Scribal Harmonization and Matthew’s Fulfillment Citations in Codices Alexandrinus, Vaticanus, and Sinaiticus

Abstract

LXX editor Alfred Rahlfs assumed that the scriptural citations in the NT had influenced the LXX. Text-critics of the NT have suggested that the influence primarily went in the other direction. More recent research suggests that the two textual traditions were transmitted independently of each other. This article studies harmonization by examining the relevant passages in LXX (source-text) and NT (citation) in manuscripts where both texts are extant and sometimes copied by the same scribe. Did these scribes harmonize in one direction or the other? This examination of Matthew’s unique Fulfillment Citations and their sources in the three pandects, Codices Alexandrinus, Vaticanus and Sinaiticus, suggests that these scribes have rarely harmonized the text. The result shows that Vaticanus and Sinaiticus reflect less harmonization (and more negative evidence) than Alexandrinus, whereas a specific early corrector of Sinaiticus (Ca) occasionally harmonized the LXX to the NT. This confirms that the two traditions have remained largely independent. However, in all detected cases of possible or probable harmonization, the LXX text was harmonized to the NT, which supports Rahlfs’s position.