How Tall Would a Stack of New Testament Manuscripts Be?

On 1 January 20231 January 2023 By Daniel B. WallaceIn Early Christianity, History, New Testament Studies, statistic, Textual Criticsim

If you could stack up all handwritten manuscripts of the New Testament—Greek, Syriac, Latin, Coptic, all languages—how tall would the stack be?

I was recently challenged on my numbers in a Facebook discussion in the group “New Testament Textual Criticism.”

I have said in many lectures that it would be the equivalent of c. 4 & 1/2 Empire State Buildings stacked on top of each other. How did I come up with that number?

First, I needed to figure out the total number of pages of all our Greek NT manuscripts. Ancillary to that, but helpful for estimating versional witnesses, is determining the average number of pages in the manuscripts. For Greek NT MSS, my wife did the addition. When I was on sabbatical in Germany in 2002–03, I spent a few months in Tübingen (after several months in Münster). Pati added up all the leaf counts of Greek NT MSS listed in the 1994 Kurzgefaßte Liste. Then, she doubled it to get the page count. The average-sized MS was well over 400 pages long. Total number was something like 2.5 million pages. Of course, now we have the online K-Liste, and quite a few more MSS on the list, but the ’94 was the latest available at the time. Keep in mind that the folio count of those MSS that had been mislabeled were not listed in the 1994 K-Liste, although the official number of MSS was (which was higher than the actual number by a couple hundred or so). Today, the official number is, at last count, 5999. The actual number, I believe, is closer to 5800.^[1] Many other researchers suggest the actual number to be about 5500, but I have reason to believe it’s higher than this. Regardless, all our numbers are approximations, but we do need a ballpark figure to give us some sort of a benchmark.

Next, I needed to estimate the thickness of the average MS. This was trickier to do and could only be an estimate since the depth of MSS is almost never measured in any metadata write-ups. But CSNTM has been measuring depth on all MSS since 2015. I had previously guesstimated 3.5” thickness per average MS. After sampling twenty MSS at the National Library of Greece, whose average number of leaves came to 239, the depth came out to 2.9″ (that’s a shortfall of 6/10th of an inch from my original guess).

Taking the average of 2.9″ per MS above as depth (including covers, which I estimated at c. 1/2″; these I have not measured but after looking at hundreds of MSS, this number seemed to be on the conservative side), times 5800 MSS = 1402 feet, almost as high as the Empire State Building (1454′).

Third, I added the number of versional witnesses. I have estimated somewhere between 15,000 and 20,000 versional witnesses, with the Latin making up for the bulk of these. In our many expeditions, I have seen numerous Coptic MSS, far more than I had thought were extant. And I have assumed c. 10,000 Latin MSS. If this number is as low as 8,000, that is offset by the more sumptuous medieval Latin MSS than their Greek counterparts. The depth, thus, would be larger than 2.9″, but I’m assuming 10,000 (perhaps too high) at 2.9″ depth (probably too low). Assuming that other versional witnesses are similar in size (though, since none of them is as early as the earliest Greek NTs, and thus not as fragmentary, they will tend to be fuller, with quite a number of them being very large), we come up with the following numbers:

20,800 total number of MSS (5800 Greek + 15,000 versions): = 5027 feet

25,800 total number of MSS (5800 Greek + 20,000 versions): = 6235 feet

This number is a bit smaller than I had estimated previously. I have adjusted my presentation in light of the new polling of the average MS depth. Incidentally, four stacked Empire State Buildings would be 5816 feet tall (and yes, I’m counting the antennae on top).

Bibliographical comparison. I tried to compare apples with apples: the NT in all handwritten copies compared to classical Greek works of all handwritten copies in any language. For the latter, I did not do any scientific count but gave a broad estimate based on selective data of a number of authors. 15 MSS seemed to be a generous estimate. That stack came to 3.625 feet tall, but I rounded it up to 4 feet.

