I've just read Michael Wade Martin's Summer 2005 JBL article Defending the "Western Non-Interpolations": The Case for an Anti-Separationist Tendenz in the Longer Alexandrian Readings. Don't worry, I'm not going to comment on the article.

But reading the article did bring up a question in my mind: What were copyists/scribes thinking? We've got manuscripts that are mostly the same, but have differences. Some differences can be ascribed to error (e.g. dittography). Other differences have to be intentional. And here, I'm thinking of the intentional differences.

I'm curious of the mechanics of interpolation or omission. Let's say there is a scribe in the middle of the second century. He's copying a gospel manuscript. What sorts of things cause him to make the decision to add or omit content? And then how does he go about actually adding or removing such content?

If he's adding content, does he just make it up as he goes along, adding bits here and there as he sees fit? Does he mark up his exemplar and then copy from the marked-up version? (and could such marking-up be one of the sources of marginal or inter-linear scribal 'correction' we see on extant manuscripts?) Could he simply be integrating 'corrections' made by a previous scribe or scribes into the text flow?

I'm sure the answer to all of the above questions something like, "yes, sometimes". If anyone has any references (online or print) to share on how scribes/copyists of NT manuscripts did their thing* -- the mechanics of the process -- please feel free to post a comment with a pointer or send me an email. Thanks!

Another question, perhaps more difficult to answer: If scribes made changes to early manuscripts to address particular controversies (as some claim) this sort of action seems to implicitly acknowledge that the NT documents were appealed to as authoritative in such circumstances/contexts. Yet scribes/copyists still (apparently) felt some freedom to enhance the authority to which both sides of the argument appealed. Why is that? How could the documents that would become the New Testament be at the same time authoritative yet in need of enhancement?

OK, I'm done for now. Move along, nothing to see here.

Update (2005-07-12): Wieland Willker responds with some citations from a Maurice Robinson article:

• James R. Royse, "The Treatment of Scribal Leaps in Metzger's Textual Commentary," NTSt 29 (1983) 539-551.
• ———, "Scribal Tendencies in the Transmission of the Text of the New Testament," in Ehrman and Holmes, Text of the NT, 239-252.
• ———, "Scribal Habits in the Transmission of New Testament Texts," in Wendy D. O'Flaherty, ed., The Critical Study of Sacred Texts (Berkeley: Graduate Theological Union, 1979) 139-161.
• Peter M. Head, "Observations on Early Papyri of the Synoptic Gospels, especially on the 'Scribal Habits,'" Biblica 71 (1990) 240-243.
• ———, "Re-Inking the Pen: Evidence from P. Oxy. 657 (P13) concerning Unintentional Scribal Errors," NTSt 43 (1997) 466-73.
• Maurice A. Robinson, "Scribal Habits among Manuscripts of the Apocalypse" (PhD Diss., Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, 1982).

Next I'll have to locate some of them. The Royse essays sound most interesting (based solely on title). If anyone else has read these and can make recommendations, please feel free to do so.

Wieland also pointed me to an article in Biblica (which I didn't know was online, but that's my fault) by Peter M. Head: The Habits of New Testament Copyists: Singular Readings in the Early Fragmentary Papyri of John. This is available as HTML and PDF.

Thanks for the info, Wieland!

* I'm already on the hunt for Ernest Cadman Colwell's essay "Scribal Habits in Early Papyri: A Study in the Corruption of the Text" (from Bible in Modern Scholarship: Papers read at the 100th meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, 1965). Abebooks (how could I live without them!) has several copies priced at $15 and under.