Acts 17:26: God made of one [blood] every ethnicity of humans: Part B: Appraising Patristic Witnesses and Ancient Language Manuscripts

Abstract

Among handwritten manuscripts, Acts 17:26 most commonly reads “God made of one blood every ethnicity of humans…” Another reading here is “God made of one every ethnicity of humans…” This Part B paper documents that the “of one blood” reading appears very early and extensively across multiple language manuscript and patristic quotations—more so than for any other distinctly Byzantine reading of an Acts passage. We document a significant number of “Byzantine” readings that were already attested in Acts patristic quotations and ancient languages of the 2nd-5th centuries. We also show that singular reading omissions considerably outweigh additions in Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus, Vaticanus, and P74. This finding leads us to wonder whether “blood” was similarly an omitted word in these four manuscripts. Importantly, no first millennium manuscripts read “from one man” here, and this emendation has only become commonplace in English Bible translations since the 1960’s. A Part A companion paper (Cannon 2024) focuses on Greek manuscripts at these Acts passages.

Keywords

Acts Byzantine One Blood Sinaiticus Singular-readings Textual Scholarship Patristic witnesses

When two or more variants appear in ancient manuscripts, Biblical scholarship aims to discern which reading of a Biblical text is more likely to have been the earliest recoverable reading. Discernment beckons such endeavors when appraising Acts 17:26, where the overwhelming number of handwritten manuscripts attest “God made of one blood every ethnicity of humans.” In comparison, a few important manuscripts attest “God made of one every ethnicity of humans,” with no noun after “one.” Which of these readings is more likely the initial reading, and how can we assess this now, some two millennia after Luke penned these words? This question is important when considering the biblical theology regarding human origins. The reading “of one blood all ethnicities” is explicitly consistent with recent paleo-genetics, which points to one shared blood-line of all humanity (Jobling et al.: 601-608). The reading “of one all ethnicities” is also consistent with recent paleo-genetics, although not so explicitly. The emendation “from one man all ethnicities” is considerably less consistent with recent paleo-genetics—and it is also not consistent with handwritten Bible manuscripts.

For several recent centuries, biblical scholars have preferred a few Greek manuscripts over others when deciding which reading should be construed as “initial text.” In Acts, the preferred Greek manuscripts include Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus, and Vaticanus, Papyrus P45, and P74. Together, we herein call these five the SAVPP manuscripts, for lack of a better acronym that biblical scholars have agreed upon. For Acts, these five manuscripts (plus several other later manuscripts) were important for selecting the Nestle-Aland 28 (NA28) “adopted” text, the United Bible Society (UBS) “adopted” text, and the Editio Critica Maior (ECM) “initial” text (although ECM III-Acts has taken some exceptions to these). Despite this preference, textual scholars have also recognized that early patristic quotations and ancient languages manuscripts sometimes depart from these five manuscripts.

The use of patristic quotations and ancient languages in textual scholarship can be complicated by issues regarding language translation grammar, by melding quotes with discourse, and by transcription discipline issues (Warren, Strutwolf). Nonetheless, scholars are finding important key word “roots” of what became the Byzantine text-form in 2^nd-5^th century patristic quotations and ancient language Bible manuscripts (Gurry 2019, 2018, 2017, Wasserman and Gurry 2017, Wachtel 2017, 2017a).

The readings of both the Byzantine text and SAVPP manuscripts have been well-characterized by ECM III (2017). Thus, herein, we have been able to juxtapose the Byzantine and SAVPP text-forms as benchmarks by which to compare the readings attested in numerous other manuscripts and patristic writings.

Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, and Alexandrinus of the 4^th and 5^th centuries are perhaps the earliest complete extant Acts manuscripts in Greek. These three are generally consistent with one another. But then scholars ask: have these three manuscripts been consistent in attesting the “original” Acts text? Or, rather, have they consistently attested a text that had already slightly morphed from the “original” during the 2-4 centuries of intervening years since Luke penned Acts? How could we distinguish this now, two millennia later?

The aim of this Part B paper has been to appraise the 2^nd to 5^th century attestations of patristic quotations and ancient languages at a carefully selected group of Acts passages. We have focused our analysis on passages where ALL the extant SAVPP manuscripts attest one reading, whereas the Byzantine manuscripts attest a clearly distinct reading. Then, a Part A companion paper (Cannon 2024) addresses Greek manuscript readings at these same select passages.

Through this analysis of select passages, we found individual readings attested in the 2^nd to 5^th centuries that subsequently became adopted by the Byzantine manuscripts. This means that these Byzantine readings were concurrent with Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus and Vaticanus—and even preceding them (Gurry 2019, 2018, 2017, Wasserman and Gurry, Wachtel 2017, 2017a). These individual readings have been called the “roots” of the Byzantine tradition.

These early attestations have become particularly highlighted by analyzing the Biblical quotations of such patristic witnesses as Irenaeus, Augustine, and Chrysostom. Also, they are discerned by comparing the texts of other ancient-language manuscripts, including the Syriac dialects and the Armenian Bible. Recent scholars are realizing that the patristic authors and scribes of these ancient languages seem to have derived their sources from a transmission line of text that preceded the 4^th and 5^th centuries although that line has not remained extant. These centuries were long before the Byzantine text-form as a whole had become well-entrenched in the 9^th century (Barbara Aland 1986, Wachtel 1995a).

