Misogynist Alterations of Scripture

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Misogynist Alterations of Scripture

An argument found among egalitarian scholars is that the New Testament text was altered by later generations of Christians in order to validate developing misogynist attitudes. This argument is found articulated in particular detail by egalitarian Ben Witherington III:
 

'In view of the above evidence, it appears that there was a concerted effort by some part of the Church, perhaps as early as the late first century or beginning of the second, to tone down texts in Luke's second volume that indicated that women played an important and prominent part in the early days of the Christian community.'¹
 

Witherington says 'it appears that there was a concerted effort by some part of the Church, perhaps as early as the late first century or beginning of the second'², but when it comes to presenting the actual evidence which can be observed, Witherington does not cite any textual evidence earlier than the 4th century,³ some 200 years after the 2nd century.⁴
 

Text cited by Witherington;
Passage	Text Name	Text Type	Date
Matthew 5:32	D5, ita, b, d, k 6	Western	4th century, 5th century
Acts 1:14	D	Western	5th century
Acts 17:4	D	Western	5th century
Acts 17:12	D	Western	5th century
Acts 17:34	D	Western	5th century
Acts 18:3, 18, 21, 26	ith 7	Western	5th century
Colossians 4:15	D, Gpm 8	Western	5th century, 9th century

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¹ Witherington says 'D and others', 'The Anti-Feminist Tendencies of the 'Western' Text in Acts', Journal of Biblical Literature (103.1.83), (March 1984); in fact, as shall be demonstrated, Witherington does not cite any texts earlier than the 4^th century
² Witherington, 'The Anti-Feminist Tendencies of the 'Western' Text in Acts', Journal of Biblical Literature (103.1.83)
³ In fact he only cites one text as early as the 4^th century
⁴ Witherington's most frequently referred to text is the 5^th century text D (Codex Bezae), but the Greek text type (called 'Western'), which D preserves cannot be dated any earlier than 250 AD, even if quotations from early Christian writers are used (there are no Western type Greek manuscripts or papyri earlier than the 4^th century)
⁵ A Greek/Latin diglot, also known as Codex Bezae Cantabrigensis, or D^ea (where 'ea' refers to the content of the text, the gospels (known as 'Evangelium') and Acts (known as 'Apostolos'), or '05' in the Gregory-Aland text numbering system; Witherington says 'D and others' ('The Anti-Feminist Tendencies of the 'Western' Text in Acts', Journal of Biblical Literature (103.1.82), (March 1984), but does not specify which other texts he is referring to
⁶ This is an African Old Latin copy of an earlier Greek text (the 'it' stands for 'Itala', meaning Latin, and the other letters stand for various specific copies of this Latin manuscript); this same reading is also found in Greek and Latin manuscripts, according to the 4^th-5^th century Christian writer Augustine
⁷ Witherington does not refer specifically to any particular text, but does quote JH Ropes as citing this text, 'The Beginnings of Christianity (London: Macmillan, 1926) 3. 178, note on v 26', in Witherington, 'The Anti-Feminist Tendencies of the 'Western' Text in Acts', Journal of Biblical Literature (103.1.82), (March 1984), while Metzger, 'A Textual Commentary On the Greek New Testament: A Companion Volume to the United Bible Societies' Greek New Testament (Fourth Revised Edition)', page 246 (2^nd edition 1994), notes that manuscripts it^gig (a 13^th century Old Latin manuscript), syr (a 5th century Syriac translation) cop^sa (a 4^th century Coptic translation), arm (a 5^thcentury Armenian translation), contain the same reading, but this does not provide Witherington with any textual evidence earlier than the 4^th century
⁸ The text referred to as 'G^pm' (the 'pm' stands for the Latin 'permulti' meaning 'very many', and indicates that many manuscripts of this tradition have this reading), is a 9^th century Greek/Latin interlinear diglot also known as Codex Boernerianus (Gregory-Aland number 012); Witherington (ibid, page 84), says 'D, G pm, et al. [and others]', but does not say which other manuscripts he is referring to 

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From this survey of Witherington's evidence it may be seen that he does not in fact present any actual textual evidence earlier than the 4^th century, and most of his textual witnesses date to the 5^th century. It is significant that these errors are all found in the Western text type, since this text type is most well known not for its 'anti-feminist' bias, but for its general tendency to paraphrase and edit the text in a particularly arbitrary manner.⁹

 

It is also significant that almost all of these errors are found in only one manuscript tradition of the Western text (D), with only three errors appearing in any other Western manuscript tradition (G^pm, it^{a, b, d, k, h}), as this demonstrates that these are not even systematic changes to one particular manuscript tradition, let alone the entire Western text type.

