive them…”) {B} rating. Sounds like this will be removed from the text whereas NA28 had double brackets around it. UBS4/5 had {A} rating for omission, but UBS6 downgrades to a {B} rating and cites literature arguing for its originality.

John 1:18 μονογενὴς θεός {B} rating (same rating as UBS4/5). Houghton explains his doubt: “given that both [θεός and ὑιός] were customarily abbreviated as nomina sacra, there remains a slight possibility that, at an early point, ΥC (with an overline) might have been misread as ΘC.” (p. 198)

Romans 5:1 ἔχομεν {D} rating (UBS4/5 had {A} rating). Houghton’s {D} rating is quite significant since UBS4/5 both had an {A} rating for ἔχομεν; high confidence has shifted to high uncertainty. Houghton gives arguments for both the indicative ἔχομεν and the subjunctive ἔχωμεν and doesn’t come across as favoring one over the other. Houghton is the editor for the ECM of Romans, so I suspect he will print a split line reading here. On ἔχωμεν, he says: “it may be noted that this verb is co-ordinated with the subjunctive καυχώμεθα (‘let us boast’) in the following verse, and there is a further subjunctive at the beginning of the next sentence” (p. 388).

2 Peter 3:10 οὐχ εὑρεθήσεται {D} rating. Houghton focuses on the NA28/ECM/UBS6 conjecture (οὐχ εὑρεθήσεται) and the text adopted in THGNT (εὑρεθήσεται); he doesn’t really side with either, hence the {D} rating. However, the changes in uncertainty are interesting: UBS4 had {D} rating, UBS5 had {C} rating, and UBS6 goes back to the {D} rating of UBS4. This uncertainty contrasts with the ECM editors, who confidently adopted οὐχ εὑρεθήσεται (i.e., no split line).

Overall? Comparison to Tyndale House Textual Commentary?

Houghton has produced a great replacement for Metzger (but Metzger will still be useful, for example on subscriptions!) Houghton’s work will become a standard reference work and a good starting place for textual research since he points to so many additional studies.

Now we await Dirk Jongkind’s Textual Commentary on the Tyndale House Greek New Testament. I’ve read through large parts of the draft and I can say that Jongkind and Houghton will complement one another well with different approaches within reasoned eclecticism (e.g., no CBGM in Jongkind, more weight on early evidence and scribal habits in Jongkind, the reader almost always knows which variant Jongkind prefers). And Jongkind will provide many appendices with grammatical/syntactical studies — such as the addition/omission of Amen at the end of books (this one is my favorite), the use/non-use of the article with proper names in John’s Gospel, and discussions of spelling issues.

CLARIFICATION: Peter Gurry noted how UBS6 will not omit any verses at all, even if the editors think the text is not original. Double brackets will be used.

I think Houghton might have finished his commentary before they made the UBS6 committee made that decision because his commentary makes it sound like verses are omitted. The entries omitting entire verses always say "omit verse" etc.

I would have expected Houghton to put the text in double brackets if double brackets were going to be used in the main text -- which is what Metzger did in his Textual Commentary. But the UBS6 introduction makes clear that double brackets will be used for passages like Luke 22:43-44 and 23:34.

And there are two other early instances of ekthesis as well:

P.Mich.Inv. 622 (dated to 42 A.D.) is an abstract of contracts registered at the writing office of Kerkesoucha Orous near Tebtynis (in the Fayum area of Middle Egypt).2

And P.Oxy. 2545 is dated to the late first century B.C. or early first century A.D.:3

E. G. Turner claims that ‘hexameter verses begin in ekthesis.’4 But the left margin of the manuscript is lacunose, so we cannot visually verify an ekthesis (see image above).

P.Oxy. 2545 contains Aristophanes, Equities, lines 1057–76 and based on reconstructing the lines, the editors of P.Oxy. 2545 say that the ‘hexameters begin about five letters further to the left (i.e. in ecthesis [sic]) than the trimeters.’

The scholia on Aristophanes, Equities, lines 1067–1069 say that these three lines are written ἐν ἐκθέσει ἐπικοὶ τρεῖς (‘in three epic lines with ekthesis’).5 My own reconstruction of the text confirms that there must have been ekthesis in P.Oxy. 2545.

What is interesting is that these are from different locations: the Judaean desert and middle Egypt (Oxyrhynchus and Fayum).

So, I think it's likely that the New Testament authors used some visual textual divisions, whether punctuation dots, ekthesis, or paragraphos markings.

But these would have been sporadic and not systematically used. And it's a separate question whether we can recover these...

I spoke to them about my research on Ephesians — the textual divisions we find in ancient Greek and Latin manuscripts.

They had some great questions afterwards and it was nice to speak with some of them afterwards.

These are the three takeaways I had for them:

Here are the slides if you want to see them.

The reception history of Ephesians is uncovered from these manuscripts, and it was an ancient and influential reception history.

In the past two months, I’ve given two talks to very different audiences and with varying material:

• On 8 April at the Birmingham Colloquium of NTTC, I gave a talk for textual critics, so it’s more technical and more focused on the methodology of creating an apparatus. I didn’t have time to get into any exegetically significant examples. And there was only 2 minutes for Q&A. I critiqued ECM Revelation editor Martin Karrer in my paper, so it was nice to have in the room, hear his question/comment, and speak with him more afterwards.

• On 4 June at Tyndale House Cambridge, I gave a talk for readers and staff aimed at a general level. I cut down the technical/methodological stuff and went more into exegetically significant examples from Ephesians 1-2 (and 5:22 in the Q&A). There was about 15 minutes for Q&A, so lots of questions.

The Birmingham Colloquium version is available on the IGNTP’s YouTube page:

And here are the Appendices and the PowerPoint from the Birmingham conference.

