Later dates for MSS: Codex W = 700 CE, P52 = II-III cent

H. Houghton has reported in  "Recent Developments in NT TC (2011, Early Christianity 2.2, p. 245-268:

"...There have also been developments in the dating of certain manuscripts. The Freer Gospels (032, W), famous for their unique text in the Longer Ending of Mark, were initially assigned to the fourth or fifth century. However, following the redating of the manuscripts used for the original comparison and the subsequent discovery of similar material, including the Cologne Mani Codex, Schmid has suggested that it may have been copied at least a century later. [29]  Parker and Birdsall's consideration of the palaeography and catena of Codex Zacynthius (040, Ξ) prompt them to propose a date of around 700 for the majuscule underwriting, rather than Hatch's suggestion of the sixth century. [30]   The date of the earliest surviving fragment of the New Testament, P52, has also been the subject of a recent review by Nongbri. [31]  This cautions against the uncritical adoption of the earliest suggested date of 125 CE and demonstrates that a date in the late second or early third centuries remains palaeographically possible. As more and more comparative material becomes available online, it will not be surprising if the dating of other manuscripts is reassessed. ...

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29. Ulrich Schmid, "Reassessing the Palaeography and Codicology of the Freer Gospel Manuscript," in The Freer Biblical Manuscripts: Fresh Studies of an American Treasure Trove ed. Larry W. Hurtado (SBLTCS 6. Atlanta GA: SBL, 2006), 227–49.

30. D.C. Parker and J. Neville Birdsall, "The Date of Codex Zacynthius (Ξ): A New Proposal," JTS 55.1 (2004): 117–31 (reprinted in Parker, Manuscripts, Texts, Theology, 113–20).

31. Brent Nongbri, "The Use and Abuse of P52: Papyrological Pitfalls in the Dating of the Fourth Gospel," HTR 98.1 (2005): 23–48.

 It seems what has long been suspected by outsiders is turning out to have some substance and basis, namely that manuscripts generally have been dated too early, and more revisions are in the works, either by their over-enthusiastic discoverers, or else apologists. 

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Flaws in Critical GNT known 100 years ago

The Westcott/Hort theory and text, based as it was on earlier work beginning with the suggestions of Wetstein, Selmer, Griesbach, Lachmann, Tregelles, & Tischendorf, was criticized and rejected almost immediately by Christian conservatives, both Protestant and Catholic.  People such as Scholz, Scrivener, Burgon, Hoskier, von Soden, & Merk did not accept the arguments, methods or results of the new "naturalistic textual-criticism".

Hort, in a cranky mood

What is less well-known, is that within a decade, many among the liberal camps in scholarly and academic circles also roundly rejected the W/H text, especially in Germany, Britain, and America.   They saw plainly that Hort's theories and reconstructions were implausible and near-worthless on scientific and historical grounds.   A good example of this penetrating insight was William Benjamin Smith, who published a series of books and articles in both German and English from 1890 to 1911.

Wikipedia gives us the following backgrounder on Smith:

William Benjamin Smith

At around the same time William Benjamin Smith (1850–1934), a professor of mathematics at Tulane University in New Orleans, argued in a series of books that the earliest Christian sources, particularly the Pauline epistles, stress Christ's divinity at the expense of any human personality, and that this would have been implausible if there had been a human Jesus.   Smith believed that Christianity's origins lay in a pre-Christian Jesus cult—that is, in a Jewish sect that had worshipped a divine being named Jesus in the centuries before the human Jesus was supposedly born.   Smith argued that evidence for this cult was found in Hippolytus's mention of the Naassenes and Epiphanius's report of a Nazaraean or Nazorean sect that existed before Jesus. On this view, the seemingly historical details in the New Testament were built by the early Christian community around narratives of the pre-Christian Jesus.   Smith also argued against the historical value of non-Christian writers regarding Jesus, particularly Josephus and Tacitus.    