Two early manuscript readings of Acts 17:26

In Acts 17:26, the attestation, “of one blood every ethnicity of humans,” is shared by 453 Greek manuscripts, and by many of the earliest ancient language manuscripts and patristic quotations. These include the Bezae Codex (GA 05, VL 5, 5^th century), Laudianus (GA 08, VL 50, 6^th century), the Armenian Bible (411 CE), three Old Latin manuscripts (6^th-13^th Centuries), the Syriac Harklean (616 CE), Syriac Peshitta (5^th-7^th century), Harklean Greek manuscripts, Arabic Codex 151 (867 CE), Georgian Bible (A974-7 CE), and Old Church Slavonic Bible. “Of one blood” is also quoted by Irenaeus (185 CE), Chrysostom (400-401 CE), Augustine (356-426 CE), Theodoret of Cyrrhus (393-466 CE), Ephraem Graecus of Syria (306-373 CE), Nilus Ancyranus of Sinai (400-430 CE), and Venerable Bede (709-710 CE).

In the preceding paragraph, most citations are to ECM III.1.2: 657 and Aland TuT (1993: 558-9). Citations are also to Strutwolf (2017) and Kiel (54) for Irenaeus, Clark (112) for Augustine and Ephraem, Stevens et al. (“Oxford”: 435) for Chrysostom, Jennings and Gantillon (56) for Syriac, Staal (43) for Arabic, Ruis-Camps and Read-Heimerdinger (334) for Bede, and Uni-Mainz (2023) for Latin manuscripts. Greek manuscript dates throughout this paper are per ECM III.2: 5-6.

Another manuscript attestation of Acts 17:26 reads, “He made of one every ethnicity of humans.” This “of one” rendering appears in 21 Greek manuscripts, including Codex Sinaiticus (GA 01, 4^th Century), Alexandrinus (GA 02, 5^th century), Vaticanus (GA03, 4^th Century), and Papyrus 74 (P74, 7^th century). “Of one” likewise appears in the Coptic manuscripts (3^rd-11^th Centuries), in numerous Latin Vulgate manuscripts, in the Ethiopian translation, in quotes of Clement of Alexandria (Egypt) (198-203 CE) and in quotes of Cosmas (the Monk) Indicopleustes of Alexandria (a550 CE). In this paragraph, most citations are from ECM III.1.2: 657 and Aland TuT (1993: 558-9). We also cite Uni-Mainz (2023) for Latin, Keil (52-3) for Clement, and Horner (1905 and 1922: 411) for Coptic.

Approach and Overview for Appraising Acts Passages

In Acts, the NA28 (Nestle et al. 2012) and UBS (Aland et al. 2019) “adopted” text has heavily favored the SAVPP manuscripts. They have also favored several other Greek manuscripts that were written in the 9th-11th centuries. In contrast, Robinson and Pierpont (2005) advocated the Byzantine text-form as the “original” text. For Acts, ECM III presented their Ausgangstext (German for “initial text”) as mostly consistent with NA28, except at 155 passages, where they came to a “Split Decision”, and at another 52 passages where they identified a Guiding Line Change (refer to the Part A paper of Cannon 2024).

ECM III divided the Acts text into about 7,600 “passages” (also called “variation units”). Each “passage” (or “variation unit”) is a segment of a verse, identified by its chapter, verse, and word-count within the verse (for example Acts 17:26/6-9). Among all Acts passages, ECM highlights 771 Byzantine-identifying passages in Acts. Among these, we identified and focused on 494 distinctly Byzantine (B-D) passages, where ALL the SAVPP manuscripts with extant text attested one reading (the “sav-reading”), whereas the Byzantine manuscripts attested to a clearly distinct reading (the “bz-reading”). These 494 B-D passages have been listed in Table 2 of a companion Part A paper (Cannon 2024). Among these B-D passages, we have aimed to discern which patristic quotations and ancient languages attested to the “sav-reading,” and which attested to the “bz-reading.”

In order to appraise these attestations, we have compiled hundreds of pages of excel tables that are available to the reader through correspondence with the author (Cannon Tables 2023). For each B-D passage, we tabulated the extent of attestation for the Byzantine “bz-reading” versus the SAVPP “sav-reading” among ancient languages, and patristic writings (discussed in this Part B paper), and among Greek manuscripts (discussed in the Part A paper of Cannon 2024).

Importantly, we emphasize that our aim here has not been to favor or endorse the Byzantine text as a whole over the SAVPP manuscripts. Rather, we sought to find those individual “bz-readings” that had been attested very early by a multitude of manuscripts and patristic quotations. Our analysis revealed that among these B-D passages, BOTH the Byzantine tradition AND the Sinaiticus-Alexandrinus-Vaticanus tradition exhibited significant roots in 2^nd-5^th century manuscripts and quotations, rather than just the SAVPP tradition.

Acts 17:26/6-9 is a B-D passage. “Of one blood” is the Byzantine “bz-reading,” while “of one” is the Sinaiticus-Alexandrinus-Vaticanus-P74 “sav-reading.”

Attestation and Support for Byzantine versus SAVPP Readings at B-D Passages

With the ECM database, computer apparatus, and other sources, we quantitatively juxtaposed the SAVPP readings versus the Byzantine readings among the Greek manuscripts, ancient languages, and patristic quotations. In our Part A companion paper (Cannon 2024), we introduced a protocol for tallying the Attestation, Support, and Connectivity regarding the B-D passages. Per that protocol, those B-D passages with Tallies of 11.5 or higher are presented here in Table 1. This table also identifies the wording of the “bz-reading” and the “sav-reading” at these passages.

Table 1

B-D passages where the Total Tally for the “bz-reading” is 11.5 or more.