The version given at Tyndale House is available as an audio recording. You can also access the handout and the PowerPoint.

And I’ll be giving this talk a third time when Fred Sanders and students from the Torrey Honors College visit Tyndale House on 16 July. This will be adjusted even more for undergraduate students who have little to no experience working with manuscripts. I’ll have more pictures and focus on the exegetically significant examples; I probably won’t talk much (if at all) about the apparatus and methodology.

I recently gave feedback to two graduate students submitting paper proposals to the SBL annual meeting and this led me to think about what makes for a good paper proposal.

We all know that publishing is important for academia, but conference presentations are also important, especially for beginning graduate students, so it’s important to get paper proposals accepted.

Generally, regional ETS/SBL conferences are fairly easy to get accepted, even if you write a bad proposal. But it’s the national conferences in November that are more competitive and difficult, especially SBL because there is more international participation at SBL, so you’re competing against those from Europe and elsewhere.

I had my first several ETS/SBL national paper proposals all rejected 🥲, before finally getting accepted in 2018 at ETS National and in 2023 for SBL national.

Here’s a few thoughts on writing a good proposal:

1. Know your audience.

The ETS/SBL section chairs will read your proposals and you can find out exactly who these are under the SBL Program Unit Call for Papers:

For the SBL program units, you will need to search for the specific program unit that you want to submit a paper for. Then under “Details” you will be able to see who the section chairs are.

For ETS, see the Program Units Overview and look for the section you want to participate in. There you will find the members of the Steering Committee.

You should probably already know the section chairs / steering committee from your own research, but they are experts in the field, well-published, and well-connected. These people run major research projects, have written massive exegetical commentaries, and are well-read in the field. So if you argue for something obvious, hard to disagree with, or already dealt with — they will know!

A good paper proposal usually requires a bit of research already finished, in order to get a sense of what you can argue. And as you write, imagine these people sitting in front of you and anticipate their objections.

2. Know the “fads” — what has your field been talking about recently?

Your proposal needs to appeal to the section chairs and be interesting to them, which means proposing a topic that fits with what your field has been talking about.

SBL is more “faddish” than ETS in the sense that SBL is more interested in new methodologies (e.g., AI, digital humanities), new perspectives (feminist, postcolonial, LGBTQ, etc.), and inter-disciplinary dialogue. You can sometimes get away with a fairly traditional exegesis of a passage at ETS, but probably not at SBL.

In my field of textual criticism, scribal habits has been an area of increased interest in the past 20 years. I told the grad student who asked for my advice to adjust his paper so that he discussed scribal habits in each manuscript he will use by looking at how the scribe functioned across the whole New Testament. Then he could apply what he learned to the one specific passage he wanted to focus on from Hebrews.

This adjustment would be a lot more work and more data heavy, but far more interesting and useful. Dirk Jongkind has told me several times that good and accurate data gathering will always be useful. Someone else can disagree with how you interpret the data or how you use the data — but the data itself will remain useful. And others may take your data and take it in directions you never imagined.

3. Have an argument, methodology, contribution, and road map.

These things can be hard to articulate if you haven’t written the full paper yet, but these are the elements of a good proposal. Without these elements, your proposal will be weak and easy to reject.

ARGUMENT

The best test that you have an actual argument is: Do and can people disagree with you? Or is you argument not really even disprovable because it is obvious?

This is harder than it sounds, which is why getting a second opinion can be helpful.

Often reading more secondary literature will give you a good sense of different arguments on an issue, and you can decide which side you want to defend or argue against. Early PhD students often haven’t read enough of the secondary literature to know what has and has not already been argued.

Also — going back to “old” sources (early 20th or 19th century) can be fruitful. I was recently studying the Long Ending of Mark and didn’t realize that Samuel Tregelles from the 19th century had made an argument that I’d not really seen in 20th/21st century textual scholarship. Namely, that the Long Ending of Mark is not original to Mark’s Gospel, but it should still be considered canonical.

METHODOLOGY

When people first get into academia, it is hard to grasp that methodology is very important. How you argue for something is just as important as what you argue for.

But honestly — you don’t always have to come up with a brand new methodology; you can take a good methodology developed by others and apply it to something new.

For example, the grad student I was helping wanted to talk about scribal harmonization towards the Septuagint in Hebrews. A lot of good work on scribal harmonization has already been done — but mainly in the Gospels. So I recommended that he follow the methodology laid out by others, but say that he would apply it to the epistles.

CONTRIBUTION

Everyone knows that good scholarship makes a “contribution” to existing scholarship. But the idea of “contribution” is often misunderstood to be something brand new and never before seen (which is really, really hard to do!)

However, there are easier ways to make small, incremental contributions:

1. Apply an old methodology to a new problem.

2. Apply a new methodology to an old problem.

3. Add new data/evidence to an old problem.

Such contributions are not completely new, but take what is already available and move your discipline forward.

ROAD MAP

The road map should be your main points, so that people get a sense of how your argument will progress and move towards a satisfying conclusion. This is easier if you’ve already done a lot of the work. But even if not, you should still be able to articulate the logical progression of the paper.

Any other advice you’d give?

EDIT: April 26, 2025

Both of my SBL paper proposals were accepted for the 2025 conference.

Here are links to my proposals for your reference and as an example of accepted proposals:

• Nelson’s SBL Paper Proposal: 1 Peter According to the Paratext of Greek and Latin Manuscripts

• Nelson’s SBL Paper Proposal: An Evaluation of ECM Revelation’s vol. 3.2 and Segmentation Apparatus

I hope this helps!

