The Habits of New Testament Copyists Singular Readings in the Early Fragmentary Papyri of John 1. Singular Readings and the analysis of Scribal Habits This study is a somewhat belated sequel to my 1990 article “Some Observations on Early Papyri of the Synoptic Gospels, especially concerning the ‘Scribal Habits’” (1). There I discussed fourteen early papyri of the Synoptic Gospels in terms of their singular readings — readings unique to the particular manuscript — partly in order to assess the important dissertation on this subject by J.R. Royse (2). By analysing the singular readings of the more substantial NT papyri firstly E.C. Colwell and then Royse had made significant advances in our knowledge of the individual scribal habits exhibited in the different manuscripts and also offered some suggestions about generalising rules or principles concerning early Christian scribal behaviour (3). In relation to the individual characteristics of the scribes, for example, Colwell showed that the scribe of P66 was undisciplined and sloppy (copying syllables; with a high proportion of nonsense readings and variant spellings; although under the overall control of a second text or reader); the scribe of P45 was free and concerned with communicating the meaning of text, favouring concision and brevity (copying phrases and clauses); and that the scribe of P75 intended to be a careful and accurate reproduction (copying letters one by one), favouring clarity and style (4). On more general matters Colwell showed that irregularities in spelling are the most prominent cause of singular readings (although this may be partly due to the fact that such variations are not always cited in the editions); and that harmonisation to the immediate context occurs far more often than harmonisation to remote parallels (i.e. in the gospels). Royse’s dissertation generally supported Colwell’s results and extended (1) Bib 71 (1990) 240–247. (2) J.R. ROYSE, Scribal Habits in Early Greek New Testament Papyri (ThD, Graduate Theological Union; UMI 1981); a summary was published: J. R. ROYSE, “Scribal Habits in the Transmission of New Testament Texts”, The Critical Study of Sacred Texts (ed. W.D. O’FLAHERTY) (Berkeley 1979) 139-161; more generally: J.R. ROYSE, “Scribal Tendencies in the Transmission of the Text”, The Text of the New Testament in Contemporary Research. Essays on the Status Quaestionis. Festschrift B.M. Metzger (eds. B.D. EHRMAN – M.W. HOLMES) (SD 46; Grand Rapids 1995) 239-252. (3) It is worth noting that although different methods are favoured by different textual critics — radical or thoroughgoing eclecticism, the so-called reasoned eclecticism and the more strictly documentary or genealogical methods — they all agree on the importance of transcriptional probabilities concerning how a scribe might be presumed to have behaved, that is the “scribal habits” of the era under discussion. (4) E.C. COLWELL, “Scribal Habits in Early Papyri: A Study in the Corruption of the Text”, The Bible in Modern Scholarship (ed J.P. HYATT) (Nashville 1965) 370-389; republished as “Method in Evaluating Scribal Habits: A Study of P45, P66, P75”, ID., Studies in Methodology in Textual Criticism of the New Testament (NTTS IX; Leiden 1969) 106-124.