Edward L. Pothier

From epothier@lynx.dac.neu.edu  Wed Jul 14 21:14:22 1993
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Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Path: epothier
From: epothier@lynx.dac.neu.edu (Edward Pothier)
Subject: More on representation of Six hundred sixty-six (Rev 13:18)
Message-Id: <1993Jul15.011257.12607@lynx.dac.northeastern.edu>
Keywords: Greek
Organization: Division of Academic Computing, Northeastern University, Boston, MA. 02115 USA
Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1993 01:12:57 GMT
Apparently-To: soc-religion-christian@uunet.uu.net

   Since there has been some discussion of representation of the number
in Rev 13:18, I am including more of a paper I wrote 2 summers ago.

                SIX HUNDRED SIXTY-SIX BUT NOT 666 (Parts V-VI)
                 Edward L. Pothier  (July 1991)

V.  Greek NT Readings of Rev 13:18

     Having described above the Greek alphabetic number system,
it is now possible to look at how Rev 13:18 is represented in the
Greek New Testament.

     Until the Greek NT was first printed in the early 16th
century, each copy of each book in the NT was written by hand.
Variations were introduced, either accidently or deliberately.
Since we no longer have the absolute original autograph copies as
they came from the hands of the authors, a process of textual
criticism must take place.[17]  Textual criticism is both the art
and science of taking all the evidence as found in all the
various existing copies and attempting to reconstruct, as well as
possible, what the original text was.

     There are two major modern critical editions of the Greek
New Testament which serve as a DE FACTO "standard text."  They
are the Nestle-Aland twenty sixth edition (NA26) and the United
Bible Societies Greek New Testament third edition (UBSGNT3)[18].
These are not independent critical editions since they share
common editors and agree on the text readings included in the
text itself.  They differ in punctuation and typographical
features as well as in the documentation of textual variants of
different manuscripts.

     In the "standard" modern critical edition the verse we are
considering is given (using a transliteration scheme which
enables the reproduction of Greek text in Roman letters) as:
"ho:de he: sophia estin.  ho echo:n noun pse:phisato: ton arithmon tou
the:riou, arithmos gar anthro:pou estin, kai ho arithmos autou
hexakosioi hexe:konta hex." (Rev 13:18, NA26)

     In this verse one sees several times the Greek word for
number (arithmos), from which we get our English word arithmetic.
What is most important for our consideration is the last three
words which are the Greek words representing six hundred, sixty,
and six.  As can be seen from the transliteration, they all begin
with "hex", which is the Greek prefix which comes into English in
such words as hexagon and hexameter.

     So when the number words are written out in the Greek text,
i.e. not in just the alphabetic numerical symbols, a Greek reader
sees a identical start to each of the words ("hex"), just as an
English reader sees a "six" in the English words.

     In addition to the scholarly reconstruction of the "best",
i.e. as close to original as possible, text (obviously to some
degree a matter of opinion based on the evidence and scholarly
presuppositions), a critical edition also shows how the various
manuscript readings differ.  The NA26 edition does this through a
set of symbols in the text itself (omitted in the above
transliteration) and a compact set of "footnotes" which detail
each variant, listing the variant readings and telling which
manuscripts (using a standard notation for the names of the
manuscripts) contain which reading(s).

     The variants and the manuscripts which contain them are
listed for the number words at the end of Rev 13:18.  A text for
the three words exactly matching that of the critical text is
contained in the fifth century manuscript Codex Alexandrinus.  A
very slight variant involving only some insignificant grammatical
endings is recorded for some more manuscripts, including the
fourth century Codex Sinaiticus.  (Another important fourth
century manuscript Vaticanus is now incomplete, missing all of
the Book of Revelation and some other books at the end of the
NT).  A major different reading (from the reading of the critical
edition text) is recorded for another fifth century manuscript,
Codex Ephraemi Syri Rescriptus, which contains the number six
hundred sixteen instead of six hundred sixty-six.  There is also
another single late manuscript which contains a reading of six
hundred sixty five![19]

     Of particular interest to us are a set of manuscripts which
are recorded as affirming the reading for the number included in
the critical text.  These are the manuscripts which, instead of
writing out the words for the number, use the Greek alphabetic
notation, i.e. the three Greek letters (chi)(xi)(stigma).  The
manuscripts so listed are P47 (a papyrus manuscript, hence the P
in the name, from the third century, known as Chester Beatty
III), a tenth century manuscript known as 051, and the
"Majority-text" symbol (which indicates many late Byzantine
manuscripts).

     P47 is from the third century and is the oldest manuscript
of the Book of Revelation.  It contains parts of chapters 9-17.
We will consider its readings for numbers in Rev 13:18 and
neighboring verses in the next section.

     Because, as listed above, the majority of the manuscripts
(mostly late Byzantine miniscule manuscripts) include the
representation of the number six hundred sixty-six by the three
letters (chi)(xi)(stigma), the text presented in another modern
(but non-standard) edition called not surprisingly THE GREEK NEW
TESTAMENT ACCORDING TO THE MAJORITY TEXT, does so also.[20]  Note
that there is a major disagreement in presuppositions about the
value of various manuscripts and manuscript groups between the
editors of this edition and those of the standard editions.[21]

     The so-called Textus Receptus which acted as the standard
from the 16th century (the actual term first being used in the
17th) until well into the 19th century when modern critical
editions started to displace it, was an evolution of early
printed editions of the Greek NT.  Its printed text also used the
(chi)(xi)(stigma) notation.  The main textual basis of this
edition was only a handful of fairly late manuscripts, a subset
of the majority text.

