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TH E MA RC MU LTILIN G U E PR O JEC T

JAMES KEITH ELLIOTT, CHRISTIAN AMPHOUX


AND JEAN-CLAUDE HAELEWYCK
This article outlines the work of the team preparing an objective, scientific
presentation of the textual materials in Greek, Latin, Coptic and other ancient
versions of the Gospel of Mark, which should enable the history of the text of
this Gospel to be plotted. It describes the aims and objectives behind this
assemblage of witnesses.

Among the many presentations of the Gospel text of the New Testament, be they synopses of the Greek, facsimile transcripts of a particular
manuscript, an edited critical edition or horizontally printed lines of text
from particular manuscripts (such as the Itala fascicules1 or Das neue
Testament in syrischer berlieferung2), nothing so far published enables
the historian of the text to have an objective presentation of all of the
earliest materials. The Marc multilingue project sets out to serve such a
need.
The project is a Francophone enterprise originally led by Prof.
Christian-Bernard Amphoux (CNRS, Lunel) until June 2001, by J.-C.
Haelewyck (Louvain-la-Neuve) since then and by J.K. Elliott (Leeds)
with collaborators in France, Belgium and Switzerland. The project now
functions under the banner of the Socit dhistoire du texte du Nouveau
Testament.
This article attempts to describe the aims and methods of a projectinprogress.
****
The project arises from a recognition that printed editions of the Greek
New Testament are unsatisfactory. None actually represents exactly the
text of any one manuscript and certainly does not restore the autograph,
which is irrevocably lost. All editors of ancient texts strive to reconstruct
the supposed original of the text in question, but in the case of the New
1

A. Jlicher, Itala: Das Neue Testament in altlateinischer berlieferung rev. W.


Matz kow and K. Aland (Berlin and New York) John (1963), Mark ( 21970), Matthew
( 2 1972), Luke (21976), cf. Vetus Latina: Die Reste der altlateinischen Bibel (Freiburg, 1951-).
2
B. Aland and A. Juckel (eds), Vol. I Die Grossen Katholischen Briefe (Berlin and New
York, 1986) (= ANTF 7) vol. II Die Paulinischen Briefe (Berlin and New York, part 1, 1991;
part 2, 1995) (= ANTF 14 and 23). The material on the gospels is yet to be published.
Filologa Neotestamentaria - Vol. XV - 2002, pp. 3-17
Facultad de Filosofa y Letras - Universidad de Crdoba (Espaa)

J.K. Elliott, Christian Amphoux and Jean-Claude Haelewyck

Testament the history of critical editions has made the practice of textual
criticism rather more complicated. That is because the first printed editions, since Erasmus edition of 1516, were based on a distinctive form of
the text that was in general use throughout the middle ages, the so-called
Textus Receptus (TR), based largely on medieval manuscripts, whereas
editors from Lachmann onwards (that is since 1831) contrived to base
the printed edition of the Greek New Testament on the most ancient
manuscripts available. Adherents of both camps, that is, supporters of
the so-called Majority text (= TR) and of the critical edition, continue to
have influence nowadays. And that debate, often conducted in an acrimonious or parti-pris manner, has skewed the objective presentation and
discussion of the evidence.
Readers of printed editions can therefore be divided into two: (a) those
who have access in the TR to a form of the New Testament that was the one
used and commented on by the Reformers and whose text can be traced
probably to the fourth century; and (b) those who use a critical text, like
the UBS Greek New Testament or Nestle-Aland, Novum Testamentum
Graece, which favours the readings of manuscripts copied around 350
AD, in other words soon after the conversion of Constantine (313 AD)
and the recognition of Christianity as a major religion. Neither approach
and neither type of printed edition enables the reader to appreciate the
diversity of the New Testament textual transmission. And that is why a
third way is needed. The Marc multilingue project takes into account the
types of text in existence prior to 200 AD, types which tended to be
eclipsed in copies made in the two following centuries, although the
witnesses of these earlier forms, from the 5th-15th centuries, are often
incomplete and imperfect. Marc multilingue does not aim to produce an
edited text or texts. Rather, it aims to present the existing documentation in
an attempt to enable the history of the changing text to be recognised.
The quantity and variety of manuscript witnesses to the Greek New
Testament text as potential bearers of the actual wording employed by
the original authors are welcomed by those who seek to establish the
foundation documents of the Christian faith. But the aim of restoring
one, original text is impossible. The earliest witnesses display a variety
of text-types, which some3 speak of as a free text. That fact can be disconcerting for those who would wish to find a unified tradition or to see
the same text being read throughout Christendom. The facts point to a
variety of text-types in Christianitys formative centuries, a variety that
sees divergences in text between Christianitys ancient centres and even
3 In particular, K. Aland and B. Aland, The Text of the New Testament (Grand Rapids
and Leiden, 21989) e.g. 94-5.

