Teaching Resources: James McGrath, "The A to Z of the New Testament"

Today's post relates to a very recent discussion I had with a well-churched Christian friend after receiving too many insulting jibe's directed at me. They were not meant to be funny but to be taken personally. At which point, a fun evening became a full-on private discussion between myself and my accuser.

The matter at hand - that of process theology using the newest and latest philosophic and redactive tools at hand - had been brewing for years requiring some form of frank, but well-meaning, discussion.

Unfortunately our venue that night very quickly became the time and place for me to share my personal journey. A journey I had kept private knowing full well the kind of response I would receive.

It began when asking my friend about his trip to an international pro-life religious-political conference which we talked about without getting too deep. But then the remarks started coming when I mentioned a few appointments I had taken this past month.

As I briefly mentioned these my friend began to goad the discussion onwards with accusations towards my community so that it became readily apparently he was unwilling to engage in any meaningful or positive way but fully readily to enact accusatory judgments.

If only his commentary was directed towards myself I would have laughed it off and moved on as I had done over the years but when accusations started landing upon fellow assemblies and friends then it had gone too far.

And so, there we were as I tried to share where I was personally as he pretended to listen while innocently blinking his eyes indicating he had stopped listening and was, instead, looking to argue and accuse in defense of his brand of Christianity.

I found it all particularly sad and a bit frustrating if I am to be honest. And the outcome a complete bust. Nothing was gained. And I became road-kill once again.

It also reinforced the thought I had asked myself on too many occasions that if anyone wished to find Christian enlightenment they should not come to the area I live in.

Once known as the New Jerusalem, my hometown refuses to update its old theologies; rather, it obsequiously monitors all new ideas by it's self-appointed Scribes and Pharisees as overseers of all church polities and policies. Not Jesus. Not love. And certainly not enlightenment.

The apologetic walls here are on high alert and at all times. People come here to leave. Not stay. Any new seed dies on it's hard grounds. And any new wine is expected to be poured into old wine sacks which predictably will burst and be lost. We are expected to stay to the old ways and imagine the rugged past as better than any promised future.

Which is also why I have felt Spirit-driven over the years to write out my personal journey so that readers may benefit by my examination of traditional church beliefs and teachings and how they may be more appropriately applied for today's present times.

Which is also why I am posting Tripp and James' discussion today finding similar souls on similar journeys as my own. That our testimony may aide fellow travellers and local church assemblies exploring the meaning of their Christian faith against all which would make it hollow and empty.

To find a Jesus-gospel which reclaims and redeems; renews and repents; heals and will not harm; as versus another kind of gospel meant to prevent doubt or inquiry; any meaningful self-examination; or force all who come to Jesus to assimilate under a specific brand of socio-political doctrinnaire.

Tripp, by background, comes from a North Carolina Baptist setting in his youth - while James, at present, teaches at Butler University in Indiana. I respect them both. Each have their strengths in Christian witness and testimony. Whether James is a process theologian I do not know. However, he's hanging around the right people who are even as I am trying to find similar fellowship in my area if it is possible.

Moreover, Tripp, like myself, are "all-in on Process-everything" and have been actively fleshing it out since becoming acquainted with Whitehead's organic cosmo-philosophy and metaphysics.

Enjoy,

R.E. Slater

December 14, 2023

Source and Redaction Criticism

by Jeremy Duncan

There are a lot of critical tools we use when studying the Bible. These ways of thinking about the text help us understand where it came from and how it has been used by the authors. The passage we looked at on Sunday leads into a really neat example of both source and redaction criticism.

Source criticism tries to uncover the original source of a story or document and looks to understand what that original source was trying to say. Redaction criticism sees the author of the text as it comes to us as the primary source and tries to understand what the author was trying to say as they edited (or redacted) that original source.

Well, in Matthew 25:14–30 (the parable of the talents) and in Luke 19:11-27 (the parable of the minas) these two authors tell a very similar story with almost diametrically opposed meanings. and this brings up some really interesting questions.

From a source-critical perspective, we can ask where this parable originated. One of the most common assumptions in the study of the synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) is what is known as the two source hypothesis. Mark is assumed to be the oldest of the Gospels and Matthew and Luke appear to take much of their material from this pre-existing text. However, as in the case of the talents/minas parable, Matthew and Luke share some stories that Mark does not. From this, we surmise that there may have existed another older Gospel containing stories of Jesus that Mathew and Luke also borrowed from. We call this hypothetical document Q from the German for source. (I know now very creative.)

Perhaps even more intriguing though, is the fact that Matthew and Luke seem to think this parable means something very different from each other. In Matthew’s version the servant who brings back the most to his master is the hero of the story, while in Luke’s version it’s the servant who is willing to bring back the least that is the example we should follow. If the source is indeed Q, then this means the two Gospel writers/redactors have interpreted the parable in two different ways based not their understanding of Jesus. And in the end, this is a pretty fascinating window into how each of us encounters Jesus through the text of the Gospels.