There's at least seven different chapters systems in the Latin tradition, all with accompanying titles. But we only have two chapter systems in the Greek tradition (and only one of them also has titles — the Euthalian κεφάλαια system) 🤔

This is Codex Amiatinus from the early 8th century:

It begins with a list of 31 chapters for Ephesians, along with titles.

My sense is that “chapters” is not quite the right English word to describe what Codex Amiatinus is doing. They are more like numbered sections/paragraphs.

Donatien De Bruyne has a monograph, Sommaires, Divisions et Rubriques de la Bible Latine, which records data on Latin chapter systems:

Codex Amiatinus falls into De Bruyne's A group and you can see the precise divisions below:

I think Codex Amiatinus does a very good job in structuring Ephesians into 31 sections. It follows the literary contours and flow of Paul’s thought.

I would love any bibliographic recommendations on Latin capitula. In addition to De Bruyne, so far I've looked at:

• Thomasius, Opera Omnia, tomus primus continens sacrorum bibliorum veteres titulos sectiones (1747).

• P.-M. Bogaert, "Les particularités éditoriales des Bibles comme exégèse implicite ou proposée, Les sommaires ou capitula donatistes," in Lectures Bibliques: Colloque du 11 novembre 1980 Bruxelles.

• Samuel Berger, “Les chapitres et les sommaires des livres de la bible,” in Historie de la Vulgate (1893).

• Hermann Josef Frede, Excursus 2 in Vetus Latina 25.1, pp. 120-31.

• Hugh A. G. Houghton, “Chapter Divisions, Capitula Lists, and the Old Latin Versions of John,” Revue Bénédictine 121.2 (2011): 316–56.

• Maniaci, “Chapter lists in Giant and Beneventan Bibles” in Synopses and Lists: Textual Practices in the Pre-Modern World (Cambridge: Open Book Publishers, 2023), 282-321.

This can be jarring since we are accustomed to finding Romans right after Acts 🧐

So why the did THGNT editors “mess up” the order of NT books?

The THGNT editors ordered the New Testament books based on manuscript evidence.

We don’t get a manuscript containing the entire New Testament until the fourth century with Codex Sinaiticus. Even after Sinaiticus, most manuscripts don’t contain the entire New Testament, but portions of it. According to Peter Gurry:

Only around sixty of our Greek manuscripts contain all twenty-seven books of the New Testament. Another 150 or so contain all but Revelation.

— Scribes & Scripture (Crossway, 2022), 86.

The most common grouping of writings into one codex were:

• The four Gospels

• Acts + the Catholic Epistles (Jas, 1-2 Pet, 1-3 John, Jude)

• The 14 Pauline Epistles (Hebrews was considered Pauline according to the manuscript tradition)

• Revelation

In other words, an entire “New Testament” would have been four separate volumes.

But keeping Acts together with the Catholic Epistles is well-attested, so the THGNT follows this custom.

The order of books in our earliest manuscripts containing the entire NT

If we look at our earliest three manuscripts containing the entire (or almost the entire New Testament), we see the following ordering:

Notice how the THGNT is following the order found in Codex Vaticanus and Codex Alexandrinus.

And even though Codex Sinaiticus has the Catholic Epistles after Paul (like our modern Bibles and editions), it stills keeps Acts together with the Catholic Epistles because that was the custom among smaller groupings of the New Testament.

Does order matter?

What’s the effect of having the Catholic Epistles after Acts, instead of after Paul?

Well, this certainly follows the structure of Acts itself: Peter and James are major characters in the first twelve chapters of Acts. But from Acts 13 and onwards, Paul shifts to become the main character.

But I can also see how finishing Acts 28 with Paul preaching the gospel in prison flows nicely into reading the Pauline epistles.

I think we are often unaware of how the order in which we read the Bible matters. See the writings of Greg Goswell below for more reflection on this topic.

Other variations in ordering

Within these groupings, there are many other variations, but the following two variations are notable:

1. The so-called “Western” ordering of the Gospels has the sequence Matthew-John-Luke-Mark; this seems to give prominence to the two apostles and downgrades Mark to last 🥲

2. Within the Pauline epistles, Hebrews moves around quite considerably. Today, we have Hebrews at the end of the Pauline epistles after Philemon (although I guess you could also view its placement as the “beginning” of the General Epistles?). But as you see above in Codices Sinaiticus and Alexandrinus — Hebrews was placed after 2 Thessalonians and before 1 Timothy, in other words, it was placed between the epistles to churches and the epistles to individuals. But we have variations like Hebrews being placed between Romans and 1 Corinthians in P46. The THGNT editors thought about following the placement of Hebrews in Codices Sinaiticus and Alexandrinus, but decided they had already “messed up” the ordering enough and didn’t want to confuse users more.

I won’t offer all the evidence for these orderings here, but can point you to further resources on each of these topics…

RESOURCES FOR FURTHER STUDY:

Generally on the order of the NT books:

• Bruce M. Metzger, “Appendix II: Variations in the Sequence of the Books of the New Testament,” in The Canon of the New Testament: Its Origin, Development, and Significance (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987), 295-300.

• Greg Goswell, “The Order of the Books of the New Testament,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 53.2 (2010): 225–41.

• Gregory Goswell, Text and Paratext (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Academic, 2022), 54-75.

On the so-called “Western” ordering of the Gospels:

• Matthew Crawford, “A New Witness to the ‘Western’ Ordering of the Gospels: GA 073 + 084,” JTS 69 (2018): 477–83.

• Andrew J. Patton, “Greek Catenae and the ‘Western’ Order of the Gospels,” NovT 64 (2022): 115–29.

On the position of Hebrews among the Pauline epistles:

• Charles P. Anderson, “The Epistle to the Hebrews and the Pauline Letter Collection,” Harvard Theological Review 59.4 (1966): 429–38.