The Marc mu ltilingu e Pro jec t

within one centre as the years advance, to the extent that the Gospel text
read in Alexandria in 200 AD differs from that read there in 350 AD.
The same may be said of Caesarea or Antioch. The evolution of the Greek
text is a fact that needs to be recognised and reacted to. This project
allows that developing tradition to be readily recognised in a distinctive
visual presentation.
If each major text-type can be defined with variations from those
traditions in allied manuscripts then research into the history of the text
can be facilitated. That help is offered by the presentation of the evidence
in the Marc multilingue project.
For those whose task it is to edit a critical printed edition of the text
the multifaceted evidence can be daunting. An editor (or, more probably in
view of the mass of material, an editorial committee) not only has to
decide which manuscripts to use but then to read, compare and evaluate
them, before attempting to establish the supposed original text. Finally
the editors have to display in an apparatus those alternative, secondary, readings deemed important or significant. These dilemmas are well
known.
Printed editions of the Greek New Testament give us a text that does
not exist in any one extant manuscript witness, and probably never existed in any one manuscript even the autograph of the particular text
being established. All printed testaments are recent editorial creations.
Most printed editions of the Greek New Testament are clones of either (a)
Westcott and Hort, the title to whose edition of 1881 was, significantly,
The New Testament in the Original Greek (implying of course that their
edition reproduced the original Greek New Testament, not that it was an
edited form of the New Testament in its original tongue), or (b) the TR,
such as The Greek New Testament according to the Majority Text4. Either
the text is close to (a) the (combined) witness of Codex Sinaiticus ( 01)
and Codex Vaticanus (B 03), or (b) Erasmus edition of 1516. No critical
edition merely reproduces as its New Testament the entire text of any one
particular manuscript.
The Textus Receptus, as its name was meant to suggest, was an edition that was acceptable (to all readers), to quote from the preface to the
Elzevir edition of 1633. The Nestle text, as a representative of Westcott
and Hort redivivus, was at one time promoted as a new TR, and actively
advertised as a so-called standard text, as close as possible to the supposed original. The recent reprinting of the 27th. edition of the Nestle
text in 1993 is less dogmatic: it now presents itself realistically in its
4 Z.C. Hodges and A.L. Farstad, The Greek New Testament according to the Majority
Text (Nashville, Camden and New York, 21985).