Jesus, Zacchaeus, and Source Criticism

by the Commons Church

* * * * * * *

James McGrath: The A to Z of the New Testament

Homebrewed Christianity w/ Dr. Tripp Fuller

Streamed live on Dec 1, 2023  |  1:04:05

One of the ongoing tensions for Biblical scholars is the gap between the shared knowledge within the academy and the need for more awareness among the larger public. Most ministers are aware of the tension this creates in the congregation, but the public square is no better. A friend and New Testament scholar, Dr. James McGrath, is back on the podcast to discuss his new book to tackle this problem. Here's the book: https://amzn.to/46Wjqv6

The A to Z of the New Testament:

Things Experts Know That Everyone Else Should Too

by James F. McGrath (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

So you think you know the New Testament?  Did you know that Jesus made puns? Did you know that Paul never calls himself or the churches he writes to “Christian”? Did you know that we don’t know who wrote the Letter to the Hebrews, or if it’s even really a letter? 

 

James F. McGrath sheds light on these and many other surprising facts in The A to Z of the New Testament. Cutting through common myths and misunderstandings of problematic Bible passages, McGrath opens up expert knowledge to laypeople in his friendly introduction to New Testament studies. Each chapter in this fresh, accessible volume begins with a provocative anecdote or fact and then pulls back the curtain to inform curious readers about how scholars approach the issue. Along the way, McGrath explains unfamiliar terminology and methodology to non-specialists with humor and clarity.  

Transmission of the Old & New Testament Translations

Problems with the King James Version: What Were the Translators Translating?

article link

by Bart Erhman

January 11, 2023

I’ve mentioned several problems with the King James Version in previous posts. Arguably the most significant set of problems has to do with the text that the translators were translating. The brief reality is that in the early 17th century, Greek editions of the New Testament were based on very few and highly inferior manuscripts. Only after the King James was translated did scholars begin to become aware of the existence of older, and far better, manuscripts.

The manuscripts of the New Testament (and of all books from antiquity) were copied — prior to the invention of printing — almost always by scribes who did their best to make faithful reproductions of the copies they were copying, and many of them did a remarkably good job. Others did a not-so-good job. Since mistakes can get replicated over time, and introduced over time, in general it is a good idea to consult the *earliest* manuscripts for determining what an author of a book wrote. The later manuscripts tend to be worse (that’s not an *absolute* rule, but a relatively good one).

As we saw in the previous post, the first edition of the Greek NT to be published after the invention of printing was by the Rotterdam humanist Erasmus, whose 1516 edition went through several revisions over the years. Other publishers based their own editions on Erasmus, rather than doing a careful study of the surviving manuscripts themselves. Eventually it became such a standard text that it came to be known as the Textus Receptus (the “received text” – that is, the text everyone used). Erasmus’s edition was based just on the few Greek manuscripts at his disposal, which were late medieval and that had the typical kinds of mistakes that one can find in late medieval manuscripts.

As a result, translations into English of the Greek New Testament, based on Erasmus’s editions and those that replicated, more or less, his text, include translations of passages that were almost certainly not originally in the New Testament, but that had come to be added later by scribes. The most famous of all is the so-called “Johannine Comma,” a reference to 1 John 5:7-8, the only passage in the New Testament that explicitly affirms the doctrine of the Trinity.

In the Latin Vulgate – the Bible of Western Christendom for centuries – 1 John 5:7-8 states that “there are three that bear witness in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit. And these three are one.” This then is the doctrine of the trinity: there are three divine beings in heaven and even though there are three of them, they are actually only one. One God, in three persons – the doctrine of the trinity. Nowhere else in the NT is the doctrine explicitly stated (although Father, Son, and Spirit are mentioned in the same breath elsewhere. But not the doctrine itself, which includes the idea that: “these three are one.”)

When Erasmus produced his first edition of the Greek NT, he left that verse out, since it was not in the Greek manuscript he was using. What happened next is a matter of debate. Some scholars have argued that the account of events widely known in the scholarly literature is apocryphal. But the way the story normally is told is as follows:

Church theologians were incensed that Erasmus had left the Trinity out of the Bible and attacked him for it. He explained that he could not find the verse in any of the Greek manuscripts he had consulted, and what he was producing was, after all, a Greek New Testament. He did agree, though, that if someone could show him a Greek manuscript that had the verse, he would include it in his next edition. And so, someone (literally) produced a manuscript – adding the verse by translating it in its proper place from the Latin.

And so Erasmus was true to his word, and included it in his next edition. It was this subsequent edition that was used by other publishers of other editions of the Greek NT, and these were the editions used by the translators of the King James. And so you will find the verse in the King James.

