Luke 23:34 Textual Variant

Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona. This is the dividing line. The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us.

Yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence. Our host is dr. James white director of Alpha Omega ministries and an elder at the Phoenix reformed Baptist Church. This is a live program and we invite your participation.

If you'd like to talk with dr. White call now. It's 602 nine seven three four six zero two or toll-free across the United States. It's one eight seven seven seven five. Three three three four one and now with today's topic.

Here is James white.

Luke 23:34 as a Textual Variant

And good afternoon, welcome to the dividing line on a Thursday afternoon. As I have mentioned on the blog what we're going to do today is look at a textual variant at Luke 23 34. I'm not sure how long this will take might take the whole hour might take 20 minutes.

I don't know. Sort of hard to say. So we might be continuing on with the examination of the solo scriptura Debate from 1993. We might not don't know. Well, we'll find out. All depends if other folks Participate or you know, whatever else it might be.

We will see. But I am joined today online by Alan Kirshner. Hi Alan. How you doing? Doing pretty good. Folks might know you from that lovely caricature of of you on our blog. Alan is one of the team Apollo Guion.

You may have seen a lot of his blogs have to do with textual critical issues. The King James only folks just love Alan and Probably like turrets and fan today. There was a Roman Catholic who identified him as one of my minions.

He has now been elevated to minion status. So I would imagine is probably some King James only folks out there that have elevated you to minion status as well. Which is always good argumentation, you know when when people approach things that way.

But the reason I asked Alan to join me today is by the way, dr.

Gonna say I think this might be my initiation to the.

The Alexandrian cult. Oh, yes, the Alexandrian called. Yes. Did you get your robe and the the purple toga? No, but I have a feeling after this show. I might. Well, we we thought we had rushed the purple toga to you fast enough, but if it didn't get there I'm sorry about that but.

Anyway, I.

Am looking at a certain paper that Alan wrote. This would have been last year or when was this?

Yeah, but I think about two years ago. I took a New Testament textual critical course that or textual criticism course at a Harvard Divinity with Eldon up and we had to choose one variant for a major paper a final paper and.

So I look 23th, right now, I guess that would have been section 1884. I was looking at your title. It says Harvard Divinity School 1884. I was going boy. You you've aged. Well, actually.

Yeah, the course number there.

Now I put on the blog for people who wanted to see this I gave the text and it is a very very familiar text. But Jesus was saying father forgive them for they do not know what they are doing and they cast lots dividing up his garments Among themselves.

This is one of the sayings of Jesus from the cross. Now, I admit that I I don't know how long it was before I Recognized there is even a variant here, but I know I did not realize there is a variant when I first wrote The Potter's Freedom for example because when I dealt with this text and Norman Geisler's use of it I made no reference to it and I pretty clearly remember Realizing this at some point at a later time and I Believe you actually said you the first note footnote referenced me For bringing this variant to your attention.

So evidently it would have been after the same same time that I ran across this particular variant them.

Yeah, I think it was a maybe three or four years ago you brought that to my attention and I knew I was going to be taking a course in textual criticism and and. So I kind of kept it in the back of my mind.

You know to do further Investigation on it then.

Yeah, now it's interesting. Someone might ask how in the world. Could you look at a text? Very often without noticing textual variance and it's pretty simple. The primary Bible program I use is Bible works and Unfortunately up to this point in time Bible works still doesn't have the textual data that you can get the tish and or stuff finally, but Generally as you're just looking at The text on the screen and you're you're utilizing that cutting and pasting and looking at the Greek and things like that.

There's no there's no critical text that does does accordance have.

The critical text material does not. In fact, I believe Bible works and accordance. They have a third party. That's the German.

Stood.

Correct. Yeah.

That provides the the textual data in the na -27 that actually it's libronics that has the stuttgart electronic study Bible. But Bible works still still doesn't there they were going to have it in 7 .0 but the projects way behind, you know, how textual critics are and so it hasn't been hasn't been completed yet.

But that's coming out of a completely different group. So as I was looking at the text in in Bible works, there's no indication the variants and I Forgot to look I said, I'm not sure if you may have looked but have you ever run across an English translation? that made note of The variant because I I am unaware of.

It's interesting that you mentioned that because I I've looked at other you know how some modern English translations will have. There's a small handful of verses that they regulate to the the footnotes, right?