 

This is one of the reasons why modern textual scholars generally view few (if any), of these alterations as genuinely motivated by a desire to minimize the role of women in the early church. They are so few and far between, so inconsistently found, and some of them are so much more readily attributable to accidental scribal error or the desire to render the text more grammatically, that they contradict the idea that the New Testament was revised studiously by groups of 'anti-feminist' scribes as a result of changing attitudes to women in early Christian history.

 

Thirdly, it should be pointed out that Witherington is an egalitarian scholar, whose interpretation of these textual alterations is demonstrably influenced by his own sensitivity to the subject. A comparison of Witherington's statements on the texts with the statements of the United Bible Societies' Committee,¹⁰ shows that in a number of cases there is a more likely explanation for the text's alteration than any 'anti-feminist' attitude by a particular scribe.

 

The comments from the UBS Committee in the following table were in fact written by Bruce Metzger, and are considerably more moderate on the subject than his own previous comments in 'The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration', written two years earlier. Comments are given after the text from Witherington and the UBS Committee.

 

Assessment of alteration, by Witherington and the UBS committee
Witherington	USB Committee
'While there is some ambiguity in the text of 17:4 as we have it in p74, K, A, B, E, P (so that γυναικῶν τε τῶν ττρώτων might be translated "the wives of leading men" instead of rendering "women of the first magnitude"), D and others give us the unambiguous καὶ γυναῖκες τῶν ττώτων.'11	'It is possible to translate γυναικῶν τε τῶν ττρώτων “and wives of the leading men,” an interpretation that the Western text enforced by reading καὶ γυναῖκες τῶν ττρώτων. A majority of the Committee preferred the reading supported by P74 א A B E P Ψ 33 81 614 1739 al, not only because of superior external attestation, but also because it was thought much more likely that copyists would replace the less usual connective by the more common καί (or δέ, as in l1021).'12
Comment: Both Witherington and Metzger agree that the text here is actually ambiguous in the first place, and could be read either way. This is therefore not clearly a matter of a deliberately „anti-feminist‟ reading being introduced, but a scribal decision as to which particular interpretation of the text made more sense to them.

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⁹ 'The chief characteristic of Western readings is fondness for paraphrase. Words, clauses, and even whole sentences are freely changed, omitted, or inserted. Sometimes the motive appears to have been harmonization, while at other times it was the enrichment of the narrative by the inclusion of traditional or apocryphal material. Some readings involve quite trivial alterations for which no special reason can be assigned', Metzger, 'A Textual Commentary On the Greek New Testament: A Companion Volume to the United Bible Societies' Greek New Testament (Fourth Revised Edition)', page xx (2^nd edition 1994)

¹⁰ The committee responsible for the UBS Greek New Testament, 4th edition, the Greek text from which almost all modern English Bible translations are made (see the section „Standard works‟ in the introduction of the present work)

¹¹ Witherington, 'The Anti-Feminist Tendencies of the 'Western' Text in Acts', Journal of Biblical Literature (103.1.82), (March 1984); Witherington says 'D and others', but does not specify which other texts he is referring to

¹² Metzger, 'A Textual Commentary On the Greek New Testament: A Companion Volume to the United Bible Societies' Greek New Testament (Fourth Revised Edition)', page 401 (2^nd edition 1994)

