Scribal Habits in
Early Greek New Testament Papyri
Papers from the 2008 SBL Panel Review Session
Juan Hernández Jr, Peter M. Head, Dirk Jongkind, and James R. Royse
Abstract: The 2008 SBL meeting in Boston included a panel review session on James
R. Royse’s book, Scribal Habits in Early Greek New Testament Papyri (NTTSD 36;
Leiden: Brill, 2007). A number of the reviews of this important work are presented
here, along with Royse’s response. The papers were produced as oral presentations andhave been kept in their original shape, except for some straightforward corrections.

1. Review by Juan Hernández Jr
Introduction
It is an incredible privilege for me to be here tonight to honor Dr. James R. Royse and to offer
a few reflections on what his work has meant to me. I will leave it to others on this panel andto history to confirm what I already know to be true: that this is a work of singular importance—extraordinary for its immense learning, comprehensive scope and painstaking detail.
But perhaps more importantly, Royse’s work is an exemplar for all who aspire to do justiceto the study of scribal habits. (Of course, the conclusions are also groundbreaking.) I, on theother hand, hope to offer a glimpse of how one book made a difference to the scholarly trajectory and pursuits of a fledgling Ph.D. student, who was essentially at his wits end as to what to“write on.” I think it’s safe to say that if it were not for Royse’s Scribal Habits in Early Greek New
Testament Papyri1 my own academic interests, endeavors, and development over the course of
the last few years would have been far different.
Dissertation Work at Emory: Search for a Project & Method
As most here will no doubt know, Ph.D. work can be a very lonely, solitary experience. Thereis a sense in which it is all up to you. Only you can undertake your project and execute it to thebitter end. Only you can, as they say, “make it happen.” And while there are no doubt friends,
mentors, and colleagues along the way to encourage one to press on, the fact remains that you
alone bear the responsibility for your work.
Back in 2003 I found myself at one of those crossroads. I had recently completed my coursework at Emory, where I was pursuing a Ph.D. in NT, and had moved beyond my comprehen1

James R. Royse, “Scribal Habits in Early Greek New Testament Papyri” (Th.D. diss., Graduate Theological Union, 1981), now published as Scribal Habits in Early Greek New Testament Papyri (NTTSD
36; Leiden: Brill, 2007).

1

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Scribal Habits in Early Greek New Testament Papyri

sive exams—a veritable dark night of the soul. Now, however, I faced the unenviable task of
coming up with a dissertation proposal, and one that needed to pass muster with the entire
NT department and see me through to the end of my tenure there. But there was a problem.
My interests all along had been in textual criticism, but I now found myself at a university that
not only did not have any textual critics on board, but also had not produced a text-critical dissertation in some years. And although Emory could boast of once being the home of Ernest C.
Colwell, that, I’m afraid, was a long time ago—a detail not missed in Epp’s text-critical obituaryof my institution. You can imagine how “encouraged” I was to read his article on the “Twentieth Century Interlude,” where he wrote that: “[t]he grand tradition of textual criticism at the
University of Chicago from Goodspeed to Willoughby, Colwell, and Wikgren apparently has
ended … and other text-critical centers, such as Emory and Duke, no longer seem to be active… in the field.”2
Regrettably, Epp’s words, originally written in 1973, were still true thirty years later.
So the dilemma I faced was this: How does one embark on a venture that is true to one’s
own interests at a place where there are no specialists in one’s chosen field? I had only two options before me: books; and accosting textual critics with my emails. First: my missives.
My email venture was less than promising. I contacted a number of textual critics, hoping
to get a sense of not only what had been done, but also what they thought ought to be done.
By the time I had begun sending out my emails I had narrowed my focus to the Apocalypse,
which I considered progress. This, however, appeared to prompt an allergic reaction in most.
The majority, it seemed—either directly or indirectly—encouraged me to stay out of textual
criticism (or at least go somewhere else). Apparently, the notion of studying an esoteric work,within an arcane field, at an institution that specialized in neither, struck most as an especiallybad idea. One scholar even told me, pointblank, that there was nothing to be found, addingthat Josef Schmid had in fact “settle[d] all the significant questions.”
But perhaps the most cutting response came from a world-class practitioner, whose opening lines to me were: “You may consider my response to your request for some potential …topics to be either a ‘cop out’—or even an insult—or both.” He then went on to tell of all the mediocre projects that were produced because a student merely followed “someone else’s ideas.”
To his credit, he also offered some valuable suggestions, but never without the caveat that theideas had to be my own. His closing remarks were only slightly less painful than his opening
words. He concluded: “So I throw the question back [at] you. When you arrive at an issue that
excites you, you will make it your own and the task of pursuing it, though never easy, will more
likely be carried through with enthusiasm and even affection.”3
Ironically, these words proved to be prophetic. In fact, it was this curtly worded reality
check (not to mention crushing blow to my ego) that was decisive. I now knew that I had noother choice but to turn to books—a decision that, unbeknownst to me, would put me on a
trajectory that led inexorably to the work of James R. Royse. The path, however, would not bedirect or immediate.

2

3

Eldon J. Epp, “The Twentieth-Century Interlude in NT Textual Criticism” in Studies in the Theory
and Method of New Testament Textual Criticism (ed. Eldon Jay Epp and Gordon D. Fee; SD 45;
Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1993), 108.
The email came from Eldon J. Epp, dated April 17, 2003.

Scribal Habits in Early Greek New Testament Papyri

3

The Quest for Exemplars: Promise and Limitations
I began by consulting all the standard works on textual criticism. Armed with a sense of resolve—and not a little bit of anger—I undertook a comprehensive reading program that putme in touch with every available text-critical work I could get my hands on, often readingthem two, three or even four times. Particularly worn were Metzger’s third edition of the Textof the New Testament,4 coupled with Epp and Fee’s essays in the Studies in Theory volume,5 aswell as Ehrman and Holmes’s Text of the New Testament in Contemporary Research.6
But there were two works in particular (just before I discovered Royse) that intrigued me:
Epp’s Theological Tendencies in Codex Bezae7 and Ehrman’s Orthodox Corruption of Scripture.8
Despite the fact that the Apocalypse played absolutely no role in Epp’s program and Ehrman’soffered up only a few footnotes to Revelation, their distinctive approaches to theological variation captured my imagination. Is it possible, I wondered, for these studies to serve as analogues
for a similar approach to the Apocalypse?
The answer, I would soon discover, was “no,” or at least not an unqualified “yes.” The Apocalypse’s peculiar textual history, coupled with its idiosyncratic research record simply disallowed
it. The MSS of Epp’s study for example, Vaticanus and Bezae, do not preserve the Apocalypse.
Even if we abandoned these two codices and broadened our study to a comparison between
Alexandrian and Western witnesses, we find that there is no characteristically “Western” formof the text for the book of Revelation.9
On the other hand, Ehrman’s discussion of scribal tendencies capitalizes on large swaths of
the MS tradition and builds upon the consensus of multiple generations of text-critical scholarship. Regrettably the very conditions that make Ehrman’s study possible are precisely what
the Apocalypse lacks—a rich and unproblematic MS tradition and a scholarly consensus on
its textual history.10
Finally, the theological issues that drive Epp and Ehrman’s respective programs—anti-Judaic tendencies and early Christological controversies—do not appear to be what concerned
the scribes of the Apocalypse. In short, these approaches, while stimulating, intriguing, andeven groundbreaking in their own right, had limited applicability to the book of Revelation.11

4

5

6

7

8

9

10
11

Bruce M. Metzger, The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration (3rdenl. ed.; New York; Oxford University Press, 1992).
Eldon J. Epp and Gordon D. Fee, Studies in the Theory and Method of New Testament Textual Criticism (SD 45; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1993).
Bart D. Ehrman and Michael W. Holmes, The Text of the New Testament in Contemporary Research:
Essays on the Status Quaestionis (SD 46; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1994).
Eldon Jay Epp, The Theological Tendency of Codex Bezae Cantabrigiensis in Acts (SNTSMS 3; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1966).
Bart D. Ehrman, The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture: The Effect of the Early Christological Controversies on the Text of the New Testament (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993).
Juan Hernández Jr., Scribal Habits and Theological Influences in the Apocalypse: The Singular Readings of Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus, and Ephraemi (WUNT 2.218; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006), 41.
Hernández, Scribal Habits and Theological Influences, 41.
Hernández, Scribal Habits and Theological Influences, 41.