I look at some of those, you know, the the weight of the external evidence and some of them are very similar to To this one except some of them will have elephant and Vaticanus together and whatnot. And and but very similar and it's interesting that you know, I kind of find a little inconsistent.

Inconsistency when it comes to this variant. Now some given, you know some English translate, you know. And say, you know some early manuscript will do not have this or else. In fact, I think the any T Bible the net Bible.

Yeah, what's it in brackets actually in the text? So that's you know, that's interesting, but as far as. That's where the the variance with the you know, the the drops of Jesus blood is and there I'm not mistaken.

I think that's that's look at that again, but but the. But yeah, in fact, I was looking at some commentator like a Bach, you know with his comment Luke and Marshall and and it seems like they I don't know.

It just seems like they don't they say yes. This is a significant very but it seems that's the extent that they go in and both of them, of course believe that it is original original.

Yeah, well certainly we could say that. The the provision of English footnotes and whether you relegate something to the footnote or something like that Is not exactly an exact science in most translations and The standards that are used as to whether a notes could be inserted or not are not overly overly uniform.

But all I know is I was probably in my 40s or close to my 40s before I even Recognized this and I don't think that I I don't think that I saw that in reading commentary and like that. It just I just happen to see it in the in the textual Material which means this text is normally discussed without any reference to the fact that there is a rather major textual variance.

Let's explain what that is for folks because a lot of folks get a little bit nervous when we start talking about this particular subject and so on the blog. I have provided a scan from Swanson and you you included Swanson's work New Testament Greek manuscripts.

There's. Have they expanded beyond acts because I have Matthew Mark Luke John and acts on the last.

Yeah, I wonder if they I don't think they have but I could be mistaken on that. Yeah, I've got I've got those.

I forget where I got them from but Ruben Swanson's the editor for people who are interested in looking at this. It's a different way of providing the Textual information. Sometimes it's a little bit easier for people to Visualize what the variants are by putting it in this table format that we have on the blog and that you also reproduced in in your paper and.

See something real quick first, right. Maybe the na -27 and I mean albeit it is the Greek witnesses.

But still and it doesn't take that much effort to figure out what the Greek witnesses are. So people who are looking at the blog and if you're listening to this at a later time. You can go back to the blog for September 4th 2008 to see this particular graphic if you want to see it.

My recollection is that Swanson collates against Vaticanus if I recall correctly so the very first line you see 34 then O M stands for omit and. Therefore there's nothing beyond that except for the list of witnesses which includes Vaticanus which is B then p75 which I believe is the earliest Papyri manuscript for this section of Luke that we have in our possession.

Right then we have the olive with a C next to it. Now then down below at the bottom line. You also have a lot an olive with an asterisk next to it. Why don't you explain to folks what the difference between those two is?

Are you looking at the.

Yeah, the Greek witnesses here. We're looking at Swanson. Olive with a C and olive with an asterisk. Why why would olive be be listed twice? Oh, right. Well the.

Response. And you know, there's different Nomenclature for in a 27 here, but yeah, the asterisk would be Referring to a corrector, that's what it is referring to a corrector and actually it was corrected again With the Inclusion of it Originally for Alice it it's saying that it it has it and then the corrector came along and You know Expunged it sponge and then another corrector came by and then I added as well.

So and that's actually what the graphic the large graphic below. That is is exactly that you can see. The text there and how it has been altered in that particular point that actually is Sinaiticus Codex Sinaiticus, which is coming online.

I don't think Luke Has been put online yet. I forgot to check before the program to see if if Luke had been added, but Eventually people be able to grab hold of those particular graphics themselves and look very very carefully.

And then we have D with the same type of asterisks and we can see down below. There's a correction of that. The correct except this time. It's like the the corrector who added it in at a later point in time then interesting Codex W, which is a primarily Byzantine Witness.

Now, I know we're throwing some stuff out here and some folks are going what in the world you people talking about. Actually maybe.

Reassure the readers here, you know, I've seen a pun intended to spin it sound like Greek. But you know once we get into I think some of the internal evidence I think they'll be able, you know be able to follow that a lot more.

So obviously in textual criticism for those who don't know. You go to the the external evidence first the actual Witnesses because they are more objective and and then you are able you're in a position to be able to.