Acts Passage	Total Tally	Byzantine “bz-reading”	SAVPP “sav-reading”
17:26/6-9	14.6	He (God) made of one blood ενός αιματος every ethnicity of humans	He (God) made of one ενός every ethnicity of humans
1:8/24-26	12.5	You shall be of me μοι witnesses	You shall be my μου witnesses
2:38/36-40	13	Forgiveness of sins	Forgiveness of your υμων sins
4:8/27	12	Rulers of the people and elders of Israel του ισραηλ	Rulers of the people and elders
4:24/28-30	11.5	You the God ο θεος who made heaven and earth	You who made heaven and earth
7:7/18-22	11.5	Said the God ειπεν ο θεος	The God said ο θεος ειπεν
7:30/27	12.5	Angel of the Lord κυριου in a flame	Angel in a flame
10:32/37	11.5	Peter… who having come will speak to you. ος παραγενομενος λαλησει σοι.	Peter…(omit)
15:28/8-12	11.5	Holy Spirit αγιω πνευματι	Spirit the Holy πνευματι τω αγιω

Patristic Quotations of Acts

ECM chronicles the quotations of numerous patristic witnesses for many Acts passages. We have particularly focused on several patristic witnesses that lived very early on, quoted numerous Acts passages, and thus bestowed a rather extensively representative quotation dataset for our appraisal. These include Irenaeus, Chrysostom, Augustine, Theodoretus, and Origen. Whereas Origen offers no extant quote at Acts 17:26, these other four all quote “of one blood” there.

We cannot know whether a given patristic witness quoted Bible passages from their memory or while directly reading the passage. Nonetheless, our key objective here is to focus on the significant words that emphasize the main point of the passages (Tuckett 2003, 2012, Büsch (190), Houghton 2010, Strutwolf (173), and Epp 2013). The patristic witnesses could surely have quoted the main points properly from either memory or direct reading. At Acts 17:26/6-9, haimatos-blood represents just such a significant main-point word.

Irenaeus

Of the roughly 600 Acts passages that Irenaeus quotes, 34 are B-D passages where the Irenaeus Latin can distinguish the Greek “sav-reading” from the Greek “bz-reading.” Among these 34 B-D passages, Irenaeus attests “bz” in 17 cases, “sav” in 13 cases, and other readings in four cases (Cannon Tables 2023). So, Irenaeus attests “bz” over “sav” in 57% of these cases, as shown in Figure 1. These proportions reveal the significant extent to which readings that became adopted into the Byzantine tradition had already appeared even as early as 185 CE—i.e. 1½ centuries before Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus, and Vaticanus (Rousseau et al.).

Figure 1

Concurrent Flow Diagram for early manuscripts and patristic witnesses, using Byzantine and SAVPP (GA 01, 02, 03, P74, P45) as benchmarks.

Barbara Aland perceived that Irenaeus was “among the most important witnesses, above all” (Aland 1986: 44). Strutwolf (181) recognized that “Irenaeus is a witness of an early text, which is still very close to the original text…Irenaeus can be [recognized] not as a witness to the early existence of any type of text, but rather as a representative of an early line of transmission of the Greek text.”

Per Harvey, the Irenaeus rendering of Acts reveals such similarities to the extant Syriac texts that Irenaeus must have accessed an earlier Syriac text (now lost). Indeed, there are 18 passages where ECM chronicles attestations by both Irenaeus and a Syriac manuscript. Among these 18 passages, Irenaeus agrees with a Syriac manuscript in 83% of these passages. Moreover, this agreement is to the “bz-reading” in 73% of the agreeing cases. Notably, the Acts 17:26 “of one blood” reading exhibits Irenaeus and Syriac agreement. Strutwolf (2017: 171-172) noted that “of one blood,” as ex uno sanguine in Latin and ex henos haimatos in Greek, represents “a type of binding reading” among manuscripts.

Chrysostom

Chrysostom quotes almost all of Acts in his Homilies (400-401 CE), and other works (Büsch: 204-220, Stevens et al., Fee, Boismard, Gignac). Specifically, Chrysostom quotes all but four B-D passages; and among these, he attests the “bz-reading” 404 times, the “sav-reading” 91 times, and other readings 35 times (with some overlap). Therefore, Chrysostom attests “bz” over “sav” in 82% of these cases (see Figure 1). The high number of “bz-readings” among Chrysostom’s quotes highlights that extensive roots of the Byzantine tradition were alive and active even at 400-401 CE—effectively contemporary with Codices Vaticanus, Sinaiticus, and Alexandrinus. Chrysostom attests “of one blood” at Acts 17:26.

Augustine

Augustine quotations have been logged for several hundred Acts passages (Clark, Gäbel 2017, ECM III.1.1 and 1.2). Among these, Augustine quotes 38 B-D passages, while attesting the “bz” 24 times, the “sav” 9 times, and other readings 5 times. Thus, Augustine attests “bz” over “sav” in 73% of these cases. Augustine (354-426 CE) selectively cited and weighed the merits of numerous New Testament manuscripts that were available to him (Schirner 2015, 2015a). The quotes of Augustine reveal that some of the individual “bz-readings” that subsequently became adopted into the Byzantine tradition had already emerged in the 4^th century. With regards to Acts 17:26, Augustine writes: “that it is written, of one blood God made the whole genus of men” (Clark, ECM III.2: 144, 269). Clark viewed this as a quotation but, per ECM III.2: 269, this was “not a direct quotation.” Nonetheless, we emphasize, per ECM (III.2: 144, 269) and Clark, this quotation indeed includes the key phrase “ex uno sanguine-of one blood.”

Origen

Origen (175-250 CE) quotes 47 B-D passages in Acts (ECM III. 1.1 and 1.2). Among these, he attests “bz” 13 times, “sav” 29 times, and other readings 5 times, thus attesting “bz” over “sav” in 31% of the cases. Extant writings host no quotes of Origen at Acts 17:26.