As more and more manuscripts were discovered, it became clear that in fact the verse was not part of the original text of 1 John, and so modern translations do not include it. When these translations started to appear at the end of the 19th century and into the 20th, there was considerable uproar when it was recognized that they did not include the leading proof text for the Trinity, and translators were roundly accused of being anti-Christian, liberal, untrustworthy, and even demonic tools of the Devil. But they were in fact simply translating the text as it had been handed down in the textual tradition. Sometimes readers don’t want the Bible as it was originally written, but only the Bible as they are familiar with it.

That is why those who insist on following the King James version insist that the story of Jesus and the Woman taken in Adultery (John 7:53-8:11) and the final twelve verses of Mark’s Gospel (Mark 16:9-21) were originally in the NT. They weren’t. They are *terrific* stories, but, well, they were added by later scribes.

The KJV has lots of other problems like this. Like the later additions to the text, it too is powerful and moving. But that doesn’t mean it is accurate, if what you want is to know what the authors themselves actually wrote.

* * * * * * * *

The History and Popularity of

English Bible Translations

article link

by Robert

March 2015

There was a time when no one could read the Bible in their own language. Now, Wycliffe Global Alliance statistics show that most of the world’s population has a complete Bible available in their native language. The English-speaking world can choose from dozens of translations. With so many out there, it makes me wonder: which ones do people choose?

There are several ways to answer this with data at varying levels of availability and reliability. The most accessible data comes from Wikipedia. Statistics from any online source will be skewed toward younger portions of the population, hampering the accuracy but useful all the same. The visualization below shows Bible translations through time using this list of English Bible translations and view statistics for each detail page.

click here to enlarge

The rise in the number of translations each decade since the 1950s is interesting. With each new version comes increased difficulty for one to stand out in the crowd. Those that have risen above the rest are the Wycliffe Bible, the King James Version (or Authorized Version), and the New International Version. The English Standard Version also deserves mention due to its rapid climb in popularity since its first publication in 2001.

John Wycliffe is famous for bringing the Bible to laypeople, an action which paved the way for the Protestant Reformation. Therefore, it remains a prominent interest when studying the history of the Bible. The King James Version stands out not only for its history and literary achievement but also for its continued popularity. We should expect that modern readers would gravitate to a version like the NIV with more familiar language, yet the KJV stays high up the charts while its language is from a bygone era.

It’s also important to explore how well this holds up compared to other data sources. One widely accessible source is Google Trends. The chart below examines search rankings for the five most popular versions.

Overall, the rankings match reasonably well with Wikipedia page views, with some interesting exceptions. While the NIV beats the KJV on a decade-long average, they have switched places since 2012 and the KJV continues to gain steam. The ESV continues climbing slowly and steadily. Other differences are likely accounted for in the methods used to track statistics and the time frame differences (90-day Wikipedia views vs. month-to-month search trends).

This only accounts for internet users at large who express some interest in each version through a page click or search term. It says nothing about what people actually buy or read on a regular basis. Bible websites and apps like YouVersion would have data on readership but would still be limited to tech-friendly demographics.

A better source would be the Barna Group, an organization which conducts scientific studies of religious interest. In a 2014 study comissioned by the American Bible Society, they found the same overall rankings for the top four versions based on survey responses. In this case, not only did the King James Version come out on top, it did so by a wide margin.

So, which English bible version is most popular? With three ways to answer that question, the King James Version is at or near the top of every list. Finding which one belongs in second, third, or fourth place will depend on where and when you look for data.

I gravitate towards sources which are easily accessible like Wikipedia. As we’ve seen, an easy answer won’t always be the right answer, but at least it’s something. Data concerning translation work worldwide is much harder to compile and analyze.

As the mission spreads throughout the globe, aided by the continued advancements in technology, I hope to see data that shows fewer and fewer people groups and languages without access to the scriptures.

The Cotton Patch Gospel of Clarence Jordan

"A colloquial translation with a Southern accent" 

also known as

The Cotton Patch Version of the New Testament

by Clarence Jordan

Link - http://rockhay.tripod.com/cottonpatch/

Both a Biblical scholar and a prophetic man of action, Clarence Jordan lived out the New Testament in the soil of rural Georgia. A visionary during the struggle for the civil rights of all God's children, he founded an inter-racial community called Koinonia (fellowship). On this farm, folks worked side-by-side to make a living, following Jesus - a radical concept fifty years ago. They experienced a great deal of opposition, even from those who followed the same Lord. This community still exists, Koinonia Partners, even though the visionary who started it died unexpectedly on October 29, 1969, at the age of fifty-seven.