The following is taken from Smith's article "Status and Drift of NT Criticism" (1890-1911): 

  "The first inquiry ...of any document concerns the text itself. ...Has it suffered any corruption...? It will perhaps be necessary to reconstruct the original from the contradictory attestations of these witnesses [MSS].  Such is the text problem of NT Criticism, one of the most highly complex that ever challenged the efforts of human understanding. 

    The [textual evidence] ...is enormous in amount, and...The problem of sifting and evaluating such a mass of evidence and striking the golden mean of truth would seem too difficult for the human intellect, especially as there is no ... sure way of testing our results... and the whole case must be left undecided.  Under such circumstances the marvel would seem to be that there should be any agreement at all, that there  should not be as many minds as critics.  However, as numerous as the [differences] are, the agreements are still far greater, where critical opinions rest harmonious...

    Now it might be thought that this agreement would be extended and perfected by the discovery of new testimony [i.e., MSS], which of late years has proceeded apace, and by the deeper and minuter study of the long familiar evidence.  But the fact is exactly the reverse:  Accumulation of depositions and profounder investigations have confirmed some critical judgments, but have shaken many others and completely overthrown not a few. The problem is indeed becoming not less but more complicated with advancing knowledge, and the textual uncertainty was never before so great as it is now.

   True it is that the last generation has witnessed the most brilliant attempts yet made to construct the most highly probable text.  Those masterly scholars, bishop Westcott and Dr. Hort, thought they might, by a certain careful study of the genealogy of the various witnesses, attach a coefficient of value to each one singly and in combination, and thereby determine the original text in the overwhelming majority of cases with a close approach to certainty.  Plausible and seductive as was their argumentation, and thoroughly accepted even now in many high quarters, it was yet fatally defective at many points and for several reasons, and can no longer command scientific assent.  

(a)  The "neutral" text which they posited, as best represented by the great Vatican Codex B, is a figment of the imagination.
(b)  The deference paid to certain 'great uncials' was unwarranted.
(c)  The testimony of the Fathers, and versions was undervalued.
(d)  The depreciation of the so-called Western text was undeserved.
(e)  The rash assumption that Codex F awas a copy of G was unfortunate. 

Closer study has shown decisively that at crucial points the witnesses upon which Westcott & Hort relied most confidently might all be misleading, and the MSS most lightly esteemed might present the older reading.  Even as the sheperd boy of old laid low the giant, so at any time may some neglected cursive or version or citation overthrow the most venerated uncial  [e.g. with  early papyrus support]. 

Romans 1:7, 15
The word  here is attested by nearly all the best authorities; nonetheless it is an interpolation (Smith, JBL 1901, Part I, p 3ff, Harnack, 'Preuschen's Zeitschrift', 1902, I, p83 f).
Doxology
So too the doxology at the end of Rom. 16 is witnessed by Aleph B C D and the best versions;  nevertheless the position at the end of ch. 14 is certainly the older.
Epilogue
The Epilogue (ch. 14 and 16) is given by nearly every authority, but, in spite of all, it is proved to be a later addendum; the Amiatinian and Fuldensian capitulations clearly point to its earlier absence.

These examples also correct very usefully a prevalent notion that textual variations are after all mere trifles, ... On the contrary, they are sometimes blinding in their illumination, in their revelation of the primitive structure of our Scriptures.   Thus the textual facts just stated involve a complete reconstruction of our notions about Romans, which now seems to be no Epistle and not addressed originally to Romans, but to be a compilation of moral and theological essays...afterwards fitted with Prologue and Epilogue as it now stands. 

So too, the extremely important F and G variant in Rom 9:22, unnoticed even by the best commentators (as Godet, Sanday, Weiss, Lipsius, Hofmann), indicates clearly the pure Judaic original of this famous chapter... (see 'the Hibbert Journal' 1, 2 pp. 328, 329). 

Still another notion must be corrected.  Let no one imagine that all or nearly all of the variants are mistakes or due to mistakes;  very many are visibly intentional.  It was the ancient habit, particularly of the Oriental, to compile and recompile, to edit and re-edit again, and with sacred books this habit became an almost inviolable rule.  No one disputes this fact in the case of the O.T. and the Apocrypha and the extra-canonical early Christian Writings (ECW).  It would be well-nigh miraculous, if the NT Scriptures should offer exceptions.  Before the establishment of the Canon no sacred awe invested the canonics; there was no apparent reason why the favorite Scriptures should not be systematically modified to keep pace with the developing Christian consiciousness, very much as our creeds are altered nowadays. 

