At the opening of the Colloquium on Tuesday 26 July 1976, the participants assembled in the main conference room of the reconstructed library of the University of Münster, where they received an official welcome from the Pro-rector, Herr Professor Dr Friedemann Merkel. In reply, Professor William R. Farmer, representing the organizing committee, spoke as follows:

We thank you for all that you have said and for all that has been done by this university and especially by Dr Liebers and his assistant Dr Rüter of this university library. We are grateful for this fine room and for all its appointments, which are ideal for the kind of discussions we intend to hold. We especially appreciate the painstaking efforts that have been taken to assemble the Griesbachiana which grace our deliberations and for the imaginative and tasteful manner in which these books and pictures have been arranged.

On this occasion it is fitting that something should be said about the genesis of this Colloquium and about the benefactors and patrons who have helped make what started as a dream four years ago become a reality at this time.

In 1965 in Göttingen a small-scale conference was held for the purpose of discussing the importance of Griesbach's solution to the Synoptic Problem. Out of this conference, which included Eugene Roesenstock-Hussey and Hans Conzelmann, came the idea for a large-scale international conference on Gospel studies. This led to the organizing of the ‘Festival of the Gospels’ which was held in Pittsburgh in 1970.

Recalling his own youth, Goethe says of the young Griesbach and the brothers Schlosser, that in Frankfurt ‘everyone cherished the sure hope that they would accomplish outstanding things in State and Church’. ‘Distinguished in those linguistic and other studies that open up the way to an academic career’, by their own excellence they stimulated others ‘to immediate emulation’. In this connection Goethe mentions that, ‘subsequently he formed a closer tie with these men, a tie that endured unbroken for many years’. In fact Goethe moved to Weimar in 1775, the same year in which Griesbach moved to Jena; as a result, there grew up a frequent interchange between the two men.

Growing up as he did in an intellectually lively Frankfurt bourgeois family, Johann Griesbach saw a wide horizon open out to him from his earliest days. Until 1806 Frankfurt was de facto a free imperial city; it had a great market, was a centre of international trade, a city of banks; it boasted also a busy book-fair, and was a city of both printing-presses and publishing houses. The Römer at Frankfurt was more than a wellknown market-hall; it was distinguished by the part it played in the coronation of the emperor, which was solemnized in Frankfurt from 1562 to 1792. Goethe has given us a detailed description of his impressions of the events surrounding the coronation of Joseph II as ‘King of the Romans’ in April 1764.

That there is an interrelationship between textual criticism and the Synoptic Problem is the presupposition of most Synoptic studies. Nonetheless the specific nature of that relationship, especially as it affects the finding of solutions, is seldom spelled out, and, it would seem, is frequently neglected. This present paper is an attempt, partially at least, to fill up that lacuna.

As far as I know, the last comprehensive study which took both disciplines (textual and Synoptic criticism) seriously as being interrelated in arriving at solutions was B. H. Streeter's monumental The Four Gospels (1924). The first two large sections of his book were entitled ‘The Manuscript Tradition’ and ‘The Synoptic Problem’. I may be pardoned for borrowing this Gattung for my paper. In part I, some suggestions are offered as to what ‘modern textual criticism’ means, by overviewing some recent work on method. Since I am part of the debate in this area, I can scarcely be expected to achieve objectivity! But I do hope I have been fair to all, and have touched on the essential issues. In part II, I offer some general observations on the chief area of interrelationship, the problem of harmonization/dis-harmonization. The illustrations in this section are basically concerned with the resolution of textual questions.

Modern Textual Criticism

The term ‘modern textual criticism’ can mean precisely what its user intends it to mean.

It is, of course, impossible to provide in this brief essay a complete or comprehensive account of the Griesbach Bicentenary Colloquium. The papers prepared for circulation among the participants were all of very high quality and the discussion which they stimulated, while often intense and vigorous, was always considerate and productive. In this essay I can do no more than indicate a few of the more important topics raised for discussion together with some of the conclusions reached and suggestions made for further research.

In the first place, although the three areas of specialization chosen for emphasis were approached separately, the participants soon came to see that both in the work of Griesbach and in contemporary research the three areas are in fact very closely interrelated. In the second place, although the papers included in this volume (as has been explained in the editors’ preface) deal primarily with Griesbach's own work and the influence which it has had on continuing New Testament studies, the discussion itself knew no such limitation. Indeed, many exciting hours were spent by the participants (both in formal meetings and in casual conversations) considering the present state of research on the important questions involved in the three areas chosen for emphasis. An attempt was made to define the important questions which must henceforth be considered if further progress is to be made in those areas where Griesbach's interest and contribution were greatest. I will return to this point toward the end of this essay.