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Assessment of alteration, by Witherington and the UBS committee
Witherington	USB Committee
'We find the same phenomenon at 17:12. D* alters the text so that both the men and women are prominent (καὶ τῶν Ἑλλήνων καὶ τῶν εὐσχημόνων ἄνδρες καὶ γυναῖκες) and thus the women's prominence is lessened somewhat.'13	'After beginning the verse with a rather banal observation, τινὲς μὲν οὖν αὐτῶν ἐττίστευσαν, τίνες δὲ ἡττίστησαν (“Some of them, therefore, believed, but some did not believe,” cf. 28.24), codex Bezae smooths the grammar of the generally received text and reads καὶ τῶν Ἑλλήνων καὶ τῶν εὐσχημόνων ἄνδρες καὶ γυναῖκες ἰκανοὶ ἐττίστευσαν (“and many of the Greeks and men and women of high standing believed”). Besides being better Greek the readjusted order has the effect of lessening any importance given to women (cf. comments on ver. 34 and on 18.26). According to Menoud, “the antifeminist tendency of the writer of D seems to be more or less general in the last decades of the first century. In any case it is not one of the major trends in the thought of the Western recension.”'14
Comment: Metzger points out that the reason for Codex Bezae (D), altering the text was to smooth the grammar and render it into better Greek. Such alterations are a common feature of the Western text type, especially Codex Bezae, so this textual alteration is simply doing what the scribes of the Western text type typically did in any case. There is therefore no need to attribute to this alteration an 'anti-feminist' motivation.
Witherington	USB Committee
'Of a similar nature is the addition of καὶ τέκνοις at 1:14 by Codex Bezae so that women are no longer an independent group but are simply the wives of the apostles.'15	'Instead of the colorless σὺν γυναιξίν codex Bezae reads σὺν ταῖς γυναιξὶν καὶ τέκνοις (“with their wives and children”); compare 21.5, where the Tyrian Christians accompany Paul to his ship σὺν γυναιξίν καὶ τέκνοις, 16 and the Dura fragment of Tatian‟s Diatessaron, which apparently17 refers to the wives of those who accompanied Jesus from Galilee.'16
Comment: Metzger notes that the original text was 'colorless'. It is characteristic of the Western text type to alter the text to make it more stylistically 'interesting', and in this case Metzger also points out that the scribe altered the text to conform to the grammatical pattern already existing in Acts 21:5, an alteration which the scribe considered to be more likely to be in conformity with the original. Such 'harmonization' is also characteristic of the Western text type, so there is no necessity to attribute this alteration to an 'anti-feminist' motivation. In any case, does associating the women with the apostles as their wives really diminish them in any meaningful way? This sounds like the imposition of a 21st century cultural view onto the 1st century text.

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¹³ Witherington, 'The Anti-Feminist Tendencies of the 'Western' Text in Acts', Journal of Biblical Literature (103.1.82), (March 1984)

¹⁴ Metzger, 'A Textual Commentary On the Greek New Testament: A Companion Volume to the United Bible Societies' Greek New Testament (Fourth Revised Edition)', page 402 (2^nd edition 1994)

¹⁵ Witherington, 'The Anti-Feminist Tendencies of the 'Western' Text in Acts', Journal of Biblical Literature (103.1.82), (March 1984)

¹⁶ Metzger, 'A Textual Commentary On the Greek New Testament: A Companion Volume to the United Bible Societies' Greek New Testament (Fourth Revised Edition)', page 246 (2^nd edition 1994)

