Entries with tag cbgm .

Amulets and Ostraca

Image: T2

 

In an attempt to put the magic back in the Kurzgefaßte Liste, the INTF will be resurrecting the talisman and ostracon numbers.

In the latest issue of JBL (142 no. 4 [2023]: 633–655), Brice Jones and I explore the usefulness of amulets and magical ostraca for New Testament textual criticism. We briefly define these objects and describe how New Testament text is recorded on them. We then survey which amulets and magical ostraca were used in 20th critical editions of the Greek New Testament and why these categories were added and then subsequently removed from the Kurzgefaßte Liste.

Although the essential research is based on Jones’ book, New Testament Texts on Greek Amulets from Late Antiquity, it was fun to dig further into the history of Kurzgefaßte Liste publications to see exactly what happened to these witnesses. Years ago, I saw an unknown symbol in NestleNovum Testamentum Graece. It was not until I read Jones’ book that I finally made the connection that it was an amulet, T3.

Image: Citations of T3 (highlighted) in the Nestle 13th edition (1927) at Matt 6:12–13

 

Our article, “Resurrecting Amulets and Ostraca in New Testament Textual Criticism,” seeks to explain why the “talisman” and “ostracon” categories have now been continued in the Kurzgefaßte Liste. It highlights the shift in New Testament textual criticism toward an increased appreciation of the social milieu of those who used the biblical text and how this new perspective on the value of amulets and magical ostraca justifies their inclusion in the ECM, CBGM, and the Kurzgefaßte Liste.

Amulets up to T39 and magical ostraca up to Os30 will be catalogued in the Kurzgefaßte Liste as an appendix and will not be included in the tally of Greek New Testament witnesses for now.[1] Readers can see how their inclusion affects already cataloged witnesses and how images and transcriptions of these new additions are already accessible in the NTVMR.

To find which amulets and magical ostraca have been added to the Liste, in the NTVMR, just type in “t” or “os” in the search field under “name” (or use the six-digit Doc IDs beginning with 51 and 52 for “ID” in the search field). Or, you can click here for amulets and here for magical ostraca.

The article explains how these witnesses will appear in the apparatus of ECM Matthew when it is published, as well as in the CBGM. Their inclusion in the CBGM is probably unexpected since they are non-continuous witnesses. From the article,

Amulets have two major disadvantages in the context of the CBGM: (1) they contain a small amount of text, and (2) their text is often an indirect witness; that is, they were not initially created with the primary intention of accurately transmitting the New Testament text. Their limited text poses the same problem as other fragmented texts (like the early papyri), and, on this basis alone, their inclusion in the CBGM would produce cautionary results at best. As indirect witnesses, they would be inappropriately taken as representing the same tradition as continuous text manuscripts or lectionaries that are in the CBGM. (p. 647)

Nevertheless, the Greek text of amulets can be assigned to Greek variants in the apparatus, unlike versions that would have to rely on a retro-translation. In the CBGM, amulets and ostraca, with only a small amount of text available, qualify as “fragmented” witnesses and their inclusion in the Coherence at Variant Passages diagrams can be turned on or off with the button labeled “Frag.” This way, users will have the option to see them or not. Their inclusion is largely exploratory, and a study is planned to appear on the results in the forthcoming edition of ECM Matthew.

Below is the full list of amulets and magical ostraca now recorded in the Liste. If there are any more we should be aware of, please let us know!

 

 

T1
=[0152]

Mt 6:11-13

IV

Pottery

Athens, National Historical Museum, 12227

T2

Mt 4:23-24

VI-VII

Pg

Allentown, PA, Muhlenberg College, Pap. 1077 (theol. 2)

T3

Mt 6:9-13

VI

Papyrus

Location unknown, Zuletzt: Germany, (früher: Berlin, Staatliche Museen P. 954)

T4

Mt 6:9; Jn 1:23; Gospel incipits

VI?

Papyrus

Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, 13926

T5

Mt 6:9-13

VII-VIII

Wood

Heidelberg, Ägyptologisches Institut , 761

T6

Mt 6:9-13; Lk 9:37(?); 11:1b-2

V-VI

Papyrus

Giessen, Universitätsbibliothek, P. Iand. 14

T7

Mt 6:9; Mk 1:1-8; Lk 1:1-7; Jn 1:1-17

XII/XIII

Pg

Chicago, IL, University of Chicago Library, Ms. 125 (Goodspeed)

T8

Jn 2:1a-2; Rom 12:1-2

V-VI

Papyrus

Wien, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, G 2312

T9

Jn 1:1, 3

V

?

Glasgow, University Library, Ms. Gen. 1026/12

T10

Mt 28:19; Mt 4:23; Gospel incipits; Jn 1:1

V-VI

Pg

Berlin, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin Preußischer Kulturbesitz, P. 6096

T11

Mt 4:23; 9:35; 8:15; Mk 1:31

V-VI

Papyrus

Berlin, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin Preußischer Kulturbesitz, P. 21230

T12

Mt 6:9-11

IV-VI

Papyrus

Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Libraries, AM 8963

T13

Mt 6:9-13

VI-VII

Papyrus

Durham, NC, Duke University, David M. Rubenstein Library, P. Duk. Inv. 778

[T14]

= 0324

     

T15

Mt 6:9-13

VI-VIII

Papyrus

New Haven, CT, Yale University Library, P. CtYBR 4600

T16

Mt 6:9-13; 2 Cor 13:13(?)

IV-V

Papyrus

Oslo, University of Oslo Library , P. 1644, fol.;

Oslo/London, The Schøyen Collection, MS 244/4, fol.

T17

Mt 6:10-12

E III - A IV

Papyrus

Oxford, Sackler Library, P. Ant. 54

T18

Mt 6:11-13

VI

Papyrus

Köln, Institut für Altertumskunde, Inv. Nr. 3559 (recto), fol.; Inv. Nr. 3583 (recto), fol.