 Wetstein's great word holds good: 

"Various readings, almost all, are due to the zeal, ingenuity, and guesswork of transcribers." 

Tischendorf admits:

"It can not be doubted that in the very earliest days of Christianity there were multifarious departures from the pure Scripture of the Apostles, wherein to be sure there entered naught of dishonesty or guile." 

Under the deeper probing of von Soden and others the original "neutral" B-text of WH turns out to be only a very learned revision;  the fault of the Vatican [MS] is that it has considered too curiously. (As Holsten was led to observe - Holsten, the matchless master of exegesis, whose imposing reconstructions of Paulinism, by their very perfection, constitute the reductio ad absurdum of the premises and methods he employs.)

It is impossible to blink at the fact that all MSS of all parts of the NT abound in readings that are plainly second thoughts.  Our most ancient and revered codices reproduce only deformed, transformed, and highly elaborated originals.  ...

 The discovery of new MSS, the collation of a few hundred more, will not bring the chaos to order but will make confusion still worse confounded.  Witness the publication of the Sinaitic Syriac palimpsest, and the turning of attention to the famous Codex Bezae (D): they have merely raised new problems, not settled old.  ...Blass no longer quotes critical editions but quotes the MSS themselves, never presuming to say what is the "true text".  Such in theory at least is the position to which criticism must finally come.  The critic's text, no matter how ingeniously or plausibly manufactured, is only the critic's text, not the "true text" after all. 

..."

_______________________________________

Such a thorough shredding of Westcott-Hort a mere decade after his final edition (1896) by a modernist and scientist delivers the death-blow to the claim that the W-H theory and text is in any way adequate or definitive, even objective in its radical editing of the traditional Christian NT. 

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What a Purple Manuscript Really Looks Like

There are a lot of bad images of MSS, and a lot of images of bad MSS.  Its hard to find a good image of a good MS, which can actually give us a real feel and grasp of what the famous Purple Codices must have looked like when they were new.

Surprisingly, the Royal Scriptorium in Constantinople was still churning out purple MSS as late as the 1500s:

Tetraevangelion. Miniature of St Mark
Gold on purple parchment. 9th century

The above photo (click to enlarge) gives a rare glimpse of what purple codex in its prime looked like.  We see the smooth, shiney, almost silky purple page, and the rich gold lettering (done with real gold!).  These manuscripts were probably mostly made for emperors and kings, or the few 'great cathedrals' in the major cities of the Holy Roman Empire.   Obviously only royalty could dream of owning a private copy of such a treasure.

The National Library of Russia site tells us:

"Nicholas I was given a precious eleventh-century purple Gospel which had once belonged to the Christian community of Gumushane (also in Asia Minor). This volume written in gold and silver and adorned with miniatures was produced in the imperial Byzantine scriptorium. Another work from the same source is the Codex Petropolitanus, a sixth-century purple Gospel which Nicholas II bought from the village of Sarmisahly with the assistance of the Russian Archaeological Institute in Constantinople."

Codex Petropolitanus Purpureus, designated by N or 022, is shown below, in a much crappier photo:

Petropolitanus (6th cent.)

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Middleton (1892) on Vellum Production & Cost

Some interesting background on vellum for manuscripts is given in Middleton's volume: 
Here is an exerpt:

Illuminated Manuscripts in Classical
and Mediaeval Times: And Their Art and ...

By J. Henry Middleton

Originally published in 1892 (reprinted. Cambridge 2010)

Chapter XIV. (p. 224-225)

The Materials and Technical Processes of the Illuminator.

