Have There Been Misogynist Alterations of Scripture?

Introduction

Egalitarian scholars identify anti-feminist bias in the later Greek manuscripts of the NT, and on this basis they speculate about such bias in earlier manuscripts; this paper examines one such presentation.

Misogyny in the ‘Western’ Greek New Testament

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 articulated in particular detail by egalitarian B. 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.

Witherington refers to “D and others” as his range of manuscripts.[4] D is a Greek/Latin diglot, also known as Codex Bezae Cantabrigensis, or Dea (where the superscript ‘ea’ refers to the content of the text: the gospels (known as ’Evangelium’) and Acts (known as ‘Apostolos’). D is a 5th century text but the Greek text type it instantiates, (called ‘Western’), 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 4th century). The texts that Witherington discusses are given in the table below:

Text cited by Witherington
Passage Text Name Text Type Date What happens?
Matt 5:32 D, ita, b, d, k Western 4th century, 5th century Protection of male privilege
Acts 1:14 D Western 5th century Additional mention of children
Acts 17:4 D Western 5th century Reference to wives rather than women
Acts 17:12 D Western 5th century Men included as prominent
Acts 17:34 D Western 5th century Omission of Damaris
Acts 18:2, 3, 7, 18, 21, 26 ith gig Western 5th century Priscilla’s prominence reduced
Col 4:15 D, Gpm Western 5th century, 9th century House church allocated to Nymphas not Nympha

In addition to D, the table above identifies an African Old Latin copy of an earlier Greek text (‘it’—the ‘it’ stands for ‘Itala’, meaning Latin, and the other superscript letters stand for various specific copies of this Latin manuscript). The reading in D of Matt 5:32 is supported by ‘it’ and it is also found in other Greek and Latin manuscripts according to the 4th-5th century Christian writer, Augustine. The table also refers to another Latin manuscript (itgig), which is a 13th century Old Latin manuscript, and to a text referred to as ‘Gpm’ (the ‘pm’ stands for the Latin permulti, meaning ‘very many’, and indicates that many manuscripts of this tradition have this reading), which is a 9th century Greek/Latin interlinear diglot also known as Codex Boernerianus.[5]

From this survey of Witherington’s evidence it may be seen that he does not present any actual textual evidence earlier than the 4th century, and most of his textual witnesses date to the 5th century. It is significant that these variants 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.[6] It is also significant that almost all of these variants are found in only one manuscript tradition of the Western text (D), with only three variants appearing in any other Western manuscript tradition (Gpm, ita, b, d, k, h), and 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 grammatical, 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.

It should also 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 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 tables (our emphasis is added) were written by B. M. Metzger, and are considerably more moderate on the subject than his own previous comments in his book, The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration,[7] written two years earlier; comments are given after the text from Witherington and the UBS Committee. Each table presents the relevant data relating to Witherington’s examples of anti-feminist bias.

Acts 17:4
Witherington UBS 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 gunaikw/n te tw/n prw,twn might be translated “the wives of leading men” instead of rendering “women of the first magnitude”), D and others give us the unambiguous kai. gunai/ke,j tw/n prw,twn.[8] It is possible to translate gunaikw/n te tw/n prw,twn “and wives of the leading men,” an interpretation that the Western text enforced by reading kai. gunai/ke,j tw/n prw,twn. 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 kai. (or δέ, as in l1021).[9]

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.

Acts 17:12
Witherington UBS Committee
We find the same phenomenon at 17:12. D* alters the text so that both the men and women are prominent (kai. tw/n euvschmo,nwn a;ndrej kai. gunai/kej) and thus the women’s prominence is lessened somewhat.[10] After beginning the verse with a rather banal observation, ti,nej me.n ou=n auvtw/n evpi,steusan, ti,nej de. hvpi,sthsa,n (“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 kai. tw/n ~Ellhniwn kai. tw/n euvschmo,nwn a;ndrej kai. gunai/kej i`kanoi, evpi,steusan (“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).[11]
Acts 1:14
Of a similar nature is the addition of kai. te,knoij at 1:14 by Codex Bezae so that women are no longer an independent group but are simply the wives of the apostles.[12] Instead of the colorless su.n gunaixi.n codex Bezae reads su.n tai/j gunaixi,n kai. te,knoij (“with their wives and children”); compare 21.5, where the Tyrian Christians accompany Paul to his ship su.n gunaixi,n kai. te,knoij…[13]

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. 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 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.