T19

Mt 6:12-13

V

Papyrus

Köln, Institut für Altertumskunde, Inv. Nr. 3302

T20
=[P105]

Mt 27,62-64; 28,2-5

V/VI

Papyrus

Oxford, Sackler Library, P. Oxy. 4406

T21

Mk 1:1-2

III-IV

Papyrus

Oxford, Sackler Library, 25 3B 58/E(c)

T22

Jn 1:1-11

V-VI

Papyrus

Köln, Institut für Altertumskunde, Inv. Nr. 649, fol.; Inv. Nr. 689, fol.

T23

Jn 1:5-6

VI-VII

Pg

Wien, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, G 29831

T24

Jn 1:29, 49

VI-VII

Papyrus

Berlin, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin Preußischer Kulturbesitz, P. 11710

T25

2 Cor 10:4; 1 Thess 5:8; Eph 6:16

VI

Papyrus

Wien, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, G 26034, fol.; G 30453, fol.

T26
=[0262]

1 Tim 1:15-16

VII

Pg

Berlin, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin Preußischer Kulturbesitz, P. 13977

T27
=[P78]

Jd 4.5.7.8

III/IV

Papyrus

Oxford, Sackler Library, P. Oxy. 2684

T28

Col 3:9-10

IV/V

Papyrus

London, University College, Petrie Museum, UC 32070

T29

Act 9:1

III/IV

Papyrus

Birmingham, University of Birmingham Cadbury Research Library, P.Harr. inv. 486

T30

Mt 1:20

VI-VIII

Papyrus

Ann Arbor, MI, University of Michigan Library, P. Mich. inv. 4944b

T31

Mt 1:1; Mk 1:1; Jn 1:1

V-VI

Papyrus

Alexandria, Bibliotheca Alexandrina Antiquities Museum, BAAM 0505

T32

Jn 1:1

 

Papyrus

Heidelberg, Institut für Papyrologie, P. Lat. 5

T33

Mt 1:1; Mk 1:1; Lk 1:1; Jn 1:1

VI-VII

Papyrus

Wien, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, G 348

T34

Mt 6:9-13

IV

Papyrus

Oxford, Sackler Library, P. Oxy. 4010

T35

Ps 21:19/Mt 27:35/Jn 19:24

VI

Papyrus

Wien, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, G 29418

T36

Mt 6:11-12

VI-VII

Papyrus

Wien, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, L 91

T37

Mt 6:9

VII?

Wood

Paris, Musée du Louvre, D 552B

T38

James 1:14-17

E V?

Papyrus

Genova, Biblioteca Universitaria, 1160 Vo

 

 

Os1-20
=[0153]

Matt 27:31–32; Mark 5:40–41; 9:17, 18, 22; 15:21; Luke 12:13–15, 15– 16; 22:40–45, 45–49, 49–53, 53–54, 55–59, 59–60, 61, 61–64, 65–69, 70–71; John 1:1–9, 14–17; 18:19–25; 19:15–17

V-VI

Pottery

Location unknown

Os21

Lk 1:42, 28

IV-VIII

Pottery

London, British Museum, EA 33101

Os22

John 2:1

VII

Pottery

London, British Museum, EA 55805

Os23

Act 2:22-24 (UC 62598), 2:25-29, 32-36; 3:1-2 (UC 62568); 15:38-16:1, 7-9 (UC 62540+62547); 16:18; 19:1, 8-9 (UC 62567); Rom 13:3-6, 7-11 (UC 62600); Gal 1:8-11 (UC 62732), 15-18; 2:3-8 (UC 62583); James 2:2-3, 8-9 (UC 62719); 4:11-13 (UC 62592); 1Jn 2:12-14, 19-22 (UC 31897); 3:17-22; 4:1-3 (UC 62566), 19-14, 18-21 (UC 62584); Jude 1-3, 4 (UC 62573).

V

Pottery

London, University College, Petrie Museum, UC 31897, fol.; UC 62598, fol.; UC 62568, fol.; UC 62540, fol.; UC 62547, fol.; UC 62567, fol.; UC 62600, fol.; UC 62732, fol.; UC 62583, fol.; UC 62719, fol.; UC 62592, fol.; UC 62573, fol.; UC 62566, fol.; UC 62584, fol.

Os24

Rom 8:31

IV-VI

Stone

Cambridge, Cambridge University Library, Ostraka inv. 129

Os25

Lk 1:28

V-VII

Pottery

London, British Museum, EA 32966

Os26

Mt 1:19-20

V-VI

Pottery

Turin, Museo Egizio, Cat. Fab. 2136

Os27

Mt 7:18-20, 29-8:4

VI-VII

Pottery

Cairo, Coptic Museum, Naqlun 53/88, fol.; Naqlun 64/86, fol.

Os28

Mt 16:18-19; Heb 5:6

VI-VII

Pottery

New York, NY, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Acc. no. 14.1.202

Os29

Jn 9:1-12; Act 3:11

VII-VIII

Pottery

London, British Museum, Eg. Dept. (?)