• William H. P. Hatch, “The Position of Hebrews in the Canon of the New Testament,” Harvard Theological Review 29.2 (1936): 133–51.

• Robert W. Wall, “A Canonical Approach to the Paratext of Hebrews,” in Studies in Canonical Criticism: Reading the New Testament as Scripture (London: T&T Clark, 2020), 142-46.

P.S. Thanks to Jeff Cate for some helpful suggestions to improve the chart of Codices Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus, and Vaticanus.

The episode is on “Textual Criticism during the Reformation.”

Find it on Apple Podcasts:

Or on Spotify:

I found Peter Gurry's talk at ETS in 2023 to be helpful in preparing for the podcast: https://bit.ly/4i0QQPo

The series is aimed at the lay level, so we don’t go into great detail and don’t chase down all the current academic debates (no take down of the CBGM, sorry!).

But we hope it will be helpful to a wide audience and could serve as an introduction to New Testament Textual Criticism and manuscripts.

The first four episodes are out now (with YouTube links):

1. What is a manuscript and why should we study them?

2. What does a manuscript look like?

3. Major New Testament manuscripts and their impact on modern day Bibles

4. How did the early church handle differences between manuscripts?

The next four will be on:

• Textual Criticism and the Reformation

• Textual Criticism during Modern Times

• Textual Divisions in New Testament Manuscripts

• The Tyndale House Greek New Testament

You can find the episodes on Spotify:

And on Apple Podcasts:

Project leader Martin Karrer gave a 90-minute overview at the British New Testament Society (BNTS) meeting on August 23, 2024.

Here’s my summary and takeaways...

(1) During Q&A, Garrick Allen asked Karrer (paraphrased): "What are your hopes and dreams for ECM Revelation in terms of impact?"​

His answer was surprising and encouraging to me personally. Karrer said:

My hope and dream is that future New Testaments will restructure the punctuation. I think [punctuation] is the most important innovation [of ECM Revelation]. . . . The most changes [to NA28] are concerning punctuation. ​ And why do I dream of the new punctuation? Punctuation is very important for interpretation. ​

The punctuation of Revelation in Nestle-Aland 28 is very strange, but you don't see it [until you contrast it with the punctuation of the Greek manuscript tradition]. ​

ECM Revelation introduces 834 places of new/different punctuation when compared to NA28. All of these are discussed in the punctuation commentary in ECM Rev, vol. 3.2 (p. 242 gives the statistics). And a punctuation apparatus drawn from Greek manuscripts is provided below the textual apparatus, so that users can evaluate the punctuation decisions of the editors.

NOTE: The editions of the UBS Greek NT have provided a punctuation ("discourse segmentation") apparatus, but these have been drawn from punctuation and paragraphing of critical editions and translations, NOT from Greek manuscripts. ​

ECM Rev, vol. 3.2, page 243 gives twelve examples of "sementically relevant changes," in other words, punctuation changes that the editors thought significantly affect the meaning/interpretation of the text.

​One example is Rev 22:16b: does the phrase, ο αστηρ ο λαμπρος ο πρωινος ("the bright morning star") refer to Jesus, or not? (As made famous in Bach's chorale, "How brightly shines the Morning Star") ​

ECM Rev's new punctuation has "bright morning star" belong with the two subjects in v. 17 ("The bright morning star and the Spirit and the bride say, 'Come.'"). Thus "bright morning star" is not a description of Jesus, but a separate individual/thing. ​

Based on the similar expression in Rev 2:28, Karrer writes:

We can think of the morning star as a symbol of heavenly power and dominion. The morning star calls to Christ as the first star of the heavenly host. . . . the morning star, symbol of the stars between the first and the new heavens, together with the spirit and the bride (the heavenly Jerusalem), calls for Jesus to come

ECM Revelation, vol. 3.2, p. 367. ​

(2) ECM Revelation introduces the following changes:​

• 84 "new initial readings" (NIR)

• 106 "split guiding lines" (SGL)

• 81 places of "new initial orthography" (NIO)

• Cites the readings of modern editions from Erasmus onwards since these modern editions often introduced readings not found in any Greek mss, and these readings entered into translations

• Provides a full listing of the ancient chapter system (κεφαλαια) integrated alongside the main text in vol. 1, and with the titles given in vol. 3.2

• The nomina sacra are printed at 255 locations covering a wide range of words: ανθρωπος, δαυιδ, θεος, ιερουσαλημ, ιησους, ισραηλ, κυριος, μητηρ, ουρανος, πατηρ, πνευμα, πνευματικως, υιος, υιος ανθρωπου, χριστος. ​ (see ECM Rev, vol. 1, pages 47*-59*) ​

During his presentation, Karrer drew attention to a few of these that seemed most important to him: ​

2.1 Significant New initial readings (according to Karrer)​

2.1.1 ECM Rev omits Rev 20:5a

Rev 20:5a has 11 words: οι λοιποι των νεκρων ουκ εζησαν αχρι τελεσθη τα χιλια ετη ("the rest of the dead did not come to life until the 1,000 years ended"), but ECM Revelation considers these words to be an interpretive gloss, and thus removed it from the initial/original text. ​

This is less radical than I initially thought; it is somewhat implicit in the resurrection of the martyrs (20:4) that not everyone is resurrected yet, so if 20:5a is an interpolation/interpretive gloss, it just makes more explicit what was implicit in 20:4. ​

2.1.2 ECM Rev changes the reading at Rev 21:6:

I have discussed this elsewhere with lots of responses.