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Scribal Habits in Early Greek New Testament Papyri

Discovering Royse
It was at about this time that I came across Royse’s 1981 dissertation through an article hehad written, titled “Scribal Tendencies in the Transmission of the New Testament.”12 To be
frank, there was nothing fancy or spectacular about the article. No nefarious scribes lurking
in the background, hell-bent on corrupting the scriptures; and there were certainly no rhetorical flourishes. What I found, however, was an essay that reflected—and even promoted—acertain sensibility. Ostensibly the piece was about measuring transcriptional probability, but
its subtext—as I read it—was that “claims must be tested,” “sweeping generalizations must be
avoided,” “the received and hallowed traditions of our text-critical enterprise may not be thefinal word,” and whenever possible “check everything yourself.” It was Royse’s palpable, unrepentant scrutiny of every claim, coupled with a pious devotion to meaningful detail that drove
me to his dissertation and gave me hope of finding the “right” approach.
The Dissertation—an Expansion of Colwell
Colwell’s Contribution to Method
For those of us who have seen and even worked with Royse’s 1981 dissertation, you’ll knowthat it is not an attractive book. Depending on the edition you get, one will either be looking
at a one or two-volume, UMI publication. The paperback cover will be either a plain blue or
black, and the whole thing looks like it was done on a typewriter. And of course, there are no
pictures. Even back then, however, the work—standing at over 700 pages—was already considered groundbreaking. And despite the fact that it was not published for another 26 years, itwould nonetheless remain the standard work on scribal habits throughout that period.
The dissertation, I discovered, was an expansion of Colwell’s well-known study of 𝔓45, 𝔓66,
and 𝔓75.13 As most here will no doubt know, Colwell was critical of the indiscriminate use of
Hort’s genealogical method to construct an eclectic text. It appeared to him that the major roleof scribal corruption was somehow being overlooked in such endeavors. For Colwell, however,a detailed knowledge of scribal habits was a prerequisite for the proper editing of the Greek
New Testament. After all, it was precisely this knowledge that informed our conjectures ontranscriptional probability and enabled the proper weighing of variants.
To address this problem, Colwell laid out a method that had two distinct but interrelated
goals. The first was to gain knowledge of an individual scribe’s copying habits. The second was
to gain knowledge of scribal habits in general. To that end, and guided by the dictum: “peculiar
readings reveal scribal peculiarities,” Colwell used the singular readings of the three papyri tooffer specific data on the copying tendencies of each scribe. In the end, Colwell succeeded inmoving beyond the assertion that “scribes can err in certain ways” to demonstrating that a
particular scribe, or even scribes in general, have made specific types of error. Colwell closes
his study with a number of important conclusions and one expressed wish—which brings us
here today—that someone, someday, would publish “a commentary on the singular readingsof these papyri.”14

12

13

14

James R. Royse, “Scribal Tendencies in the Transmission of the Text of the New Testament” in The
Text of the New Testament, 239-52.
Ernest C. Colwell, “Method in Evaluating Scribal Habits: A Study of 𝔓45 𝔓66 𝔓75,” in Studies in Methodology in Textual Criticism of the New Testament (NTTS 9; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1969).
Colwell, “Method in Evaluating Scribal Habits,” 124.

Scribal Habits in Early Greek New Testament Papyri

5

Royse’s Dissertation vis-à-vis Colwell
As noted, Royse’s dissertation expanded Colwell’s study, turning a 19 page article into a juggernaut of over 700 pages. The dissertation itself consists of an introduction, nine chapters, aconclusion, two appendices and 1,319 footnotes—and this was as it stood twenty-seven years
ago. To Colwell’s three papyri Royse adds three more. And although the singular readings ofthese six papyri form the core of Royse’s study, he also devotes considerable attention to theircorrections, as well as to the relationship between the Ethiopic and 𝔓46.
It would be a mistake, however, to assume that Royse simply gives us more “stuff ” to workwith. Although he certainly does that, Royse also nuances, corrects and updates Colwell’s
study in a number of important ways. His method for determining singularity, his rubric fororganizing the singulars, as well as his discussion of the authenticity of readings goes well beyond Colwell’s original work.
Regarding singulars, Colwell believed that they were not simply inauthentic, but were thetextual creation of the scribe. As he put it, a singular reading is one that “can with moral certainty be assumed to have been introduced into the textual history by the scribe.”15 Royse generally agrees with this assessment, but charts a more cautious path, using statistical data andtempered language when referring to readings of doubtful authenticity. After all, it is theoretically possible for the opposite to be true, particularly in the case of Revelation, with its highincidence of singulars and haphazard MS tradition.
As far as method is concerned, Royse adopts a more rigorous practice for determining singularity. For Colwell, a singular reading was one that had no Greek support in Tischendorf ’s
apparatus, “augmented”—as he put it—“by more recent finds.”16 Moreover, Colwell also restricted his collation of singulars to the consensus of the text-type to which the MS belonged.
Royse, on the other hand, avails himself of a much broader collation base, checking the singular readings of the papyri against Tischendorf, von Soden, NA26, UBS3, as well as Hoskier andSchmid for 𝔓47. And, as if that were not enough, Royse throws in a host of published facsimiles
and collations for additional comparison. Thus, he offers a far more comprehensive system ofchecks and balances, as well as avoids the pitfalls of classifying early papyri according to “texttypes.”
Finally, regarding Colwell’s classification of singulars, here too Royse goes beyond his predecessor, offering a specificity and nuance missing in the original. Royse classifies singularreadings as significant and insignificant. The latter consists of orthographic and nonsense singulars, while the former includes the remaining, “sensible” singulars. Excluded from the study
are “itacisms” of a certain type, largely diphthongs that evolve into ε, ο, or ι and a handful ofother inessential features. This represents a departure from Colwell, who did include these,
although it’s important to note that Colwell also dismissed them as insignificant after a brief
discussion.
One further distinction pertains to their respective usage of corrected singulars. Colwell
uses the singular readings of a MS prior to their correction. Royse, on the other hand, assesses
the singulars after they have been corrected by the original scribes. Like Colwell, the bulk ofRoyse’s study focuses on the significant singulars and what they reveal about scribal copying
habits. These are arranged according to omissions, additions, transpositions, various types ofharmonizing, variations in grammatical form and differences in proper names. Throughout,Royse’s primary goal is to cast into bold relief the copying patterns of each scribe.
15
16

Royse, “Scribal Habits,” 165
Colwell, “Method in Evaluating Scribal Habits,” 108-9.

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Scribal Habits in Early Greek New Testament Papyri

Rationale
The rationale for such exertion, of course, is Royse’s concern over the repeated use of textcritical canons absent a knowledge of scribal activity. In fact, Royse argues that the canons
are routinely applied on the basis of a priori reflections on how scribes behaved (or must have
behaved). But perhaps even more problematic is the anachronistic nature of such application.
As Royse notes, the canons were developed on the basis of later MSS, raising questions about
their application to 2nd and 3rd century witnesses.
In the end, Royse’s statistical study led him to conclude that lectio longior potior would be amore useful canon for the early papyri with only three exceptions:[Where t]he longer reading appears to be late on genealogical grounds;[Where t]he longer reading may have arisen from various types of harmonization; or,[Where t]he longer reading may have arisen from an attempt at grammatical improvement.17
The inversion here of Griesbach’s lectio brevior potior is not a denial of the venerable canon
as much as it is a statement that the burden of proof has shifted with this study. Of course, withcharacteristic caution, Royse concedes that later MSS may exhibit the opposite tendency—appropriately limiting his claims to the six papyri.
Transparency and Imitative Quality
Now, despite the original work’s dizzying detail, forbidding length, and potentially mindnumbing minutiae, I was electrified by the study. Frankly, Royse’s work gave me something noother book had given me until then—access; access to the careful and judicious thinking of aseasoned textual critic; access to every primary and secondary source of relevance to the topic;
access to the skillful practice of selecting, arranging, presenting, and more importantly, analyzing the text-critical data. Everything, it seemed to me, was all right here in the book—available
for all to see. For me, Royse’s dissertation was nothing less than a gigantic “how to” manual.
It’s not that all of the others were somehow injudicious or careless in their thinking; far from
it. Rather, it was the fact that Royse’s work was permeated by a transparency that was without
peer. I was never at a loss for why he made certain decisions, where he was headed, or what his
sources were. Everything was copiously documented and available for critical scrutiny.
Truth be told, I was far less interested in the results of his study than I was in how he conducted such a study. There was a curious twist, however. My primary interest, you’ll recall, hadbeen in theological variation, but I was at a loss as to how to undertake such a study in the
Apocalypse. Having found other approaches ill-suited to the book of Revelation, I was convinced that Royse was the way to go; that this was in fact, the canonical standard for any studyof scribal habits. But there was a rub: Royse was no friend of sweeping generalizations, muchless easy claims of “theologizing.” Of the thousand-plus singular readings of the early papyri, heregarded only three to be possibly theologically motivated—and these limited to one papyrus.18
The irony is that rather than serving as a deterrent, Royse’s extreme caution and even antagonism towards casual claims of “theologizing” only made his approach all the more appealing—even urgent. There was something extraordinarily right about requiring a variant toundergo a battery of tests before claiming “theological motivation.” And even if one were toarrive at such a variant, it had to be assessed within the broader context of other scribal errors, as Royse does with 𝔓72, where variants that appear to defend the full deity of Christ are
17
18

Royse, “Scribal Habits,” 608.
Royse, “Scribal Habits,” 488.