Significance—this IS helpful and not misleading when properly used. Some of the comments on the Facebook discussion appear to have made many false assumptions—e.g., that our NT MSS are written on a scroll (or roll), that they are single-leaf MSS, or that I was counting Greek only. “When properly used”: In my lectures on this topic, I don’t use these figures in isolation. I offer four questions that need to be answered. The first question is pertinent to this discussion: How many variants are there? I use Peter Gurry’s estimate of 500,000 (Greek MSS only), but since he didn’t count nonsense readings and most spelling variants, when they are included the numbers are exponentially higher. In other words, I do not minimize the number of variants in the slightest. At this point in the lecture, many Christians tend to squirm in their seats; many others are rejoicing in their minds! Recovering the autographic wording appears to be hopeless.

Then I put things into perspective. The context of the number of MSS was simply that, as Richard Bentley argued three hundred years ago, the more MSS, the more variants. I also compared the date of the earliest NT fragments with the average earliest copies of Greco-Roman writings. Even the earliest copies of (just about) any Greco-Roman literature come many centuries after the autographs were written. Although only about 1% of our Greek MSS are complete NTs, the average size is well over 400 pages. I assume the same for versions.

Significance continued: Why specific numbers? I would argue strenuously that giving numbers in this context is quite helpful for most people. Some think abstractly and such numbers may seem meaningless. But I believe that many, if not most, think more concretely, especially in lay circles and on college campuses, when trying to get a handle on textual criticism. Grasping the topic in a one hour presentation is challenging enough without seeing concrete numbers! As an apt analogy, consider the Wong-Baker FACES® Pain Rating Scale. Created in 1983 to help children identify the intensity of pain on various parts of their body, this 1–10/happy-face-to-sad-face model soon mushroomed into an international standard for doctors across the globe—for adults as well as children. So it is with giving numbers on MSS. The analogy breaks down, however, because the pain index is completely relative. Logically, if the pain index is considered quite helpful for medical practitioners and their patients, in spite of its relativity, how much more so would the number of NT MSS be for those interested in textual matters? However, it would be misleading to give only the official number because of numerous caveats (see Jacob Peterson’s chapter, “Math Myths: How Many Manuscripts We have and Why More Isn’t Always Better,” in Myths & Mistakes). So, I give an estimate that is well within the ballpark of actual. And I show, century by century through the first millennium, how many MSS we have. I have tried to be very circumspect when dealing with the data, though of course in a popular lecture I dare not show my homework for fear of losing my audience!

The numbers, caveats, context, and other features I use in this lecture have been tweaked over the years, and the Facebook discussion has helped me refine them further. I’m sure some folks will quibble over what I have presented (textual critics are the most hyper-critical scholars I know!), but implications of indolence coupled with suggestions of sham estimates, without giving me the benefit of the doubt, seeing what I have said, or even contacting me about this (only one friend did, and that’s how I learned about the discussion), are not particularly helpful. A little more charity will go a long way.

^[1] Note too that a number of kinds of witnesses, in particular certain types of lectionaries, that Gregory had counted were abandoned when Aland took over the numbering system. Hundreds more of these unregistered MSS exist. (Dozens are at the National Library of Greece alone, but we did not shoot them.) So, in a sense, the numbers could go both ways—to a degree. If we counted all these, the total would swell to well over 6000 MSS. If we didn’t count Gregory’s at all, the numbers would drop by 225, or just under c. 5600.

New Discoveries on Every Page: P45, P46, P47

On 1 September 202031 August 2020 By Daniel B. WallaceIn Bible Translation, Contemporary Issues, CSNTM, Early Christianity, Exegesis, Greek Grammar, History, New Testament Studies, Textual Criticsim

Nearly nine decades ago, three of the earliest and most extensive New Testament papyri were made available to scholars through color photographs. These facsimiles, together with their authoritative transcriptions, have remained the primary access that biblical scholars and papyrologists have had to them. Until now. With the multi-volume publication of New Testament Papyri 𝔓45, 𝔓46, 𝔓47 coming out later this year, new, exquisite, exact-size images will become available in print. After digitizing these priceless manuscripts at the Chester Beatty in Dublin and the University of Michigan, CSNTM has collaborated with Hendrickson Academic in the endeavor to offer fresh, library-quality images of these third-century copies of large portions of the New Testament.

