Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!wuarchive!sdd.hp.com!caen!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!lll-winken!iggy.GW.Vitalink.COM!widener!dsinc!bagate!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: ncramer@bbn.com (Nichael Cramer) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: 616 != 666 [was: 666's and Beasties everywhere.] Message-ID: Date: 18 May 91 06:16:19 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Bolt Beranek and Newman Inc., Cambridge MA Lines: 104 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu rons@microsoft.UUCP (Ron STARR) writes: >Another thing to note in connection with 666 is that it may >not be THE number. My old RSV has a note indicating that >"other authorities" give the number as 616, as does my copy >of the NRSV. > >Perhaps all the ingenuity expended on 666 is beside the point. > >Anyone know the textual history? There are a small number of manuscripts that support the reading "616". One of the great uncial[*] codices (i.e. Codex Ephraemi), a couple minuscule manuscripts (known to exist in the last century but now lost) and an 8th century Old Latin manuscript. In addition this reading was also known in the patristic writings of Tyconius and Irenaeus[**]. [* Some terminology is found at the end of this message.] [** However, Irenaeus claims that the "666" reading is found "in all good and ancient copies" and is "attested by those who had themselves seen John face to face".] On the other hand, the "666" reading appears in six of the great uncials in which Rev 13.18 appears, all the (existing) minuscules, in the work of several of the church fathers, etc. (There is, btw, a single ninth century Old Latin manuscript that reads the number as "646". But, I believe, this is thought to be a copyist error, caused by confusion with the "fourty" that appears in the next verse. So the best bet is that the "666" is _probably_ correct (i.e. authentic) but that the appearance of the variant reading in manuscripts from a wide variety of backgrounds keeps the reading from being certain. (The greek New Testament edited by Aland, Metzger, et al. --used as the basis for the NRSV-- gives the "666" reading only a "B" [essentially a +1 on a -2,-1,+1,+2 scale] or a "some degree of doubt" rating. (As an aside, the fact that these two different numbers appear in the manuscript tradition is sometimes put forth as an argument in favor of the "Nero" interpretation, 666 and 616 corresponding, respectively, to the Greek ["Neron Caesar"] and Latin ["Nero Caesar"] forms of his name.) And (one last digression, I promise ;), there also appears to be some evidence that there was a Old Latin north African textual tradition (including, for instance that known to Augustine) in which both of these verses (vss 17,18) were merely a marginal note which was later incorporated directly into the text (see, for instance, J. M. Ford's Commentary on _Revelations_). BTW, an excellent book the deals with many (~600) of the more interesting/ troublesome textual problems of the NT is Bruce Metzger's "A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament". Metzger was one of the main editors of the N/RSV and this book was intended to serve as a companion volume to the greek NT mentioned above. Furthermore, Metzger's "The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption and Restoration" (Oxford, 1968) is a fascinating introduction to the whole area of the textual problem of the NT. Cheers Nichael Who-just-loves-this-stuff-in-case-you-hadn't-noticed Cramer [* Some vocabulary. The ancient greek manuscripts are generally separated into three broad groups. 1] The papyri: as the name implies, these were written on papyrus. Such manuscripts are often of great antiquity[***] --and consequently great value in determining the original reading of the NT-- but, due to the fragile nature of the material, they are often fragmentary and very difficult to read. [*** e.g. one fragment, p52, contains a few lines of the fourth Gospel It is typically dated to around 125CE, i.e. within about 100 yrs of Christ's death and within a very few decades of when the Gospel was written.] 2] The great Uncial Codices. The codices were, basically, parchment books (i.e. as opposed to scrolls). "Uncial" refers to the fact the the greek they contained was written in "uncial" or "uppercase" characters. There are some 300 of these Codices containing, in various degrees of completeness, all or parts of the NT. Of these, a half-dozen or so (from approx the 4th to the 8th cent), form probably our most important basis for reconstructing the text of the NT. 3] Minuscules. About the turn of the ninth centuries, the use of minuscule or "lower-case" letters became widespread. There are literally thousands of these manuscripts. Despite their obvious lack of antiquity, these manuscripts can still be important because they may be the repositories of lost textual traditions not otherwise available to us. (Btw, the development of minuscules played an important role in the history of the NT. Because the letters were smaller, manuscripts could be produced more quickly and using less materials; as a consequence they were cheaper and so could be disseminated more broadly.) Old Latin: This refers to the Latin versions of the NT that appeared before Jerome's Vulgate. Most currently existing copies are very fragmentary. Nonetheless, they are very valuable in that they allow us a glimpse back into an period during the early develop of the NT.