Theodoretus

Theodoretus of Cyrus (393-466 CE) quotes 35 B-D passages (ECM III 1.1 and 1.2). Among these, he attests “bz” 23 times, “sav” 9 times, and other readings 3 times, thus, attesting “bz” over “sav” in 72% of these cases. At Acts 17:26, he quotes “of one blood.”

Other Patristic Witnesses of the 2^nd-4^th Centuries

In Figure 1, we have plotted the “bz” over “sav” attestations for these and other ECM-tracked patristic witnesses from the 2^nd - 4^th centuries. As shown, the patristics’ attestations of “bz” over “sav” span a broad range—from 100% to 11%. Thus, there is no universal favoring of one of these benchmarks over the other among these patristic witnesses. (See these patristic writers and others tabulated in Cannon Tables 2023).

Latin Manuscripts of Acts

The Universität Mainz Vetus Latin edition of Acts hosts a website (Uni-Mainz, accessed 2023) that identifies the variant readings of about 90 Latin manuscripts. Herein, we have tracked 21 of these earlier Latin manuscripts regarding whether they attest the “bz-reading,” “sav-reading” or another reading. Among the 494 B-D, there are about 300 passages where Mainz has chronicled the readings of numerous Latin manuscripts.

In Acts, Houghton (2016: 233, 237) characterized Latin manuscripts VL 50, 51, and 61 as transmitting fully “Old Latin” readings. At Acts 17:26, these three read “of one sanguine-blood,” as does VL 05 Bezae. Then the “Latin Vulgate” manuscripts read “of one.”

The manuscripts VL 5, 50, 51, and 61 attest the “bz-reading” over the “sav-reading” at 29-50% of these Latin B-D passages (Cannon Tables 2023). Then, the Stuttgart Vulgate and Fuldensis (546 CE) attests “bz” over “sav” at 15-16% of these cases. The other tracked Latin manuscripts attest “bz” over “sav” at 21-33% of these cases. Thus, the roots of both the Byzantine and SAVPP traditions can be found in all these analyzed Latin manuscripts, especially in the Old Latin and Bezae.

Augustine respected the translation accuracy of what he called Itala manuscripts. Houghton (2016: 15) recognizes the Itala to be linked particularly to VL 51 (which attests “bz” over “sav” at 43% of the cases). Also, Gäbel (2017) recognized Augustine quotations patterned after VL 55 (which attests “bz” over “sav” at 32% of the cases). These observations, taken together, document that some individual “bz-readings” that became adapted into the Byzantine tradition were already being attested in Augustine’s quotations and these Old Latin manuscripts.

Syriac Translation by Thomas of Harkel

In 616 CE, Thomas Harkel completed a literal word-for-word Greek-to-Syriac New Testament translation (Juckel 2017, 2011; Aland 1986). In the introduction to this Syriac Acts manuscript, Harkel explained that he used a “Greek copy that was very tested and reliable” (Zuntz 1945: 12-14, Juckel 2017, Gurry 2018: 188, B. Aland 1986: 58, Williams). This Harklean Syriac New Testament includes a main text and a Harklean apparatus. Its apparatus includes readings that Thomas of Harkel marked with an asterisk or placed in the margins of his text. Aland deduced that Harkel’s main text originated from his “reliable Greek text,” whereas the “Harklean apparatus” readings came from the Philoxenian Syriac (508 CE—no longer extant), which in turn originated from a pre-Philoxenian “GA 614 text-type” (Aland 1986).

Intriguingly, when recent scholars translated Harkel’s Syriac New Testament word-for-word back into Koine Greek, the product exhibited very close correspondence to a cluster of Greek manuscripts that were labeled as “Harklean Greek” (Aland 1986, Zuntz 1945, Juckel 2017). These included GA 614, which was written in the 10^th Century, although its scribe apparently witnessed a far earlier text-type.

Aland (1986) recognized that the Harklean main text is particularly similar to manuscripts GA 1505, 1611, 2138, and 2495. Per Juckel and Aland, this means that these four witnessed a text-type that must have been present before 616 CE, and probably in the 6^th century.

Both Juckel and Aland perceived that when asterisks and marginal notes were absent, the Philoxenian Syriac and Harkel’s “reliable Greek manuscript” must have substantively agreed with one another. Among roughly 7,600 Acts passages, the ECM text chronicles about 300 passages (3.9%) where Syriac readings are identified with an asterisk or in a marginal note (Cannon Tables 2023). With such a low percentage of asterisk and marginal note distinctions, there must have been considerable agreement between the Philoxenian source and the “reliable Greek manuscript” that Aland links to GA 1505, 1611, 2138, and 2495.

Aland hypothesized that a “type GA 614” manuscript was the source text type for this Philoxenian Syriac. She surmised that this “type 614” predated Bezae (GA 05, 5^th century), Papyrus P38 (4^th century), the Harklean apparatus, and other early manuscripts. She specifically wrote, “Such a type of manuscript as that of 614 is also easy to imagine…roughly estimated in the 2^nd century or beginning in the 3^rd century” (Aland 1986: p. 27 par. 2 lines 7-10). Aland repeats this 614-type early-dating theme throughout her 1986 paper (on p. 33, 49, 50, 51, 53, 61, 62, 64, and 65). Siddiqui (2021) also promotes this premise.