P45 cover

The facsimiles will be published both with a white background and a black background, each of which offers different views of the texts. Perhaps surprisingly to many, the black background images were found to be much more helpful for creating accurate transcriptions.

For this initial offering, the transcription of just 𝔓47 will be included with the images of all the manuscripts. 𝔓45 and 𝔓46 will follow in coming years, as the task of transcription still continues. The process of transcribing, however, which has been done in large part on the other two papyri, should yield far more precise results than Sir Frederic Kenyon’s editio princeps of the 1930s. It is no exaggeration to say that thousands of corrections to Kenyon’s transcriptions are in the offing. To be sure, most of these are quite minor, but some are fairly stunning. But every correction to Kenyon’s brilliant but somewhat rushed efforts bring us one step closer to understanding the text of the New Testament in third-century Egypt.

By the use of careful measurements, rigorous comparisons with multiple close-ups of individual letters and ligatures, and intense arguments (!), the editors (Stratton Ladewig, Robert Marcello, and Dan Wallace) are able to offer a new standard transcription of each papyrus. In this short blog, I offer but one animation that lays out our procedure. (Thanks go to my son, Andrew Jon Wallace, for producing this illustration.)

The 28^th edition of the Nestle-Aland text in Mark 8:22 reads Καὶ ἔρχονται εἰς Βηθσαϊδάν. Καὶ φέρουσιν αὐτῷ τυφλὸν καὶ παρακαλοῦσιν αὐτὸν ἵνα αὐτοῦ ἅψηται. One variant is listed—Βηθανιαν for Βηθσαιδαν in D and a couple other witnesses. What is not mentioned is the variant for ερχονται. The majority of manuscripts here, along with the key majuscules א* and A, have the singular ερχεται. Kenyon reconstructed the wording of 𝔓45 as having the plural, though underdotting every letter as dubious. But this identification is almost surely incorrect. The space for the word and the shape of the letter fragments fits like a glove for ερχεται. Due to the difficulty of making out the letters in the old plates, one can understand the wrong guess. But with better photographs coupled with the comparisons that digital images readily afford, the CSNTM editors have concluded that 𝔓45 here has ερχεται.

Such may not seem terribly significant. Yet every small decision, every correction, every change to the identification of the text in question gives us a better sense of what these scribes wrote eighteen centuries ago. Further, the singular here does offer a slightly different interpretation on the passage. Although it is true that Jesus and his disciples came to Bethsaida, whether Mark wrote “they came” or “he came” has some significance. On occasion the evangelists use a singular verb with a compound subject. This throws the spotlight on the first-named subject. And frequently, that subject is Jesus (see John 2:2; 3:22; cf. also Matt 13:55; Acts 5.29; 16:31). Mark concludes his pericope on the healing of the blind man with this idiom (Mark 8:27: Καὶ ἐξῆλθεν ὁ Ἰησοῦς καὶ οἱ μαθηταὶ αὐτοῦ). It is a distinct possibility that he would begin the pericope the same way. Such would be a subtle and fitting inclusio in one of Mark’s better-crafted stories. And 𝔓45 might just tip the scales for us to see it.

In the midst of a global pandemic, we still need to save Scripture

On 30 March 2020 By Daniel B. WallaceIn Bible Translation, Contemporary Issues, CSNTM, Early Christianity, History, New Testament Studies, Textual Criticsim, Theology

This coming Saturday, the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts (CSNTM.org) had scheduled to have its annual Dallas Fundraising Banquet. Some weeks ago we pulled the plug on that. The coronavirus has spread exponentially since then.

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The world is facing a pandemic right now, and we are all sheltering at home. People are losing jobs, facing personal isolation, depression, and genuine crises. Many are dying, communities are dissolving, and a new normal may be emerging. We are praying that this is not the new normal for very long though!