J.K. Elliott, Christian Amphoux and Jean-Claude Haelewyck

introductory matter (pp. 45*f.) as merely a working text, capable of being


changed, the reader being invited to make use of its apparatus so to do.
The recent fascicules of the Editio Critica Maior (= ECM) on James
and the Petrine epistles5 give us a newly edited text of these three epistles.
The text differs somewhat from the Nestle text, edited under the auspices
of the same institution (the Institut fr neutestamentliche Textforschung
in Mnster, Germany). The editors of ECM anticipate future changes as
they work through the New Testament. And even for the books already
published they are aware that further changes may occur, as their understanding of the manuscripts and the interrelationships of certain witnesses
are better plotted and analyzed. We may already see such a development
in an addendum to the fascicule on the Petrine epistles which draws our
attention (ECM IV,2 part 1 p. 24*) to one further change to the text of
the earlier published fascicule at James 2:4.
In a normal pocket edition of a critical text one encounters the variants
deemed important by its editors together with a selection of important
manuscript evidence in support. What one cannot do, because the manuscript evidence is presented piecemeal and inconsistently, is to re-establish
from such apparatus the running text of any one manuscript, even if it is a
consistently cited witness. Such an enterprise should however be possible,
at least in part, for the manuscripts selected for display in the relatively
exhaustive apparatus in ECM, although not all variations are given even
there, and purely orthographical variants are avoided. It should be even
easier to do this in Swansons display of variants in extenso6. He enables
us to see in his horizontal lines of variants the actual running text of the
thirty or so manuscripts for Mark which he prints, and for the other New
Testament books published to date.
Electronically stored collations, such as those currently being undertaken by the International Greek New Testament Project in its on-going
work assembling a full apparatus to the Fourth Gospel, will eventually
enable the user to recall the actual text of each manuscript collated, regardless of the collating base originally used by the collator when entering
the evidence for each manuscript.
But what one cannot do, even with the clearly displayed (and highly
accurate) material in Swanson, is to observe in any meaningful way the
principal divergences between the texts.
5 Novum Testamentum Graece: Editio Critica Maior IV Catholic Epistles 1 James
(Stuttgart, 1997); 2 The Letters of Peter (Stuttgart, 2000).
6 R. Swanson, New Testament Greek Manuscripts: Variant Readings arranged in
Horizontal Lines against Codex Vaticanus. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John (Pasadena and
Sheffield, 1995); Acts (Pasadena and Sheffield, 1998); Galatians (Pasadena, 2000).

The Marc mu ltilingu e Pro jec t

And there are important and significant variants that belong to the
earliest centuries of the New Testament text. Some would rightly say that
the most important text-critical variants occurred in the century or so
before the canon was fixed (by, say, 200 AD) or before a standardized
ecclesiastical text established itself. (Whether such a text merely evolved or
was formally encouraged by church decree is disputed.)
This is not the place to rehearse the recent history of textual criticisms
findings about text-types. The standard introductions7 set out the various
theories. Over the past century the nomenclature of these types and
the proliferation of their sophisticated sub-divisions may vary and be
debated, but what is beyond doubt is that the texts of the earliest
witnesses differ. The early papyri and Codex Bezae, Codex Alexandrinus,
Codex Vaticanus, Codex Sinaiticus etc. display differences - often sharp
divergences from one another. For those whose mission it is to find from
within this morass of evidence at each point of variation the original
text and to jettison the alternatives as scribal aberrations, the resultant
eclectic text will overshadow all the differences from the printed text they
establish.
But for those whose interests are in the evolution of the New Testament
text or in the importance of all such changes8 then previous methods of
publishing the New Testament text are dissatisfying.
The Marc multilingue project was set up a few years ago to
satisfy the needs of New Testament textual critics (initially of Marks
Gospel) who require and may benefit from a visual presentation of the
earliest surviving forms of the New Testament text as we have these in
extant manuscripts.
This means that the readings of the earliest witnesses to Mark must be
set out in full throughout the Gospel.
As may be seen from a prototype page (Table 1) certain witnesses
to the Greek have been selected. These are the so-called Western-type
manuscripts D 05 (Codex Bezae), and, in Mark, W 032 (Codex Washingtoniensis); the so-called Caesarean text-type, 038 (Codex Koridethianus), along with the allied minuscules in the family groupings fam1
and fam13 and 28, 565, and 700; two types of the Alexandrian text-type
then follow: (i) ) 01 (Codex Sinaiticus), and B 02 (Codex Vaticanus); (ii)
7 E.g. Lon Vaganay and C.-B. Amphoux, Initiation la critique textuelle du Nouveau
Testament (Paris, 21986) ET An Introduction to New Testament Textual Criticism (Cambridge, 1991); B.M. Metzger, The Text of the New Testament (Oxford, 31992); Keith Elliott
and Ian Moir, Manuscripts and the Text of the New Testament (Edinburgh, 1995).
8 Bart D. Ehrman, The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture (New York, 1993) and D.C.
Parker, The Living Text of the Gospels (Cambridge, 1997).