Right, right. So we have we have these unseal manuscripts unseal meaning Majuscules, they're written in a particular form. They're the earlier manuscripts W is not B and Olive are considered what are called Alexandrian primarily Alexandrian manuscripts.

Sinaiticus as I believe you noted in your paper has some Western influence at some points in it, but Primarily Alexander in p75 and Vaticanus the two those are the two Premier Alexandrian manuscripts which have been vilified many many times by James only advocates but for no particularly a decent reason and then when you have p75 papyrus 25 combined with with Vaticanus B that's considered to be very weighty by most modern critical scholars.

That's right. So W however is not in the Alexandrian family. So to have it in this particular list is rather intriguing. It's something that you address and we'll look at that a little bit later on in in your comments then Theta and and and others in essence likewise do not have.

This particular phrase then it's found in the following forms and with the small difference of for example Codex a Alexandrinus had does not have the word pater which means father.

And.

Then you have some minor differences for example the corrector of D Has an instead of T for what they are doing has the definite article T which probably has to do with the Latin the fact it's a Influenced by the Latin prime or anything else described probably just wasn't paying a close attention there.

Then we have interesting enough Manuscript 33 which is a very important minuscule Manuscript that most people feel is a copy of a much earlier exemplar which has a slight difference in the tense of Of the verb, but one of the things that you noticed that you noted In all of these is that aside from very minor Form variations all of everything that's that's a part of this text all the way down to the bottom of the line where you have the the original Sinaiticus Sinaiticus you have C.

You have There's what looks like it's called a fracture M. Which means the majority text which is the entire Byzantine manuscript tradition L and Q many others family one family 13 the the the vast bulk of Greek manuscripts do contain this but of course the vast bulk of Greek manuscripts come from At least eight nine hundred a thousand years after the time of Christ so the the Byzantine manuscript tradition Clearly contains this particular phraseology this is a variant that clearly comes up from from the second century, but What you pointed out, and I think it's very important is there isn't much variation amongst these Witnesses as to what's being said here.

And you you brought up a very important point and and that was if someone was trying to just modify This tried to sort of change it a little bit. They would they might want to just change one word. They might want to make it very specific who Jesus was praying for etc. Etc.

They don't do that there. There's no meaningful theological difference between any of the variants that are listed here.

That's a little bit about that. You know in When we right consider some of that internal Evidence because yeah, you would think it is it's an anomaly I think that if you have a certain theological tendency But with no theological variation within the within the clause itself in other words the witnesses.

You know they're either being omitted or intact for the most part. And so I you know I think most textual critics would see that as a demonstration that this is an interpolation and not a.

Decision right so let's now let's let's make sure people understand that. And an interpolation is Where something and this is a fairly lengthy variant? I mean most variants are only a word or some word order or something like that is.

It's a pretty decent logon that we're looking at here. You you either Decide that it has been excised that is it was there originally and it has been pulled out or it's an insertion. It has been put in where it wasn't before and that really is the question that faces The textual scholar at this particular issue and of course that's just another way of saying did Luke write it originally.

Or did he not write it originally. Does this reflect the apostolic text does it. Does it not and I? Think you know now that I'm thinking back for just a moment I think that the reason I started looking at this or I was brought to looking at this had to do with the fact that when I Looked at the synoptic gospels.

I think that's now that I'm thinking about I think this is what brought it about I was looking at the parallels and At this point Luke is alone in having this material. Mark and Matthew do not have Anything like this at this particular point in time, and I think that's what brought my attention to it initially as I recall It wasn't a commentary like that.

It was something like that so In essence could we summarize. Let's summarize the external evidence, and let's start talking about how at least modern scholarship approaches subjects like this.

Well I was gonna say the you know it is interesting that you mentioned W friendliest codex friend is because that's a variegated text, and it's a very. The Luke I think Luke 8 through 24 a Byzantine. There right and that's where our variant is so.

Actually we have. And not to mention you have the the earliest of the three versions that this is interesting to you. I know you haven't touched on this yet, but supporting versions in Syriac Latin and Coptic.

All of those three for example Syriac the the earliest Syriac manuscript there is fanatic. Which most critics to say is one of the best and earliest ones? Does not contain this reading. Right the.

Sahadic as well it does not contain that. And part of the Boheric as well. Yeah, and a barrack and well some some Boheric do but it's a part reading right right in it.