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Assessment of alteration, by Witherington and the UBS committee
Witherington	UBS Committee
'In the Western text of chap. 18, there is a definite effort to reduce the prominence of Priscilla, probably because she appears to the editors to be assuming her husband's first place and also because she was a well-known teacher of a male Christian leader, Apollos.'17	'Apparently the Western reviser (D itgig syr copsa arm al) desired to reduce the prominence of Priscilla, for he either mentions Aquila first (as here) or inserts the name of Aquila without including Priscilla (as in verses 3, 18, and 21). The unusual order, the wife before the husband, must be accepted as original, for there was always a tendency among scribes to change the unusual to the usual. In the case of Priscilla and Aquila, however, it was customary in the early church to refer to her before her husband (cf. Ro 16.3; 2 Tm 4.19).10 On an anti-feminist tendency, see the comment on 17.12 above.'18
Author’s comment: Although it is possible to read the tendency in some of the Western witnesses to place Aquila first or insert Aqulia's name without including Priscilla as a desire to reduce the prominence of Priscilla, there is also the fact (as Metzger observes), that the general tendency of the Western text type scribes was to 'change the unusual to the usual'. Since in their day (centuries later), it seemed to them unusual that Priscilla would be mentioned first, they altered the text to conform to what they considered to be more likely to be original. The fact that they did this with many other passages indicates that there is no necessity to attribute to this alteration an 'anti-feminist' motivation, even though in this case it is entirely likely.
Witherington	UBS Committee
'W. M. Ramsay has observed rightly that the omission in Codex Bezae of καὶ γυνὴ ὀνόματι Δάμαρις at 17:34 is in all likelihood more evidence of an anti-feminist tendency in this textual tradition.'19	'The omission in codex Bezae of the words καὶ γυνὴ ὀνόματι Δάμαρις has been taken by some (e. g. Wm. M. Ramsay) to be another indication of the anti-feminist attitude of the scribe (see the comment on ver. 12 above).9 It is, however, more likely, as A. C. Clark suggests,10 that a line in an ancestor of codex Bezae had been accidentally omitted, so that what remains in D is ἐν οἷς καὶ Διονύσιός τις Ἀρεοτταγείτης εὐσχήμων καὶ ἕτεροι σὺν αὐτοῖς (“among whom also was a certain Dionysius, an Areopagite of high standing, and others with them”). In either case, however, the concluding phrase σὺν αὐτοῖς suggests that Luke originally specified more than one person (Dionysius) as among Paul‟s converts. It is curious that codex Bezae reads εὐσήχμωνto indicate the high standing of Dionysius, though being an Areopagite would naturally imply his honorable estate without adding the adjective.11 Its presence, according to an ingenious explanation proposed by J. Armitage Robinson,12 is to be accounted for as follows. According to Robinson it is significant that in Acts the word εὐσήχμων is used only of women (13.50; 17.12). Under the influence of its usage earlier in Acts some gallant scribe added the word after Δάμαρις .13 Later, after the church had taken her stand against the pagan or heretical claims advanced in behalf of her ambitious women, a more orthodox if less chivalrous transcriber deleted the name of Damaris altogether, but left the adjective standing, a witness at once against his own deed and the deed of the scribe who had gone before him.'20
Author’s comment: There is a case to be made here that the alteration is a deliberate attempt to diminish the importance of the women in the text. However, as Metzger says, it is more likely to have been due to an accidental omission, so there is no necessity to attribute to this alteration an 'anti-feminist' motivation.

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¹⁷ Witherington, 'The Anti-Feminist Tendencies of the 'Western' Text in Acts', Journal of Biblical Literature (103.1.82), (March 1984)

¹⁸ Metzger, 'A Textual Commentary On the Greek New Testament: A Companion Volume to the United Bible Societies' Greek New Testament (Fourth Revised Edition)', page 413 (2^nd edition 1994)

¹⁹ Witherington, 'The Anti-Feminist Tendencies of the 'Western' Text in Acts', Journal of Biblical Literature (103.1.84), (March 1984)

²⁰ Metzger, 'A Textual Commentary On the Greek New Testament: A Companion Volume to the United Bible Societies' Greek New Testament (Fourth Revised Edition)', page 407 (2^nd edition 1994)

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Assessment of alteration, by Witherington and the UBS committee
Witherington	UBS Committee
'Consider the Western text of Matt 5:32b. D, ita, b, d, k, and other manuscripts omit καὶ through μοιχᾶται in 5:32b. Bruce Metzger suggests that some scribes felt that if the divorced woman is made an adulteress by illegal divorce, then anyone marrying such a woman also commits adultery. Alternatively, this omission may reflect the tendency of the Western text to highlight and protect male privilege, while also relegating women to a place in the background. In this case, the omission here is of material that reflects badly on men.'21	'The reading of B (ὁ … γαμήσας) seems to have been substituted for the reading of the other uncials (ὃς ἐὰν … γαμήσῃ) in order to make the construction parallel to the preceding participial clause (ὁ ἀττολύων). The omission of the words καὶ … μοιχᾶται (D ita, b, d, k Greek and Latin mssacc. to Augustine) may be due to pedantic scribes who regarded them as superfluous, reasoning that if “everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of unchastity, makes her an adulteress [when she remarries],” then it would go without saying that “whoever marries a divorced woman [also] commits adultery.”'22
Author’s comment: Once again Metzger makes the point that the scribal tendency to smooth the text (in this case to create a neat parallel), and to remove material perceived as redundant, is an adequate cause for the alteration, so there is no necessity to attribute to this alteration an 'anti-feminist' motivation.
Witherington	UBS Committee
'This anti-feminist tendency appears also to be in evidence at Col 4:15. While B, 6, 424c, 1739, 1881, et al. have αὐτῆς indicating a church in the house of Nympha, D, G pm, et al. have αὐτοῦ indicating a church in the house of Nymphas.'23	'Νυμφαν can be accented Νύμφαν, from the feminine nominative Νύμφα (“Nympha”), or Νυμφᾶν, from the masculine nominative Νυμφᾶς (“Nymphas”). The uncertainty of the gender of the name led to variation in the following possessive pronoun between αὐτῆς and αὐτοῦ. On the basis chiefly of the weight of B 6 424c 1739 1877 1881 syrh, pal ms copsa Origen, the Committee preferred Νύμφαν … αὐτῆς. The reading with αὐτῶν arose when copyists included ἀδελφούς in the reference.'24
Author’s comment: Metzger notes that the gender of the name was uncertain to start with, giving rise to variations in the text. The difference between the female name Nympha and the male name Nymphas was a matter of accenting the Greek letters one way or another, but the earliest manuscripts did not use any accents at all, meaning that later scribes had to make interpretative decisions at times. There is therefore no need to attribute to this alteration an „anti-feminist‟ motivation, even given the fact that the ambiguity was settled in favour of the male name Nymphas.