Introduction

This contribution to our Griesbach Colloquium does not give an exhaustive enumeration of all the Gospel synopses that have appeared within the period under review. This would have required years of time-consuming research and in the end one or another synopsis mentioned in scholarly discussion would still have had to be labelled as missing for the time being, until chance put a dusty copy from some cellar or attic that had been spared by war and fire into the hands of someone acquainted with the material. Furthermore, it is questionable whether a complete collection would impart more knowledge than is already provided by the material that could be obtained from European libraries over a period of a few months. It is true that to some degree chance rather than careful, expert judgement made the selection. But this does not justify excessive scepticism. For in the first place even in what was fortuitously present, the chaff had to be, and could be, separated from the wheat. Secondly, the more important and progressive works, especially if they went through several editions, did not disappear so easily. Thirdly, it is the custom of learned authors in detailed prefaces to distinguish their work from everything comparable to it, so that it is possible basically to comprehend the landscape by means of a good survey from many mountain peaks, without having to wander through every individual contributory valley.

Introduction

Johann Jakob Griesbach lived from 1745 to 1812, went to school in Frankfurt and worked as a professor of theology in Halle, moving in 1775 to Jena. His life coincided with a classical period in the history of German literature. Goethe in Weimar was his friend since the years in Frankfurt; Schiller in Jena was even his neighbour in the same dwelling for some years.

Griesbach also lived in a period when modern historical studies of the New Testament began to flourish in Germany, and he was among the pioneers of the critical empiricism which has dominated New Testament scholarship since the nineteenth century. He took over this approach from his main teacher in Halle, Johann Salomo Sender (1725–91). In his scholarly production and university lectures, Griesbach was mainly occupied with New Testament Introduction and Church History. His practical talents and reliable character were the reasons why he was compelled to spend much of his time in Jena on the finances of the university. But his scholarly publications also gave him a great reputation, far beyond the limits of his country.

It was especially the problems of the New Testament text which interested Griesbach, and in this context he gave fruitful impulses to all later New Testament scholarship in three ways: (1) by his critical editions of the Greek text; (2) by his Synopsis; (3) by his Synoptic Theory.

Introduction

‘It is not that such a mode of conducting critical enquiries would not be very convenient, that Griesbach's theory is universally abandoned by modern scholars, but because there is no valid reason for believing it to be true.’ So wrote Scrivener in his Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament.

This conclusion implies two judgements about Griesbach's theory, first, that it is fundamentally wrong and, secondly, that it had little or no effect on the subsequent development of the New Testament textual criticism. Both these judgements deserve further examination and it may be convenient for our purposes to take the second first.

The lasting influence of Griesbach's text-critical theory

Preliminary remarks

Griesbach, building on the work of his teacher Semler, grouped his witnesses in three main classes, the Alexandrine, the Western and the Byzantine. This threefold division, as we shall see, had a great influence on subsequent textual criticism.

Before we examine the history of this influence we may notice two points which will require further consideration, the actual assignment of the witnesses to the several classes and the use made of these classes in the attempt to recover the original form of the text.

In Griesbach's assignments we may notice two features.

[Translator's note: This is the first rendering into the English language of a Latin text which holds many subtleties of argumentation, but every endeavour has been made to remain faithful to the thought of the original. The translator has however deemed it necessary to introduce a certain number of sub-headings and also occasionally to insert a word to avoid ambiguity; all these additions are indicated by enclosure in square brackets. J. B. 0.]

The Dissertation of J. J. Griesbach, Doctor of Theology and Principal Professor in the University of Jena, in which he demonstrates that the entire Gospel of Mark has been extracted from the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, written in the name of the University of Jena (1789–1790), now revised and furnished with many additions.

[Introduction]

It is above all important to know the sources from which historical writers have drawn the things which they have put into their own commentaries, in order to interpret correctly their books, to evaluate justly the trustworthiness of the authors, and to perceive and judge skilfully the true nature of the events that they have recorded. Hence, on an earlier occasion, we made a Dissertation about the sources from which the narratives of the Evangelists on Christ's Resurrection were derived.

The aim of this volume is to provide the reader with basic information about the life, work and influence of Johann Jakob Griesbach (1745–1812) and to indicate why an understanding of this scholar's contributions to New Testament criticism is important both for the history of New Testament scholarship and for contemporary research. Griesbach was perhaps the most noteworthy and influential Biblical scholar during the last quarter of the eighteenth century – the age of the French and American Revolutions. The editors of this volume are firmly convinced that, after being forgotten and ignored for more than a century, his ideas, suitably brought up to date, have a great deal to offer to twentieth-century New Testament studies.

Griesbach spent long hours in the attempt to find the best readings among the many variants in the New Testament. His work laid the foundations of modern text criticism and he is, in no small measure, responsible for the secure New Testament text which we enjoy today. Many of his methodological principles continue to be useful in the process of determining the best readings from among the many variants which remain.

But Griesbach was first and foremost a theologian concerned with the issues of faith and life in his own time. In this regard he firmly believed that theology requires a clear understanding of the sources from which it proceeds.