Early Textual Recension in

Alexandria: A Evaluation of Fee’s

Arguments
T. David Andersen

Introduction
In the debate between the relative merits of the Byzantine or Alexandrian text types of
the New Testament, scholars who maintain that the Byzantine text type is closer to the
autographs have suggested that the Alexandrian text type was due to a deliberate editorial
inclination to make texts more succinct for stylistic reasons, eliminating sentences or words
that were regarded as superfluous. Some scholars have suggested that scribes in Alexandria
were influenced by the type of editorial changes Alexandrian scholars made to the Homeric
epics. Metzger and Ehrman say (2005:198),

there was a fairly well-developed scholarly discipline of textual and literary

criticism in antiquity, localized chiefly at Alexandria and directed primarily
toward the epics of Homer....It is less widely appreciated—indeed the
question has seldom been raised—how far the methods of textual criticism
current at Alexandria were adopted by scholars in the Church and applied to
the text of the New Testament.

Citing the support of Farmer (1974:13-17) and Robinson (1993), Robinson (2001:§18)
says,

The shorter form in Homer is considered to reflect Alexandrian critical know-

how and scholarly revision applied to the text; the Alexandrian text of the
NT is clearly shorter, has apparent Alexandrian connections, and may well
reflect recensional activity.

Citing the support of Pickering (1980), Robinson and Pierpont (1991) state,

Conflation is not exclusive to the Byzantine-era manuscripts; the scribes of

Alexandrian and Western manuscripts conflate as much or more than what
has been imputed to Byzantine-era scribal habits.

As a rebuttal to this argument Carson cites the work of Fee (1974). Carson states
(1979:117),

If recent work by Gordon D. Fee is correct..., then neither p75 nor B is

recensional. If p75, a second-century papyrus, is not recensional, then it must
be either extremely close to the original or extremely corrupt. The latter
 possibility appears to be eliminated by the witness of B. If Fee’s work stands
up, then we must conclude that at least in John’s Gospel the Alexandrian
text-type is by far the closest to the autograph.

In response to Carson’s remarks, Robinson (2009b) states,

J. C. O'Neill, "The Rules followed by the Editors of the text represented by

the Codex Vaticanus", written post-Fee claims precisely the opposite.
Further, no one to my knowledge has leaped on Fee's bandwagon claim in
this regard.

In the context of this debate, the present paper aims to summarize and evaluate the
arguments of Fee (1974), which was republished as Fee (1993).

Summary of Fee’s arguments

Fee’s aim in his article is to disprove certain hypotheses made by some scholars that
Codex Vaticanus (B) is the end result of scholarly textual recension in Alexandria. Fee
(1993:248) quotes the views of Kenyon (1933:16):

the Vatican text represents the result, not of continuous unaltered tradition,
but of skilled scholarship working on the best available authorities.

He further quotes from Kenyon (1940:250),

During the second and third centuries, a great variety of readings came into
existence throughout the Christian world…In Egypt this variety of texts
existed, as elsewhere; but Egypt (and especially Alexandria) was a country
with a strong tradition of scholarship and with a knowledge of textual
criticism. Here, therefore, a relatively faithful tradition was preserved. About
the beginning of the fourth century, a scholar may well have set himself to
compare the best accessible representatives of this tradition, and so have
produced a text of which B is an early descendant.

According to Kenyon (1949:248-249) as cited by Fee (1993:250), the Alexandrian editor

would be a trained scholar, whose guiding principle would be accuracy, not

edification, who would be thinking of the author rather than of the reader.
He would be careful to consult the oldest manuscripts accessible to him, and
would compare their variant readings in the light of critical science,
considering which was most likely to give the author’s original words. He
would tend to omit superfluities or insufficiently attested words or passages,
and to prefer the more difficult reading to the easier, as more likely to have
been altered.

Fee notes (1993:256) that “It has been frequently posited…that Origen was the
philological mind behind the production of the Egyptian recension (= edition) in the church
of Alexandria.” He marshals several arguments to show that Origen “did not have the kind of
concern for the NT text that would make him representative of the “philological mind”
necessary for such a recension.”
 Fee (1993:257) quotes from Pack (1948:346), that Origen’s “handling of the text closely
parallels the work done by later editors and textual workers in shaping the stylized Byzantine
text” Fee remarks (1993:258),

In contrast to his work on the OT, Origen never shows a concern for a
“critical text” of the NT writings. Furthermore, where editorializing may be
shown to exist, he does not edit toward the text of p75 B on the basis of
Alexandrian philological know-how, but rather away from that text on
principles later to be found in the Byzantine tradition.