Clarence was a powerful preacher - "direct, Bible-centered, and sternly contemporary," as Edward A. Mcdowell, Jr. put it. "He spoke with the earthiness of Amos of Tekoa, the boldness of Jeremiah, but often with the tenderness of Hosea. There was something in Clarence of the asceticism and gentleness of Saint Francis of Assisi but he never deserted the contemporary scene and spoke and wrote with the dogged determination of Martin Luther." When he preached, Clarence would write his own translation of a scripture he wanted to use. "Only gradually did he realize he had hit upon a style of translation that brought the Word to the reader with a new contemporary power," McDowell wrote. "As time went by, he completed individual books of the New Testament which were widely circulated in pamphlet form. But eventually he had done enough to be able to publish The Cotton Patch Version of Paul' s Epistles."

Amazon link

Clarence didn't call it a translation, but a "version," for he sought to take the text out of the 'long ago and far away' and place it in the 'here and now' of those with whom he lived and worked - the task of any preacher. This Cotton Patch Version is firmly planted in the cotton fields of the southern United States, not Palestine. Paul's epistle to the Ephesians, for instance, became the Letter to the Christians in Birmingham, Alabama. And the early Christian church, which struggled to integrate both Jews and Greeks, became the movement which joined "white man and Negro" within the same Gospel mission. "We ask our brethren of long ago," Clarence wrote, "to cross the time-space barrier and talk to us not only in modern English but about modern problems, feelings, frustrations, hopes and assurances; to work beside us in our cotton patch or on our assembly line, so that the word becomes modern flesh. Then perhaps, we too will be able to joyfully tell of 'that which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes and have felt with our hands, about the word of life' (I John 1:1)."

Of course, this "version" has its limitations. Clarence himself wrote, "obviously the 'cotton patch' version must not be used as a historical text. The Revised Standard Version and the New English Bible are excellent for this purpose." Today's reader also becomes aware that this version itself is dated. Many things have changed in the South since Clarence's death. Furthermore, this paraphrase came before the modern concern for inclusive language. So be it. The one who penned this version would probably challenge us to put the words into the soil of our own "Cotton Patch." Even so, much of this work is remarkably current. The words still speak with great clarity, revealing the meaning within the text. [p.s. when exploring the Cotton Patch, a good place to begin might be with the introductions to each volume by Clarence, or the brief biography found in the last one - see below.]

We (myself and the "scribes" who scanned or typed the text into digital format as an act of love and appreciation) originally placed the Cotton Patch Version online with the permission of Koinonia Partners. Smyth & Helwys Publishing, as holders of the copyright and full publication rights to the CPG, several years ago gave permission to keep this online version available provided that we kept links to the printed copies on their website. We thank them for doing so. Unfortunately, they have now asked for these pages to be removed, writing: "As the nature of publishing evolves from print to digital, so do the requirement placed on holders of copyrights for digital products. As Smyth & Helwys now has ebooks of each Cotton Patch Gospel for purchase through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Apple, we will no longer be able to allow your site's open access to this copyrighted material." Therefore, we have removed the texts with appreciation for their courtesy to us for many years.

The hardcopy books are still available for purchase online. Buying them from this website helps support the ongoing mission of Koinonia Partners. The new edition of these four books (with new forewords by Tom Key, Tony Campolo, Will Campbell, and Henlee Barnett) is also available from Smyth & Hylwys. To purchase ebook versions, see Amazon (Kindle), Barnes & Noble (Nook), and Apple (ibooks apps for Ipad and Ipod).

By the way, Clarence has had a great influence upon many persons, including Habitat for Humanity founder,Millard Fuller. Furthermore, President Jimmy Carter grew up just down the road from the original Cotton Patch. The foreword to a recently published collection of Jordan's sermons - The Substance of Faith and Other Cotton Patch Sermons - was written by our former President.

* * * * * * * * * *

Cotton Patch Gospel

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotton_Patch_Gospel

Some of this article's listed sources may not be reliable. Please help this article by looking for better, more reliable sources, or by checking whether the references meet the criteria for reliable sources. Unreliable citations may be challenged or deleted. (March 2013) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

Cotton Patch Gospel is a musical by Tom Key and Russell Treyz with music and lyrics written by Harry Chapin just before his death in 1981. Based on the book The Cotton Patch Version of Matthew and John by Clarence Jordan, the story retells the life of Jesus as if in modern day, rural Georgia. Though the setting and the styling of the language greatly differs from the original telling of the Gospels the plot structure and the message of the story stays true to the historical recording in The Gospel of Matthew.

Using a southern reinterpretation of the gospel story, the musical is often performed in a one-man show format with an accompanying quartet of bluegrass musicians, although a larger cast can also be used. A video recording of the play was released in 1988 with Tom Key as the leading actor.