Os30

Heb 2

VI-VIII

Pottery

Anonymous owner, Anonymous owner, Milan Private Owner

 

We are still in the process of acquiring images, but many images are already included in the NTVMR, especially ones with text from Matthew, such as T34:

 

Some ostraca also have images in the NTVMR, for example Os25:

 

I end with a quote from the article:

While there is little doubt that amulets and magical ostraca provide an important window into early Christian faith and practices, as many have convincingly argued, the precise textual worth of each of these witnesses remains to be determined. Magical ostraca in particular warrant further research, and scholars now have new resources at their fingertips to gain insights into and to research the rich textual history of the New Testament. It is hoped that recording these witnesses in the Liste (and their images in the NTVMR whenever possible), and including them in the ECM and CBGM, will make way for more productive and nuanced research on their worth for textual criticism and the role they play in the exploration of the social history of early Christianity. (p. 655)

[1] Peter Head’s essay, “Additional Greek Witnesses,” in The Text of the New Testament in Contemporary Research, ed. Ehrman and Holmes, 2nd ed (2013), was especially helpful for bringing the list of ostraca up to date. Correspondence with Theodore De Bruyn was very helpful when I first began to research amulets. I have Joseph Sanzo to thank for bringing to my attention, among other things, that the term “ostraca” really should be “magical ostraca” since we are talking about apotropaic artifacts, not mere citations from the Bible.

How Does ECM Mark Change the Way Textual Criticism is Taught?

While the theme of the SBL annual meeting this year in Denver was “reconnect,” the meeting also created unique opportunities to make new connections. One of these opportunities was at a joint session of the ECM and Gospel of Mark program units. This was a chance for exegetes and text critics to come together and share with each other about the intricates of their fields and how textual criticism influences exegesis and vice versa.

 

In this spirit, Alicia Myers, New Testament professor and exegete at Campbell University, and I presented on how to use ECM Mark and how this changes the way we teach textual criticism. It was a difficult topic, especially fitting it all in the time limit, but we hope we did it justice. We’ve recorded our presentation and made it available on the INTF’s YouTube channel. Here’s a link:

 

https://youtu.be/2txMVZeBIqQ

 

For anyone who has never used an edition of the ECM, this is probably the best place to start since it goes over the basics and gives an impression of how to actually incorporate use of the edition in the classroom.

ECM Mark has Arrived

The ECM of Mark was published at the end of July! It is available to order through the German Bible Society’s website.

 

The complete title is Novum Testamentum Graecum: Editio Critica Maior, Volume I: The Synoptic Gospels, book 2: The Gospel of Mark. This numbering might be confusing since the Catholic letters were titled ECM IV and Acts was designated as ECM III. The INTF has been working on the Synoptic Gospels (ECM volume I), and Mark is book two of volume I, or ECM I.2 for short. We are now working on ECM Matthew which will be published as ECM I book 1, or ECM I.1. Here's an overview of the ECM volumes, bearing in mind only the Catholic Letters, Acts, and Mark have been published:

Volume I: Synoptic Gospels

Volume II: The Gospel of John

Volume III: Acts

Volume IV: Catholic Letters

Volume V: Paul's Letters

Volume VI: Revelation

 

Like ECM Acts, there are three parts to ECM Mark: (1) text and apparatus, (2) supplementary material that explains which manuscripts were selected and has introductions to the versions and other detailed information, and (3) a collection of studies on the text of Mark in different manuscript traditions. Part 3, Studies, is where the "Text-Critical Commentary" can be found.

 

Image of the Three Parts of ECM Mark

 

As promised in a previous blog post, we now present links to digital tools and downloads that accompany the printed edition and offer access to the data behind the edition.

 

Here is the link to CBGM Mark 3.5This is the third phase of the CBGM for Mark. The .5 indicates we  have made several changes to the local stemmata in the current phase, but did not systematically go through all the variants again to bring it to a new phase. A local stemma of variants has been established at each variant passage. What we called “Genealogical Queries” for Acts and Catholic Letters, we are now just calling “CBGM” since the former term didn’t really take off.

 

The start page of the CBGM (see below) also has instructions for the CBGM Docker, containing now both Acts and Mark. The CBGM for these two books can be downloaded onto your own computer and you can edit the local stemmata. I’ve already posted a video tutorial on how install Acts CBGM, but the Docker image now also includes Mark CBGM.

Image of the CBGM start page

 

The Greek text and apparatus of the ECM of Mark is also available online (the digital ECM). Clicking on a manuscript in the apparatus of Mark calls up its transcription. The “Text-Critical Commentary,” published in the Studies volume (3), is also available free online. All passages with a commentary will display a highlighted speech bubble. For example, go to Mark 1:1, word address 12-16, and click on the speech bubble (see image below). It will bring you to the commentary for that passage and you can read why υἱοῦ τοῦ θεοῦ, a Byzantine reading, was adopted over υἱοῦ θεοῦ as the initial text. Users are also invited to comment on passages in the NTVMR forum, which Klaus Wachtel also mentioned at the end of his blog post on the Text-Critical Commentary.

 

Returning to the apparatus, if you click on the circle icon (see image below), this brings you to the CBGM for this passage.

 

The Patristic database has been updated to include Mark (see image below). Now both Acts and Mark are available.

 

Image of Links to the Text-Critical Commentary, CBGM, and the Patristic Database in the digital ECM

 

Last but not least, the ECM Mark page on the INTF's website now has lists of textual changes between the ECM of Mark and the text of Mark in NA28 and split lines in ECM Mark.

 

In ECM Mark there are:

33 textual changes. Interestingly, 21 of these changes are in accordance with the Byzantine text. If you’re curious about the reasons these readings were chosen, the textual commentary can help shed some light on these decisions.

There are also 126 split lines in ECM of Mark. In most of the split lines (107 to be exact), the Byzantine text is one of the variants given equal weight as the Ausgangstext.

 

With its comprehensive apparatus based on full transcriptions of 209 Greek manuscripts and a text newly established on the basis of a systematic method—the CBGM—ECM Mark intends to offer an enduring contribution to the field of textual criticism. It is our hope that researchers will take advantage of the free transcriptions (on the NTVMR) and access to the editorial textual decisions (via the CBGM and Text-Critical Commentary).