Fee then evaluates p75 and B for recensional features. First he claims that the scribe of
75
p was not making recensional changes. He says, (260), “In comparison with any of the
other early papyri, this scribe produced a remarkably error-free copy.” Then with regard to
B, he says (1993:261),

there are no patterns or directions of “editorializing” in B that are not

already anticipated by its earlier – and closest – relative, which simply
underscores a point made above as to the nonrescensional character of B

He goes on, “both MSS are faithfully preserving textual phenomena which are anterior
to them, which in turn means that p75 is not itself the recension.”
Thus far Fee’s argument seems to hold water. Certainly the close similarity between B
and p75 indicates that B was not the result of recensional activity. But how can one evaluate
whether some ancestor manuscript of p75 and B was not the result of recensional activity?
Fee attempts to evaluate this in relation particular types of textual variants in Luke and
John. In Luke, Fee analyzes variants in chapters 10 and 11 which relate to possible
harmonizations. He finds 43 alleged harmonizations with substantial manuscripts support.
The Western manuscript D has 14 of these harmonizing variants. The Byzantine manuscripts
have 27 harmonizing variants. In contrast to this, p75 and B have 6 harmonizing variants. Fee
concludes (1993:272),

While not all of the harmonizations are necessarily secondary, it is surely

true that the large majority are. And while it is also true that no MS has
escaped corruption at this point, it is likewise true that p75 and B are
“comparatively pure” when compared with either the Western or Byzantine
traditions.

In John, Fee analyses textual variants relating to certain stylistic features characteristic of
John, and which are more frequent in John than elsewhere in the New Testament. These
features are (1993:269):

his abundance of asyndeton, the frequent omission of the article with

personal names in the nominative, the abundance of oti recitatvium, the
redundant nominative personal pronoun, the frequency of the vernacular
possessive.

Each of these features gives rise to numerous variant readings. In many places in John,
one finds certain manuscripts supporting a reading including the Johanine feature, whereas
other manuscripts support a reading in which this feature has been changed to conform with
more common Greek usage. The problem is to evaluate which alternative represents the
original reading, and which may be the result of a recensional change. Fee admits (1993:268-
269),
 No fixed rules may be established as to whether a reading is original or
recensional by its relationship to an author’s style, for a reading may be
regarded as original because it conforms to that style, or recensional
because a scribe may have conformed it to the author’s style.

A little later, however, he seems to ignore this caveat when he says (1993:269),

in general it may be assumed that tendencies away from John toward either
a more common or a more classical idiom are recensional in nature.

It seems to me that this assumption is questionable, and Fee’s dependence on it is the

key weakness of his argument. It seems to me that whether recensional activity tends to
change the text to conform to the author’s style, or to smooth away features of the author’s
style would depend on the motives and linguistic background of the editor. The type of
recensional activity which smoothes away peculiar features of grammar would seem to by
that often associated with the Byzantine textual tradition. Whereas the type of recensional
activity described by Kenyon seems to be using different principles. If an Alexandrian editor
was thinking of the author, not the reader, and trying to correct places which might have
departed from the original, then it is perfectly conceivable that he might try to change
common or classical usage to make it conform to John’s particular style.
Fee goes on to count how often p75 and B support readings which preserve John’s style
in these features. He reports (1993:272)

With regard to asyndeton,…in comparison with the Western and Byzantine

MSS, p75 and B had a very high record in maintaining this Johannine feature.
This is all the more remarkable when one considers that scholarly recension
would almost certainly go in the other direction.

This last remark is again basing his argument on a dubious assumption that we can
predict what sort of changes a scholarly editor would make.
Fee also reports, (1993:272),

All MSS and text-types showed remarkable ambiguity with variations of the
oti-recitativum. But generally, MSS tended to reject it rather than to add it,
and p75 B tended to preserve (add?) it more than others. Likewise with word
order: P75 B far more often preserved Johannine features than other MSS:
and in one list of “word order variants tending toward more logical
juxtaposition,” p75 B invariably had the lectio difficilior.

The problem with these remarks is that they are not quantified. Fee speaks of
tendencies, but does not tell how strong the tendency is, or which particular manuscripts he
is comparing p75 and B with in relation to these features.