Plot Summary

The story begins with the story of a young couple. Mary is engaged to Joe Davidson ("David's Son" referring to the lineage of Christ coming through the line of David). Even though she is a virgin, she is found to be with child before they are married. This child is conceived of the Holy Spirit. Joe considers not going through with the marriage, but is visited by an angel who tells him that it is the will of God that is occurring and not foul play, so he marries his girl. Due to an income tax audit, they must then travel to Gainesville; on the way, Mary suddenly goes into labor. There's no room for them at the Dixie Delight Motor Lodge, but the manager helps Joe break into an abandoned trailer out back, where the baby, Jesus, is born: "They wrapped him in a comforter and laid him in an apple crate". Jesus grows up like no other child in Georgia with his neighbors befuddled and his parents often at a loss as to what to do. Jesus then is baptized by a wild preacher named John the Baptizer, and begins to teach the people and convince the disciples. He shares with them the love and peace he offers, and miraculously heals and feeds many. During this time Jesus gathers a band of constant followers—known as the Apostles in the Bible. This group eventually heads off to Atlanta with a mixed air of excitement and foreboding.

Characters

The main characters are:Jesus, Mary, Joseph Husband of Mary, Pontius Pilate, John the Baptist, Caiaphas, Herod, Apostle Peter, Apostle Matthew

Musical Score

The show's unique use of the live band on stage often incorporated into the acting adds to the entertainment of the performance and creates a fun and lively atmosphere.

Something is Brewing in Gainesville

+ all song selections

Songs

• "Something's Brewing in Gainesville"

• "I Did It/Mama Is Here"

• "It Isn't Easy"

• "Sho Nuff"

• "Turn It Around"

• "When I Look Up"

• "Busy Signals"

• "Spitball"

• "Going to Atlanta"

• "Are We Ready?"

• "You are Still My Boy"

• "We Gotta Get Organized"

• "We're Gonna Love It While It Lasts"

• "Jubilation"

• "The Last Supper"

• "Jud"

• "Thank God for Governor Pilate"

• "One More Tomorrow"

• "Well I Wonder"

Memorable Adaptations

The rephrasing of well known scripture into the context and colloquial language of the south eastern region of the United States is creative and is the source of much of the humor in the production lines delivered out of their familiar scriptural language such as:

The Temptation of Jesus Christ

Jesus: [after being tested by the devil] "I passed." Matthew: "And then angels appeared with a sack of chili cheese dogs for him."

Instead of: Matthew 4:11 Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.

Jesus: "Men don't live by grits alone."

Instead of: Matthew 4:4 Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’"

Cotton Patch Gospel Act 1 (Part 1 of 4)

Cotton Patch Gospel Act 1 (Part 2 of 4)

Cotton Patch Gospel Act 1 (Part 3 of 4)

Cotton Patch Gospel Act 1 (Part 4 of 4)

Textual Composition of the Testaments - Charts and Diagrams (including Linguistic Sample Study)

SAMPLE CHART AND DIAGRAM ON THE

TRANSMISSION OF ANCIENT LANGUAGES

Ancient Alphabets

SAMPLE CHART AND DIAGRAM ON THE

TRANSMISSION OF THE OLD TESTAMENT TEXT

The interrelationship between various significant ancient manuscripts of the Old Testament, according to the Encyclopaedia Biblica (1903) Some manuscripts are identified by their siglum. LXX here denotes the original Septuagint. - Source: Wikipedia article on the Old Testament

SAMPLE CHARTS AND DIAGRAMS ON

THE COMPOSITION OF THE

NEW TESTAMENT

Gospel Source Theories

SAMPLE RECONSTRUCTION OF

TEXTUAL VARIANTS

How Textual Variations Arise

Variation of Manuscripts from Hypothetical "Original" Text

Source: See link here

Transmission Timelines of a New Testament text - Source: See link here

... JUST FOR FUN ...

THE STUDY OF

LINGUISTICS TRANSMISSION

Network analysis of Genesis 1:3

http://phylonetworks.blogspot.com/2013/02/network-analysis-of-genesis-13.html

This idea was stolen blatantly from the Laboratory Exercises in Evolution at the  Biology Department, University of Virginia (Janis Antonovics, Joanna Vondrasek, Doug Taylor), where it is set as a class exercise for learning phylogenetic analysis. In turn, these people credit a similar idea to Barbrook et al. (1998. The phylogeny of the Canterbury Tales. Nature 394: 839), although the originators appear to be Robinson and O'Hara (1996. Cladistic analysis of an Old Norse manuscript tradition. Research in Humanities Computing 4: 115-137). It is an exercise in stemmatology, which can be a lot more tricky than you might think.

Stemmatology is the discipline that attempts to reconstruct the transmission history of a written text on the basis of relationships between the various extant versions (eg. manuscripts or printings). These relationships can be revealed using phylogenetic networks, which is the approach that I present here. A network is more appropriate than a phylogenetic tree, for reasons that will become obvious — the evolution of books is not a simple thing.