In the midst of this global scenario, there are some things I am sure of. The sun will come up tomorrow, people need to eat, and our time on this planet is limited. CSNTM was founded 18 years ago because of another thing I am sure of: ancient, handwritten copies of the Bible are deteriorating. They are all written on organic material (papyrus, parchment, or paper), and because of this they are not permanent. Our initial task is to save Scripture. Each manuscript is unique. Every one has a story to tell. These are not books rolling off a printing press; they are individual works of love, gifts to future generations of people, written by men and women whose only thanks is from their Lord. The task of saving Scripture remains, and its necessity is underscored in light of the fragility of life that the whole world is now coming face to face with. Life has always been fragile, but sometimes it takes a crisis to bring this out of the shadows and put it front and center.

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Our mission is still the same. And our need is still the same. When this pathogen runs its course, CSNTM will be back at our preservation work throughout the world. There are more than 250 locales where these manuscripts are housed; our mission is to make sure they are digitally preserved, cover to cover and everything in between, with state-of-the-art equipment, allowing us to post the images on line and make them accessible to all. These images have always been free for all, and free for all time. We are ready to traverse the globe to save these Scriptures; we will pack up our equipment and fly out as soon as we are allowed.

This week, instead of a physical banquet, CSNTM is having its first-ever (and hopefully, only) VIRTUAL banquet! Please follow along this week, enjoy the testimonies, and watch the short videos, on the significant and exciting work that CSNTM is doing. Every day you will see new videos. In the least, you can watch these shorts and learn something about the Bible, its heritage, and the faithful, mostly anonymous scribes who labored in abysmal conditions to bring the Scriptures to generations of people they would never know.

Sometimes scribes penned a personal note at the end of a manuscript they were copying. One of them, Andrew, wrote this note to conclude the copy of the New Testament he had worked on for many months: “The hand that wrote this is rotting in the grave, but what is written will last until the fulness of times.” Andrew penned this note in AD 1079. The manuscript is not in great shape, but CSNTM was able to photograph it and preserve it digitally. Like Andrew, some day all of us will be rotting in the grave. Wouldn’t it be an incredible gift to our descendants a thousand years from now to be able to read these manuscripts with the same clarity we have today?

Please join us for this virtual banquet. And please partner with us in a mission that is bigger than any of us; it’s an investment that will pay dividends for generations to come.

Ed Komoszewski: A Man of God, a Man in Need

On 20 January 202019 January 2020 By Daniel B. WallaceIn Contemporary Issues, Early Christianity, Ed Komoszewski, GoFundMe, History, New Testament Studies, Theology

I announced on Facebook at the beginning of December a new GoFundMe campaign for Ed Komoszewski. Many generous folks responded–it was, in fact, overwhelming! For all of you, a big THANK YOU! The gifts rolled in even into the new year. We are over half way there! Let’s see this to the end. Below is what I wrote in December:

Dear friends, I resurrected a GoFundMe campaign for Ed Komoszewski at the beginning of December. The first five weeks were, frankly, incredible. The body of Christ has come through in a huge way. But we still have some distance to go. Below is what I wrote then. Please consider how you can help.

My very good friend, Ed Komoszewski, is a man who constantly thanks God—and this in the midst of his own body fighting against itself, tearing him apart.

At this time of year, I am hoping to resurrect the donations to Ed’s health account. The GoFundMe campaign launched two years ago came up short. Ed’s medically-related debt has increased far beyond the original goal which we failed to meet. So many of you contributed generously to Ed’s account. He would be in incalculably worse shape without your help. But now he’s in a new season of his life, and with it comes more debt.

Ed has been deemed disabled by his doctors and the federal government; he’s been unable to earn a regular income since 2015. He has been hospitalized for extensive stays four times in the past three or so years. Debt has accelerated; bills are piling up. Some have gone unpaid and have been turned over to collection agencies. The need is urgent.

I have personally witnessed his humble lifestyle. Your gifts help pay the bills. Some friends help out with specific needs, allowing him to attend a crucial academic conference each year. But he lives a ridiculously frugal life. Not only does he need funds for the medical bills, but the family car limps along, the AC unit (NOT a luxury in Texas) has problems working, and his oldest daughter is heading to college in the fall.