NA28 reads:

γεγοναν. εγω [ειμι] το α και το ω

"It is finished. I am the Alpha and the Omega" ​

ECM reads:

γεγονα εγω το α και το ω

"I have become the Alpha and the Omega"

In the punctuation commentary, the editors write that the new reading "contains a nuance of becoming, i.e. of a history in which God confirms what he always already is, the A and O" (ECM Rev, vol. 3.2, p. 356). ​

In Karrer's slides, he suggested that "The Greek idea of God's immutability influences the [NA28] reading" here at Rev 21:6 in Codex Alexandrinus and Codex Sinaiticus's corrector. ​

2.1.3 ECM Rev changes the final saying in Rev 22:20:

NA28 reads:

η χαρις του κυριου Ιησου μετα παντων

"The grace of the Lord Jesus be with everyone"

ECM reads:

η χαρις του κυριου Ιησου μετα παντων των αγιων

"The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all the saints"

The universalistic benediction ("with everyone") becomes more particular ("with all the saints"). In Karrer's slides, he suggested that "An optimistic idea of universal grace spreads" in Sinaiticus and the Old Latin reading adopted in NA28. ​

2.2 Significant New initial orthography/spelling (according to Karrer)​

2.2.1 ιερουσαλημ -- smooth or rough breathing? ​

Following the Greek manuscripts (which the Tyndale House GNT does as well), ECM Rev prints the rough breathing, so ιερουσαλημ is pronounced as Hierusalem, not Jerusalem. ​

2.2.2 αλληλουια -- smooth or rough breathing? ​

Following the Greek manuscripts (which the Tyndale House GNT does as well), ECM Rev prints the smooth breathing, so αλληλουια is pronounced as Alleluia, not Hallelujah. ​

Both the ECM and THGNT editors insist that this may or may not have been the actual pronunciation, but it is what the manuscripts preserve. ​

(3) The title of "Revelation(s)"?​

Karrer had an interesting discussion of the titles of Revelation in Codex Sinaiticus. ​

"Titles" because there is not one single title in Codex Sinaiticus. ​

There is: (1) a superscription at the start, (2) a subscription at the end, and (3) running titles throughout the book in the top margins. ​

• Sinaiticus's superscription reads: αποκαλυψις ιωανου (singular "revelation" and John spelled with one nu) ​

• Sinaiticus's running titles read: αποκαλυψεις ιωαννου (plural "revelations" and John spelled with two nu's) ​

• Sinaiticus's subscription reads: αποκαλυψεις ιωαννου (plural "revelations" and John spelled with two nu's) ​

Karrer doesn't think this is an itacism, but a genuine plural form of αποκαλυψις. And Karrer said: "The plural ἀποκαλύψεις reminds of ἀποκαλύψεις in 2 Cor 12:1; I dare the interpretation: The John of Rev received heavenly 'disclosures' in seeing Christ, God's throne-room and the signs of Rev 6-22." ​

Shall we scold Sinaiticus' scribe for writing "Revelations"!? ​

(4) The witness of versions/fathers to variants not found in ECM Revelation.​

After Karrer's session, there were papers on the textual criticism of Revelation. ​

4.1 Erica Leonardi discussed Rev 2:2:

και επειρασας τους λεγοντας εαυτους αποστολους ειναι και ουκ εισιν, και ευρες αυτους ψευδεις ("And you test those who call themselves apostles and are not, and you find them to be liars") ​

Erica discussed a variant for αποστολους found only in versions, where they substitute "Jews/Hebrews" for apostles, revealing maybe an anti-Jewish bias. ​

ECM Revelation does not give this evidence since ECM only provides versional evidence if they believe it goes back to a Greek original, i.e. ECM will not provide versional variants that seem to have arisen only in the versions since ECM is focused on the Greek tradition. ​

This is where Tischendorf still has some value for reception history, since he cites the Armenian version and its reading "Jews/Hebrews" in Rev 2:2. ​

4.2 Andrea Riccardo Rossi gave a paper on patristic variants in Rev 20:1-10 which are not cited in ECM Revelation.

Andrea looked to pre-4th century patristic evidence to discover a variant at Rev 20:7: "after the seven-thousandth year" -- perhaps adding the number 7 to highlight the perfect/complete nature of a 7,000 year kingdom. ​

(5) The Nestle-Aland 29/UBS6 committee is not bound to adopt all of ECM Revelation's changes.

NA29/UBS6 are likely to adopt the 84 textual changes and 106 split guiding lines. But Karrer said they are hesitant to adopt ECM Revelation's new punctuation and use of nomina sacra. These new features are not found in the other ECM editions and will not be in other future ECM editions, so adding them would complicate NA29/UBS6. ​

Just FYI -- Nestle-Aland 29 and UBS6 will be edited by scholars from the INTF in Münster, Germany (Holger Strutwolf, Klaus Wachtel); from Birmingham, UK (David Parker, Hugh Houghton), as well as an Eastern Orthodox scholar (Christos Karakolis) and Roman Catholic scholar (Stephen Pisano, who passed away in 2019, so not sure how that works 🧐 but he is still listed as an editor), and representatives of the German Bible Society (Florian Voss) and United Bible Societies (Edgar Ebojo). ​

Martin Karrer and his ECM Revelation team were a separate editorial team working in Wuppertal, Germany, and Karrer is not part of the NA29/UBS6 editorial committee, so Karrer can't really control what the NA29 committee does and does not use from ECM Revelation. ​

CONCLUSION:​

ECM Revelation provides all the material needed not only to reconstruct the text and textual history of Revelation; it also provides the data needed to reconstruct how Revelation was structured at the macro level into chapters/paragraphs, how it was punctuated, and even how it was pronounced with new spellings/accents/breathing marks.

P.S. Martin Karrer has a journal article on ECM Revelation to be published with Theologische Literaturzeitung (ThLZ) soon. It is entitled, “Die Editio Critica Maior der Apokalypse und ihre Innovationen.”