Genesis

The original text of the christian Bible was written mostly in Hebrew and Aramaic for the Old Testament, and in Greek for the New Testament. It was later translated into Latin, which was then standardized as the "Vulgate", and this was then almost the only version used in churches for the best part of a millennium. The only texts in Old English consisted usually of either the Gospels or the Psalms only.

This situation was challenged in the late 14th century, when the first Middle English translations of the whole Bible appeared. There was active resistance to this by the formal Church, and so the idea of an English translation was dropped until the mid 16th century, when the Reformation inspired attempts to translate the books into Modern English as part of a new Protestant religion. These moves were sanctioned by the government, with first the Great Bible (1539) and then the King James Version (1611). Various revisions of the latter have appeared, especially since the late 19th century. These days, there is a veritable cottage industry producing new versions of the Bible for various purposes, usually based on the original texts rather than on earlier translations, with various translation principles being employed (eg. Formal Equivalence, Dynamic Equivalence, Closest Natural Equivalence, etc).

You can consult the various versions of the English-language Bible at one or more of several online sites:

• Bible Gateway
• Bibles of the Past
• English Bible History

The data used below were all obtained from these sites. These sites suggest that the most famous English-language versions of the Bible are: the Geneva Bible (1560), as used throughout the Reformation, and by William Shakespeare as well as by the "Pilgrim Fathers" in America, and the King James Version (1611), which was the standard English text for a quarter of a millennium. The most widespread current Bible is apparently the New International Version, which has been updated several times since its first appearance in 1973.

Stemmatology

The text that I use is the third sentence of the Bible — Genesis 1:3. (The biblical text was first numbered in the Geneva Bible of 1560.) Here is a dated listing of that sentence in all of the early English translations, plus most of the revisions up to the mid-20th century, and a sample of the many recent versions: 

1382 Wycliffe Bible  And God seide, Be maad li3t; and maad is li3t.

1395 Later Wycliffe  And God seide, li3t be maad; and li3t was maad.

1530 Tyndale Bible  Then God sayd: let there be lyghte and there was lyghte.

1535 Coverdale Bible  Than God sayd: let there be light: & there was lyght.

1537 Matthew Bible  And God sayde: let there be light, and there was light.

1539 Great Bible  And God sayde: let there be made lyght, and there was light made.

1560 Geneva Bible  Then God saide, Let there be light: And there was light.

1568 Bishop's Bible  And God sayde, let there be light: and there was light.

1609 Douay-Rheims Bible  And God said: Be light made And light was made.

1611 King James Version  And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

1750 Challoner Revision  And God said: Be light made. And light was made.

1769 Blayney Revision  And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

1833 Webster's Bible  And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

1862 Young's Literal Translation  and God saith, 'Let light be;' and light is.

1885 English Revised Version  And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

1890 Darby Bible  And God said, Let there be light. And there was light.

1901 American Standard Version  And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

1950 Knox Bible  Then God said, Let there be light; and the light began.

1952 Revised Standard Version  And God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light.

1971 New American Standard Bible  Then God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light.

1973 New International Version  And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.

1976 Good News Bible  Then God commanded, "Let there be light" — and light appeared.

1982 New King James Version  Then God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light.

1995 God's Word Translation  Then God said, "Let there be light!" So there was light.

1996 New Living Version  Then God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.

2011 Common English Bible  God said, "Let there be light." And so light appeared.

The first thing we need to do is align the text of these 26 versions, including both words and punctuation. This allows us to directly compare each of the elements of the sentence, comparing like with like as far as their features are concerned.

This is not as easy as it sounds. In this alignment I have separated words when they seem to have a different intent — for example, "was made" is not equivalent to "appeared". I can see endless arguments about the alignment of any text; and, indeed, disagreements about the intent of the original text is what has lead to so many different versions of the Bible being created in English.

This alignment then needs to be coded as a set of characters, which define the hypothesized homology between the various elements of the text. In this case I ended up with 50 additive binary characters for analysis. In general, I used Young's Literal Translation to determine the ancestral state for each character, as this translation was an explicit attempt to emulate the Hebrew original. A nexus-formatted version of the dataset is available here.

Various network methods could be used to summarize the character data. First, I have used a NeighborNet based on hamming distances, as I usually do (see my earlier analyses). As you can see from the graph, there is no simple tree-like relationships among these texts, which calls into question any simplistic attempt at stemmatology. (Note that in two cases there are multiple texts that have identical sentences, and thus they appear at the same location in the graph.)

Network analysis of Genesis 1:3 

It is worth pointing out here that Barbrook et al. (1998) produced a bush-like graph from their data for the Canterbury Tales, but only after deleting 14 of their 58 manuscripts, "as they were likely to have been copied from more than one exemplar, either by deliberate conflation of readings or by changing the exemplar during the course of copying." A similar explanation is likely to apply for some of the texts for Genesis 1:3, although many of them were translated directly from the original Hebrew rather than from later translations (eg. the Latin "Vulgate").