 

Although these tools (1) the CBGM, (2) the CBGM Docker container, (3) the digital ECM, (4) the Text-Critical Commentary, and (5) the Patristic database may seem daunting at first, they offer a wealth of material; it is worthwhile to take the time to explore them and discover how they might be beneficial for your own research.

 

In the Preface to the Studies volume of ECM Acts, Holger Strutwolf said: “The ECM does not see itself as an end at all, but rather as opening a new phase of text-critical work on the New Testament” (ECM III/3, Preface). The same continues to be true for ECM Mark.

Online Tools for the ECM

The ECM of Mark is currently being printed and will be available soon. Once it appears in print, we will make our online tools for it accessible. These will include the digital edition, the CBGM, a Docker container, and a list of textual changes compared to the NA28.

 

Even though the ECM of Acts was published back in 2017, we realized we have not posted the list of textual changes online for Acts like was done for the ECM of the Catholic Letters. So, in this post, I thought I would take the opportunity to review what is already available for the ECM of the Catholic Letters, update online resources for ECM Acts, and explain what will be available for the ECM Mark.

 

The INTF’s homepage lists a number of “Online Utilities”. These cover different topics but I’ve singled out the pertinent ones for the ECM and CBGM and have listed them here for convenience.

Image: ECM Volumes and available Digital Tools and Downloads

 

ECM IV: The Catholic Letters

Textual Changes

The ECM of the Catholic Letters (2nd edition, 2013) contained 33 textual changes compared to the NA27. These changes were adopted in the NA28 and are listed in the NA28 on pages 50*-51* and posted on the INTF’s website under “NA28” and Textual Changes. The first printing of the NA28 listed 34 textual changes, but the entry concerning the elision in ἀλλά in 1 Peter 2:25 was removed in later printings (since it is only orthographical); this resulted in 33 textual changes. Spellings were changed in a number of locations in the NA28. For a complete list see Orthographical standardization under “NA28” in “Online Utilities”.

 

Split Primary Lines

A split primary line occurs when the editors leave the decision open where two or more variants of about equal weight should be adopted in their reconstruction of the Ausgangstext. There are 43 split-line (diamond) readings in the ECM of the Catholic Letters, which were incorporated into the NA28. A list of diamond readings was posted under the “NA28” link under Split Primary Line in ECM2. The NA28 itself does not list these.

 

CBGM

The Coherence-Based Genealogical Method (CBGM) offers tools for reconstructing the Ausgangstext in the ECM which is based on full transcriptions of witnesses. Decisions are based on textual criticism and philological study of all variants. The CBGM and its data for the Catholic Letters is available online here.

 

ECM III: Acts

Textual Changes

Compared to the NA28, the ECM of Acts has 52 textual changes. For a list, see Textual Changes under “ECM Acts” in “Online Utilities”.

 

Split Guiding Lines

There are 155 split lines in ECM Acts. A list of these is found under Split Primary Line.

 

CBGM

The CBGM for Acts is also available online here. Phase 4 of the CBGM for Acts uses the new interface designed by the Cologne Center for eHumanities.

 

Textual Commentary and Digital Edition

It’s important to note that all of the textual changes and split lines are discussed in the online textual commentary on the NTVMR, explained here. The “Text-Critical Commentary” gives concise reasons why one variant is favored over another (in the case of textual changes) or explains why the decision has been left open (in the case of split lines).

            This commentary has been integrated into the digital ECM (dECM). The dECM displays the text of ECM Acts (different from the NA28) and offers interactivity that is not possible in a printed edition. For example, the apparatus links to transcriptions and images of manuscripts, there is more versional data included than what was in the printed ECM, and every variant unit has a link to the specific passage in the CBGM.

 

Patristic Citations

There is also the online database of Patristic citations available here. What is innovative about this database is that the reader is not only given the specific work of the author cited but also the full context of the quote. Nikolai Kiel has described how the ECM treats Patristic citations.

 

Docker Container

The newest addition to ECM Acts is the Docker container, which is a downloadable package that enables you to run the CBGM for Acts on your own computer. Different from the online CBGM, the program enables you to make different textual decisions and reestablish the local stemmata to your own theories. Video instructions for the CBGM Acts Docker are found here, which also includes a short introduction to the CBGM.

 

Mark

After the ECM of the Gospel of Mark appears in print (26 July 2021), we’ll upload a list of textual changes and split guiding lines online. Like Acts, there will be an online textual commentary, a digital version on the NTVMR, the CBGM (with downloadable docker container), and the Patristic citations database.

 

Image: Advertisement of ECM Mark from German Bible Society

 

We hope these resources will guide readers to better understand the data behind the editions and can provide a solid starting place for further research to take place. Now that a Docker container is available for Acts, anyone can now experiment with the CBGM, which may be the best way to learn how the method works firsthand.

Download the CBGM Docker Container

There is now a docker container available for the Coherence-Based Genealogical Method (CBGM) for Acts. It can be downloaded here: https://hub.docker.com/r/scdh/intf-cbgm-db-server

Here is a tutorial on how to install it and a brief introduction to how the CBGM works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0_tlbz_YVQ

 

Bibliography

Mink, Gerd. “The Coherence-Based Genealogical Method (CBGM) – Introductory Presentation.” Release 1.0, 2009, egora.uni-muenster.de/intf/service/downloads_en.shtml.

 

---. “Problems of a Highly Contaminated Tradition: the New Testament. Stemmata of Variants as a Source of a Genealogy for Witnesses.” Studies in Stemmatology II, edited by Pieter van Reenen, August den Hollander, and Margot van Mulken, John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2004, pp. 13-85. Limited Google Books preview

 

Novum Testamentum Graecum: Editio Critica Maior, ed. the Institute for New Testament Textual Research. Volume III: The Acts of the Apostles, ed. Holger Strutwolf, Georg Gäbel, Annette Hüffmeier, Gerd Mink, and Klaus Wachtel. Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2017.