J.K. Elliott, Christian Amphoux and Jean-Claude Haelewyck

A 02 (Codex Alexandrinus), chosen as a distinctive and different form


of the text, sometimes called (Syro)-Byzantine. The texts as printed are
not of course exact transcripts of the manuscripts; orthography has been
standardized to conform to modern conventions and modern punctuation
has been introduced. Lacunae have been filled from the wording in allied
texts a procedure identified by the use of brackets in the text and by the
apparatus. Careful corrections of transcriptional errors such as examples
of haplography or dittography have been made. However, for each
manuscript in the lines of text and in the apparatus the evidence has been
based on a new collation.
We can readily identify important differences between witnesses
merely by looking at, say, the divorce saying of Mark 10:11-12, the endings to the Gospel, the opening verses9, Mark 1:8 or Mark 2:14 to make
an arbitrary selection. Outside Mark one can obviously see comparable
differences in, say, the Paternoster in Luke 11 in , B, 700, Marcion, or in
the Parable of the Two Boys in Matt 21 in , B, D10.
Conventionally, editors select, reading by reading, one text that is
then printed as the original, the alternatives being dismissed as scribal
aberrations, harmonisations to a parallel, liturgical glosses or the like.
Such explanations for the secondary variant may well be correct, but in
relegating all the supposed later forms to the margin, the history of the
developing New Testament textual tradition is obscured and sight is lost
of the fact that all the readings of each New Testament manuscript would
have been accepted by its readers as their canonical text, however
secondary modern critics may brand some readings. Without passing
judgement on the originality or not of each reading, the presentations in
Marc multilingue set out the earliest forms in their likeliest chronological
sequence. (We return to this shortly.)
Text forms is the preferred description. There is no doubt that what
we have are differences in the form of wording. The term text-types may
imply redaction or editing. However, C.-B. Amphoux, who has his own,
often idiosyncratic theories about this history, feels able to speak of B 03
as an edited text11 rather than as a representative of an evolved tradition.
His theories were set out in part in his revision of Vaganays Initiation12,
9 J.K.Elliott, Mark 1.1-3 - a Later Addition to the Gospel?, NTS 46 (2000) 584-8.
J.K.Elliott, The Parable of the Two Sons: Text and Exegesis, in the Delobel Festschrift
New Testament Textual Criticism and Exegesis, ed. a. Deraux (Leuven, 2002) 62-77 (=BETL
161).
11
C.-B. Amphoux, Les premires ditions des vangiles, in C.-B. Amphoux and
J. Margain (eds.), Les premires traditions de la Bible (Lausanne: ditions du Zbre,
1996) 139-62 (= Histoire du texte biblique 2).
12 op. cit.
10

The Marc mu ltilingu e Pro jec t

and have been developed in his La parole qui devient vangile13, as well as
more recently in Le texte grec de Marc in Mlanges de science religieuse
56, vangile de Marc: Recherches sur les versions du texte, 5-25. Other
users of the essentially objective displays in Marc multilingue may well
reach different conclusions about the historical sequence of the text forms
and the reasons for the developments.
The relative sequence as presently set out starts with D followed by
W. Both of these have Marks Gospel in fourth position, and may reflect
the earliest form of Mark that we have. Amphoux is convinced that the
text now found in the 4th century manuscript D is no mere maverick
text of the Gospels and Acts but one of its earliest forms. It is thus virtually a sole survivor of a text that had been abandoned as the tradition
developed14. Some recent work on the Western text of Acts15 collaborates
his arguments. W is often close to D in Mark but is not an exact copy.
Whether we may speak with Amphoux of W as a revised form of D or,
better, as a developed form of the text remains to be discussed further,
but by printing these two forms in full in contiguous sections readers will
be able to make their own judgements on these early and differing text
forms.
as an example of another distinctive text form possibly of Palestinian or Syrian origin stands next. Its evidence, often supplemented by
the evidence of the minuscule groupings, family 1 (fam1) and family 13
(fam13), as shown in the accompanying apparatus (see below), stands in
the section following. Recent researches by Didier Lafleur on family 13
have resulted in a more accurate presentation of this evidence.
and B stand next; B is a kind of base text or at least (with )a
highly influential text. These two could have originated in Alexandria or, if
Skeats latest arguments are accepted 16 in Caesarea.
The sixth section is given over to A, as an early representative of the
Byzantine text form. This sequence is defensible but need not be the only
order that could be produced. The Table also includes the lay out of the
apparatus to accompany the text. This includes variants in D W, the few
,