Vellum for scribes ¹ The most remarkable skill is shown by the perfection to which the art of preparing vellum ² for the scribe was brought. The exquisitely thin uterine vellum, which was specially used for the minutely written Anglo-Norman Vulgates of the 13th century, has been already described (see p. 113). For ivory-likebeauty of colour and texture nothing could surpass the best Italian vellum of the 15th century.

One occasional use of the very thin uterine vellum should be noted.
For example in a German 12th century copy of the Vulgate, now in the corpus library in Cambridge, some fo the miniature pictures have been painted on separate pieces of uterine vellum, and then pasted into their place on the thicker vellum pages of the manuscript. This, however, is an exceptional thing.

The vellum used for illuminated manuscripts appears to have been costly, partly on account of the skill and labour that were required for its production, and, in the case of uterine vellum on account of the great number of animals' skins that were required to provide enough material for the writing of a single manuscript such as a copy of the Vulgate.

Even the commoner kind of parchment used for official documents was a rather costly thing. The roll with the Visitation expenses of Bishop Swinfield, Bishop of Hereford from 1282 to 1317, shows that 150 sheets of parchment cost 3s. 4d., about 4 lb in modern value ³.

The vellum used for manuscripts has a different texture on its two sides. One side, that on which the hair grew, has a matt, unglossy surface; the other (interior) side of the skin is perfectly smooth and, in the case of the finest vellum, has a beautifully glossy texture like that of polished ivory.

In writing a manuscript the scribe was careful to arrange his pages so that two glossy and two dull pages came opposite each other. ⁴

The are of preparing vellum of the finest kind is now lost; the vellum made in England is usually spoilt first by rubbing down the surface to make it unnaturally even, and then by loading it with a sort of priming of plaster and white lead, very much like the paper of a cheap memorandum book.

The best vellum is still made in Italy, especially in Rome. Good, stout, undoctored vellum of a fine, pure colour can be procured in Rome, though in limited quantities, and at a high price, ⁵ but nothing is now made which resembles either the finest ivory-textured vellum of 15th century Italian manuscripts, or the exquisitely thin uterine vellum of the Anglo-Norman Bibles.

---

1. See Peignot, Essai sur l'histoire du parchemin et du vellin, Paris, 1812.

2. Strictly speaking, the word vellum should denote parchment made from calf-skin,
but the word is commonly used for any of the finer qualities of parchment which were
used for manuscripts.

3. Quoted by Hook, Lives of Archbishops of Canterbury, Vol. III, p.353; the Rev. Canon G.F.  Browne kindly called my attention to this passage. Other examples of the cost of vellum are given in the preceeding chapter.

4. The same arrangement is to be seen in books printed on vellum.

5. For example, the mere vellum required to print a small thick folio, such as Caxton's Golden Legend, would now cost about 40 lbs.

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On note 3, the cost of vellum:

  One Pound Sterling (GBP) in 1892 had the purchasing power of about £72.41  today.  'Times four' that would give about £290, or  $472.41 American for 150 sheets of ordinary parchment, = $3.00 per sheet in 1892, with quantities limited.  

This seems quite low, and the real value should be measured instead against what an ordinary laborer could afford, or against the available resources for other community projects:

£4 (150 sheets of ordinary parchment) in 1892 converts to the following in modern money:

£322.00	using the retail price index	A Commodity. If your are asking about the "present worth" of buying a loaf of bread, or the amount of money spent today on such things? If so, use the price index
£430.00	using the GDP deflator	If the question is how much it cost compared to the present cost of materials or labor, you would use the the GDP deflator value.
£1,930.00	using the average earnings	how "affordable" this would be to the average person, the compensation of a production worker is given by the average earnings figure,
£2,450.00	using the per capita GDP	another estimate of how "affordable" this would be to the average person, is the GDP per capita.
£3,970.00	using the share of GDP	In the past there were less materials and labor available for all projects. So to measure how important this project was to the community (vs. other projects) use the share of GDP indicator.

These numbers now give a more realistic range of values based on real conditions 100 years ago, such as expected earnings and availability of resources.

You can get estimates for purchasing power 100 years ago and today here:
Measuring Worth

You can convert to American dollars here:
Currency Conversion

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