 

Wachtel, Klaus. “An Interactive Textual Commentary on Acts.” INTF Blog, https://ntvmr.uni-muenster.de/intfblog/-/blogs/an-interactive-textual-commentary-on-acts.

Remarks on Carlson, “A Bias at the Heart of the CBGM” (Guest post by Gerd Mink)

Just recently, Stephen Carlson’s article, “A Bias at the Heart of the Coherence-Based Genealogical Method (CBGM),” appeared in Journal of Biblical Literature. While we at the INTF read this with great interest, we were soon disappointed by the number of misunderstandings contained therein. Criticisms of the CBGM are always welcomed, and we are eager to incorporate suggestions for improving it. Unfortunately we were not able to use Carlson’s publication as fodder for making improvements because his article evinces a general lack of understanding of the method.

 

The suggestion to integrate “a common-error criterion within the mechanisms of the CBGM” shows that Carlson has not understood how the CBGM approach is fundamentally different from Lachmannian stemmatology, particularly with regard to errors. In a recent publication, Klaus Wachtel targets this exact point:

 

For the CBGM, coherence is the pre-eminent feature of the New Testament manuscript tradition for which it was developed in the first place. In Lachmannian methodology, common errors are used to trace genealogical structures. [...]

          In the context of the CBGM, all grammatically sound, or at least tolerable textual differences, which are not merely orthographical, are considered variants. An indicative error would have to be a variant in this sense to be genealogically useful because, as a rule, clerical errors were corrected, not copied, by the scribes. The CBGM abstains from identifying variants as errors, a principle that offers two advantages over against the common-error method: (1) we do not have to know at the outset, relying only on our philological acumen, which variants are errors and which are true renderings of the text in a pristine exemplar; and (2) we are not immediately confronted with the problem of contamination which admittedly [...] is the biggest problem for Lachmannian genealogy.

          Instead, we can make use of quantitative data regarding similarities and differences between witnesses, i.e. pre-genealogical coherence, to get an impression of the consistency of attestations. [...]

          The most important innovation brought about by the CBGM compared to Lachmannian methodology is the perception and description of genealogical relations. According to [the neo-Lachmannian scholar] Trovato, the relationship between any two manuscripts A and B can be assigned to one of three types, A>B, B>A, or A<x>B. For the textual tradition of the Greek New Testament, it would not be a reasonable goal to describe the relationship between any two manuscripts following this pattern. For any two New Testament witnesses A and B, i.e. states of text preserved in manuscripts, there is textual flow of the type A>B, which stands side by side with flow in the opposite direction (B>A), as well as A<x>B, due to contamination

(Wachtel, “The Development of the Coherence-Based Genealogical Method (CBGM),” 438-439, referring to Trovato, Lachmann’s Method, 57).

 

Gerd Mink, who first devised the CBGM, has been retired for some years now but has taken the opportunity to engage with the main points of Carlson’s discussion. Because he wanted to respond in a timely manner, he decided a blog post would be best. Therefore, below I present Mink’s remarks.

 

1. Invented Textual Genealogy: Carlson’s Scenario 2

 

In his article “A Bias at the Heart of the CBGM,” Carlson complains that the CBGM cannot figure out a simple scenario that he has invented himself. His scenario 2 has 18 variant passages with two variants each, which are assigned to five witnesses (including the initial text A); a simple case indeed. Carlson speaks of errors; I will use the term variants and assume that their agreements in the same place are not coincidental and rest upon high connectivity variants. Thus, both errors and variants are equally able to connect witnesses stemmatically.

Image: Figure 4. Carlson, 330

 

The stemma in fig. 4 shows Carlson's results, and it is not surprising that it corresponds exactly to the invented case. Carlson uses phylogenetic software to display such figures. The analysis behind them evaluates the agreement of the witnesses and their distance from each other, measured by the number of disagreements that separate them. To put it simply: agreements argue for belonging to the same branch; disagreements cause the branch to split.

Image: Chart of 18 Passages. Carlson, 330

 

The case seems well constructed to fit the resulting stemma. According to Carlson, the CBGM is not able to reconstruct this scenario and therefore must be rejected.

 

It is an unfortunate disadvantage for Carlson that his own scenario has such a small number of witnesses and variants because it gives the reader other options to come up with different stemmata than he did. A higher number would have been better since it would restrict the range of possible combinations in the global stemma. In the present simple case the 18 variant places correspond to 18 local stemmata of variants (‘a’ is the prior variant and ‘b’ is the posterior variant: a>b). These also allow for global stemmata of witnesses other than what are presented by Carlson in fig. 4 (see above). In addition to the four witnesses and the initial text A, Carlson invented two lost hypothetical witnesses, X and Y, that have left no traces in the local stemmata and are only visible to the inventor of the scenario.

 

Therefore, the text critic can proceed only from the variants at the 18 passages. It is not difficult to find stemmata that are compatible with all 18 local stemmata, for instance:

The stemmata have 5 nodes (= 4 witnesses and the reconstructed initial text A) and 6 edges (= arrows connecting stemmatic ancestors and descendants) each. These stemmata are more parsimonious than Carlson's fig. 4 because they do not require hypothetical witnesses.

It may be helpful to give an explanation about the left stemma. Here are what the arrows represent:

  • Arrow A > B: B agrees with A at the variant places 2-18. At place 1, the variant of B is derived from A. All 18 places are agreements or are prior variants in A.
  • Arrow A > E: E agrees with A at the variant places 1, 6-11, 13-16. E is derived from A at the variant places 2-5, 12, 17-18. All 18 places are agreements or are prior variants in A.
  • Arrows pointing to C: at variant place 1, C agrees with A and E. At variant places 2-5, C agrees with E. At variant places 6-11, C is derivable from A or E. At variant places 12, 17-18, C agrees with A. At variant places 13-16, C agrees with A and E. All 18 places are agreements or are prior variants in A and/or E.
  • Arrows pointing to D: at variant place 1, D agrees with A and E. At variant places 2-5, D agrees with E. At variant places 6-11, D agrees with A and E. At variant place 12, D agrees with E. At variant places 13-16, D is derivable from A or E. At variant places 17-18, D agrees with A. All 18 places are agreements or are prior variants in A and /or E.