Paris, 1993.
See D.C. Parker and C.-B. Amphoux (eds.), Codex Bezae: Studies from the Lunel
Colloquium June 1994 (Leiden, 1996) (= NTTS 22).
15 M.-. Boismard, Le texte occidental des Actes des Aptres (Paris, 2000) (= B 40), a
revision of M.-. Boismard and A. Lamouille, Texte occidental des Actes des Aptres 2 vols.
(Paris, 1984) (= ditions recherche sur les civilisations. Synthse 17) and W.A. Strange,
The Problem of the Text of Acts (Cambridge, 1992) (= SNTS Monograph Series 71).
16 T.C. Skeat, The Codex Vaticanus, the Codex Sinaiticus and Constantine, JTS 50
(1999) 583-625.
13

14

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J.K. Elliott, Christian Amphoux and Jean-Claude Haelewyck

papyri of Mark where extant, especially of course P45, B C L 33 579


892 fam1 (= 1, 118, 131, 209) fam13 (mainly 13 69 124 346 543 plus 174
230 788 826 828 983) 28 565 700 1424 (all of which are well known to be
allies of manuscripts from a much earlier date). There will be no attempt to
exhibit an exhaustive critical apparatus, but merely to show significant
variants as appropriate on each page between the normal allies of the six
representative text-forms.
Patristic citations are not included in the apparatus, but readers are to
be encouraged to relate patristic quotations and allusions to the wording
of a particular text form. It is, however, well known that unambiguous
citations from the Gospel of Mark are few and far between. Two tools may
help: the SBL series, The New Testament in the Greek Fathers attempts
to relate patristic citations to known manuscripts and text-types of the
New Testament. The series Biblia Patristica serves to highlight quotations in
certain periods.
So far we have concentrated on the Greek text of Mark - and for most
users of Mark it will be the Greek text that is of paramount importance.
The early versions of the New Testament text are, however, supremely
important. The arguments for this do not need rehearsing in this context.
The early versions are paramount in this project, hence the name Marc
multilingue. Rather than combine the evidence found in all these early
translations and subsume them in the apparatus to the Greek text, each
language will have a volume on its own - ten in all, including the Greek. It
is recognised that each version has its own distinctive history often quite
independent of the Greek original, on which many are directly based.
Table 2 shows sample pages from the projected fascicule on the Latin.
In several ways the situation in respect to the Latin is more favourable
than it is in the case of the Greek, especially as far as the Vetus Latina is
concerned. The manuscript tradition as a whole is of manageable proportions; it consists of only thirteen witnesses17 and the texts are accessible,
thanks to photographs made available by the Vetus Latina Institut in
Beuron. The Old Latin witnesses may be divided as follows18. The African tradition is in two forms. Manuscript k (attested in the second half
of Mark, but with lacunae) contains an ancient and pure form of the
African text and one that antedates Cyprian; manuscript e (lacunose in
the second half of Mark) also reproduces an African type of text, but one
that betrays several levels of revision during which European readings
17

This is set out in Mlanges de science religieuse 56, 42-5. The mss aur and l should
not be retained among the Vetus Latina witnesses as their text is Vulgate in Mark, and f
ought also be set aside.
18 See Table 2.