But that's a later that would be a later Coptic coming after a headache. I think most most critics to see this the headache is a little bit earlier than that and then when you look at the the Latin One of the best Latin old Latin text by the way when I meant Syriac that's old Syriac as well though and as far as the old Latin you have You know the which is the old Latin.

There's a number of old Latin manuscripts in one of the best ones but one of the best earlier ones is a small letter a Symbolizes this particular manuscript and which is one of the earliest ones and it does not contain this reading to see here you have three ancient Aversions dr. White in which they do not contain and not just early but high quality ones that do not contain this reading and Probably going back to you know the early part of the second century would not have this reading.

So I think that taking all this together you have You have early reading a Western read the Latin with Codex D you have Alexandrian very ancient Alexander readings with 75 and Bend Canyon and then you have actually some would consider Theta Caesarean, right as one of the chief representatives of the Caesarean although, you know, that's a little bit later, but still and of course the Visiting the Codex W.

So.

Wow, I mean that that's pretty convincing obviously, um, well, let's let's explain why. That's convincing it. A reading that has a support that comes from a wide variety of Families and witnesses is more likely to represent a broader geographical distribution rather than One that has only one family in support of it.

Because.

If you only have one family, it's not found anywhere else in any of the translations the early translations. I like that if you have it only in one. Then you may be looking at an entire family that had a very early exemplar that had a variant in it.

And that variant does not represent What went into other places in? In the early Centuries of the distribution of this text and so when you have a reading that has that wide distribution that is a Weighty thing.

You you said scholars view that as having more weight. Well, that's where the weight is coming from at that particular point, correct?

Yes.

And I would corroborate corroborate that with the genealogical relationship as well because you know It's been known that Alice does have Western influence and some of these other manuscripts that would include this reading some for Herrick as well as that Western influence as well, and that's where we find this this reading in a singular tradition right in the Western fact and You know to be balanced.

It does go back to the second century. There's the dietitian that would that would Have this reading and so we know it does go back to sometime in the second century again, we see that this is in a singular tradition in the geographical.

As you mentioned the geographical distribution is Very compelling and would suggest that this reading was introduced in the Western.

Transmission sometime during the second century we can some and now you're looking at the na -27 information here. Which is where it also indicates to us the Sinaiticus both the original and the second corrector Contain have the text in it.

This is one of the places where a fuller text like Swanson is more useful because It really doesn't give us the same type of level of information that Nesson doesn't give the same level of information as Swanson.

But basically what you're saying is the the witnesses that have this text are primarily within one Textual family one tradition whereas the witnesses that do not have a much wider distribution and hence Just as we summarize the external information then That external information from your perspective would point more to the The idea this is not original that that phraseology is not original with Luke just simply on the external.

We haven't looked at the internal stuff yet, but just the external stuff. That's why when you have in my view this convincing external evidence why. Distribution geographical distribution not to mention junior genealogical relationship.

Really have to keep that in mind because External evidence is not you know you have it's not equal to internal evidence. In other words. If you have very weighty external evidence, and then you have ambiguous Internal evidence which will see I think we have an internal ambiguous internal evidence.

Okay, so with that then and and by the way this this type type information. You didn't have to go through any special ceremonies to be able to get access to it. You could buy these books online. You know sometimes people think that we're somehow hiding this from folks.

I just pause long enough to say that not only could our King James only Friends obtain this kind of information, but our Muslim friends could find this information as well. We openly Present this stuff to the world and say here's the data.

Here's the information. We have confidence in these things. Here's why we do that, so I just mentioned that. In-passing now, let's look at the internal considerations, and this is where quite honestly Alan Things for a lot of folks start sounding just a tad bit not only confusing, but a little bit on the subjective side.

And I think that's gotten to be more so over the couple decades Since I wrote the King James only controversy. And and we'll see why initially when you began looking at into the internal considerations the first thing that you made reference to Is that there really isn't anything? in this text that immediately jumps out at a person and says ah This was a scribal situation where Inadvertently there is a Deletion of a line because of such things as homo I tell you tan or parablepsis or homo arcton or whatever else it might be weren't why don't you?

Explain to folks if you could why you started with with that observation.

Yeah, there's basically two types of internal evidence. You look at transcriptional evidence. Transcriptional has to do with like you know and that's as well as you mentioned and then there's Intrinsic would be looking at the author's vocabulary the the context.

