The Editio Critica Maior of Mark (the Critical Text) and the Majority Text

The Editio Critica Maior of the Gospel of Mark was published in 2021 and with it an online toolset that allows the user to examine the data in more detail. This toolset is referred to as the Coherence Based Genealogical Method (CBGM) and is hosted on the INTF's University of Münster webpage.

These CBGM tools are powerful and facilitate the comparison of any of the 209 manuscripts (referred to as witnesses) utilized in the edition and the examination of the readings in the whole of Mark. The methods and tools used for this edition have come a long way since Wescott and Hort's edition of 1881. Yet many interested in the textual history of the New Testament are unaware of these developments and trends, two of which are of great importance.

First, the editors of the ECM of Mark have abandoned the theory of text types as unsupportable by the evidence (See Klaus Wachtel "On the Relationship of the "Western Text" and the Byzantine Tradition of Acts: A Plea Against the Text-Type Concept" in the "Studies" volume of the ECM ACTS). As a result, this frees up the editors to mine other manuscripts for older readings.

Second, readings found only in the Byzantine tradition are given greater weight than before (see Klaus Wachtel "Notes on the Text of Mark" in the "Studies" volume of the ECM Mark). In the Gospel of Mark Wachtel notes this trend.

"In the 33 passages where the ECM now differs from NA28/UBS5, the editors opted for the MT in 20 cases. In only six cases the decision was against the MT, mostly where the Byzantine reading is bracketed in NA28/UBS5. In 107 out of the 126 passages with a split guiding line, one of the alternative guiding lines is the MT reading. Only 15 of these 107 MT readings agree with the text of NA28/UBS5." (Wachtel "Notes on the Text of Mark," page 1).

These two developments, the abandonment of the theory of text types, and the greater weight given to the Byzantine tradition reveal how far modern reasoned eclecticism has left Wescott and Hort behind. Using the witness comparison tool helps to illustrate this trend of greater respect for the Byzantine tradition.

First, the initial text is designated by a capital A (for ausgangstext German for initial text) which is what the editors call the earliest attainable text closest to what the authors wrote. When an A is entered in the "Witness 1" box and MT (for Majority Text, i.e. basically the Byzantine tradition) is entered into the "Witness 2" box the CBGM indicates that they agree 88.71%, nearly 89%!

If the same comparison is made between 03 (Codex Vaticanus) and the MT, and between 01 (Codex Sinaiticus) and the MT the results reveal that 03 agrees with the MT only 84% and that 01 agrees with the MT at 83%. These results indicate that the editor's reconstructed A text, the text that they see as the oldest form of the text, does not look exactly like the text of 01 and 03 and where they differ, the difference moves the A text towards the Majority Text and away from the text of 01 and 03.

Another indication of the greater respect is the number of Majority Text readings that the editors mark as preceding the readings found in 01 and 03. This can be seen by using the same comparison tool. When 01 is compared with the MT, out of the 741 variants that the editors made a decision, at 254 variants (34%) the variant found in the Majority Text is seen as preceding (older than) the reading found in 01! The same phenomenon can be seen with regard to the text of 03. The comparison tool indicates that when 03 is compared with the MT, out of the 684 variants that the editors made a decision, at 138 variants (20%) the variant found in the Majority Text is seen as preceding (older than) the reading found in 03!

These simple queries using the CBGM of Mark witness comparison tool indicate that the editors of the leading critical editions of the Greek New Testament have come a long way from the theories utilized by Wescott and Hort and popular among reasoned eclectics in the 20th century. No longer do textual critics slavishly follow the text found in either 01 or 03 or any other witness traditionally attributed to the so-called Alexandrian Text. In fact at many variants the editors believe that the Majority Text preserves the older text over against the text found in 01 and 03.