It is a little irritating that Carlson always speaks of “witnesses”, but also calls his invented witnesses “manuscript copies” and uses the formulation “stemma codicum” (p. 326; p. 336 referring to real witnesses), which, however, he contradicts on the same page (cf. note 49). In fact, Carlson has developed two scenarios of manuscripts that are copied from each other and whose copyists make errors (on implications of the distinction between witness and manuscript cf. below and Mink, “Manuscripts, Texts, History, and the Coherence-Based Genealogical Method,” 281-283).

 

The CBGM deals with witnesses, not manuscripts. In Carlson's constructed case, manuscripts and witnesses are the same thing, a fact that cannot be deduced from the data. The data does not reveal anything about the completeness of the tradition, i.e. whether witnesses are directly or indirectly related. The latter is the normal case in the NT tradition and renders a stemma codicum impossible. In the CBGM, a global stemma displays a structure of the data according to specific rules; it does not immediately display the actual history of transmission—a phylogenetic stemma does nothing else, by the way.

 

The alternative stemmata above contain contamination. In a global CBGM stemma, which can show only the preserved tradition and does not include lost links, several arrows pointing to a witness do not mean that contamination has necessarily taken place in that witness. Still, it may appear there as a result of contamination in lost predecessor witnesses. (On contamination as a process and as a result of a loss of witnesses cf. Mink “Introductory Presentation,” 58-63; cf. also the section “How to Understand a Global Stemma” in Mink, “Manuscripts, Texts, History, and the Coherence-Based Genealogical Method,” 284-287.)

 

In other stemmatic methods, it may be that hyparchetypes represent lost predecessor witnesses. Let us take the left alternative stemma again. Arrows point from E and A to D. E and D show many agreements. At some places, however, we read in E an older variant, in other places vice versa. That is what the local stemmata indicate. The reason for this situation can be that the transmission is split or is contaminated. The data do not tell us anything about it. Maybe a lost hyparchetype caused the textual state in D. Therefore, the left alternative stemma could be compatible with Carlson's stemma. We cannot know how many hyparchetypes and where in the stemma they should be assumed, especially in a more complex situation. (On the needlessness of hyparchetypes, see Mink, “Manuscripts, Texts, History, and the Coherence-Based Genealogical Method,” 289; Mink, “Problems of a Highly Contaminated Tradition,” 48, 59-67; Paulson, “Improving the CBGM,” 301f.)

 

In his essay, Carlson takes scenario 1 (10 variant passages) as his starting point. The only difference in scenario 2 (18 variant passages) discussed here is that C and D have additional variants compared to scenario 1. Yet, according to Carlson's invented scenario, the stemma should remain the same—except for the greater distances of C and D from A. In order to test how the CBGM processes his hypothetical scenario, Carlson has chosen the completely wrong approach; he uses potential ancestors and textual flow diagrams instead of stemmatic coherence. The above mentioned alternative stemmatic possibilities, based on scenario 2, would also be compatible with scenario 1 since its data is only a subset of the data of scenario 2. Carlson's example does not demonstrate what he wanted it to demonstrate.

 

The essential point is: the CBGM does not claim to reconstruct the historical sequence of copying activities. Phylogenetic methods do not achieve this either (cf. Bordalejo, “Genealogy of Texts”). Also Carlson has not reconstructed but rather invented a copying scenario following what his method is able to represent. He must introduce hypothetical witnesses X and Y because his graphic (bifurcating and allowing terminal nodes only for non-hypothetical witnesses) requires this. Yet, X and Y left no definite traces in the data, so in a parsimonious graph there is no need to assume them. And what has left behind no traces, cannot be found. The data is not unambiguous.

 

As we see, we can invent still other copy scenarios for the same local stemmata. We can declare that one of them (including contamination) is the actual one, and—as it appears—Carlson's method used for fig. 4 would not find it, despite its simplicity. Would Carlson then make the same judgment about the method he applies as he did about the CBGM?

 

2. Epistemological Premises

 

Here is Carlson's verdict on the CBGM:

 

“If a method cannot handle this simple case correctly, it should be rejected or fixed so that it can” (p. 325).

 

“If a method is misled in the simplest of cases due to some bias, how confident can one be that it will work in the more complicated cases?” (p. 335).

 

We should bear in mind that no method, not even computer-aided, can reconstruct historical events in detail (see again Bordalejo). This is even more obvious when elements (here the hypothetical witnesses) are hidden, as is the case in Carlson’s chart of 18 passages.

 

In principle, where we have positive knowledge, we do not need hypotheses. If we know some details of the copying history, we must apply this knowledge in the CBGM or any other method. Normally, we know only the variants. As for the stemma, many possibilities may arise. The witnesses in Carlson's fig. 4 have their place due to the introduction of hypothetical witnesses and because Carlson knows the copying history, as he invented it himself. Again, it is easy to invent another copying history with the same texts, but it would not be represented by the method used for fig. 4.

 

3. Key Terms and Concepts of the CBGM Approach Misunderstood

 

The core problem of Carlson’s article is that he does not seem to understand the overall concept of the CBGM. Although he refers to CBGM terms, which are explained in almost all publications on the CBGM, he does not understand them according to their rigid and precise definitions; these definitions correspond to rules on how the associated values are obtained and the defined terms do not allow for connotative interpretations. Moreover, he does not observe the intentions and claims of modules contained in the Genealogical Queries.