Because Ed is a “medical mystery” (as his doctors at Mayo said of him for the past two decades), he has exhausted many traditional therapies for his various conditions. This means he must experiment with non-traditional treatments often recommended by his doctors but not covered by insurance.

Even though Ed cannot earn a sufficient salary, he continues to work on researching and writing as God gives him strength. Long-term projects with distant deadlines are necessary because of his health. This means income is sporadic and small; authors and editors know that academic writing projects pay meagerly. The revenues are not an adequate reflection of the impact.

Jesus, Skepticism, and the Problem of History is a book co-edited by Ed, with several notable authors defending historicity in the Gospels. It was just released a few weeks ago. Ed conceived of the project and worked with Darrell Bock in editing it. A three-hour session was dedicated to discussing it at the recent Evangelical Theological Society meeting—it’s that important.

Ed is working now with Rob Bowman on a second edition of Putting Jesus in His Place. This book has already had a huge influence. It was endorsed by a veritable Who’s Who of biblical scholars and theologians. The acronym used in the book to show that the New Testament affirms Christ’s deity has been widely used by theologians, preachers, and apologists. The publisher gets a steady flow of requests by such folks to use the HANDS acronym in their own publications. What does “HANDS” stand for? You’ll just have to get the book to find out!

It is likely that Ed and I will be revising Reinventing Jesus, too. He is trying to remain as productive as possible, as long as he draws breath, in spite of his limitations.

Besides the influence of his writings, Ed has a massive ministry behind the scenes. I have seen him share the gospel with strangers, pray with people he’s just met, counsel friends and friends of friends. God has given him wisdom borne of suffering and it draws people to Ed like a magnet.

Please consider giving as well as sharing this campaign with your circle of friends. Facebook algorithms in particular limit exposure, so sharing multiple times and asking friends to do the same is the best way to get the word out.

For his current expenses and for the near future, Ed needs $40,000. Yes, that’s a lot of money—and it shows how desperate the situation is. Let’s get Ed to “ground zero” for the first time in many years.

Doing Internal Evidence First in Textual Criticism (Using Accordance)

On 24 May 201924 May 2019 By Daniel B. WallaceIn Accordance, Bible Translation, Contemporary Issues, Early Christianity, Exegesis, Internal evidence, New Testament Studies, Textual Criticsim

For much of the history of the discipline of New Testament textual criticism, practitioners have overwhelmingly favored beginning with the external evidence before looking at the internal evidence. This has been largely a necessity because one could not determine by simply looking at the text the type of textual variant that would be found in the apparatus. Tischendorf’s magisterial Editio octava critica maior, with its extensive list of textual variants, nevertheless did not indicate in the text what kind of reading one would meet in the apparatus. Von Soden’s magnum opus also lacks any such pointers. The UBS text fares better in that it at least gives a footnote number after a word. But it still does not hint at what sort the variation is.

Perhaps this is why external evidence has been the first step in solving a textual problem: there was simply no other way to do it. Once someone glanced at the apparatus and saw their favored witnesses—whether they be א B, D F G, 𝔐, or any number after 𝔓—all too often the textual problem was considered solved. Second-year Greek students, regardless of instructions otherwise, tend to use internal evidence only as confirmation on the decision already arrived at on an external basis. Internal considerations are merely an afterthought, certainly not given equal weight with the external.

The Nestle tradition, however, gives sigla in the text to indicate what kind of variant one might expect to see in the apparatus, as follows:

⸆       insertion
⸀       substitution of one word
⸂ ⸃      substitution of more than one word between these two symbols
^o       omission of one word
⸋ ⸌    omission of more than one word between symbols
⸉ ⸊ transposition between symbols
[ ]     word(s) in brackets omitted in witnesses listed in apparatus

At least the Nestle-Aland text gives some clues to the user as to the kind of variation one can expect to find. These symbols were not in the early editions of the Nestle but have been included for many decades.