Scribal Habits in Early Greek New Testament Papyri

7

discussed against the backdrop of other, less glamorous changes. In fact it is precisely Royse’s
protectionist attitude toward the integrity of the full record that inspires confidence in both
his method and its results.
Application to the Apocalypse
It was crystal clear to me, then, that if I was to carry out my own project with any viability
whatsoever that I would have to learn from Royse. I would have to put out of my head any
thoughts of theological variation or dreams of spectacular yields and start at the beginning:with the facsimiles, with the collations, with the textual apparatuses, with the unending procession of monographs in multiple languages; in short, with the arduous and the mundane. The
learning curve would truly be steep and the patience required unimaginable. But I found thateverything I would ever need was already expertly modeled for me by a premier textual critic
in this work. And the very minutiae that most would consider cumbersome, disinteresting,and even prohibitive served as the pedagogical building blocks of my own education.
Royse2: the 2007 Monograph
What Has Changed
Now, for those of us beholden to the original, the most recent installment is nothing less than
the fulfillment of a long-awaited promise. The culmination of 26 years of painstaking research,
Royse’s 2007 monograph supersedes the original in a number of important ways.
All of the databases for collation have been updated and previously unavailable files havenow been incorporated into the study. Every imaginable scholarly contribution (no matter
how remote its relationship to the papyri) appears to have been consulted and made a full conversation partner in the work. Royse also adds several chapters and expands all of the originalones. For example, what was once a single, introductory chapter is now three, bringing thetotal number of chapters in the book to eleven. The six chapters on the papyri have also been
substantially revised and reorganized. For example, the collations that originally began eachchapter have now been moved to an appendix, making for easier reading. Royse also adopts a
series of more nuanced categories for the singulars, particularly, for the variety of corrections
that occur in the papyri.
Brand new to the work are the “Supplementary Notes” at the back, consisting of twentyfour items keyed to remarks made in the body. These include discussions of the sigla, the use of
pronouns, challenges to various text-critical arguments, further analysis of variants, and an exploration of the relevance of “Freudian slips” to scribal errors in addition to many other topics.
Finally, four separate appendices round out the work. The first is a collation of all the singular readings of the papyri; the second, a collation of all their corrections; the third, an exhaustive register of all of the orthographic phenomena of the papyri; and the fourth is a summaryof the study’s results. The only thing missing from the newer work is Royse’s separate treatmentof 𝔓46 and the Ethiopic. However, that is slated for future publication in a separate article!
What Has Not Changed
Remarkably, despite the continued march of scholarship and Royse’s apparently unending revisions, a couple of things have remained fairly stable about the work. First, the number ofsingular readings has not changed by much. The original tally of 1,068 has been reduced to

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Scribal Habits in Early Greek New Testament Papyri

1,004—a difference of only 64 readings. (Not too bad considering the intervening decadesof research). Second, although nuances abound in the work, the conclusions of the study are
generally the same as they were in 1981. Omissions still outnumber additions in the papyri so
the burden of proof remains on the defenders of the shorter reading canon.
With respect to theological variation, Royse’s attitude is no less cagey than it was two-anda-half decades ago. If anything, recent studies have merely afforded him the opportunity to
expose the rashness of certain judgments. One only need examine his excoriating of a recent
proposal to identify theological singulars in 𝔓75.19 In keeping with his original dissertation,
however, he maintains that 𝔓72 does exhibit some theological singulars. Interestingly, he also
appears to be willing to accept their presence in some later MSS of the Apocalypse.20
Conclusion
You would think that with an achievement 26 years in the making, double the size of the original and with triple the number of footnotes that there would be some room for a claim of being“exhaustive.” However, with characteristic humility, Royse downplays the completeness of his
own work, stating that:[t]he analyses presented of the six individual papyri cannot, of course, be viewed as an exhaustive study of even the singular readings of these manuscripts. In fact, only a beginning could bemade here, a beginning that has isolated certain tendencies within the copying techniques ofthese six scribes, but has by no means dealt with all the potential issues.21

If this is in fact the case then I despair of there ever being a truly completed study of scribal
habits in the papyri. Despite his protestations, I do think that Royse has not only fulfilled Colwell’s wish for a commentary on the singular readings, but that he has surpassed it by producing a veritable encyclopedia on them—an encyclopedia that deserves to take its rightful placeas the canonical standard for any study of scribal habits for generations to come.

2. Review by Peter M. HeadIntroduction
I would like to begin by thanking our chair Anne-Marie for the invitation to participate inthis panel. I was pleased and honoured to be invited and of course to take part in the criticalhonouring of the author for his great achievement in this book. I readily accepted the invitation for three reasons:a) I had interacted with James Royse’s ThD in my first academic publication22 (Head, 1990)
as well as subsequently (Head, 2004, 2008)23—these are actually discussed on 720ff;
19
20
21
22

23

Royse, Scribal Habits, 698-793.
Royse, Scribal Habits, 613-14.
Royse, Scribal Habits, 737.
“Observations on Early Papyri of the Synoptic Gospels, especially on the ‘Scribal Habits’ ” Biblica 71(1990), 240–47.
“Singular Readings in the Early Fragmentary Papyri of John: Some Observations on the Habits of
New Testament Copyists” Biblica 85.3 (2004), 399–408; “Scribal Behaviour and Theological Tendencies in Singular Readings in P. Bodmer II (P66)” in Textual Variation: Theological and Social
Tendencies? The Fifth Birmingham Colloquium on New Testament Textual Criticism (eds H.A.G.
Houghton & D.C. Parker; Texts and Studies, Third Series; Gorgias Press, 2008), 55-74.

Scribal Habits in Early Greek New Testament Papyri

9b) I had also met James Royse at SBL meetings and had the idea that the work had beenmuch expanded over the years; andc) I saw the price of the book and knew that the chance of a free copy was not to be passedby.
I take the opportunity to apologise to the author for sending him a copy of my review a little
late … but draw some comfort from the 27 year delay between his dissertation (henceforth:Diss) and the publication of the book (henceforth: Book).
General Introduction and Summary
How should I proceed in responding to this book? Well, after a general introduction I shallnote some of the differences between the dissertation and the book (having been well trainedin redaction criticism from my youth) and then focus on just one chapter, the one concerning
𝔓66, as a sample.
In this book (as in his earlier dissertation) Royse seeks to undertake a comprehensive
study of the six early and extensive Greek NT papyri with a view to ascertaining what can belearnt about scribal habits so as to inform our understanding of “transcriptional probability”
in NT textual criticism. Taking his lead from Hort and most especially E.C. Colwell he uses
the “Singular Readings” of the papyri as a means of accessing the habits or behaviour of theparticular scribes: both because the individual character of each of these witnesses is relevantto the consideration of their witness (“knowledge of documents should precede final judgement upon readings”, quoting Hort in Book, 1) and because generalizations about scribal
behaviour on the basis of such a quantifiable approach to the evidence ought to contribute toour own generalizations about transcriptional probabilities in the early period of transmission.
The assumption guiding the work is that of Colwell (quoted on Book, 39) to the effect thatsingular readings provide access to “scribally created readings”, either as actually representing textual creations of the scribe (which seems to be Colwell’s view), or at least as a means ofapproximating towards the individual scribal contribution to his particular textual tradition.
A “singular reading” is defined as a reading not otherwise attested in continuous-text Greek
witnesses. Practically this was determined by initial comparison with Tischendorf and subsequent checking against a wider range of editions and closely related texts (Book, 65-67).24
The major chapters involve extended discussions of the singular readings, and analysis andgrouping of them; initially into either: orthographic, nonsense, or significant readings; andthen further analysis of the significant singulars as additions, omissions, transpositions, harmonizations, etc.
Comparison between Book and Dissertation
The general shape of the dissertation is retained in this book, with the exception that the opening chapter is divided and expanded into three chapters (dealing with “The Study of Scribal Habits”, Book, 1-38; “Singular Readings”, 39-64; and “Methodology”, 65-102). The external
24This double process explains the use of double asterisks in the list of singular readings on Book,
775-848: as I understand it every reading which looked singular on the basis of comparison with
Tischendorf gains an entry into the list; but those with double asterisks were found, on the basisof other editions or comparison with particular manuscripts, to not actually be singular readings.
They are retained on the list since they may on occasion require some discussion as sub-singular, or
not in a genealogical relationship with these other witnesses.