 

3.1 Textual Flow Diagrams

 

One of Carlson’s key misunderstandings is that he reads textual flow diagrams as if they were genealogical representations of actual textual history. He does not follow the definitions of potential ancestor and textual flow diagram (even though he cites them!). The potential ancestors are, of course, hardly ever the actual ancestors of any manuscript. They are also not proxies for which there would be some text to reconstruct. They do not represent anything but themselves. The textual flow diagrams are not stemmata (Gurry wrote explicitly on this point in “The Harklean Syriac” p. 198). Nor does the coherence of an attestation determine whether a reading is the initial text.

 

It is crucial in the CBGM not to confuse genealogical coherence with stemmatical coherence nor potential ancestors with stemmatic ancestors (or even actual historical ancestors of manuscripts). Only a few of the potential ancestors have a chance to become stemmatic ancestors in a substemma of the descendant in question, even if they have the highest ranking numbers. On the other hand, witnesses which are not potential ancestors can become stemmatic ancestors in an optimal substemma.

 

3.2. Relatives Tables

 

To interpret textual flow diagrams correctly, it is important to know that they are only simplifying graphic representations of the data; they must be viewed with the Relatives table in the new interface for Acts, phase 4 (or in “Show Tables” option for the Catholic Letters) for a better understanding of the genealogical scenario.

 

For an example in a new interface which has not yet been transferred to the Catholic Letters, go to Coherence and Textual Flow in Genealogical Queries Acts (phase 4).

Image: Genealogical Queries for Acts

 

Next, click on any manuscript and see the result.

 

 

Example of Relatives Table for 03 in Acts

 

The column with the percentages shows pre-genealogical coherence, that is, the textual agreement between two witnesses which does not change no matter how many prior variants a witness has. The columns W1<W2 and W1>W2 show the results of the construction of the local stemmata between two witnesses: in the example above, 01 has 192 prior variants to 03, and 03 has 328 prior variants to 01. Using textual flow diagrams without consulting the data behind them (i.e. the Relatives tables) can be misleading. (See also Wachtel on this: https://ntvmr.uni-muenster.de/intfblog/-/blogs/an-interactive-textual-commentary-on-acts; and on how to interpret the listings of potential ancestors, see especially Mink, “Introductory Presentation,” 255-297.)

 

3.3 Connectivity

 

Another fundamental problem is that Carlson does not seem to comprehend the purpose of the connectivity option in Genealogical Queries (cf. Carlson, 325, 334, and passim).

Image: Option to select connectivity in Genealogical Queries

 

This option enables users to test the stability of the resulting diagrams by setting different values. In many cases, the values of 10 (in the Catholic Letters) or 5 (in Acts) are only reasonable starting points. Instability will raise doubts if high connectivity has been assumed on internal grounds. No definitive statements about connectivity are made regarding textual flow diagrams. There is no right or wrong value. The inserted value is based on the user’s (preliminary) assessment. Different areas in a textual flow diagram may even require different connectivity assumptions (depending on closer or more distant relationship of witnesses in an area). Definitive statements are required during the construction of substemmata to decide on whether possible stemmatic connections are necessary. (Cf. Mink, “Introductory Presentation,” 529-537.)

 

4. Essential Methodological Procedures Neglected

 

In short: Carlson has used the tool “Coherence in Attestations” for something for which it was not designed. Instead, he should have dealt with stemmatic coherence, the formation of optimal substemmata, and the global stemma; only there do hypotheses about the stemmatic structure of the tradition develop. Carlson, however, neglects this and other major parts of the methodology he criticizes.

 

4.1 The Text Is the Witness, the Manuscript its Carrier

 

It is also unclear whether Carlson understands that in a contaminated tradition almost every witness, even a potential ancestor, has a proportion of both older and younger variants compared to any close relative. In his section that deals with 1 Jn 1:7 (scenario 3), Carlson writes (p. 336),

This situation not only resembles that of scenario 2, but it inspired it. In both cases, the potential ancestor bias manifests itself against witnesses that branched off early from the predominant textual flow but acquired a large number of secondary and singular readings of their own. The texts that correspond to scenario 2's C and D in the textual transmission of 1 John are 01 and 02.

Carlson correctly identifies the reasons that lead to greater distances from A than we see in 1739. His phylogenetic software displays these distances, too (for the place of 01 in light of CBGM data, see Mink, “Introductory Presentation,” 270-295, especially 290.). As for scenario 2, we do not know the kind of variants which produce the distances there.

 

To take 01, 02, and 1739, which are cited by Carlson, as examples: in the Catholic Letters. The text of 1739 does not have a genealogically older text than 01 or 02 in every place but in the majority of places, i.e. it has ancestor variants more often than vice versa. Only these places could offer a connection pointing from a stemmatic ancestor to a descendant in the global stemma (i.e. not the places where the ancestor reads text posterior to the descendant). And of course, there are places where 1739 has text posterior to 01 or 02. Carlson claims there is “a bias against texts on old lineages like 01 and 02, and a bias in favor of stemmatically later texts like 1739 whose copying is more strictly controlled. The net effect of this bias is to overvalue the witness of 1739 at the expense of 01 and 02” (p. 337).

 

On which basis are texts considered “stemmatically later”? Is an early textual error more valuable than textual accuracy documented in a later manuscript? It is neither bias nor contradiction to identify older variants in younger manuscripts. At the many variant places where the witness 01 reads a posterior variant, it cannot be an ancestor of the witness 1739. Carlson jettisons the important distinction between the age of a manuscript and the age of its text as represented in the majority of its variants. In this context again, it is of great significance not to confuse potential ancestors with stemmatic ancestors, nor textual flow diagrams with global stemmata, and a stemma of witnesses (=texts) must not be read in the same way as a stemma codicum.