Herein, by employing the ECM computer apparatus Phase 3, we observed high agreement (89.5 to 98.8 %) between GA 614 and seven other manuscripts, namely GA 1292, 1505, 1611, 1890, 2138, 2412, and 2495 (Cannon Tables 2023). Together, we identify these eight manuscripts as the “Greek Harklean” group. Thus, although these Harklean Greek manuscripts have been dated to the 10^th-15^th Centuries, they apparently witnessed a source text that was written far earlier than that.

Using the ECM III.1.1 and III.1.2 data base, we found about 250 B-D passages that hosted Harklean Syriac manuscript(s) readings. Among these, there are 131 attestations to the “bz”, 89 to the “sav”, and 30 to “other” (Cannon Tables 2023). This yields a 60% attestation to the “bz” over the “sav” for the Syriac Harklean text. It is notable that an important minority of these agreements have been to the “sav-reading” or to an “other” reading—as well as most to the “bz-reading.” This demonstrates the distinction of these Harklean Syriac manuscripts (and the Greek Harlkean) from the Byzantine manuscripts. Gurry reasoned that “when the Harklean and Byzantine witnesses agree, they are attesting to a reading that is earlier than either of them—by hundreds of years” (Gurry 2018: 189, 197). For the Syriac Harklean apparatus, there is a 58% attestation to “bz” over “sav.” The Syriac Peshitta, attests “bz” over “sav” in 44% of the cases (Figure 1).

In 71 cases, ALL the eight Harklean Greek manuscripts agreed with ALL the extant Syriac manuscript readings (Cannon Tables 2023). Significantly, one of these passages with complete Syriac-Greek agreement is Acts 17:26, where the eight Harklean Greek manuscripts, the Syriac Harklean, and the Syriac Pishitta ALL read “of one blood.”.

Other Ancient Language Translations of Acts

The ECM (III.1.1 and 1.2) also identifies how Acts passages are translated into several other ancient languages. In 42% of chronicled B-D passages, as many or more ancient languages attest the “bz-reading” as do the “sav-reading” (Cannon Tables 2023). Numerous scholars deduce that the roots of these ancient language Bibles extend yet further back than the dates of their extant manuscripts (Strutwolf 2017, Gurry 2018). The Armenian Bible (411 CE), attests “bz” over “sav” in 48% of the cases (Figure 1). At Acts 17:26, “of one blood” is also attested by the Armenian Bible, the Georgian Bible, and the Old Church Slavonic Bible.

Concurrent Flow Model for Early Manuscripts, Ancient Languages, and Patristic Witnesses

From the above discussions and Figure 1, we glean that the ancient language manuscripts and patristic witnesses of the 4^th century and earlier exhibited a broad span of attestation to either the “bz-readings” or “sav-readings” at these B-D passages. Indeed, the attestations of “bz” over “sav” range from 100% to 0%. This broad range is not what we would have expected if in fact the initial Acts text was tightly aligned with the SAVPP manuscripts. Rather, this broad range connotes that the initial text (or texts—now no longer extant) resided somewhere midway between the SAVPP and Byzantine benchmarks, relative to these B-D passages. Figure 1 data implies that a concurrent diffusion occurred from these prospective initial text(s)—simultaneously both toward the Byzantine and toward the SAVPP text-forms, and also toward the Harklean and other variant readings. (See similar discussion by Gurry, 2017: 174 regarding the Catholic Letters: James through Jude). This leads us to wonder what a manuscript Flow Diagram would look like that explicitly included ancient language manuscripts and patristic quotations along with the Greek manuscripts.

A foundational underlying premise of 19^th and 20^th century textual scholarship had been that a text very close to that of Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus, Vaticanus, P74, and P45 was the “initial” text. For some scholars, then, the history of textual transmission effectively became the study of how other manuscripts diverged from those five manuscripts. However, the data of Figure 1 is not consistent with that premise. Notably, we see a shift even from the P45 text of the 3^rd century to the Sinaiticus-Alexandrinus-Vaticanus manuscripts of the 4^th and 5^th centuries. Among all Byzantine-identifying passages where P45 is extant, 18% of these had shifted from the Byzantine reading (held by P45) to the reading shared by the Sinaiticus-Alexandrinus-Vaticanus manuscripts.

We notice another intriguing relationship when viewing Figure 1 trends: all manuscripts and patristic quotations that attest “bz” over “sav” in 37% or more of the B-D passages, also read “of one blood” at Acts 17:26. In contrast, all that attest “bz” over “sav” at 28% or less, also read “of one” at Acts 17:26 (Cannon Tables 2023). The perspective of Zuntz (1953: 282) has been that the more attestation there is for a given reading in early traditions, languages, and patristic writings, the more likely that reading is an initial reading.

Textual Scholars’ Appraisals Regarding Acts 17:26

Regarding Acts 17:26, Bruce Metzger (1998: 404-5) offers the following scholarly analysis, as summarizing the United Bible Society Committee (UBS) perspective:

“The Western text, with the support of a wide range of early versions and patristic witnesses, adds haimatos-blood after henos-one… In support of the longer text is the paleographical consideration that haimatos-blood may have been accidentally omitted [in some early texts], because it ends in the same letters as the preceding henos-one. It is also possible, though perhaps not probable, that someone deliberately deleted the word, since such a person may have perceived that this contradicted the statement in Genesis that God made man from dust — not blood (Genesis 2:7). There was some force in the consideration that haimatos is not a very natural gloss on henos—for that one would have expected anthropou-man or something similar. On the other hand, a majority of the (UBS) Committee was impressed by the external evidence supporting the shorter text, and judged that haimatos was a typical expansion so characteristic of the Western reviser.”