P.P.S. At the request of those who funded the project, parts of ECM Revelation will become OPEN ACCESS after one year! (~July 2025?)

The fundamental belief of the NA26/27 editors was that the Byzantine text was a recension (i.e., a deliberate editorial effort) which consulted and combined two earlier text-types (Alexandrian and Western) and therefore has little value for establishing the original text.

Westcott & Hort and the Byzantine (Syrian) Text

The NA26/27 had slightly different editorial committees, but the most published and active members of both committees were Kurt Aland and Bruce Metzger. Aland and Metzger still held the view of Westcott & Hort (WH), who argued for a view of the Byzantine (or “Syrian”) text that dominated text-critical scholarship for over 100 years after the publication of their The New Testament in the Original Greek in 1881.

WH’s argument for the secondary nature of the Byzantine text had three pillars:[1]

1. The Byzantine text had conflate readings that combined readings from the Alexandrian and Western text-types. WH gave eight examples: Mark 6:33; 8:26; 9:38, 49; Luke 9:10; 11:54; 12:18; 24:53.[2]

2. The Byzantine text is not supported by any patristic evidence of the second and third centuries. The Byzantine text does not seem to show up until Chrysostom in the fourth century.

3. By internal evidence of transcriptional and intrinsic probabilities, the Byzantine text shows itself to be secondary. The chief characteristics of the Byzantine text are:

[L]ucidity and completeness. [The authors of the Byzantine text] were evidently anxious to remove all stumbling-blocks out of the way of the ordinary reader . . . New omissions accordingly are rare, and where they occur are usually found to contribute to apparent simplicity. New interpolations on the other hand are abundant, most of them being due to harmonistic or other assimilation . . . [The Byzantine text] delights in pronouns, conjunctions, and expletives and supplied links of all kinds, as well as in more considerable additions.[3]

Furthermore, WH conjectured that the Byzantine text was a recension in the proper sense of the term, namely, a careful process of revision via the consulting of numerous manuscripts, usually with specific editorial principles.

In WH’s own words: “The Syrian [= Byzantine] text must in fact be the result of a ‘recension’ in the proper sense of the word, a work of attempted criticism, performed deliberately by editors and not merely scribes.”[4] WH believed that “(1) the growing diversity and confusion of Greek texts led to an authoritative revision at Antioch, which (2) was then taken as a standard for a similar authoritative revision of the Syriac text, and (3) was itself at a later time subjected to a second authoritative revision, carrying out more completely the purposes of the first.”[5]

WH conjectured that Lucian of Antioch led this effort based on Jerome’s testimony, but it was not critical to their theory that the specific reviser be Lucian. Although much of WH’s theory has been disproven by NT textual critics, Kurt Aland’s estimation of Westcott & Hort still stands true today: WH “provided a methodological basis which enjoyed almost canonical status for decades for a considerable number of scholars (and still does today for many).”[6]

Bruce Metzger and the Lucianic Recension

The NA26/27 editors embraced much of WH’s theory and resulting rejection of the Byzantine text. For example, Bruce Metzger writes: “readings that are supported by only Koine or Byzantine witnesses (Hort’s Syrian group) may be set aside as almost certainly secondary.

The reason that one is justified in discarding the Koine is that it is a later text type, formed on the basis of earlier types.”[7] The language here is quite confident and dismissive: the Byzantine text can be “set aside” and “discarded” because it is “almost certainly secondary.” This sort of dismissive attitude is not limited to the NA26/27 editors, but can be found in most other textbooks of NT textual criticism in the 20^th century, such as Léon Vaganay & Christian-Bernard Amphoux,[8] and Harold Greenlee.[9]

Metzger & Ehrman give two arguments for the secondary nature of the Byzantine text: (1) it is late and (2) it was “formed on the basis of earlier types,” but they also reject the idea of a Lucianic recension in the 2005 edition of The Text of the New Testament.[10] However, their 2005 statement is at odds with Metzger’s earlier essay on the Lucianic recension in 1963, which made clear that he did indeed believe in a Lucianic recension as the origin of the Byzantine text type.[11]

I reviewed the first, second, and third editions of Metzger’s Text of the New Testament and discovered that Metzger himself did indeed believe in the Lucianic recension, while it was Ehrman who modified the fourth edition of Text of the New Testament to reject the Lucianic recension. In the first, second, and third editions of The Text of the New Testament, Metzger makes the same exact statement:

Readings which are supported by only Koine or Byzantine witnesses (Hort’s Syrian group) may be set aside as almost certainly secondary. The reason that justifies one in discarding the Koine type of text is that it is based on the recension prepared near the close of the third century by Lucian of Antioch, or some of his associates, who deliberately combined elements from earlier types of text.[12]

Thus, it should be clear that Bruce Metzger, one of the most influential members of the NA26/27 and UBS3/4 committees, believed in the Lucianic recension.

Kurt Aland and the Lucianic Recension

Chief editor of the NA26/27, Kurt Aland, also made clear that he believed in the theory of a Lucianic recension, although Aland believes that there was also earlier freedom in copying before Lucian. Aland writes: “Lucian created the ‘Antiochene text’ in the exegetical school at Antioch at the end of the third century during the forty-year period of freedom from persecution.”[13]

Aland also seems to endorse a softened version of Westcott & Hort’s conflation theory when he says, “when Lucian was editing the ‘Antiochene text,’ he had before him a manuscript (or manuscripts) that incorporated many elements of the ‘Majority text,’ but also extensively represented the original text, the text of the early period.”[14] I say “softened” version of Westcott & Hort’s conflation theory because Aland does not explicitly name Alexandrian and Western texts as Lucian’s exemplars, but rather speaks of “the text of the early period.”