The Marc mu ltilingu e Pro jec t

have been introduced. The European tradition itself is best represented


by the text in ms. b, to which ff2 and i may be allied. It is in these three
witnesses that one may find the kernel of the European text, or to be
more precise the Italian text of c. 350-380. Manuscript d often has unique
readings which justifies its text appearing on its own. Amongst other
European mss., which will be shown in the apparatus, one ought to note
on the one hand c and on the other a (with n and o) because these mss.
stand in varying degrees on the hinge of the two traditions - their text is
European but they contain many African readings. Finally, the Vulgate
concludes the development of the Latin tradition although one needs to
remember that this is merely Jeromes somewhat hasty revision of one
form of the Old Latin. Patristic citations have already been subjected to a
preliminary study19 but for practical reasons this evidence will not
appear in Marc multilingue and awaits the Beuron edition of Mark.
Each version has been allocated to a researcher who is responsible for
the separate fascicule to be dedicated to that version. The collaborators
recruited so far are Jean-Claude Haelewyck (Latin), Christian Peeters
(Gothic), Anne Boudhors (Coptic), Bernard Outtier (Georgian and with
oversight of the Armenian), Samir Arbache and Adel Sidarus (Arabic),
Alain Desreumaux (Christian-Palestinian Aramaic), Alain Martin and
Albert Frey (Syriac) and Jos Johannet (Slavic). Work on the Armenian
and Ethiopic has still be assigned, but work on the other versions is in
progress. The collaborators meet on a regular basis to discuss matters of
common concern for Marc multilingue. Some of their results may be
seen in the volume of Mlanges de science religieuse referred to above. A
conference on the early history of the New Testament text was held in
Lille in July 2000, attended by (among others) several members of the
Marc multilingue team. Issues relevant to the versions of Mark were
presented by collaborators on the project20.
Where the fascicules on the Greek and the versions may be seen to be
related is in the French translation facing each page of the Greek, Latin,
Coptic etc. Table 2 shows a French translation that will face a page of the
Latin text. (This Table and Table 1 are, of course, merely samples of work
19
See J.-C. Haelewyck, La Vetus Latina de lvangile de Marc: Les rapports (ed
entre les
tmoins manuscrits et les citations patristiques, in C.-B. Amphoux and J. Keith Elliott s.), The
New Testament Text in Early Christianity (Lausanne, 2003) 150-193 (=Histoire du Texte
Biblique
6).
20
The proceedings of this conference were published in 2003 and they include contributions
by several of the collaborators of Marc multilingue by Zbre (Lausanne) under the title The New
Testament Text in Early Christianity: Proceedings of the Lille Colloquium, July 2000. Le texte
du Nouveau Testament au dbut du christianisme: Actes du colloque de Lille, Juillet 2000 ed.
C.-B. Amphoux and J.K. Elliott.

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J.K. Elliott, Christian Amphoux and Jean-Claude Haelewyck

in progress and are not to be seen as definitive, final versions.) Where more
than one form of the text is printed, a French translation accompanies
each form. If it is judged that the Greek substratum is the same then the
same French word(s) will be employed. (As this is a collegial enterprise
the information is shared and collaborative agreements reached between
those responsible for each version.)
This French translation needs to be as literal as possible to reflect the
underlying language but all the translations need to be standardized so
that readers dependent on the French (it being readily acknowledged that
those turning to each version and comparing all these volumes will not
have an equal facility in the languages concerned) will not be mislead
by any slight differences in the translations if these do not in fact reflect
differences between the originals. Care will be exercised in this area to
ensure coherence.
The first four chapters in Greek and in most of the versions have been
drafted and are discussed at regular conferences and consultations. It is
to be hoped that the first fascicules can be published before too long.
The editors would now value comments on this project. While the
work is still in progress reactions are welcome and welcomed.

The Marc mu ltilingu e Pro jec t

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J.K. Elliott, Christian Amphoux and Jean-Claude Haelewyck

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15

16

J.K. Elliott, Christian Amphoux and Jean-Claude Haelewyck

The Marc mu ltilingu e Pro jec t

17

Christian B. AMPHOUX
Jean-Claude HALEWYCK
J. Keith ELLIOTT
University of Leeds
Leeds LS2 9JT
(ENGLAND)

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