 

4.2 The CBGM Is a Tool, not a Decision-Maker

 

At the end of his essay, we find the following curious statement: “The potential-ancestor formula favors certain witnesses at the expense of others in certain genealogical configurations that it cannot detect a priori” (p. 339). The role of potential ancestors is not to detect genealogical configurations. A potential ancestor is a witness with more prior variants than the witness being compared. Genealogical configurations are offered in optimal substemmata. The role a given potential ancestor will play there cannot be read from lists of potential ancestors or textual flow diagrams.

 

Carlson continues: “For 1 John, it appears that the CBGM favors 1739 at the expense of Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Alexandrinus, and the full extent of the bias is not apparent. It has probably made the omission of δέ in 1 John 1:7 more viable than it really is.” Apart from the fact that there is no bias, the textual non-decision (i.e. split primary line) in 1 Jn 1:7 is not required by the CBGM as such. The CBGM provides tools and does not make textual decisions. Text-critical decisions like the one in 1Jn 1:7/3 are never enforced by some algorithm or automatism of the CBGM. These decisions are made by the editors. Anyone who has familiarized themselves with a basic introduction like Wasserman and Gurry’s A New Approach to Textual Criticism would know this.

 

5. Conclusion

 

In closing, Carlson's assumption that there is bias in the CBGM is the result of misunderstandings and wrong application. Any method will have advantages and disadvantages as well. Proper understanding of its possibilities and limitations is crucial. Different methodological approaches to textual criticism are highly welcome as is informed and substantiated criticism. Overall, however, it appears that Carlson’s latest article has only very selectively grappled with literature which explains the CBGM and has not grasped the overall concept of the method and its key components. Wachtel's essay, The Development of the Coherence-Based Genealogical Method (CBGM), its Place in Textual Scholarship, and Digital Editing, would serve here as a useful corrective to understanding that the CBGM is deliberately non-Lachmannian.

The problem is not that Carlson clearly favors a different method than the CBGM. In fact, Edmondson's 2018 Ph.D. thesis demonstrates that an analysis of the CBGM is also possible from a phylogenetic perspective (Edmondson, An Analysis of the Coherence-Based Genealogical Method Using Phylogenetics). In only selectively and superficially engaging with the relevant literature, Carlson’s article has unfortunately cultivated a new series of misunderstandings about the CBGM and its functionalities, most of which could have been avoided had he just made use of my entry level “Introductory Presentation.”

It is hoped that my blogpost encourages interested researchers to form their own opinion based on the relevant literature on the CBGM. The aforementioned “Introductory Presentation” may be a good start.

 

Works Cited

 

Bordalejo, Barbara. “The Genealogy of Texts: Manuscript Traditions and Textual Traditions.” Digital Scholarship in the Humanities, vol. 31, no. 3, 2016, pp. 563-577. Links to publisher and Academia

 

Carlson, Stephen C. “A Bias at the Heart of the Coherence-Based Genealogical Method (CBGM).” Journal of Biblical Literature, vol. 139, no. 2, 2020, pp. 319-340.

 

Edmondson, Andrew Charles. An Analysis of the Coherence-Based Genealogical Method Using Phylogenetics. 2019. University of Birmingham, PhD dissertation. https://etheses.bham.ac.uk/id/eprint/9150/

 

Gurry, Peter J. “The Harklean Syriac and the Development of the Byzantine Text: A Historical Test for the Coherence-Based Genealogical Method (CBGM).” Novum Testamentum, vol. 60, 2020, pp. 183-200. Links to publisher and Academia

 

Mink, Gerd. “The Coherence-Based Genealogical Method (CBGM) – Introductory Presentation.” Release 1.0, 2009, egora.uni-muenster.de/intf/service/downloads_en.shtml.

 

---. “Manuscripts, Texts, History, and the Coherence-Based Genealogical Method (CBGM): Some Thoughts and Clarifications.” The New Testament in Antiquity and Byzantium: Traditional and Digital Approached to its Texts and Editing. A Festschrift for Klaus Wachtel, edited by H.A.G. Houghton, David C. Parker, and Holger Strutwolf, De Gruyter, 2019, pp. 281-293. Link to publisher

 

---. “Problems of a Highly Contaminated Tradition: the New Testament. Stemmata of Variants as a Source of a Genealogy for Witnesses.” Studies in Stemmatology II, edited by Pieter van Reenen, August den Hollander, and Margot van Mulken, John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2004, pp. 13-85. Limited Google Books preview

 

Paulson, Gregory S. “Improving the CBGM: Recent Interactions.” The New Testament in Antiquity and Byzantium: Traditional and Digital Approached to its Texts and Editing. A Festschrift for Klaus Wachtel, edited by H.A.G. Houghton, David C. Parker, and Holger Strutwolf, De Gruyter, 2019, pp. 295-307. Links to publisher and Academia

 

Trovato, Paolo. Everything you always Wanted to Know about Lachmann’s Method. 2nd ed., Libreriauniversitaria.it, 2017.

 

Wachtel, Klaus. “The Development of the Coherence-Based Genealogical Method (CBGM), its Place in Textual Scholarship, and Digital Editing.” The Future of New Testament Textual Scholarship, edited by Garrick Allen, Mohr-Siebeck, 2019, pp. 435-446. Links to publisher and Academia

 

---. “An Interactive Textual Commentary on Acts.” INTF Blog, https://ntvmr.uni-muenster.de/intfblog/-/blogs/an-interactive-textual-commentary-on-acts.

 

Wasserman, Tommy and Peter Gurry. A New Approach to Textual Criticism: An Introduction to the Coherence-Based Genealogical Method. SBL, 2017.

 

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