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Scribal Habits in Early Greek New Testament Papyri

shape of the remainder is identical with chapters devoted to each of the six extensive early
Greek papyri: 𝔓45 (103-97); 𝔓46 (199-358); 𝔓47 (359-98); 𝔓66 (399-544); 𝔓72 (545-614) and 𝔓74 (615704), followed by a chapter entitled “The Shorter Reading?” (705-36), and a brief one entitled“Concluding Remarks” (737-42)—all of these last eight chapters have the same titles as thedissertation.
A series of 24 “Supplementary Notes” follow (743-73)—these seem to be something like
extensive footnotes to the already extensive footnotes of the main body of the text. Then aseries of appendices provide some of the core data: Appendix A lists “The Singular Readingsof the Papyri” in turn (775-848)—this material was more or less at the heart of each of the six
major chapters in the dissertation, but has now been displaced to the first Appendix. Then we
have “Appendix B. The Corrections of the Papyri” (849-84); “Appendix C. Orthographic Phenomena” (885-96: new material cf. the dissertation); and “Appendix D. Summary of Results”(897-906: also new material cf. the dissertation). Forty pages of bibliography and ninety pagesof indices round out the book to 1,051 pages in total.
The dissertation was pretty long itself (and late!, judging by the preface), at 746 pages ofdouble spaced typing, but I would guess that what we have here is something like three times
the length of the dissertation (smaller print, single spaced, 1,051 pages in total). Before we ask
where the new material enters into the discussion it is worth remarking on where it doesn’t.
That is, where have things stayed the same? One fundamental area is in the summary conclusions to be drawn concerning the habits of the six scribes—these six summary conclusions at
the end of the main chapters are practically identical with the statements in the dissertation(so e.g. 𝔓45 on Book, 197 is practically identical to the dissertation; so also for 𝔓46 on 358; 𝔓47
on 397-8; 𝔓66 on 544; 𝔓72 on 614; 𝔓75 on 704). Arising from this consistency is the obvious factof the general conclusions: specifically that the observed scribal habits of these six scribes offers a challenge to the rule that the shorter reading should be preferred. So the general shape,
the primary data, and the fundamental conclusions remain the same as the 1981 dissertation(as of course the title). In the preface Royse writes “While the main lines of argument in thedissertation remain, the evidence and the conclusions based on it have often been revised.”(Book, xiv) But it is not clear to me which conclusions are different or have been revised fromthe dissertation.
So to return to the question, where is the new material? What has been expanded? I firstly
offer a general impression and then some details. My general impression is that the dissertation treated the papyri in a somewhat detached manner as sources or reservoirs of singular readings—once the singular readings could be isolated and listed then the analysis could
proceed. Here my general impression is that the papyri are treated more carefully as artifacts
and the objects of multitudes of studies which are taken into account and discussed in detail(especially if it concerns a scholar reading the text differently). Another very significant factor
is the attention given to more recent discussions (including often discussions of his own dissertation).
From the first chapter we note:
17-19 on Provenance of the Beatty and Bodmer Papyri (interesting that this section has no clear
close, I assume it goes to around 19—i.e. that this is new material inserted into Diss 21);25
25

By the way, Royse’s statement about the provenance of the Chester Beatty papyri needs revisiting in
the light of C. Horton, “The Chester Beatty Biblical Papyri: A Find of the Greatest Importance” in
The Earliest Gospels: The Origins and Transmission of the Earliest Christian Gospels—The Contribution of the Chester Beatty Gospel Codex P45 (JSNTSS 258; London & New York: T & T Clark International, 2004), 149-60.

Scribal Habits in Early Greek New Testament Papyri

1144-51 on Singulars in Revelation (discussing Delobel’s observation that singular readings of Alexandrinus may very often [60/210 times according to B. Weiss] represent “the original reading”—
i.e. preserved only in one witness);26
56-60 on On O’Neill’s Method (discussing O’Neill on Vaticanus in NTS 1989);
60-63 on Barbara Aland’s Method.

Focus on 𝔓66
The wealth of material here presented about these six manuscripts is extremely extensive andrepresents something of a small monograph on each one. I propose to take one of them inorder to say something more fully about Royse’s approach, that is 𝔓66.27
I begin again with a brief note of changes and new elements added between the dissertationand the book. Taking as his basis the corrected text of 𝔓66 (unlike Colwell, and to which we shallreturn) in the dissertation Royse counted 129 singular readings, which he classified as: 14 orthographic, 8 nonsense, and 107 significant (Diss, 391). In the book Royse now counts 128 singularreadings, which are classified as 14 orthographic, 5 nonsense, and 109 significant (Book, 409).
On Book, 407 note 45, he explains that in the Dissertation he had classified the singular readingin John 12.12 as an orthographic singular on the basis of the reading of Koridethi. Further, on
Book, 408, Royse discusses the IGNTP edition’s reading at 18.37 which would, if followed, provide an additional singular reading, but in an extended footnote discussing the particular ink
traces at this point in the manuscript, he decides to follow the text as presented or reconstructedby the original editor. (Book, 408 note 47, displays an impressive command of the details).
In the Dissertation the corrections of 𝔓66 were discussed on 391-7. Here in the Book, we aretreated to an extensive discussion (Book, 409-90) with what almost amounts to a commentaryon the corrections of 𝔓66—a great piece of work for which we are very grateful. But the basis
for the treatment of the corrections is interesting. As I already mentioned Colwell had studied
the singular readings in the original text of 𝔓66 and hence concluded that the scribe of 𝔓66 was“careless and ineffective”, and that “wildness in copying is the outstanding characteristic of
𝔓66.”28 By contrast, Royse (in Diss and here in Book), takes the decision to base his discussion on
the corrected text of 𝔓66 (hence the conclusion regarding the scribe of 𝔓66 that “the total activity
is indeed rather careful” (Book, 498), and that he “exercises great care to render a literal copyof his Vorlage” (Book, 502).
Here in the Book, Royse has greatly expanded the treatment of the corrections, arguing thatthe scribe himself was responsible for the vast majority of the corrections (421), analyzing theprocess by which corrections were made as a basis for understanding the scribal behaviour.
But I think that more could be made of this. I am not convinced that we need to choose between Colwell’s approach and that of Royse. I think that a comparison between them might
26

27
28

It is interesting that in his interaction with this point he studies only the singular readings in Rev
1-2 and does not deal with the whole range of this evidence. Jongkind’s work is very relevant here as
demonstrating that singular readings do actually represent scribal creations.
Hopefully other contributors will gravitate to other aspects of the work.
E. C. Colwell, “Scribal Habits in Early Papyri: A Study in the Corruption of the Text” in The Bible
in Modern Scholarship (ed J. P. Hyatt; Nashville, 1965), 370–389. This study was later republishedunder a different title as “Method in Evaluating Scribal Habits: A Study of 𝔓45, 𝔓66, 𝔓75” in Studies
in Methodology in Textual Criticism of the New Testament (NTTS IX; Leiden, 1969), 106–124 (citedfrom here in what follows). The quoted phrases are from Colwell, “Scribal Habits”, 118, 121.

