Bible Translation, Fallacies & Greek Lectionaries | Denis Salgado

In this episode of Exploring the Language of Scripture, Daniel Mikkelsen sits down with Denis Salgado—a research fellow at the Center for the Study of NT Manuscripts—to delve into the intricate world of Bible translation, common fallacies, and the overlooked realm of Greek lectionaries. Denis shares his journey from theology to textual criticism and reveals how a deep understanding of Greek exposes translation pitfalls (for example, why the Greek word beloved can never refer to the Church in Ephesians 1:6). He also uncovers the vital role of lectionaries in shaping centuries of Bible reading tradition.

With over 42% of our Greek New Testament manuscripts being lectionaries, this sheds light on a strong tradition that has been overlooked in textual criticism for more than a century—one that offers fresh insights into how ancient reading plans continue to influence believers today.

Whether you’re a student of biblical languages, a theology enthusiast, or simply curious about how Scripture is transmitted across the ages, this episode provides a thought-provoking look at:
 • How biblical languages enrich our interpretation of Scripture
 • The fallacies that arise from translation issues
 • The pivotal impact of Greek lectionaries on Christian worship

Don’t Miss the Next Episode:
Our next conversation features Seth Postell as we dive into The Goal of the Torah – Part 1.

Chapters:
00:00 – Introduction
01:43 – Introducing Denis and the Centre for the Study of NT Manuscripts
07:13 – From Theology to Texts: Denis' Journey into Biblical Languages
12:44 – Why Knowing Biblical Languages Matters for Interpretation
18:08 – Avoiding Misinterpretations: How Greek Helps Clarify Key Doctrines
27:51 – Linguistic Nuances That Shape Our Understanding of Scripture
29:58 – Lectionaries: The Overlooked Witness to Early Christian Worship
31:46 – Reading Romans in the Byzantine Church: A Lectionary Perspective
36:04 – Liturgical Traditions and Their Role in Preserving Scripture
38:38 – Why Studying the Lectionaries Matters
46:18 – Why Protestants Have Overlooked the Lectionary Tradition
49:22 – Lectionaries and Early Christian Worship Practices
55:25 – The Ancient Tradition of Public Scripture Reading in Church
01:00:47 – How Lectionary Studies Can Enrich Your Bible Reading Today

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Music Credits:
Music from #Uppbeat

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Podcast Keywords:
biblical languages, New Testament, Old Testament, Christ, bible study,  Relationship with God, learn biblical languages, Biblical Theology, Christianity, Covenants, New covenant, old covenant, language acquisition, Biblical Greek, Biblical Hebrew.