This is fortuitous for the approach I take to solving textual problems. First, I ask the student to start with the Nestle-Aland text and refrain from looking at the apparatus. Second, I ask the student to come up with some guesses as to what the variant(s) might be. This is of course not necessary for omissions, simple transpositions, and bracketed words; the variants can be deduced from the sigla. But substitutions and insertions require some guesswork. And if the student can guess what the variant is, this reveals a predictable reading. If the modern student can come up with it, then scribes whose work has no genetic connection to each other’s could have come up with it on their own. But even when there is a genetic connection, working this way helps the student to create a more level playing field between external and internal evidence.

Take, for example, Phil 1.14. The Nestle text reads: καὶ τοὺς πλείονας τῶν ἀδελφῶν ἐν κυρίῳ πεποιθότας τοῖς δεσμοῖς μου περισσοτέρως τολμᾶν ἀφόβως τὸν λόγον ⸆ λαλεῖν. There is an addition after λόγον. Obviously, some adjunct, probably a genitive modifier. What is the ‘word’ that these Christ-followers might dare to speak? Typical student answers are the word ‘of God’ or the word ‘of the Lord.’ And this is exactly what we find in the apparatus: του θεου or κυριου.

This is where things get a bit muddled, however. Students notice immediately the pedigree of the longer readings: του θεου is found in major Alexandrian witnesses, along with several significant witnesses of other types (ℵ A B [⸉ D*] P Ψ 048^vid. 075. 0278. 33. 81. 104. 326. 365. 629. 1175. 1241^s. 2464 al lat sy^p.h** co; Cl); κυριου is found in F G, two leading Western MSS. The Nestle text reading is found in 𝔓⁴⁶D²1739. 1881 𝔐 r vg^ms; Mcion^T. Even with the papyrus and 1739 the evidence is not nearly as impressive as the ‘word of God’ reading. If students begin with the external evidence, as has been the customary practice, they may well be prejudiced against the shorter reading from the get-go because of its lack of credentials. This, in fact, seems to be the case with the third edition of the UBS text: the shorter reading garnered only a ‘D’ rating; the fourth and fifth editions elevated it to ‘B’ status.

What if students could look at the internal evidence without bias? What if they could ignore the witnesses in the apparatus and work out the problem before listening to the external voices? As we have noted, students can do this with certain kinds of variants with the Nestle-Aland text. But I did not know of any way to assist students in not letting their left hand know what their right hand was doing. Until now.

Feature in Accordance

During the spring semester of 2019, while teaching an elective on NT textual criticism at Dallas Seminary, I wrote to Helen and Roy Brown of Accordance to see if they could create a module that would enable students to do internal evidence first and without prejudice. As is typical with Accordance, I received a quick reply. They worked on this problem and soon realized that the software already could do just what I was asking for!

Here is what Helen wrote:

The illustration below shows a tab with the apparatus where the Witness field is apparently hidden, while the tab behind it has the regular display. Both are tied to the text so the user can consult whichever version he wants.

You can do this in a separate tab (not a parallel pane), searching the Witness field for *? to highlight all the contents of that field. Then go to Set Tool Display.

[You go to Tool Display by clicking “command,”; this window will pop up:]

You click the Customize button, and choose White as the Search Highlighting color (or whatever color your background is set to). This effectively hides all your hits. DO NOT click Use as Default as this will apply to all new views of the tool. You can however, save the workspace and the tab will retain its characteristics when it is reopened.

Sincerely,
Helen

See what we have done For BibleWorks Users.

*********************************
Dr. Helen A. Brown
Chief Administrative Officer
Accordance/OakTree Software, Inc.
http://www.accordancebible.com/

I would also recommend saving the session so that you can return to it any time you’re working with the apparatus. I called mine “NO MSS.accord.” And here is what that shows for Phil 1.14:

Conclusion

I wonder if textual critics have for a long time made a virtue out of a necessity. Of course, since the days of Lachmann, Tischendorf, and Hort, the emphasis in most schools of thought has been on the external evidence. But more and more, textual scholars are recognizing that internal evidence must have its say, and it needs to do so with blinders on (as much as is possible) about what the external evidence reveals. Perhaps now that day has come.

I wish to thank Helen Brown of Accordance for help in seeing yet another potential use of this outstanding Bible software program.