In overview, the majority of this UBS Committee preferred the “of one ” reading; while a minority preferred the “of one blood ” reading; and they rated their preference with an intermediate “{B}” level of uncertainty. Only about sixteen other Acts B-D passages that Metzger-UBS appraised hosted this level of uncertainty, or more.

Wachtel (2017a: 145-146) added further insight:

“The addition of haimatos-blood does not lead to a known common phrase; one would rather expect something like anthropou-man to complement the short reading “of henos-one.” Parablepsis [skipping a word] might be the cause for an accidental omission of haimatos after henos. Genealogical coherence, however, tips the scales in favor of henos as the initial text. The phrase henos haimatos is not a common one…Metzger sees henos haimatos clearly as a “Western” reading that “passed into the Textus Receptus.” This statement clearly depends on the text-type concept, of course. A text-type neutral description would just state that the mainstream variant henos haimatos has early support from Irenaeus and Bezae.”

We highlight the perspective of Metzger, Wachtel, and numerous others who note that “one would have expected ‘from one anthropou-man’ or something similar.” However, none of these scholars point to any handwritten Bible manuscripts that attest to a “from one man” reading. Likewise, after quite an exhaustive search, we have not found any first-millennium manuscripts—in any language–that say “from one man” (Cannon Tables 2023). We submit that this absence of anthropou-man from all these manuscripts emphasizes that faithful scribes really thought that “man” did not belong there. The presence of haimatos-blood in so many manuscripts connotes that these scribes may have recognized that “henos-one” by itself reflected an unwieldy reading and/or inadvertent omission, and that “henos-one haimatos-blood” was the appropriate text.

Boismard and Lamouille (123) perceived that haimatos-blood was part of the original, but then was lost by an eye-skip. Preuschen (109) proposed that “haimatos-blood was the original, but haimatos was [subsequently] deleted to align the passage with a biblical doctrine of creation.” Pervo (435) notes that haima-blood can also be understood to mean “seed,” or “semen.” Thayer (15) indicates that haimatos-blood “serves to denote generation and origin—in John 1:13, and also in the Greek classics.”

Internal Evidence: Omitted and Added Words in the New Testament, particularly within the SAVPP manuscripts

In addition to the internal and external evidence considered above, textual scholars have advocated employing another form of internal evidence regarding transcriptional probabilities. This form addresses the question succinctly posed by Schrock: “What is the author likely to have written, and what are copyists likely to have made him seem to write?”

However, Barbara Aland cautions against an overly subjective appraisal regarding what an author two millennia ago is likely to have written. Indeed, she asks, “why wouldn’t Luke occasionally write in an un-Luke-like manner?” (Aland 1986: 8-9).

Metzger (1998: 12-14) employed several criteria for assessing internal evidence, which he identified as “transcriptional probabilities” regarding habits of the scribes. Among these criteria are: “In general, the shorter reading is to be preferred [as likely to be initial],” and “In general, the more difficult reading is to be preferred.”

Regarding these criteria, Aland (1986) warns against circular reasoning. For example, one might presume that because longer readings came later, then when a textual scholar observes a longer reading, it is therefore inherently later. Or since some people might expect the Bible to say that all humanity came from one man, then therefore Luke must have meant to say “from one man” in Acts 17:26, even though no first millennium manuscripts attest to such a reading.

But let us consider one of these internal criteria so as to discern whether the pattern is even manifested in Acts: does it stand the test of analysis to presume that “longer is later and shorter is closer to the initial text?” To appraise this notion, we have evaluated the singular readings found in Acts within the manuscripts Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus, Vaticanus, P45, and P74.

Genealogical Relationships of Codices Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus, Vaticanus, and Papyrus

Among textual scholars, conjecture continues to swirl regarding whether GA 01 and GA 03 influenced one another, and whether the five SAVPP manuscripts witnessed common exemplar(s). In a companion Part A paper (Cannon 2024), we employ ECM’s Coherence Based Genealogical Method (CBGM) Textual Flow Diagram. An underlying premise of this CBGM is that these manuscript text types did indeed influence one another and manifest a flow progression. Per this CBGM premise, it follows that if a word was omitted from an early exemplar, such an omission could be transmitted to other manuscripts of the Sinaiticus-Alexandrinus-Vaticanus tradition.

Analyzing Singular Readings as Clues Regarding Variant Origins

Several textual scholars have observed that the singular readings found in a manuscript offer clues regarding the transcription habits of that manuscript’s scribe (Jongkind, Head, Hernandez, Wilson). Singular readings are variant readings that only one manuscript attests to, while all other manuscripts attest to other reading(s). So a textual scholar can track how often a scribe omits or adds words among these singular readings. Then one can postulate that the scribe practiced similar tendencies throughout a manuscript in other passages. Only in these other passages, the changes did not remain “singular,” in that such a manuscript was subsequently used as an exemplar for other manuscripts, from whence the addition or omission was transmitted forward. This tendency parallels analogues in genetic heredity and mutations (Spencer et al. 2002).

Jongkind appraised Sinaiticus’ singular readings in 1 Chron. 9:27-19:17, Luke 1-12, and five of Paul’s books. Among these, Jongkind found 45 omitted words and 20 added words—an omit-to-add ratio of 2.3-to-1. Similarly, Hernandez found that Sinaiticus’ Revelations readings included 116 omitted words and 66 added words—an omit-to-add ratio of 1.8-to-1.

Royse appraised the singular-readings in six 3^rd century papyri (mostly of the Gospels), and found that among these, the scribes omitted words 2-3 times as often as they added words. For example, in P45 Acts, Royse found 60 omitted words and 29 added words—a ratio of 2-to-1. We recall that P45 is one of the five important SAVPP manuscripts in Acts, and also the earliest. So if subsequent Acts scribes preparing GA 01, 02, 03, and P74 were to copy from a papyrus like P45 or these other five papyri as their exemplars, they might have likewise copied manuscripts that had omitted words.