Evaluation
There a several major weaknesses in the evidence that Fee presents to show that p75
and B are not descendants of a recensional manuscript. The first is his assumption
(1993:269) “that what is to be regarded as recensional must be consistently so throughout
the NT.” Based on this assumption he considers that if a feature is present in only one
particular book, it must be original, not recensional. There is also a tacit assumption that if
he can show that p75 and B are not recensional in Luke and John, it implies that they are not
recensional in the other books of the New Testament.
But this is not a valid assumption. Each book circulated separately for a considerable
period of time before it was incorporated into larger manuscripts. Much recensional activity
could well have been carried out by early scribes copying individual books. And even when
the Scriptures began to circulate in codices containing a corpus of books, manuscripts
including the whole New Testament were the exception. It was common to have
manuscripts including the four gospels, manuscripts containing the Pauline epistles, and
manuscripts containing Acts and the Catholic epistles. Hence there is little reason to assume
that recensional activity affecting gospel manuscripts should necessarily apply to epistolary
manuscripts, or vice versa.
Fee has presented evidence regarding possible recensional activity or lack thereof in
manuscripts of Luke and John. He has presented no evidence in relation to the other books
of the New Testament. Hence, based on this paper, no conclusions can be drawn regarding
the possible recensional character of p75 or B in those other books.
Another major weakness of Fee’s paper is that he only investigates a few limited types
of possible recensional changes. His evaluation is restricted to harmonizations and to a few
grammatical features favoured in John’s style of writing. There are many other types of
possible recensional changes besides these. Of great interest, for example, is the question of
possible additions or omissions, where often the Alexandrian text type has a shorter reading,
and the Byzantine text type has a longer reading. This type of variant has more impact on
the meaning of the text than grammatical variants which do not affect the meaning. As
quoted earlier, those who suggest that Alexandrian scholars engaged in recensional activity
suggest that they “would tend to omit superfluities or insufficiently attested words or
passages” (Kenyon 1949:249). Yet this type of variant is not investigated by Fee.
In sum, Fee has presented only a limited amount of evidence which suggests that there
are certain types of recensional changes not evident in p75 and B in Luke and John. Some of
his argumentation is based on dubious assumptions. To make a stronger case, much more
comprehensive evidence is needed.

References

Carson, D. A.
1979 The King James Version Debate: A Plea for Realism. Grand Rapids: Baker Book
House.

Farmer, William R.
1974 The Last Twelve Verses of Mark. Cambridge: University Press. Non vidi.

Fee, Gordon D.
1974 “p75, p66, and Origen: The Myth of Early Textual Recension in Alexandria.” In
New Dimensions in New Testament Study. Ed. Richard N. Longenecker and
Merrill C. Tenney. Grand Rapids: Zondervan. Pp. 19-45. Non vidi.
1993 “p75, p66, and Origen: The Myth of Early Textual Recension in Alexandria.” In
Studies in the Theory and Method of New Testament Textual Criticism. Ed. Eldon
J. Epp and Gordon D. Fee. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.

Kenyon, Frederic George

1933 The Chester Beatty Biblical Papyri: ‘Fasciculus I: General Introduction. London:
Emory Walker. Non vidi.
 1940 “Hesychius and the Text of the New Testament.” In Memorial Lagrange.
Uppsala: Seminarium Neotestamentium Upsaliense. Pp. 245-250. Non vidi.
1949 The Text of the Greek Bible. Rev. ed. London: Duckworth. Non vidi.

Metzger, Bruce M. and Bart D. Ehrman

2005 The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration.
4th ed. New York: Oxford University Press.

Pack, Frank
1948 “The Methodology of Origen as a Textual Critic in Arriving at the Text of the
New Testament.” Unpublished Dissertation. University of Southern California.
Non vidi.

Pickering, Wilbur N.
1980 "Conflation or Confusion," Appendix D in his The Identity of the New Testament
Text, rev. ed. Nashville: Thomas Nelson. Pp. 171-200. Non vidi.

Robinson, Maurice A.
1993 "The Recensional Nature of the Alexandrian Text-Type: A Response to Selected
Criticisms of the Byzantine-Priority Theory," Faith and Mission 11:46-74 [issue
published 1997. Non vidi.
2001 “New Testament Textual Criticism: The Case for Byzantine Priority.” TC: A
Journal of Biblical Textual Criticism. Internet,
http://rosetta.reltech.org/TC/vol06/Robinson2001.html. Accessed Jan. 5, 2010.
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Robinson, Maurice and William G. Pierpont

1991 The New Testament in the Original Greek according to the Byzantine/Majority
Textform. Atlanta: Original Word Publishers.