Aland then describes the spread of Lucian’s recension: students of the Antiochene school “were called to serve as bishops of the numerous sees of Asia Minor and elsewhere . . . They brought ‘their’ text with them and naturally ordered its exclusive use in the scriptoria of their provinces, so that a tidal wave of manuscripts with the Antiochene (= early Byzantine) text flooded the Greek-speaking church.”

Yet Aland also clearly believes that the Byzantine text had stages and developed as a process; the Byzantine manuscripts “did not immediately supplant the earlier forms of text . . . this process was to take generations (most of the Byzantine manuscripts must have been introduced in churches as replacements of earlier manuscripts of different textual traditions).”[15]

Softening Westcott & Hort’s anti-Byzantine bias

However, the NA26/27 also softened WH’s firm rejection of the Byzantine text by opening the door for rare cases where the Byzantine text might preserve the original text. The main reason for this softening was the 20^th century discovery of NT papyri. WH developed their theory without the papyri, but numerous papyri have been found to preserve readings that were previously thought to be distinctively Byzantine (i.e., no Alexandrian or Western support).

Günther Zuntz and Harry Sturz were particularly important in demonstrating these “Byzantine-papyri alignments,” which suggested an early date for readings previously thought to be distinctively Byzantine (i.e., only supported by Byzantine witnesses).[16] An early date for these readings did not automatically mean they represent the original text, but the early date meant that these Byzantine-papyri alignments deserved a careful consideration.

On the whole, despite the papyri softening their anti-Byzantine viewpoint, Aland and Metzger still believed in a Lucianic recension as a conflation of the two earlier text-types (Alexandrian and Western). This belief reinforced their view that Byzantine readings were secondary and led to an anti-Byzantine bias in their decision making.

[1] Brooke Foss Westcott and Fenton John Anthony Hort, eds., The New Testament in the Original Greek, Volume 1: Introduction and Appendix (London: Macmillan and Co., 1881), 93–119.

[2] What made WH’s point here somewhat extreme is the statement that scribes “wrote with documents of both classes before them, or wrote from documents of one class which had readings from the other class written in the margin, or wrote from documents of one class while carrying in their own minds reminiscences from documents of the other class of which they had had knowledge at some previous time” (New Testament in the Original Greek, vol. 1, 106). WH never identified specific manuscripts that might actually support these scenarios.

[3] Westcott and Hort, The New Testament in the Original Greek, Volume 1, 134–35.

[4] Westcott and Hort, The New Testament in the Original Greek, Volume 1, 133.

[5] Westcott and Hort, The New Testament in the Original Greek, Volume 1, 137.

[6] Kurt Aland, “The Text of the Church?,” Trinity Journal 8 (1987): 134. Emphasis added.

[7] Metzger and Ehrman, The Text of the New Testament, 306. Emphases added.

[8] The Byzantine text “is a kind of ‘plenior’ text, one which is longer but also full of major faults. That does not make it entirely without value. Here and there, in one witness or another, there are a fair number of readings known to the Syrian communities of the first centuries. So there are some valuable elements in this mixture; they simply need to be decanted.” Léon Vaganay and Christian-Bernard Amphoux, An Introduction to New Testament Textual Criticism, trans. Jenny Heimerdinger (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 109.

[9] The Byzantine text is “a late text which is inferior to the other text-types. Of course, many Byzantine readings are supported by other evidence and are good readings. It is likewise possible that in some instances the true reading has been lost from the MSS of the other text-types and is preserved only in the Byzantine text. For this reason Byzantine readings must not automatically be rejected without examination. At the same time, the general impression given by readings that are characteristically Byzantine is that they are inferior and not likely to be original.” J. Harold Greenlee, Introduction to New Testament Textual Criticism, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 1995), 86. As to the nature of the Byzantine text, Greenlee says: “Byzantine readings are characteristically smooth, clear, and full. . . . One of the most common characteristics of the Byzantine text is the harmonization of parallel passages” (pp. 86–87).

[10] Metzger and Ehrman, The Text of the New Testament, 279. They say the Byzantine text’s “final form represents a slow developing tradition, not one that sprang up immediately at one time and place. It was not, in other words, a textual recension created by a single person or community.”

[11] Bruce M. Metzger, “The Lucianic Recension of the Greek Bible,” in Chapters in the History of New Testament Textual Criticism, NTTS 4 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1963), 1–41. This chapter was a revision of an earlier journal article: Bruce M. Metzger, “Lucian and the Lucianic Recension of the Greek Bible,” New Testament Studies 8, no. 3 (1962): 189–203. The Lucianic recension theory is also found in Vaganay and Amphoux, An Introduction to New Testament Textual Criticism, 109.

[12] Bruce M. Metzger, The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964), 212; Bruce M. Metzger, The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968), 212; Bruce M. Metzger, The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), 212.

[13] Aland, “The Text of the Church?,” 142.

[14] Aland, “The Text of the Church?,” 143.

[15] Aland, “The Text of the Church?,” 142–43.

[16] Harry A. Sturz, The Byzantine Text-Type and New Testament Textual Criticism (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1984), 55–69, 145–59; Günther Zuntz, The Text of the Epistles: A Disquisition upon the Corpus Paulinum (London: Oxford University Press, 1953), 49–57.