VI.  Papyrus P47 in Detail on the Numbers of Rev 13:18

     As mentioned above, P47 is the oldest extant manuscript
which contains part of the Book of Revelation.  However, its
method of representing the number six hundred sixty-six (using
Greek alphabetic numerals) is not the one selected by the
"standard" critical text (which spells out the number words).
The textual apparatus of NA26 shows other variations of P47 from
the usual text, even in other places in Rev 13:18.

     Although the use of a modern printed critical edition of the
Greek New Testament is within the ability of anyone who can read
the Koine Greek, the potential of looking at actual copies
(reproductions) of individual manuscripts is slight.  Even many
theological libraries would not have the printed (published)
editions which would contain photographs of the desired
manuscript.

     In this case we are lucky because Kurt and Barbara Aland in
their widely available textbook (pun-intended) THE TEXT OF THE
NEW TESTAMENT (in both the first and second English editions of
1987 and 1989) include a Plate 23 on page 90 which shows
Rev 13:16-14:4 of P47.  (Note that the caption of this plate is
incorrect in that it attributes P47 to the the second century
whereas in other places in the book they give the usual third
century date).

     As mentioned in the description of the Greek alphabetic
number system above, the usual way to signal that letters are
being used as numerals is by a horizontal line above the
letter-numbers.  (A horizontal line can also mean something
else.)

     On the ninth line down from the top of this fragment (all
line counts will exclude what might be counted as the first line
which seems to include only one character at the very top of the
plate) we can see the first horizontal line overscore.  This is
indeed over the three letters (chi)(xi)(stigma) which represents
the six hundred sixty-six of Rev 13:18.

     Verse 14:1 starts immediately afterward (no gaps or
separations in such manuscripts), a clear reminder that the
chapter and verse divisions which we find so essential in
locating and referring texts are late additions, many centuries
after the books of the NT were written.  Two lines further down
the overscore is above the letters (rho)(mu)(delta).  This is for
the alphabetic numeral representation of the one hundred forty
four thousand.  In this P47 manuscript, at least, the number (one
hundred forty four) is written out in the Greek alphabetic mode.
The word for "thousands" is written following these "digits".
The same (rho)(mu)(delta) again with overscore also occurs four
lines from the bottom of the fragment picture.

     As an example that the horizontal line above letters does
not always indicate a Greek alphabetic number representation,
note the three letters (pi)(rho)(sigma) on line 12 that also have
the horizontal line above them.  This, however, is not a number.
The order is reversed from the usual descending order (which is
still possible) and two of the letters would stand for different
hundreds (100 and 200).  This horizontal line above letters
serves to signal that this is a NOMINA SACRA, a form of
abbreviation used in some Christian Greek scriptures for certain
COMMON "theological" words[22].  This is the abbreviation for
patros the Greek word for father (in genitive case), as in "the
name of his father" (Rev 14:1).

                    -- NOTES --

     [17].  Two of the standard introductions to the textual
criticism of the Greek New Testament written by editors of the
main critical editions of the NT are:
  Bruce M. Metzger, THE TEXT OF THE NEW TESTAMENT:  ITS
TRANSMISSION, CORRUPTION AND RESTORATION 2nd ed.  (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1968).
  Kurt Aland and Barbara Aland, THE TEXT OF THE NEW TESTAMENT
(Grand Rapids:  William D. Eerdmans, 1987 based on German edition
of 1982).

     [18].  Standard modern critical editions:
  NA26:  Kurt Aland, Matthew Black, Carlo M. Martini, Bruce
M. Metzger, and Allen Wikgren (eds), NOVUM TESTAMENTUM GRAECE
26th edition (Stuttgart:  Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1979).
  UBSGNT3:  Kurt Aland, Matthew Black, Carlo M. Martini, Bruce
M. Metzger, and Allen Wikgren (eds), THE GREEK NEW TESTAMENT 3rd
edition (New York:  United Bible Societies, 1979).

     [19].  All descriptions and dates of manuscripts in this
summary are from tables in NA26 or in Aland and Aland, THE TEXT
OF THE NEW TESTAMENT.

     [20].  Zane Hodges and Arthur L. Farstad (eds), THE GREEK
NEW TESTAMENT ACCORDING TO THE MAJORITY Text 2nd ed (Nashville:
Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1985).

     [21].  D.A. Carson, THE KING JAMES VERSION DEBATE:  A PLEA
FOR REALISM (Grand Rapids:  Baker Book House, 1979) contains a
sane discussion on the subject.  The title indicates that the
topic of the book is broader than just the majority text
vs. other critical editions.  The King James Version was
translated from a Textus Receptus type text which has
similarities to, but is not identical to, the Majority text as
compiled today.

     [22].  Metzger, MANUSCRIPTS OF THE GREEK BIBLE, 36-37.

-- 
 =============================================================================
 = Edward L. Pothier                           epothier@lynx.dac.neu.edu     =
 = Physics Department       PREFERRED EMAIL:    pothier@neuhep.hex.neu.edu   =
 = Northeastern University / Boston, MA 02115                                =