And.

And in this sort of case because it's the larger unit I mean, we're not looking at like a single word here, or you know happened in the past, but.

But normally but normally when it does happen. It's because of fairly easily recognizable Situations. The example I've used in the past when you have something called homo I tell you it's on similar endings is if we put this in English if you have a word that ends in ing and You're typing this out even today as we're copying something from a book or something like that we type ing or tion a common ending to a word our eyes go back to the Original or as scholars referred to it the exemplar and when our eyes go back we find Ing around the same spot on the page we expected to find it or a Tion and we continue on from there.

The problem is we found it one line lower than where we actually ended. And if we're not really paying close attention and especially if it doesn't result in pure gibberish We've just accidentally Deleted a phrase a word sometimes an entire sentence.

This happened in first John 3 1. Where and such we are was deleted in an early exemplar by homo I tell you time so when scholars see that and there is something in the text where you've got similar endings at the beginning in the end of this particular Phrase or sentence as we have here.

Then that weighs very very heavily on The determination of the text of variant itself, but what you're pointing out in their paper was there's nothing like that here. There's there's nothing that makes a scholar go.

Ah this is how a scribe could have inadvertently by errors of sight and errors of thought Deleted this particular this particular text yeah, correct. It's.

Yeah, there's no criteria of like more difficult reading and textual criticism of. You know the you know you the reading that is more difficult to maybe the scribes mind Is often taken into great consideration because usually they're trying to smooth out something that's difficult in their apparent mind.

But here that's not the case. We're dealing with a theological statement.

Now you had a quote. I'm assuming you have your paper with you. Good you had. You had a quote on on page seven. And I will confess. Is it Joel?

Dilobal.

Yeah, dilobal dilobal is the name and He makes the the following comment on this particular text he says the presence or absence of a complete logion of Considerable length and striking content however can hardly be attributed to scribal carelessness.

Addition or omission of this kind constitutes a deliberate change to the model it is clear the product of one particular scribe. Given that there is little change that several scribes in different times and places would have introduced a chain.

I'm sorry little chance. Ah I found that There is little chance that I would have to point that out wouldn't I? Yeah, that there is little chance that several scribes in different times and places would have introduced a change of this nature in exactly the same Lucan verse Independently from one another so what he's saying is and and it makes perfect sense this goes back to one point in time it either an Insertion or a Removing of it the idea that that's when was special like we look at Swanson.

That you have one scribe in Codex Alexandria's putting in his version and then another scribe for D putting in his and other scribe for 33 putting in his his all Putting him in in the same form at the same place independently of one another just simply is About as likely as you know lightning striking you 14 times at the same point or something.

It's just it's just not really gonna not really gonna happen in that way so now Maybe we can summarize What do most scholars say about the internal evidence looking at The scribes and what's going on?

This has become one of the big things and this is where you are right now. You're taking classes from these folks you mentioned that you were taking a class from Eldon J. Epp for the folks watching or who will be watching on video as long as our video is functioning correctly today.

Hopefully. Oh good. In fact I don't you told me about this book and but I don't think you have it at least from what you said you didn't seem to indicate because you're a poor seminary student, but perspectives on New Testament textual criticism by Epp I mean this thing if you act somebody with this thing you probably go to jail for assault with a deadly weapon it is humongaloid almost eight about right eight hundred and fifty pages and I would assume these are Collected essays 1962 to 2004 by your professor for this particular class.

He's been at this for quite some time. It is a massive tome, and he is one of the Leaders in developing this idea of looking at the cultural and Theological settings of the scribes so would that be a fair Statement to to make along those lines.

Yeah, I would I would say that.

Theological tendencies and acts he's written quite a bit on and another book as well and.

So the idea there is you look at especially the Theological and At the particular point in time where it seems a variant arises and you analyze these in reference to What the tendency of the scribe would have been and so what in essence in essence is the the primary?

Argumentation being put forward in regards this variant by textual scholars today based on internal evidence. A caveat the.

Intrinsic evidence we're looking at an author's stock. It's really Limited it's very subjective. I mean obviously when you look at a author's you know. Vocabulary well, that's that would be like saying you know dr. Wade I'm I'd like to take two letters that you've written in your life, and that's the pool of your vocabulary.