Nevertheless, there is a general separation of the older Genesis texts on the right of the graph and the more recent texts on the left. This might be easier to assess if we simplify the graph.

As a simpler summary of the same relationships, I have used a Reduced Median Network, based on r = 2 (the program default). Note that the time order is reversed in this graph, with the older texts on the left and the more recent texts on the right. The only major discrepancy between the two graphs is the relative placement of the Bishop's Bible. (Also, I have not labelled the two cases where there are several texts that have identical sentences.)

Network analysis of Genesis 1:3 

Historically, we would expect the Tyndale Bible, Coverdale Bible, Matthew Bible and Great Bible texts to be closely related, but the Great Bible seems not to fit this expectation. Similarly, we would expect a similarity between the Geneva Bible and the Bishop's Bible, which is also not reflected in the study sentence; nor is the acknowledged debt of the King James Version to the Tyndale Bible.

However, the fact that the Wycliffe Bible and Later Wycliffe are written in Middle English rather than Modern English is clear from their distant relationship to the other texts; and the close historical relationship of the Challoner Revision and the Douay-Rheims Bible is also clear.

Several texts show isolated relationships. The Knox Bible, for example, is unique among the modern texts in being taken from the Latin rather than the original Hebrew, while the Common English Bible is unusual in trying to balance two translation principles (Dynamic Equivalence and Formal Equivalence) rather than using only one.

On the other hand, the New International Version is clearly a very traditional version of the text, given its relationships as shown in the two graphs, which perhaps explains its popularity.

The close association of the Good News Bible with Young's Literal Translation is interesting, given that the former is an (often criticized) free paraphrase of the original Hebrew text while the latter is a literal translation of that same text — you can't get more different translation principles.

Conclusion

The lack of any simple tree-like relationship among these biblical texts makes any attempt to study their phylogeny difficult. My own look at the business of stemmatology suggests that the results here are quite typical of any study of written texts. Part of the problem seems to be that ideas developed in one historical lineage can be transferred to other lineages, and even transferred to earlier parts of those lineages (see my previous post: Time inconsistency in evolutionary networks).  So, even though there is a general historical trend through time, that trend is not consistent enough for a tree-based historical analysis to be effective.

* * * * * * * * * *

Time inconsistency in evolutionary networks

http://phylonetworks.blogspot.com/2012/07/time-inconsistency-in-evolutionary.html

The temporal ordering of the nodes (and branches) is usually treated as an important feature in an evolutionary network of biological organisms, because the order must be time consistent (Baroni et al. 2004, 2006; Moret et al. 2004). That is, for reticulation events the "horizontal" gene flow can only occur between species that are contemporaries. So, speciation events occur successively but reticulation events occur instantaneously (Sang and Zhong 2000).

For example, it would be unrealistic to hypothesize either a hybridization or a horizontal gene transfer event between a species and one of its own ancestors. Furthermore, each reticulation event must not only be consistent on its own but must be consistent in relation to all of the other events.

Mathematically, inconsistency creates directed pseudo-cycles in the network graph, so that it is not acyclic, as required for an evolutionary history (see previous blog post). Time consistency is thus seen as a useful means of validating a network as a potential biological history, and can even be used as a criterion for choosing among otherwise equally optimal networks.

However, evolutionary analysis is not applied only to biological organisms. It has also been applied to the study of languages (Atkinson & Gray 2005) and to cultural objects (Collard et al. 2006). Indeed, Darwin himself recognized early on that it would be important to show that language (a characteristic solely of humans) had a natural origin and that it develops in a genealogical fashion (ie. it has a pedigree).

Thus, both language and cultural objects have an historical component that can be studied, and both can fit into an evolutionary framework of variation + transmission + selection (Dagg 2011). Moreover, the evolutionary history also consists of both vertical and horizontal transmission. This means that the same data-analysis techniques can potentially be applied to biology, language and culture (Heggarty et al. 2010; Gray et al. 2010).

The issue that I wish to raise here is that time consistency is not a requirement of the evolution of either language or cultural objects, the way that it is for biological organisms. Organisms store the information (that is vertically and horizontally transmitted) in genes that they carry with them, which is what restricts reticulation to occurring only between contemporaries. However, language and culture store their "information" externally, either in the minds of people or in permanent or semi-permanent records (either written or pictorial). Thus, the information available for horizontal transmission can come from the distant past, as well as from the present.*

It is important to note that for language and culture the biological ideas of vertical and horizontal transmission of genetic information need modification (Cavalli-Sforza and Feldman 1981). Vertical (or descending) transmission still involves faithful copying of the information (with perhaps some losses or minor modifications). Lateral transfer, however, can be either horizontal transmission (between contemporary generations) or oblique transmission (between different generations), and it is the latter that allows time-travel of information.