Acts 18
Witherington
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.[14]
UBS Committee
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.[15]

Comment: Although it is possible to read the tendency in some of the Western witnesses to place Aquila first or insert Aquila’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.

Acts 17:34
Witherington
…the omission in Codex Bezae of kai. gunh. ovno,mati Da,marij at 17:34 is in all likelihood more evidence of an anti-feminist tendency in this textual tradition.[16]
UBS Committee
The omission in codex Bezae of the words kai. gunh. ovno,mati Da,marij has been taken by some…to be another indication of the anti-feminist attitude of the scribe…It is, however, more likely…that a line in an ancestor of codex Bezae had been accidentally omitted, so that what remains in D is evn oi-j kai. Dionu,sioj o` VAreopagi,thj euvschmo,nwn kai. e[teroi su.n auvtoi/j (“among whom also was a certain Dionysius, an Areopagite of high standing, and others with them”). In either case, however, the concluding phrase su.n auvtoi/j suggests that Luke originally specified more than one person (Dionysius) as among Paul’s converts.[17]

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.

Matt 5:32
Witherington UBS Committee

Consider the Western text of Matt 5:32b. D, ita, b, d, k, and other manuscripts omit kai. through moica/tai 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.[18]

 The reading of B (ὁ … γαμήσας) seems to have been substituted for the reading of the other uncials (o]j eva.n … gamh,sh|) in order to make the construction parallel to the preceding participial clause (o` avpolu,wn). The omission of the words kai … moica/tai (D ita, b, d, k Greek and Latin mss. acc. 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”.[19]

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.

Col 4:15
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 auvth/j indicating a church in the house of Nympha, D, G pm, et al. have auvtou/ indicating a church in the house of Nymphas.’[20] Νυμφαν can be accented Nu,mfan, from the feminine nominative Nu,mfa (“Nympha”), or Numfa/n, from the masculine nominative Numfa/j (“Nymphas”). The uncertainty of the gender of the name led to variation in the following possessive pronoun between auvth/j and auvtou. On the basis chiefly of the weight of B 6 424c 1739 1877 1881 syrh, pal ms copsa Origen, the Committee preferred Numfa/n … auvth/j. The reading with auvtw/n arose when copyists included avdelfou.j in the reference.[21]

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.

Conclusion

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), were in most cases a more likely cause.

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.[22]

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.[23]

[1] B. Witherington II, “The Anti-Feminist Tendencies of the ‘Western’ Text in Acts”, JBL 103/1 (March 1984): 82-84 (83).

[2] Witherington, “The Anti-Feminist Tendencies of the ‘Western’ Text in Acts”, 83.

[3] He only cites one text as early as the 4th century.

[4] Witherington, “The Anti-Feminist Tendencies of the ‘Western’ Text in Acts”, 82; he does not specify which other texts he means.

[5] Witherington goes on and says ‘D, G pm, et al. [and others]’, but does not say to which other manuscripts he is referring— Witherington, “The Anti-Feminist Tendencies of the ‘Western’ Text in Acts”, 84.

[6] B. M. Metzger states, “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”—A Textual Commentary On the Greek New Testament (2nd ed.; New York: UBS, 1994), xx.

[7] B. M. Metzger, The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992).

[8] Witherington, “The Anti-Feminist Tendencies of the ‘Western’ Text in Acts”, 82.

[9] Metzger, Textual Commentary, 401.

[10] Witherington, “The Anti-Feminist Tendencies of the ‘Western’ Text in Acts”, 82.

[11] Metzger, Textual Commentary, 402.

[12] Witherington, “The Anti-Feminist Tendencies of the ‘Western’ Text in Acts”, 82.

[13] Metzger, Textual Commentary, 246.

[14] Witherington, “The Anti-Feminist Tendencies of the ‘Western’ Text in Acts”, 82.

[15] Metzger, Textual Commentary, 413.

[16] Witherington, “The Anti-Feminist Tendencies of the ‘Western’ Text in Acts”, 84.

[17] Metzger, Textual Commentary, 407.

[18] Witherington, “The Anti-Feminist Tendencies of the ‘Western’ Text in Acts”, 84.

[19] Metzger, Textual Commentary, 11.

[20] Witherington, “The Anti-Feminist Tendencies of the ‘Western’ Text in Acts”, 84.

[21] Metzger, Textual Commentary, 407.

[22] Witherington, “The Anti-Feminist Tendencies of the ‘Western’ Text in Acts”, 84.

[23] 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@thechristadelphians.org).