12

Scribal Habits in Early Greek New Testament Papyri

also illuminate which types of scribal behaviour are more likely to be corrected. Just to takeone example now: Royse analyses the 465 corrections as:
1. those which were corrected in the act of writing (49)
2. corrections of slips (164)
3. those that were significant and corrected after checking the Vorlage (126)
4. those that arose from comparison with another Vorlage (107).
In relation to the 126 significant corrections he notes that these places do exhibit “what errors
the scribe initially made” (461):
Additions12
9.5%
Omissions61
48.4%
Transpositions
9
7.1%
Substitutions41
32.5%
Conflations
3
2.4%
Royse notes “the strong tendency to omit rather than to add is apparent” (461). But one
could also look at this and suggest that of all the errors which the scribe produced himself,omissions were those most likely to be spotted and corrected.
If it is the case that the same scribe wrote initially carelessly, and then self-corrected against
the same exemplar, then we can learn about scribal behaviour from both of these actions, andperhaps even more from comparing the two. It is interesting to see the “pure” habits of theuncorrected text, it is worth noting what types of singular errors are corrected, and it is worth
inquiring about the way the final text reflects the exemplar (although there are complications
here which were not adequately acknowledged by Royse and which need to be addressed).
There are other features that arise from this discussion that should be noted here. Firstly
Royse is very critical of the treatment of the corrections on 𝔓66 in the IGNTP (Book, 410 andpassim; esp. 434-5: “corrections made in scribendo have systematically been cited very misleadingly in the IGNTP” … “In none of the readings that were corrected in scribendo does the
IGNTP make clear what happened.”29); he is also critical of the proposal of Comfort and Barrett (based on the earlier research of Berner) that three separate correctors can be identified(Book, 421).
Concluding Comments
I really appreciate the full listing of evidence within this Book. For example, not only are thesingular readings for each of the six manuscripts displayed, but one can see how the list wasrevised in various ways (as more evidence was checked) throughout the process. Beyond theamount of evidence adduced there are also very full discussions of many issues and extensive
treatments of the corrections made to the manuscripts.
I appreciate the detail with which the argument can be followed and is documented. Thereis a kind of transparency here in tracking the scribal practice and behaviour. I also appreciate
the general approach to evidence that is adopted (e.g. not as strict as the IGNTP on a number
of issues and readings).
This offers fairly full documentation for a range of topics within scribal behaviour that are
not particularly controversial, but which seem to be well supported with early evidence—e.g.
harmonization to near context.
More things could be discovered from this basic evidence. For example, elsewhere in thisconference we have debated the question as to whether the scribes of early Christian manu29

Whereas Royse offers a fairly full commentary on these corrections, notes and explanations are notstandard in the IGNTP.

Scribal Habits in Early Greek New Testament Papyri

13

scripts were Christians or not. The singular readings and scribal habits could contribute tothis debate. Royse, for example, argues that the scribe of 𝔓66 is certainly a Christian (Book, 501)
on the basis of the harmonizations to parallel passages elsewhere in the NT (as well as the useof nomina sacra and the staurogram). This could be extended similarly to the other papyri
discussed here: 𝔓45 has harmonizations to parallels in other (canonical) gospels 8 times in the
singular readings; 𝔓46 has harmonizations to the LXX (2 times), and from 1 Cor 11.24a to theparallel gospel text of the words of institution (Matt 26.26); 𝔓47 has a harmonization to Luke
4.33 at Rev 14.15; 𝔓72 has 7 harmonizations to remote parallels (in Col, Heb, Rev etc.); 𝔓75 has 5
singular readings which harmonize the text to remote (NT) parallels. This data suggests thatthe scribes have a general awareness of other NT texts, which suggests they were probably active participants in the life of the church.
I suppose it is worth noting the wider issue that Royse is attempting to revise the traditional
canons—developed on the basis of medieval manuscripts and generalizations about scribal
habits from them—on the basis of singular readings in the early papyri, which by definition
made no impact on the wider scribal and textual tradition. On this question I think we stillneed to do some more thinking. Scribal habits determined on the basis of singular readings do
I think (cf. Jongkind) reveal something about scribal behaviour, but may not be so clear about
the general tendency of the textual tradition.
The dissertation was written on a type writer (according to the preface to the Book), an
IBM Selectric typewriter, with a Greek “element” and other languages (and Greek accents andupper case, it seems to me) written in by hand. The book has been carefully prepared using
modern technology—with Nota Bene 8.0c on a PC—and beautifully presented to us. I would
congratulate the author, the series editors (Drs Epp and Ehrman), and the publishers on sucha splendid piece of book production. I searched long and hard and have found one typo (401note 14: 𝔓46 should presumably be 𝔓66); and one moment of unclarity (xvii para 2).

3. Review by Dirk Jongkind
There are many good things to be said about this book (as I am sure you will have noted bynow). It gives us a close reading and discussion of the text and readings of six of the most important papyri of the New Testament, it provides a wealth of useful discussion of individual
readings and particular phenomena, and it shows awareness of a vast range of literature. Besides, the original dissertation has been very influential on my own work and, among manythings, I have benefited enormously from the introductory chapters in the original dissertation.
I have seen the benefit of presenting all the evidence in an accessible format, I have learned
from Royse about the most pragmatic way of reconstructing the reading of the Vorlage, and I
learned about the important distinction between formal classification and integrated discussion of singular readings.
There are many good things, and whatever else I may be seen saying further down, it does
not take away from the fact that this is a good, solid piece of work. Royse’s book is easy to criticize, but not because it is a bad book with blunders or a faulty argumentation. Any book thatby its sheer size constitutes a serious assault on the strength of your bookshelves is bound tocontain some inconsistencies or oversights. Any number of years of revision won’t get rid ofthat problem, on the contrary.
Which leads me to a general comment, which perhaps has to do with personal preference
more than anything else. And that is this, the rather prolonged genesis of the book clearlyshows, and does not make the work stronger. What I mean in practice is that there are too
many footnotes commenting on too many, sometimes tangential points, using too much prose.

14

Scribal Habits in Early Greek New Testament Papyri

The footnotes go off into all sort of areas, comment on other areas, sometimes even start new
discussions: it makes reading a single chapter sometimes feel like you are reading two or threearticles at the same time: the main text, and the discussions going on in the footnotes. And thehuge number of footnotes and references to secondary literature makes the modern author
index often impractical—for many authors there are simply too many references, no-one isever going to check all the references Royse makes to Kenyon, Lagrange, Metzger, or himself.
In addition I think that, in a sense, it is a little disappointing that after hundreds of pages
and a myriad of footnotes on the singular readings of each of the six papyri, the summary of
the copying activity of these manuscripts, the scribal habits this tome is all about, amounts toless than a single page per manuscript. The book is full of details, but the integrated reflection
on these details is frustratingly short. An example is the following. At several places Royseobserves that a transposition can be explained best by assuming that initially the scribe forgot a word, noticed this, and inserted it somewhat belatedly at the first possible opportunity.
Because Royse pointed this out, I was able to see the same phenomenon in other manuscripts
as well. I would have loved to see this type of scribal behaviour spelled out in the concluding
sections, rather than to keep it hidden in the commentary. Royse makes many an excellent observation on scribal habits, but perhaps he could have provided a more ready access to these.
I would like to comment and discuss three points.
1. Royse on Barbara Aland: Singular Readings which Are Part of an Isolated Tradition
One of the problems in the use of singular readings as a window on scribal activity is the problem of the origin of a singular reading. Was it created by the scribe of our manuscript or did
the scribe correctly copy a reading from his Vorlage which was created by a previous scribe but
is labelled as a singular reading because the Vorlage or any other copy did not survive? Or inother words, when we have a singular reading are we dealing with the accumulation of errorsof various scribes or of only one scribe?
Royse’s argues against the assumption of singular readings as the accumulation of multiple scribes under three points. First he points out the highly contaminated nature of the
textual tradition of the NT (“very few real ‘dead ends’ ”, 50). Secondly he endorses Colwell andTune’s view that many singulars will have been corrected by later copyists. This latter answer,of course, begs the question of how then any variant would come into existence: it seems to me
that almost every existing non-authentic reading started its career as a singular reading thatjust happened to create a lot of offspring. Thirdly, and here I start to have some doubts, he says
this (51; argued in 51-55):
Even if a manuscript under study were the outcome of some isolated stream of tradition, formost of our purposes this will simply not matter.

And a little further on (53):Whether this frequency is due to the fact that the actual scribe of a [a is a manuscript accumulating the errors of two generations of scribes; DJ] is twice as careless in this respect as the scribeof x, or, as in the example, to the compound effect of two scribes equally careless in this respect
as the scribe of x, is irrelevant to such evaluation.