Lateral transfer in this context may be a form of hybridization, in which new concepts are added from elsewhere (eg. synonymous words), but is likely to be a form of HGT in which concepts are simply replaced with something from elsewhere (eg. a new word effectively replaces an old word). Recombination, in which concepts are mutually exchanged, may be rather rare.

As an illustration, Dagg (2011) provides some interesting examples of lateral transfer in the parts of mouse traps. For example, he notes that: "Torsion power may have been transmitted laterally from Egyptian torsion traps to prefabricated dead-fall traps." These traps need not be contemporaneous, because the ideas being transferred may be from pictures or descriptions of old traps rather than from concurrently existing traps. (Joachim Dagg also has a couple of blog posts where he further discusses the evolution of mouse traps: post 1 —  post 2.)

As an alternative example, Johnson et al. (1989) provide an evolutionary network showing the history of the various software (mostly) and hardware components of the revolutionary Xerox 8010 "Star" Information System (ie. computer), introduced in April 1981. Note that almost all of the lateral transfer events (single arrows; mostly hybridization) are time inconsistent. To quote the authors: "Although Star was conceived as a product in 1975 and was released in 1981, many of the ideas that went into it were born in projects dating back over three decades."

Fig. 8 – How systems influenced later systems.
This graph summarizes how various systems related to Star have influenced one another over the years. Time progresses downwards. Double arrows indicate direct successors (i.e., follow-on versions). Many "influence arrows" are due to key designers changing jobs or applying concepts from their graduate research to products.

The implications of time-travelling laterally transferred information for network construction methods may be unfortunate, in the sense that evolutionary networks in biology may be quite different from those for language and culture, with the latter pair requiring somewhat different methods. At a minimum, the requirements for choosing among alternative networks will be different.

A quick look at the current literature involving network analysis of languages and cultural artifacts shows an almost universal use of unrooted graphs, most often a Neighbor-Net, Reduced-Median or Median-Joining network. Such networks cannot directly represent evolutionary history because there is no time direction in the graph. This type of analysis thus neatly side-steps the issue of representing time-travelling information in an evolutionary diagram; and it suggests that social scientists have not yet considered the consequences of the potential lack of time consistency in their data.

*Footnote: I suppose that I should be precise, and note that a modern gene bank does allow genetic information to time travel, as well.

References

Atkinson QD, Gray RD (2005) Curious parallels and curious connections — phylogenetic thinking in biology and historical linguistics. Systematic Biology 54: 513-526.

Baroni M, Semple C, Steel M (2004) A framework for representing reticulate evolution. Annals of Combinatorics 8: 391–408.

Baroni M, Semple C, Steel M (2006) Hybrids in real time. Systematic Biology 55: 46–56.

Cavalli-Sforza LL, Feldman MW (1981) Cultural Transmission and Evolution. Princeton University Press, Princeton.

Collard M, Shennan SJ, Tehrani JJ (2006) Branching, blending, and the evolution of cultural similarities and differences among human populations. Evolution and Human Behavior 27: 169–184.

Dagg JL (2011) Exploring mouse trap history. Evoluton: Education and Outreach 4: 397–414.

Gray RD, Bryant D, Greenhill SJ (2010) On the shape and fabric of human history. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London series B 365: 3923-3933.

Heggarty P, Maguire W, McMahon A (2010) Splits or waves? Trees or webs? How divergence measures and network analysis can unravel language histories. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London series B 365: 3829-3843.

Johnson J, Roberts TL, Verplank W, Smith DC, Irby C, Beard M, Mackey K (1989) The Xerox "Star": a retrospective. IEEE Computer 22: 11-29.

Moret BME, Nakhleh L, Warnow T, Linder CR, Tholse A, Padolina A, Sun J, Timme R (2004) Phylogenetic networks: modeling, reconstructibility, and accuracy. IEEE/ACM Transactions on Computational Biology and Bioinformatics 1: 13–23.

Sang T, Zhong Y (2000) Testing hybridization hypotheses based on incongruent gene trees. Systematic Biology 49: 422–434.

Comments 1 - Nice post. I'd add one comment: It is important to distinguish between the true evolutionary history, which has to be time consistent, and the reconstructed one, which may have a reticulation edge from an ancestor to descendant, simply due to incomplete taxon sampling (or extinction). In other words, except for ensuring acyclicity, I don't think one needs impose time consistency constraints during inference.

Reply by Author -Thanks. You are right that it is important to make the distinction; and it is always possible to add "ghost" lineages to account for apparent time inconsistency in a reconstructed network. However, consistency can be a valuable criterion for choosing among reconstructions, as Leo van Iersel and I discussed in an earlier post (May 8, 2012).