That's the extent of your vocabulary. And not even taking consideration context or what you wrote, you know and I mean very limited so that's just one example how this can be subjective, but some of the.

Some who would argue that this is an excision for the longer reading that this reading is part of Luke. They would arguments that they would deduce that I've come across one is that if it's a Luke and theme of forgiveness and ignorance.

You know an axe 17 1327. The problem with that that's fine, okay, if it's a Luke and theme of forgiveness, but it's kind of an ignorance. It's kind of a double-edged sword. You know because one could turn around and say well.

How do you know that scribe was looking for a motif and and and looked for some floating? Dominical logion out there. Originally, you know a thing I can to the canonical Gospels and wanted to look in style.

So, you know, it kind of cuts both ways so that's argument though there are you know. It they can be legitimate in some context, but in this I don't think so. Another argument is kind of similar to this that there's a parallel with Stephen, you know, Stephen is you know being person once again?

Scribe could say well. He was looking at parallels that could synopsis, you know, I don't want to minimize, you know. Their arguments there, but given the amount of time that we have a second argument is the fall of Jerusalem.

It would they would say that some was evidence that you know. The Jews were not forgiving so scribes do not want to appear that Jesus prayer went unanswered so they once again the protein. Doing that quote is right.

You're not that you what's the probability of you know different times in different places? That is going to exercise right that really I mean.

So I don't have to go back to one one original person who did that. Let me read real quickly what Bruce Metzger says and then we can sort of bounce this around a little bit. In his textual commentary says the absence of these words from such early and diverse witnesses as the ones we already went over Is most impressive and can scarcely be explained as a deliberate excision by copyists.

Who? Considering the fall of Jerusalem to be proof that God had not forgiven the Jews Could not allow it to appear at the prayer of Jesus had remained unanswered at the same time. The logion though Probably not a part of the original gospel of Luke bears self-evident tokens of its Dominical origin let me translate that Dominical From the Lord coming from the Lord and was retained within double square brackets in his traditional place Where it had been incorporated by unknown copyists relatively early in the transmission of the third Gospel, it sounds very similar to what he said about John 7 53 through 8 11 as well in regards to having on an origin with Jesus, but not having been part of the original itself.

That's what what he says now. I don't remember if you looked at this in your paper, but Bart Ehrman in his works and in fact one of the more recent ones. This is another Brill publication studies in the textual criticism of the New Testament pages 384 and 385.

This is what he has to say. It is interesting to consider the manuscript tradition of Luke 23 in light of these issues. Let me back this up just a little bit.

I.

Jumped way way too far and let me back up to page 384. I've already mentioned one of the passages to create some uncertainty among modern exegetes over the question of Luke's view of the culpability of the Jews and the death of Jesus.

Luke 23 34 We're being crucified Jesus prays father Forgive them if they don't know what they are doing. Modern readers may think Jesus is praying for the Romans who are responsible for Crucifying him but should be remembered that in Luke Pilate delivered Jesus up to their will that is the will of the Jews and that They then let him off to be crucified.

Moreover in the book of Acts it becomes quite clear that it was the Jewish people who are responsible for Jesus death Even though they acted out of ignorance in any event. We know from comments made by Christian fathers that this is how the passage is read in the early church as a prayer that God Forgive the Jews for their involvement in the death of Jesus.

But what were early Christians to make of this prayer. For as I've already intimated in my comments on Barnabas and Melito Sardis There was a decided movement away from thinking that God would or should forgive Jews for what they did as Christians became Increasingly inclined to think of Jews as Christ killers.

We know from other sources the second and third centuries that Christians began blaming the destruction of Jerusalem by the Roman armies in 70s CE. On the Jews themselves not for a foolish uprising against the power of Rome.

But for killing Christ whose death was avenged by the destruction of the city and the slaughter of its inhabitants. What were such Christians to make of the fact that Jesus had prayed for the forgiveness of the Jews clearly?

They had not been forgiven. Was Jesus prayer not heard or maybe he had never uttered the prayer in the first place. It is interesting to consider the manuscript tradition of Luke 23 and light of these issues for as it turns out There is a textual problem with verse 34 the prayer of forgiveness starting with our earliest surviving manuscript the third century Pyrrhus called p75 and Continuing with some other best of our best known and most important witnesses.