I am not sure whether I am happy with such a description. What is meant by “most of our purposes”? What is the purpose of studying singular readings? Is it to study the characteristics of amanuscript or is it to study the scribe? (I admit there is an overlap but there is also a distinction
between the two.) We can say that, rather than studying the work of a single scribe and having
a look at his or her copying technique, we study the work of a tiny scribal tradition consistingScribal Habits in Early Greek New Testament Papyri

15of multiple scribes and thus study the nature of a manuscript rather than of a scribe. But why,then, does Royse critique those scholars who claim to study the scribal habits of papyri andinclude non-singular readings? What is the theoretical difference between studying a group ofreadings taken from the early papyri that includes singular and non-singular readings, as forexample Barbara Aland has done, and limiting oneself to just singular readings whilst admitting that these may form part of an accumulative process? If the purpose is to describe the tendencies as they exist in a manuscript, which is what Royse’s discussion in this section seems to
imply, then there is no reason why one should exclude non-singular readings. If, on the other
hand, one’s aim is to describe the copying technique and scribal habits of an individual scribe,
one must make a better case for the notion of why the singular reading reflects the work of anindividual. To an extent, in studying and describing the six papyri, Royse never comes back tothis notion that he is studying the accumulated errors of different scribes, and I believe rightly
so. In my own work on Codex Sinaiticus I found that the type and frequency of singular readings changed noticeably from scribe to scribe within the same manuscript and book withinthat manuscript, and that a high proportion of the singular readings are scribe-related, rather
than manuscript- related. I think that Royse can be confident that by and large we are looking
at the signature of specific scribes.
2. Royse on Klaus Junack: How Are the Papyri Copied?
On page 43, note 16, we are helpfully informed that Hurtado’s work on Codex W appeared in
the same year as Royse’s dissertation. Another important work also appeared in 1981, namely
Klaus Junack’s contribution to the Metzger Festschrift of that year “Abschreibpraktiken und
Schreibergewohnheiten in ihrer Auswirkung auf die Textüberlieferung,”30 an article reflecting
on the nature of copying and of scribal habits. This is, in my opinion, an extremely important
essay, analysing how the copying of a Greek text written without word-division works out inpractice and how the various stages of copying, from reading the text to the actual action of thehand in writing, can affect the outcome of a single act of copying.
Royse is aware of this work. There are references to this essay: in a footnote on page 84, inthe context of studies on how reading aloud affects copying; on page 86 where Junack’s rejection of the use of dictation for Codex Sinaiticus is noted; on page 100, noting that Junack did
not find any indications from the ink for the unit of copying; on page 521, note 648, where acouple of singular readings of 𝔓66 are discussed and similarly for readings of 𝔓72 on page 572
and 573. On page 663, note 261, Junack is reported as seeing a tendency in 𝔓75 of omitting certain particles, but this notion is not taken up for discussion any further. On page 672, note 299,
another reading of 𝔓75 is mentioned, which Junack mistakenly took as a singular reading, andfinally, in a footnote on page 718 of the chapter on “The Shorter Reading”, Junack is quoted approvingly as describing the tendency that during writing our thoughts tend to go quicker thanour hand can follow.
Why this overview? First of all, it shows that an author index to a book can come in quite
useful, as long as there are not too many references to a single author. But more importantly,
in none of the above-mentioned places is there a reference to an interesting point Junack also
made in his essay. At one point Junack directly attacks some of Colwell’s conclusions regarding
𝔓45, 𝔓66, and 𝔓75. Colwell had written that “𝔓75 copies letters one by one; 𝔓66 copies syllables, usually two letters in length; 𝔓45 copies phrases and clauses.” Junack (288-9) disagrees thoroughly30

Klaus Junack, “Abschreibpraktiken und Schreibergewohnheiten in ihrer Auswirkung auf die Textüberlieferung,” in New Testament Textual Criticism: Its Significance for Exegesis. Essays in Honour of
Bruce M. Metzger., ed. Eldon Jay Epp and Gordon D. Fee (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981), 277-95.

16

Scribal Habits in Early Greek New Testament Papyriwith these conclusions, or at least with the conclusion as applied to letter by letter, or syllable
by syllable copying. This would reduce copying to a mechanised process in which just signs
rather than meaningful units were copied. Any error based on nonsense meaning would only
show up in the correction phase but not during the actual copying of the letters or syllables
as the copying is reduced to a level below meaning. Without doubt Junack is correct in his
critique, also because it is based on a fuller understanding of what copying is (as explained by
Alphonse Dain). Moreover, Junack here directly attacks the results, the integrated reflection on
the nature of singular readings made by Colwell. How does Royse deal with this?
With regard to 𝔓66 Royse simply repeats the conclusion of Colwell that its scribe copies syllables (493). Royse also refers to Fee who notes, more cautiously, that dropping a syllable “is aregular habit of the scribe” (493, n. 502). This underlines the point I want to make here: there
is a vast difference between describing the actual resultant types of errors, such as droppinga syllable or swapping two letters, and the conclusion one makes regarding the way a scribe
actually goes about his work in practice. Copying a single syllable, a single letter?
The discussion of 𝔓75 does not fare better in this regard. On page 653 Royse’s data “confirm
Colwell’s view that the scribe of 𝔓75 copies (at least usually) letter by letter, or at any rate syllable
by syllable.” I believe that Colwell’s phraseology was careless, that Royse took it over too easily,
and that a golden opportunity was missed by ignoring Junack on this point. Scribal habits are
not just about the types of errors we find; it is, I believe, also about how a scribe copies. And
conclusions on how the scribe copies are important, they are even necessary, but they should
also be carefully considered, weighed and discussed.
3. Royse and Griesbach: The Shorter Reading?
I am on record as having written that “perhaps Royse comes close to misrepresenting
Griesbach”.31 This has to do with how Royse discussed Griesbach’s canon of preferring theshorter to the longer reading in his dissertation. The word “misrepresenting” had to do withthe fact that I thought that Royse had not given enough weight to the exceptions to this canonthat Griesbach himself lists. My argument was roughly as follows:–– Griesbach prefers the shorter reading.
–– However he lists exceptions to the rule.
–– These exceptions are the following, which means that the longer reading has to be preferredin the following cases:
1. homoeoteleuton
2. what was omitted does not appear correct to the scribe (for a whole range of reasons)
3. what is lacking does not harm the sense or the structure of the sentence
4. if the longer reading is more in accord with the author’s style
5. if the shorter reading makes no sense
6. if harmonisation to parallel passages plays a role.
–– Most of the omissions which Royse has found fall under the first three of Griesbach’s exceptions.
–– Therefore Griesbach’s canon still stands; the only thing Royse did was to flesh out Griesbach’s exceptions; Griesbach was mainly talking about the real, substantial variants, notabout the stuff that tends to fill up the category of singular readings.
[This is a slight caricature of what I wrote, but I think I should be allowed to do that.]
The reason why I want to save something of Griesbach is that it is my impression that31

Dirk Jongkind, Scribal Habits in Codex Sinaiticus, Texts and Studies, Third Series, Volume 5 (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2007), 139.

Scribal Habits in Early Greek New Testament Papyri

17

traditions tend to grow over the course of centuries: they pick up extra phrases, extra verses,
sometimes an extra ending, or a whole story is inserted. Though on one hand we see that it isin the nature of the actual process of copying that a text is more likely to come out shorter thanlonger—as I believe has been convincingly demonstrated by Royse (and others since)—there
must be a way to account for all the extra bits that texts tend to pick up. I need something of a
canon like Griesbach formulated to account for this overall growth of texts.
We have of course the explicit tendency expressed by Eusebius (ad Marinum):On the other hand, someone else, who dares to set aside nothing whatsoever of the things whichappear, by whatever means, in the text of the Gospels, says that the reading [long ending of Mark;DJ] is double ...32

There is a reluctance to throw anything aside that could be part of the Gospel tradition. Thistendency may go back to at least the early third century with Origen, who decided to obelise
the passages in his Greek Old Testament rather than to excise them altogether. This may bepart of the phenomenon Griesbach wants to describe.
A second factor that would lead to a growing text are editorial readings, believed to have atendency to expand an initial shorter reading. I am not convinced yet that this phenomenon
has been demonstrated clearly. Are editorial scribal creations always longer than the original?
I believe it is true for the longer text of Acts, but I do not think it is true for Matthew and Luke
where they edited Mark (this last example is of course beset with problems, but interesting
nonetheless), and it has been claimed that Codex Vaticanus has a tendency to produce too
clean a text. There is clearly space for further investigation into scribal habits here.
A third factor could be the conflation of readings, especially the incorporation of corrections as additions rather than as substitutions. But again, I am not sure to what extent thiscase has been made empirically. In the same vein, one of the main reasons for why texts growcould well be that in the correction phase it is more likely to add something to a text (correctly
or incorrectly) than take away something from the text. If a scribe compares his freshly madecopy with another manuscript, it may be more likely that he is looking for things to add to his
own copy than to take out. However, I do not have extensive data on this (though it is true inthe case in Sinaiticus - Chronicles) and it would make for a good dissertation topic. Probably
the data for the six early papyri could be dug up from Royse’s work somewhere.
Yet, ultimately, I have to agree with Royse on Griesbach’s canon. Royse is absolutely correct
in dismissing the short and even the more nuanced version of the lectio brevior lectio potior
canon; it puts us on the wrong foot. Every canon should in my opinion start with an awarenessof the hazardous nature of copying and the many types of complicated clerical errors that canarise. Instead of formulating the canon in terms of the shorter reading, the term “expansionary” might be better. A reading which appears to be an expansion of an alternative reading
should not be preferred, thus bringing the actual content of the extra words into play. But moreremains to be said here and though Royse made a start in his book, I am not sure we are there
already.
All in all, I want to thank James Royse for his work. It has been a really positive influence on
my own work, and likewise I hope it will prove so to be on the rest of the discipline. Its main
thesis is correct, I believe, and the study provides a wonderfully deep insight into each of thesepapyri.