Omissions and Additions in Acts: Sinaiticus, Alex-andrinus, Vaticanus, and Papyrus P74

In light of these published omit-to-add ratios, we employed ECM III.1.1 and 1.2 to appraise the singular readings throughout all of Acts for Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus, Vaticanus, and Papyrus P74. (We appraised ALL of Acts, not just the B-D passages) (results in Cannon Tables 2023). In Sinaiticus, the Acts Scribe omitted 91 words, while adding 33 words, representing a 2.8-to-1 ratio. Alexandrinus Acts exhibited 18 omissions and 13 additions—a ratio of 1.4-to-1. Vaticanus Acts exhibited 27 omissions and 7 additions—a ratio of 3.9-to-1. Papyrus P74 exhibited 25 omissions and 9 additions—a ratio of 2.8-to-1. These trends highlight the possibility that these same scribes (or their exemplars) could have omitted haimatos-blood from the Acts 17:26 passage.

With these omit-to-add ratios, we next aimed to compare the SAVPP manuscripts to the Byzantine manuscripts relative to the ratio of shorter-to-longer phrases specifically among Acts B-D passages. Thus, by using the ECM data set, we could freshly appraise a lingering notion of earlier scholars, who presumed that the Byzantine scribes routinely added words with the intention of clarifying and smoothing the New Testament text.

To characterize this, we first found about 120 salient B-D passages where the distinctions between the Byzantine versus SAVPP readings pertained to more than mere word-order, “small” words, or synonymous words. Among these 120 salient B-D passages, there were 67 passages where the SAVPP reading was shorter than the Byzantine reading, whereas there were 28 passages where the SAVPP reading was longer than the Byzantine. This represented a SAVPP-versus-Byzantine shorter-to-longer ratio of 2.4-to-1. This is far less lop-sided than would have likely been anticipated by the conventional wisdom of the 19^th and 20^th century scholars.

Was the absence of haimatos from the SAVPP manuscripts an omission from an earlier exemplar?

In light of the above omit-to-add and shorter-to-longer ratios, we now consider an important question: Was the absence of haimatos-blood in the SAVPP manuscripts at Acts 17:26 an attested omission from an earlier exemplar? As shown above, for singular readings, the omit-to-add ratios ranged from 1.4-to-1 to 3.9-to-1. Significantly, these ratios are all in the same range as the 2.4-to-1 shorter-to-longer ratio for the SAVPP readings compared to Byzantine readings.

Given this SAVPP scribal tendency towards omitting words, could an early exemplar have omitted the initial word haimatos-blood, and then could other SAVPP-like manuscripts have copied this omission? But then could this haimatos-blood reading have non-the-less been present in yet other very early exemplar(s) that were faithfully attested by most all other subsequent Greek traditions and ancient languages—other than the SAVPP tradition? We recall that last century’s textual scholars often presumed that the Byzantine readings were longer because scribes added words so as to “smooth” the text. But this singular-reading analyses plants doubts in that premise—at least relative to early manuscripts and among these B-D passages. Per Eldon Epp, (2011:107) “the traditional textual scholarship ‘canon’ that the textual scholar should ‘prefer the shorter reading’ has received the most scrutiny in recent decades.”

Thus, we connote with greater likelihood than perhaps could have been realized before ECM’s computer apparatus of this decade, that an exemplar of Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus, Vaticanus, P45 and P74 could indeed have deleted haimatos at Acts 17:26 from an earlier manuscript. Then, this unwieldy deletion could have been carried forward into these five manuscripts plus several others of this tradition, despite most other manuscripts not adopting the deletion.

Nature of Singular Readings in Acts Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus, Vaticanus, P45 and P74

We shed further light on this question by considering the nature of the singular readings among the SAVPP manuscripts. Although many of the singular readings are trivial, there are several dozen where the omissions and additions cause noticeable change. For example, at Acts 24.23, Sinaiticus has Paul guarded by a chiliarch—a commander of 1000 Centurions, whereas all other manuscripts have Paul guarded by one hekatontorcheh-Centurion. Also in Acts 8.5, Sinaiticus refers to “Caesarea,” whereas all other manuscripts read “Samaria.” Wachtel (2015), Jongkind, and Skeat thus deduce that Sinaiticus may have been transcribed in Caesarea (now in Israel).

Moreover, in about two dozen cases, the singular-reading changes seem perhaps mindfully made. For example, at Acts 7:8, Sinaiticus has Isaac circumcised on the hebdomeh-seventh day, whereas all other Acts manuscripts and Gen 21:4 have him circumcised on the hogdoeh-eighth day. Then at Acts 1:25, Alexandrinus has Judas turning aside to go to his just place, whereas all other manuscripts have Judas going to his own place.

Specifically regarding the word haimatos-blood, we note that P74 singularly omits haima-blood in Acts 2:19. Then in Acts 5:28, Alexandrinus singularly repeats “to haima to haima-the blood the blood.”

Perhaps roughly a tenth of the above-cited salient SAVPP omissions could be attributed to skipping a similarly-ending word. However, few similarly-ending Acts couplets host as closely similar endings as do henos and haimatos. As an example of a similar ending causing a skipped word, at Acts 2:9, only Sinaiticus omits “and Elamitai-Elamites” from the reading “Parthoi-Parthians and Medoi-Medes and Elamitai-Elamites…”

In a couple dozen cases, a SAVPP manuscript singularly omitted a word that left the balance of the sentence to be unwieldy, lacking, or vague. For example, at Acts 14:19, all manuscripts except Sinaiticus narrate that “they dragged Paul outside the city,” whereas Sinaiticus reads “they dragged Paul the city.” Then, in Acts 7:15, all but one manuscript reads “Jacob went down into Egypt, and he died.” In contrast, Vaticanus offers the unwieldy “Jacob went down and he died.”

