Mark 1:4

Some translations of Mark 1:4 say, “John the baptizer came preaching,” while others say, “John came baptizing and preaching.” Which is the right translation? As it often turns out, they are both the right translation of one of the Greek manuscripts. The real question behind the translation question is which manuscript is original.

The answer, as the experts are aware, is that the article was a trivial scribal addition in the Alexandrian manuscripts. The original said, “John came baptizing and preaching.” Then what led some of the translations, like NASB, to get the wording wrong? This is not a theological error but a scholarly textual criticism error. An examination of the manuscripts and text editing history shows how a lack of professional objectivity in textual criticism has led some translators astray.

Notice that the NU text contains both ὁ and καὶ and that both cannot be original because they do not go together. One or the other has to go because they do not make sense together; no translator translates them both.

If we omit the scribal error ὁ, we get the original “John came baptizing and preaching,” as the Byzantine text has it. If we retain the scribal error and omit the καὶ, we get “John the Baptizer came preaching,” as Vaticanus has it.

The Byzantine manuscripts match the original, but the Alexandrian scribes mistakenly inserted the ὁ parallel to other GNT texts, as Metzger correctly notes in his Textual Commentary. The καὶ was original because it is in most of the manuscripts and such an insertion does not fit regular scribal errors.

Some of the Alexandrian manuscripts omit the καὶ. The reason for this, as Metzger notes, is because the Vaticanus scribe tried to “fix” the original error that was created by introducing the extra ὁ. It did make it back into good Greek, as translated by NASB, but made it even further from the original.

This history of Alexandrian scribal error and erroneous correction is pretty simple to understand in light of the types of scribal errors that occurred. Unfortunately, it took the Alexandrian text editors (the modern scholarly critical text experts) a hundred years to admit it, and by that time the translation damage was done.

In their 1881 GNT text, Westcott and Hort (WH) chose to omit the καὶ, following the Vaticanus. They did not want to put it in because it was not good Greek with the ὁ, which they mistakenly took as original. Being competent textual critics, they knew that it was easier to explain the insertion of the ὁ than the καὶ. 

So what led them to go against their better judgment? They do not leave a record of their thinking, but they do leave a record of their hostility toward the TR. Possibly, they wanted their text to differ from the TR so much that it led them into this unprofessional choice.

Nestle followed WH in his 1904 erroneous GNT text. At some point in the series of editions, Aland decided that the omission of the καὶ was indefensible according to the principles, since it was in most manuscripts and had no reason to be interpolated. However, his primary loyalty was still to WH and Nestle, rather than to principled textual criticism. So he put the καὶ back in the text, but in square brackets.

Although this decision showed somewhat more integrity than WH and Nestle, it was still highly misleading to translators. In the 27th edition, the καὶ was in brackets whereas the ὁ was not, leading the NASB translators to the obvious conclusion that the bracketed καὶ was more dubious than the unbracketed ὁ, the exact opposite of the truth, according to Metzger.

Sometime after NASB published its faithful but erroneous translation, Aland apparently had pangs of conscience and switched the brackets from the ὁ to the καὶ, where it is in the 27th revised edition. He closed the barn door after the horses got out.

Aland was on the road to recovery from his Alexandrian addiction, but not there yet. The embarrassment was that the original was Byzantine, not Alexandrian. Since it was known by sound textual criticism principles that the καὶ was original and the ὁ must have been an interpolation, the most helpful thing to do would have been simply to omit the ὁ from the text. It is not as if the NU editors always put every ὁ or καὶ in the text whenever any Alexandrian manuscript has one.

Conclusion

The conclusion that the Byzantine version was original is based on knowledge of what is good Greek, on the language patterns, and what is impossible Greek. Many scholars have a good feeling for those patterns. However, the advantage of a syntax-coded system like GC is that the pattern evidence can be accessed exhaustively and statistically and bears the assertions in this evaluation of the manuscripts out.

Did switching the brackets from the καὶ to ὁ the fix the text error? No it did not. The clear signal of the current NU 27 revised edition is that the καὶ is original and that the ὁ is optional (possibly original or possibly not), but this is not true.

How does the knowledge of grammatical constructions help decide the text? The conclusion that ὁ cannot be original if καὶ is is based on construction statistics. Ἰωάννης [ὁ] βαπτίζων καὶ κηρύσσων John who baptized and preached makes the participles coordinated second position attributives. 

There are 21 coordinated second position attributive constructions in our sample, and 12 of them involve participles. All the coordinates of all the constructions are attributive.  κηρύσσων cannot be circumstantial (adverbial) before καὶ if βαπτίζων is attributive. In English [ὁ] βαπτίζων is translated as the baptizer, an appositive noun, but in Greek it is a second position attributive participle.

However, βαπτίζων and κηρύσσων cannot both be attributive because they then would shift the entire sentence from the predicate into the subject John, leaving ἐγένετο predicateless. This is impossible since the whole point of a declarative sentence is to predicate.

There are 191 γίνομαι constructions in our sample, and most of them have predicates. There are two common γίνομαι constructions that lack predicates. One is the came-to-pass construction, and the other is the exists/occurs construction. Clearly Mark 1:4 fits neither of these descriptions. 

Therefore ὁ cannot be original and βαπτίζων cannot be articular, as admitted by Metzger, and ὁ does not belong in any text representing a possible original. It is just an Alexandrian scribal error. The text is not a catalog of scribal errors; it is the original for translation.The NU text as it stands is defective since it cannot be translated as an original with all the words and nobody has been able to do it so far. It fails the test. The critical scholars have never printed a correct version of Mark 1:4 in over a hundred years of publishing. Hopefully NU will abandon the Alexandrian bias of its origin in the next version and adopt objective textual criticism principles.

—Dennis Kenaga, March 2018