Editio Critica Maior: Acts Volumes

I am the happy and grateful recipient of the newly-published four-volume work on the text of Acts of the Apostles that forms part of the Editio Critica Maior (ECM) project based in the Institute for Text-Critical Research in the University of Muenster.  Published by the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, the online catalog entry is here.  At 268 Euros, it will likely be affordable mainly to libraries, but any library serving NT exegesis must acquire it, and scholars working on Acts must have access to it.

The first two volumes follow the pattern established in the earlier volume on the Catholic Epistles.  The top of each page has the text that the editors regard as closest to the “original” text (the preferred Muenster Institute term is “initial text”), and below each line of text are the variants, and below this the supporting witnesses for each of the variants.  The first volume (“Part 1.1”) covers Acts 1–14, and the second (“Part 1.2”) covers Acts 15–28.

The third volume (“Supplementary Material”) is a series of lists:  the sigla used in the edition, the Greek manuscripts cited, lacunae in Greek manuscripts, errors in Greek manuscripts, Patristic citations, “versions” (early translations) cited, and a brief commentary on versional attestations.

Probably the largest (and perhaps the toughest) problem in NT textual criticism concerns the text of the Acts of the Apostles.  In particular, what has often been called the “Western text” of Acts, the principal Greek witness being Codex Bezae (D), represents a text of Acts some 14% larger than the familiar text preferred in most critical editions and that is reflected in translations of the NT.  But the various other witnesses often linked with the “Western text” don’t actually exhibit very close agreement with one another when assessed using quantitative analysis.

So, over many years now, various scholars have proposed various theories.  One is that the “Western text” is one of the earliest (or perhaps the earliest) forms of Acts, but its transmission produced the lack of coherence among extant witnesses.  Another view is that the “Western text” (in the form that we see in Codex Bezae) was formed by a “redaction” at some point.  Still another view is that the “Western text” is a mirage, or, more precisely, that it isn’t really a coherent text-form.  Instead, in this theory, the various witnesses all reflect a comparatively “free” transmission practice that generated a body of textual variants, the fullest body of them represented in Codex Bezae.

In dealing with the text of Acts, therefore, the Muenster scholars had to engage this  problem in particular.  The fourth volume in this set, “Part 3:  Studies,” includes several essays devoted  to the “Western text” problem.  But, before we get to them, Klaus Wachtel offers a “text-critical commentary” on passages where the editors of the ECM reconstructed the “initial text” differently than in the Nestle-Aland 28th edition (= UBS 5th edition), and a discussion of “new” variants in Patristic citations (Nikolai Kiel), an analysis of quotations of Acts in the Gospel commentary of Fortunatus of Aquileia and in Augustine’s early anti-Manichean writings (Georg Gäbel), a discussion of the use of Coptic versions (Siegfried Richter and Katharina Schröder), and a study of a 6th century witness to the Gothic text of Acts (Carla Falluomini).

Then, come major studies concerned with the “Western text.”  Georg Gäbel leads off with a wide-ranging discussion of various approaches and theories.  He affirms the view that the “Western text” (or “D-text cluster”) was not an early form of the text of Acts, but, instead, was what he calls a “Bezan trajectory” (alluding to Codex Bezae), that is, a loose textual tradition that reflects a somewhat more “free” handling of the text of Acts than we have in witnesses such as Vaticanus.  It is interesting that he acknowledges that he has now shifted from his earlier view that there was a “redaction” that generated the Bezan-type text.  (Anytime a scholar changes his/her mind under the impact of evidence, it should be noted and celebrated!)  This 53-page and highly detailed study now demands the attention of any scholar addressing the text of Acts, and particularly scholars who have expressed views on the “Western text.”

Next comes a study of the relationship of the “Western text” of Acts and the “Byzantine tradition” (i.e., the witnesses to the tradition that led to the “textus receptus” of the Medieval period) by Klaus Wachtel.  He contends in forceful language, “the quest for the ‘Western text’ has failed,” and “the notion of a second century ‘Western text’ should be abandoned once and for all” (p. 147).  Thereafter, we have a (German-language) discussion by Holger Strutwolf of the text of Acts reflected in citations by Irenaeus.  Strutwolf concludes that Irenaeus isn’t a witness to a “Western text,” but instead to a certain freedom in citing and transmitting the text of Acts.

Gunnar Büsch considers whether a “Western text” is reflected in the citations of Acts by Chrysostom (some 3,500 Acts citations across his body of work!).  He complains that the textual history of Chrysostom’s homilies must be resolved before any definitive judgement can be made.  Nevertheless, he expresses doubts that Chrysostom really is a witness to a “Western text” of Acts.

Shorter studies of the “middle-Egyptian” textual tradition (Siegfried G. Richter) and the so-called “Harklean apparatus” of variants in the ECM conclude the volume.

A LOT of work has gone into the production of these volumes, for which all NT scholars must express admiration and gratitude.  The judgments reflected in the preferred “initial text” should be studied by anyone doing exegesis of Acts.  And the provocative essays in the final volume that address the “Western text” issue should (and certainly will) receive the close attention of NT textual critics in particular.