32

Translation taken from James A. Kelhoffer, “The Witness of Eusebius’ ad Marinum and Other
Christian Writings to Text-Critical Debates concerning the Original Conclusion to Mark’s Gospel,”ZNW 92 (2001): 85.

18

Scribal Habits in Early Greek New Testament Papyri

4. Response by James R. RoyseFirst, let me thank AnneMarie Luijendijk for organizing this session, and my fellow panelists
for their perceptive and generous remarks. It is, of course, an honor for an author to have one’s
work reviewed by such distinguished scholars of the text of the Bible. And I am pleased, andmore than a little embarrassed, that my work, begun when we were all very much younger (ifalive at all), has received such positive reception. Time does not permit a full discussion of all
the points that they raise. Very generally I would wish to second the calls for further investigation of various issues; there is much to be done in the study of these six papyri and otherimportant manuscripts, and in the study of scribal habits, and there are too few of us to giveadequate attention to all the readings in all the manuscripts. Nevertheless, the panelists haveraised some points to which I would like to reply, in the spirit, well illustrated by their remarks,of scholarly cooperation in advancing our common goal of shedding light on the process of thetransmission of the text of the New Testament.
I will basically follow the order of the speakers, but with some cross-references.
First, there is Juan Hernández:
I appreciate Hernández’s comments, and am pleased to have been associated in some small
degree with his doctoral work. I confess that some of the details of my dissertation have faded
from my mind with time, and have been overwritten with the revisions and expansions foundin the current book. Indeed, hearing Hernández’s description was in some ways like hearingof someone else’s work. But I am very grateful for his kind words, and for his comments about
the role that my dissertation played in his own study of the New Testament text.
As a very small footnote to all this, the appendix in my dissertation on 𝔓46 and the Ethiopic,
to which Hernández refers, was not included in the revised book. Rather it is cited as a forthcoming article. At some point I decided that separate publication would be more appropriate,
and would save some space in the current book. However, I never seem to be able to put thefinishing touches on the article. Perhaps the enthusiasm of the current session will enable me
to conclude that little work as well, although for now it exists only as an appendix in the dissertation.
Next, Kim Haines-Eitzen:33
Both Haines-Eitzen and Jongkind draw attention to the brief summaries of scribal habits
for each of the six papyri. Haines-Eitzen questions whether the summaries “help us get a senseof a scribe,” and Jongkind remarks that a one-page summary of scores of pages of analysis is
not all that helpful. Of course, to provide extended “integrated reflection” (as Jongkind puts it)on the scribal habits would have been to risk expanding the book even more. But perhaps insuch extended discussion I could have avoided some of the tensions (shall we say) in the summaries that Haines-Eitzen points out. Alternatively, perhaps it would have been better simply
to forego such summaries and let the analyses speak for themselves. At least that would haveavoided the shortcomings, and omission is always so much more tempting than addition.
I turn to Haines-Eitzen’s concluding three points (or “questions”).
Point 1: I would concur that the physical features of manuscripts can be crucial. HainesEitzen, of course, has given much attention (in her provocative study, Guardians of Letters)
to the peculiarities of 𝔓72 and of the codex of which it forms a part (or perhaps two parts,
1–2 Peter and Jude), giving careful attention to the curious features (scribal and otherwise)
33

Editors’ note: Kim Haines-Eitzen’s review was not available for publication.

Scribal Habits in Early Greek New Testament Papyri

19of the disparate texts joined there into this “third-century miscellany” (as she calls it), andarguing that it was the product of an early scribal network. And Jongkind, in his recent work,
The Scribal Habits of Codex Sinaiticus, creatively combines many aspects of that very complex
manuscript, such as the arrangement of the quires, the nature of the paragraphing, the use of
nomina sacra, and the scribal tendencies to produce certain sorts of variations, all sorted out
among the three scribes and the various correctors. Here again, I would not wish to be seen as
in any way claiming completeness or finality in my analysis, and I would welcome further andmore comprehensive discussions. Especially the codex to which 𝔓72 belongs seems, as HainesEitzen well observes, to be a different sort of physical object than the usual New Testament
manuscript, and it would be natural that its unique properties should have implications for our
understanding of its text and for our evaluation of its readings for purposes of textual criticism. I might refer further to the fascinating analysis of the “Bodmer Miscellaneous Codex” by
Tommy Wasserman in chapter two of his recent The Epistle of Jude: Its Text and Transmission,
which integrates codicological and textual considerations of this compilation.
Point 2: I would not wish to appear at all certain on such a complex topic as the theologicalcorruptions of the text. But I would observe that it is (I believe) perfectly consistent to holdthat dogmatic changes began to occur around 300 and that the majority of textual variants
arose during the first three Christian centuries (that is, before 300). We have to keep in mind
that the vast majority of textual variants do not involve (as it seems) theological corruption. So,
while most textual variants may have arisen early, the comparatively few theological corruptions could have been late on the scene. Of course, others have thought to find theologicallymotivated readings in, say, 𝔓46. I have not been inclined to agree, but in any case the numbersof such readings would be, I believe, comparatively small; but that doesn’t mean that they
didn’t exist.
Point 3: I used the term “textual type” in connection with the papyri with some hesitation(see, e.g., 15 note 52). Of course, in calling, for example, 𝔓72 Alexandrian, I was simply repeating
what others have said, and while such terminology may be anachronistic for the early papyri
or otherwise problematic, it seems to me to be useful shorthand for describing the textual relations. But I would hope that my investigation does not depend to any great degree on suchcharacterizations.
Next, Peter M. Head:All of the speakers have remarked upon the history of this work, its first appearance as adissertation, and then its second appearance in the present form. But Head has given mostattention to the continuities and changes, and seems better able than I am to describe what
has happened. Certainly, as I revised and expanded the dissertation I was well aware that
there were some dangers in the expansion, and that perceptive readers (such as our panelists),
trained to detect layers of textual accretion, would be able to see that the material from 1981 did
not always flow smoothly into the material from 2006, as both Jongkind and Head on occasion
note. I am honored that Head has given such careful attention to the development of this work.
Also, his decision to look at the work on 𝔓66 in more detail reflects my own understandingof the importance of that manuscript. Particularly the study of the some 465 corrections seems
to me to shed much light on the nature of copying a New Testament book around the year 200.
Although I devoted a great deal of time to an analysis of those corrections, crucially aided by
the studies of Gordon Fee and Errol Rhodes and many other scholars, I suspect that there isyet much to be discovered. What is especially interesting is that in 𝔓66, as also in 𝔓46 and again
some 150 years later in Codex Sinaiticus, the extensive corrections preserve in one manuscript
several layers of textual change that can, at least in theory, reveal much about what was hap-20