This is a revised excerpt from my dissertation’s discussion of Romans 5:1 (hopefully to be published with Brill):

Romans 5:1 is probably the most famous textual problem based on an ω–ο interchange that happens to be morphologically significant:

δικαιωθεντες … ειρηνην εχωμεν προς τον θεον THGNT; RP-Byz^mg

“Having been justified … let us have peace with God”

δικαιωθεντες … ειρηνην εχομεν προς τον θεον NA28; RP-Byz^txt; {A} rating UBS4/5; {C} rating UBS3

“Having been justified … we have peace with God”

The ω–ο interchange is a common type of textual variation that could have easily arisen due to the similar sound of omega and omicron during the Koine period. Based on papyri evidence, Chrys Caragounis concludes: “From the third century B.C. on, O and Ω interchange very frequently, which implies that if there had ever been any distinctions between them originally, these letters had now become equivalent.”[1]

Most often, the ω–ο interchange is not significant and can be categorized as an orthographic alternative or spelling “error.” However, the difference is significant in some cases where the omega creates the hortatory subjunctive and the omicron creates the indicative. This occurs in Rom 5:1; 14:19; 1 Cor 15:49; Gal 6:9; Heb 12:28.[2]

In Romans 5:1, the THGNT prints the subjunctive εχωμεν, while the NA28 prints the indicative εχομεν. The Byzantine text is divided. Peter Head (one of the THGNT editors) notes that the editions of Tischendorf, Westcott & Hort, von Soden, Vogels, Merk, and Bover all chose ἔχωμεν, and Head thinks that “[t]he manuscript evidence is firmly on the side of the subjunctive.”[3]

However, it is worth mentioning THGNT editor Peter Williams’s comment about the subjunctive reading: “And just how sure are we that εχωμεν is a subjunctive, rather than an indicative spelled with omega? . . . my vote would be for εχωμεν understood as an indicative. It seems to me to be the reading that best explains the other.”[4]

This caveat and nuance applies to all occurrences of the ω–ο interchange. We should not be quick to assume that the difference automatically leads to a subjunctive vs. an indicative since both readings would have been pronounced the same. And most people would have heard the New Testament orally, rather than have read the New Testament text and visually seen the ω–ο difference.

What is also interesting about Romans 5:1 is the change in certainty rating between UBS3 (published in 1975) and UBS4/5 (published in 1993 and 2014): UBS3 had a {C} rating, while UBS4/5 upgraded to an {A} rating, a two-step upgrade from being doubtful to being fully confident. The uncertainty from the 1970s faded away in the 1990s. Bruce Metzger’s Textual Commentary provides no explanation for the upgraded certainty.

The Editio Critica Maior (ECM) of the Pauline epistles is not yet available, but a comment from Georg Gäbel (research associate at the INTF) reveals that maybe the ECM of Romans will print a split guiding line between εχωμεν and εχομεν.

Gäbel’s review of the THGNT is semi-supportive of their decision, but criticizes the lack of patristic evidence:

In Röm 5,1 lesen wir den Konjunktiv ἔχωμεν (hier bedauert man das Fehlen patristischer Bezeugung, vgl. den Apparat des UBS Greek NT); diese Variationseinheit könnte angesichts der ebenfalls guten Bezeugung für den Indikativ und der Häufigkeit der ο/ω-Isochronie in den Mss. eine Kandidatin für den Verzicht auf eine Entscheidung zwischen gleichwertigen Möglichkeiten sein.[5]

English translation: “In Rom 5:1 we read the subjunctive ἔχωμεν (here one regrets the lack of patristic attestation, cf. the apparatus of the UBS Greek NT); this variation unit could be a candidate for abandoning a choice between equivalent possibilities, given the equally good attestation for the indicative and the frequency of the ο/ω-interchange in the Mss.”

Gäbel was one of the editors of the INTF’s Editio Critica Maior (ECM) of Acts and here he seems to be suggesting a split-line diamond reading, i.e., no guidance on the initial text. The uncertainty of UBS3 from the 1970s could return to the ECM of Romans (to be published early 2030s, probably).

[1] Chrys C. Caragounis, The Development of Greek and the New Testament: Morphology, Syntax, Phonology, and Textual Transmission, WUNT 167 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004), 373.

[2] See the discussion of Rom 5:1; 14:19; and 1 Cor 15:49 in Caragounis, The Development of Greek and the New Testament, 541–45.

[3] Peter M. Head, “0220 at Romans 5.1,” Evangelical Textual Criticism (blog), February 21, 2006, http://evangelicaltextualcriticism.blogspot.com/2006/02/0220-at-romans-51.html.

[4] Williams says this in the comments section of Peter M. Head, “0220 at Romans 5.1,” Evangelical Textual Criticism (blog), February 21, 2006, http://evangelicaltextualcriticism.blogspot.com/2006/02/0220-at-romans-51.html.

John Wevers, who edited LXX Genesis in the Göttingen series, writes that “[t]he most common error is confusion of ο-ω. . . . At [Gen] 4:14, the coordinate future indicatives κρυβήσομαι καὶ ἒσομαι occur in the apodesis [sic] of a simple condition. The former is written with -ωμαι in 5 mss and the latter in 2 mss. These are, of course, not intended by the scribes as subjunctives but as indicatives.” John Wevers, “A Note on Scribal Error,” Canadian Journal of Linguistics 17, no. 2 (1972): 188–89.

[5] Georg Gäbel, review of The Greek New Testament, Produced at Tyndale House, Cambridge, ed. Dirk Jongkind, Theologische Literaturzeitung 144, no. 4 (2019): 331.

I (wrongly) assumed first century manuscripts would have been scrolls, but Dirk Jongkind pointed out that the Roman poet Martial talks about small codices in the late first century (~mid 80s) in his Epigrams (Loeb vol. 94; Book I, section 2):

Is it possible that the New Testament writers used them?

Paul tells Timothy to “bring the books (βιβλία), especially the parchments” (2 Tim 4:13), although the word βιβλίον can be scroll or codex/book.

In Luke 4:17, “the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to [Jesus]. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it is written…” (ESV)

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