In this light, perhaps scholars could surmise that it was likewise an omission of haimatos-blood at Acts 17:26 that caused the unwieldy “sav” sentence structure: “And God made of one every ethnicity of humanity….”

No Early Manuscripts Read “From One Man”

No first millennium manuscripts read “from one man.” Nonetheless, this emendation has become commonly included since 1960 CE in several popular English translations. Some English-speaking translators have argued that “man” can be added here as an ellipsis word. However, in our earlier paper (Cannon 2022), we documented that if “from one man” were proposed as an ellipsis, this phrase would be a unique ellipsis in numerous grammatical and literary ways. Thus, it was determined, “from one man” should be construed as a late-coming emendation, rather than a “supplied-in-thought” ellipsis.

An Old Testament narrative that some Bible scholars point to is Genesis 1-4. Notably, per Brown et al. (BDB: 8), Koehler et al. (HALOT: 14), and Gesenius (13) “Genesis 1:26-30 refers to adam-humanity / mankind / men and women plural.” This can be a humanity of one blood-line that preceded Adam and Eve. Then Genesis 2-4 can refer to individuals named Adam and Eve, who came from within that already-existing blood-line. This one blood-line of humanity is consistent with recent paleo-genetic findings (Jobling et al.: 601-608), which trace surviving Homo sapiens to one shared genetic source.

Conclusion

In conclusion, among the B-D passages, quite a few individual “bz-readings” that ultimately became adopted into the Acts Byzantine tradition were already attested in very early manuscripts, and could be candidates as initial readings. Perhaps the “bz-readings” that appear in about 25-100 passages could be further evaluated as prospective initial text. These individual “bz-readings” can be found in manuscripts and quotations that were concurrent with the Sinaiticus-Alexandrinus-Vaticanus tradition or preceded it.

Among B-D passages, the patristic witnesses Irenaeus, Augustine, and Chrysostom attest the Byzantine readings more often than they attest the SAVPP readings. The Syriac Harklean and its apparatus attest to the “bz” over “sav” in 58-60% of the cases. The Armenian Bible uses the Byzantine reading just as often as it uses the Sinaiticus-Alexandrinus-Vaticanus.

As we aim to discern the initial Holy Scriptures, this gives fresh credence to the notion that these individual “bz-readings” should be carefully considered as contemporary with the Sinaiticus-Alexandrinus-Vaticanus manuscripts—or even preceding them. Per Figure 1, an initial text (or texts) that existed considerably before the 4^th century (but are no longer extant) could have attested elements of BOTH the Byzantine and SAVPP traditions. In this light, the “bz-readings” offer potential sources of initial text in some individual key passages (Wasserman and Gurry 2017: 107).

The “of one blood” reading at Acts 17:26 hosts more consensus of early attestation and sustained support than for any other clearly distinct Byzantine B-D reading in any Acts passage. This broad attestation and support comes (i) from numerous Greek text traditions, (ii) from numerous very early patristic witnesses, including Irenaeus, Chrysostom, Augustine, Theodoretus, and Ephraem; (iii) from numerous ancient languages, including Armenian, Syriac Peshitta, Syriac Harklean, Slavonic, and Georgian, and (iv) from the Latin manuscripts VL 5, 50, 51, and 61. This overwhelming attestation and support from so many sources points to a very early origin. Per this perspective, if this reading had so broadly diffused into so many early languages, diverse traditions, and patristic quotations, then the “of one blood” reading must have originated at a very early date. This time-frame appears to have overlapped with Irenaeus (AD 185)—at one and a half centuries before the Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus, and Vaticanus manuscripts were prepared.

Thus, per multiple considerations, it would seem appropriate that if any clearly distinct Byzantine reading warrants consideration as the initial text, then this Acts 17:26 reading “of one blood” surely warrants the utmost such consideration.

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Acts 17:26: God made of one [blood] every ethnicity of humans: Part B: Appraising Patristic Witnesses and Ancient Language Manuscripts

Abstract

Keywords

Two early manuscript readings of Acts 17:26

Approach and Overview for Appraising Acts Passages

Attestation and Support for Byzantine versus SAVPP Readings at B-D Passages

Patristic Quotations of Acts

Irenaeus

Chrysostom

Augustine

Origen

Theodoretus

Other Patristic Witnesses of the 2nd-4th Centuries

Latin Manuscripts of Acts

Syriac Translation by Thomas of Harkel

Other Ancient Language Translations of Acts

Concurrent Flow Model for Early Manuscripts, Ancient Languages, and Patristic Witnesses

Textual Scholars’ Appraisals Regarding Acts 17:26

Internal Evidence: Omitted and Added Words in the New Testament, particularly within the SAVPP manuscripts

Genealogical Relationships of Codices Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus, Vaticanus, and Papyrus

Analyzing Singular Readings as Clues Regarding Variant Origins

Omissions and Additions in Acts: Sinaiticus, Alex-andrinus, Vaticanus, and Papyrus P74

Was the absence of haimatos from the SAVPP manuscripts an omission from an earlier exemplar?

Nature of Singular Readings in Acts Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus, Vaticanus, P45 and P74

No Early Manuscripts Read “From One Man”

Conclusion

References

Other Patristic Witnesses of the 2^nd-4^th Centuries