Scribal Habits in Early Greek New Testament Papyri

pening to the text during the early period. Of course, the challenge is to organize what lies insuch layers in a perspicuous manner.
I mention a few points very briefly. In his note 5 (note 26 above, ed.) Head wonders about
my decision to confine attention to singulars in A occurring in the first two chapters in Revelation; I chose the first two chapters for examination simply in order not to digress too much,and my point there was a very limited one. Naturally, a wider and more thorough investigation, as we now have in Hernández’s work, Scribal Habits and Theological Influences in the
Apocalypse: The Singular Readings of Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus, and Ephraemi, is much to bewelcomed.
With respect to Head’s finding “one moment of unclarity” at page xvii, second paragraph,line 2: let me note that one should delete the phrase “and asterisked”—I honestly don’t knowwhat happened there, but it is an unwarranted addition. And at page 401 note 14, line 2 fromthe end: yes, “𝔓46” should be “𝔓66.”
Finally, Dirk Jongkind:
Jongkind has pointed to some specific features that could bear improvement. Some of his
points are matters of style and presentation, and I am probably not the best judge of what isgood or bad there. But I would like to respond briefly on a couple of points.
First, let me confess that I like footnotes. In the works of others, footnotes are often among
my favorite parts. And, for what it is worth, some of my favorite parts of this book are in thefootnotes. During the writing, as I pursued various paths of enquiry, I often thought of thecomment of Herman Melville in Billy Budd (Chapter 4): “In this matter of writing, resolve as
one may to keep to the main road, some bypaths have an enticement not readily to be withstood.” Of course, I may have given in too often to such enticement, and perhaps for the sakeof clarity and explanation I should have cited Melville’s comment in a footnote.
Second, as already noted, Jongkind wonders about the value of the summaries. But let me
say something about Jongkind’s particular example of a scribal habit: “that a transposition canbe explained best by assuming that initially the scribe forgot a word, noticed this, and inserted
it somewhat belatedly at the first possible opportunity.” This does seem to me to be an important point (although I would replace “forgot” by “omitted”), and I believe that one can often
see this habit at work in various manuscripts. Perhaps I should have emphasized it more. But
it does not seem to me to be “hidden in the commentary” (as Jongkind says). It is mentioned
in the text in the discussion of the transpositions of each of the six papyri. And at each of
those places there are—dare I say?—footnotes that will lead the reader down a bypath to findin Supplementary Note 9 (755–6) that this observation was made by Colwell and even earlier
by Havet, Hoskier, and others. Of course, more could have been said. Perhaps some day I will
say more on this topic, but in the meantime I encourage others to investigate this tendency
in these six papyri and in other manuscripts. Many other tendencies deserve more extended
treatment. After all, I attempted only a “partial fulfillment” (as I say on 101) of the goal of acommentary on the singular readings of these papyri.
Third, I appreciate Jongkind’s comments on my use (or lack thereof) of the interesting andimportant essay by Junack. And I will concede that more could have been done with this issue of whether a scribe is copying by letters, by syllables, by words, or by some larger units.
I appealed to the distinction as made by Colwell on occasion, but did not collect systematic
data or attempt to draw the data together into some overall perspective. I would encourageothers to do so. However, I would say that (a) my chief interest was “about the type of errors
we find,” and that (b) trying to say anything more seems to me to run the risk of attempting
to gain insight into the psychology of the scribe. And this latter task is very difficult, to sayScribal Habits in Early Greek New Testament Papyri

21

the least. I believe that we can see that a scribe tends to omit syllables, let us say, and that that“type of error” can inform our evaluation of the scribe’s readings. I would hesitate to say muchmore. However, at least one could attempt to determine what general patterns there are withrespect to letters, syllables, and so on, in a scribe’s errors. And my own attempts there were notsystematic.
Fourth, with respect to Jongkind’s discussion of isolated textual traditions, let me say that,in my opinion, the primary purpose of studying the scribal habits of manuscripts is to sharpen
or revise our analysis of readings. This happens on different levels. At the first level, we canhope to find that a particular manuscript displays specific tendencies in its errors, and we canthen use those tendencies in our assessment of the value of that manuscript at some particularvariation unit. For example, if we find (as I believe we do) that 𝔓46 tends to omit portions of
the text by a leap from the same to the same, then 𝔓46’s support for a reading that can be so
explained may be, to that extent, discounted. That is, we will find it more likely that 𝔓46 createdthat shorter reading, and thus less likely that that shorter reading goes back to the exemplar
of 𝔓46. For such an inquiry the singular readings provide, I believe, the best evidence for thescribe’s tendencies. And then at the second level, we can hope to generalize on the tendencies
found in specific witnesses. That is what happens in the canons of internal criticism. If we find(as I believe we do) that scribes in general tend to omit portions of the text by a leap from thesame to the same, then we may reject readings that could have arisen in such a way.
Now, my general point about isolated traditions was that, for such purposes, whether wehave the work of one scribe or the combined work of several scribes is irrelevant for the assessment of readings.
However, I completely agree with Jongkind’s summary comment that it is much more likelythat we do not have such “complex scribes” in the New Testament tradition. In fact, though,Jongkind’s work on Codex Sinaiticus (144–7) provides one apparent example in the Septuagint: we have there a passage from 1 Chronicles, namely 9:27–19:17, inserted into 2 Esdras.
Jongkind notes that this insertion is unique to Codex Sinaiticus, but that there is no sign ofcorrection. What he then (reasonably enough, as it seems to me) infers is that the exemplar of
Codex Sinaiticus (i.e., the exemplar at this point of the Septuagint) had the same insertion, andwas used for both the initial transcription and the earliest stage of correcting activity. If this isso, we can see a little isolated tradition, consisting of that exemplar and Codex Sinaiticus. But,
as Jongkind notes, the textual evidence for 1 Chronicles is comparatively weak, as Brooke andMcLean cite only 25 manuscripts. And certainly the breadth and complexity of the manuscript
tradition of the New Testament make such isolated traditions much less likely.
Fifth, I turn to Jongkind’s discussion of the shorter reading. Here of course I did attempt
to integrate the results for the six papyri, and to say something about the implications thoseresults have for the canon of preferring the shorter reading. Jongkind is correct in reminding
us that Griesbach’s first canon is a much more nuanced, and much more complicated, piece ofadvice than the principle of simply preferring the shorter reading. Indeed, I suspect that thenuances and the complications are precisely what have caused it to be replaced in many subsequent lists of canons by simpler and more direct principles. That is, perhaps everyone willagree with Hort that “scribes were moved by a much greater variety of impulse than is usually
supposed” (cited in chapter 1, footnote 35). Nevertheless, having a canon of criticism that tells
us that scribes do this, and also that, and then sometimes something else except when they are
doing some other thing, true as it may be, may not really provide much guidance in choosing
among readings. Ultimately, editors of the text and most critics of the text want to make choices of some kind or other. And for that purpose simple, direct principles are the most useful.
For example: “Prefer the reading of Vaticanus and Sinaiticus.” “Prefer the reading that is not22

Scribal Habits in Early Greek New Testament Papyri

harmonized.” “Prefer the shorter reading.” Those are the sorts of principles that inform mostmodern texts. Indeed, we have on record in Metzger’s Textual Commentary the principles
used to construct, or at least to justify, our current “standard” text in Nestle-Aland. And we see
there nothing like Griesbach’s first canon. Moreover, it is not all that often that one sees evenin the totality of discussion of a variation unit such disparate points that Griesbach combines.
Of course, most variation units receive no discussion at all. But the ones that do often involvethe conflict of two or three principles. The shorter reading is not supported by B and ℵ andfriends, or the reading of B and ℵ agrees with a parallel. Under those circumstances the editors
have to balance principles. But if one has to balance the sorts of things that Griesbach tries tobalance in his first canon, one may give up in despair at ever reaching a decision. (Of course,such considerations do not show that Griesbach’s canon is false.)
Finally, I should note that Jongkind’s own study of Codex Sinaiticus has provided yet further evidence that early scribes tended to omit rather than to add. This adds to my convictionthat the preference for the shorter reading is fundamentally mistaken. And I wonder if there is,or really ever was, any evidence at all that scribes tended to add. In any case, there is increasing evidence, from the work of Hernández on Revelation, of Head on the early less extensive
papyri, and of Jongkind on Codex Sinaiticus, that omission was more common than addition,and thus that the scribal tendency underlying the preference for the shorter reading is illusory.
Of course, we have here an overall tendency. Within that tendency there may still be plentyof additions, as we see in these six papyri, which could account for Jongkind’s observation that“traditions tend to grow over the course of centuries”. Also, the text may have been affected not
only by the changes introduced by scribes but also, as Jongkind notes, by the efforts of revisers, redactors, and editors. As extreme examples, we may think of the ways that Matthew andLuke, at least on the two-document hypothesis, handled the text of Mark. Clearly, their overalltendency was to expand. But that tendency to expand did not prevent Matthew and Luke fromomitting on occasion, as at Mark 1:32, where each adopts one clause of a redundancy in Mark,or Mark 4:26–29, the parable of the seed growing secretly, where each of Matthew and Lukechooses to omit the passage entirely. Now, I would not wish to define precisely the difference
between copying activity and editorial activity, although, like other things, we usually know
them when we see them. And thus we distinguish the scribe of 𝔓46 or 𝔓66 from Matthew or
Luke or Origen. But within the transmission of the New Testament (or the Septuagint or theMasoretic Text) there are many factors at work, and surely we cannot expect to explain thecomplications that we find by appeal to anything other than complex, sometimes conflicting,tendencies. However, despite such qualifications, I believe the evidence strongly supports theview that early scribes of the New Testament tended to shorten the text. And that is, if not theentire story, at least an important part of the story.
Again, I thank all of the panelists for their insightful and stimulating remarks.

© Copyright TC: A Journal of Biblical Textual Criticism, 2012