When all the facts are presented, the argument for significant alterations of the Greek text by 'anti-feminist' scribes becomes significantly diminished. Instead of alterations being observed from the second century onwards, we find instead alterations only from the 4th century onwards, some 200 years later. Instead of evidence of systematic scribal bias in collaboration with emerging 'anti-feminist' attitudes, we find a tiny handful of alterations in a mere handful of manuscripts, none of which contains all of the alterations, and most of which contain only one or two.

 

Instead of clear evidence of 'anti-feminist' motivation in the case of each alteration, we find clear evidence that normal Western scribal influences (a tendency to paraphrase, eliminating perceived irregularities in the text, smoothing the grammar, creating parallels, and harmonizing with other passages), ²⁵ were in most cases a more likely cause.

 

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²¹ Witherington, 'The Anti-Feminist Tendencies of the 'Western' Text in Acts', Journal of Biblical Literature (103.1.84), (March 1984)

²² Metzger, 'A Textual Commentary On the Greek New Testament: A Companion Volume to the United Bible Societies' Greek New Testament (Fourth Revised Edition)', page 11 (2^nd edition 1994)

²³ Witherington, 'The Anti-Feminist Tendencies of the 'Western' Text in Acts', Journal of Biblical Literature (103.1.84), (March 1984)

²⁴ Metzger, 'A Textual Commentary On the Greek New Testament: A Companion Volume to the United Bible Societies' Greek New Testament (Fourth Revised Edition)', page 407 (2^nd edition 1994)

²⁵ 'The chief characteristic of Western readings is fondness for paraphrase. Words, clauses, and even whole sentences are freely changed, omitted, or inserted. Sometimes the motive appears to have been harmonization, while at other times it was the enrichment of the narrative by the inclusion of traditional or apocryphal material. Some readings involve quite trivial alterations for which no special reason can be assigned', Metzger, 'A Textual Commentary On the Greek New Testament: A Companion Volume to the United Bible Societies' Greek New Testament (Fourth Revised Edition)', page xx (2^nd edition 1994)

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Witherington‟s own words are pertinent here:

 

'That the so-called Western text

has certain definite theological tendencies

not found in various other manuscript traditions is so

well-known that it hardly needs rehearsing

.'

²⁶

 

The evidence for deliberate theological revision of the text within the Western text type is indeed well recognized by the scholarly consensus. The evidence is so apparent and so abundant, that the case is undisputed. This is completely different to the suggestion that the Western text type also contains evidence of deliberate 'anti-feminist' revision of the text, as the evidence for the latter is not in any way equivalent to the evidence for the former.²⁷

 

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²⁶ Witherington, 'The Anti-Feminist Tendencies of the 'Western' Text in Acts', Journal of Biblical Literature (103.1.82), (March 1984)

²⁷ Together with brother Mark Olsen, the author has co-written a 40 page paper addressing commonly asked questions concerning New Testament textual criticism (especially with regard to the issue of identifying the most reliable manuscripts), which the interested reader may request by email (dixit-dominus (at) thechristadelphians.org)

 

Misogynist alterations of Scripture_E-Journal1.pdf