Transcript

0:00

The lectionaries I think they are a witness to the importance of including Scripture. thoroughly in your life rhythm, your church rhythm. Again, they cover from Matthew 1 to Jude 25, everything. When you go to the Greek, you realize very plain, right? It's very clear that the word beloved grammatically It is impossible for it to be a reference to the Church. Simply because... we have 5,700 Greek New Testament manuscripts. 2,422 are guess what? Lectionaries. This means that over 42 % of our Greek New Testament manuscripts are lectionaries. That is astonishing. When you pick up a lectionary, it's not the void. It's not an liturgical vacuum, I say. It is surrounded by other aspects of the liturgy, and everything is geared towards making us focus on Christ. Hey there and welcome back to another episode of Exploring the Language of Scripture brought to you by NT Greek Tutoring, the place for personalised Greek learning in your spare time. I'm your host Daniel Mikkelsen, founder of NT Greek Tutoring, PhD candidate in New Testament at the University of Edinburgh. And this podcast exists to make gems from biblical studies accessible to everyday Christians and to show how the biblical languages open up Scripture. Our aim is to increase your love for God and His Word so that we can grow in our life and our love for Christ and his mission. And today I'm joined by Denis Salgado who is a research fellow at the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts in Plano, Texas. Denis has studied theology at Berean Baptist Seminary in Brazil. He got his Master of Divinity from Sheppard Theological Seminary in North Carolina. And he holds a PhD in New Testament and Christian Origins from the University of Edinburgh. in which he studied the lectionary manuscripts of Romans, which he'll be saying a little bit more about later on in this episode, especially why lectionaries are relevant for us today, something I know that he's passionate about. It's very interesting. And he also has an extensive knowledge in textual criticism and biblical manuscripts, just in general. And I have the honor to meet Dennis and his family, not only at the University of Edinburgh, while the students there. together as he was finishing up his PhD. But we also fellowshiped at the same church here in Edinburgh, Niddrie community church. And we had countless great conversations during this one and a half year that we overlapped here in Edinburgh. And we did try to make this conversation happen in person, but it did not quite plan out. But regardless, it's a great honor to have you on my podcast, my friend. The honor is mine, Daniel. Thank you very much for inviting me. It's a joy to be here and just take part in this lovely podcast. As you said, I've been a research fellow at the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts in Plano, Texas for two years now. And if you can see that beautiful picture on the background over there, that is J774. which is housed at the National Library of Greece. And that picture over there is not by accident. The Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts went over there to Greece several years ago and digitized over 100 New Testament Greek manuscripts housed at the National Library of Greece. And that's a beautifully illuminated manuscript of the Gospels, as you can see. And the center exists. to do that, to go places, we raise funds to digitize, preserve these manuscripts in digital format and make those images available for scholars around the world. For my own research in the lectionaries, I use the center, the center's database a lot. I was not part of the center at the time, but because of the wealth of images, you know, available, was really blessed by the Center. We also do other things like we have an internship program. We usually get like three to five students every year. They stay with us. They learn more in depth how to do research, engage with primary sources. The focus is, of course, New Testament textual criticism. And they learn more, this manuscript world. that I was introduced to in my graduate years in seminary. So the interns stay with us for about a year and it's a joy to get involved in their lives that way. We also have an interesting curriculum that we have been designing for over a year now, which is just teaching the story of the New Testament, how we got the New Testament from the autographs to translation. seven lessons and as for anybody, you don't have to be scholar. But just to help people have a better understanding of their New Testament, where did it come from and how can we trust that the words that we are reading today are the words that were written 2000 years ago. So those are just a few things that I do here at the center. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah. I think manuscripts are both cool and also a little bit daunting for a lot of people. There are fascinating. You never know what you're gonna find in them. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. And it's not just about what the text that it reveals. There's also all the para text, all the notes that the monks or the person who owned the manuscript might have knotted down. So basically, you get this time capsule in many ways. You get a view into whenever this manuscript was owned or written. understanding, maybe a little bit of an understanding of what they were like. Yeah. And if anybody thinks that my life, you know, my life's boring because of these manuscripts, I also serve as an elder here at my local church. And it's, it's a, know, it keeps me busy as well. I preach once a month. That's all I can do. And I'm charge of a Bible study, weekly Bible study as well. And the other duties, know, pastoring, shepherding duties. So that keeps me busy as well in a different way. So I think it's a, I love what I do here at the Center and it's nice to bring alongside this heavily, it can be esoteric and distant and academic work, bring alongside that a more, the pastoral element. It's a joy. Yeah, that's wonderful. And I also have a few children that can keep you busy whenever that's. Yes, yes, three of them. So yeah, I'm blessed that my wife, you know, supports me in this and I try to be supportive of her as well. Yeah. Yeah, that's wonderful. And thank you for sharing a little bit about the place you work and its importance. So, but how did you get into the study of biblical languages? So as you mentioned at the beginning, I did my, started my studies in Brazil. That's where I'm from. I have a little guy here that proves that I'm from Brazil. That takes me to, you know, 30 years ago when there was some kind of glory in Brazilian football. That's long gone, but I am from Brazil and I went to seminary over there, did my bachelor of theology and that's where. I was introduced to the biblical languages, three years of Greek and two years of Hebrew. Really love the languages, but I would say that I liked Greek better. And that's been my experience since I just like the precision of Greek. So it's very detailed. It's difficult. It's challenging. I feel like the more I study it, the more I I get in it, the more difficult it becomes. But I bet it was during my bachelor degree. And then I came over to the US and went to seminary in North Carolina, Shepard's Theological Seminary. Took two and a half years of Greek again on top of the other three. increasing my knowledge of the language, and more Hebrew too. But it was during my master's degree at Shepard's that I got my feet wet in the manuscript world. At the time, my professor was Andrew Smith, who still at Shepard's Theological Seminary. And he's the editor of the Pastoral Epistles for the Edito Critica Maior, the text of Paul that's coming out in the near future. So when I was his student, I was introduced to New Testament textual criticism and manuscript studies. I never imagined I would be, you know, doing this kind of study in the future, but it really fascinated me because I wanted, you know, to know more where my Bible, especially my New Testament came from. And what also struck me was to realize that even though I was working with images, those were images of real manuscripts and not only real manuscripts, not only real artifacts, but they were Bibles of people who came before us, right? They were the Bibles used in monasteries, especially in the case of lectionaries. They were Bibles, the Bibles used by churches, by cathedrals, by parishes all over. those were people's Bibles and those documents, they were the vehicle through which people would receive biblical content, right, in the medieval society, in the Byzantine society. So that fascinated me a lot. So I got into textual criticism. I participated in the Greek Paul Project transcribing over 10 or 11 manuscripts of 1 Timothy. It was a joy to be part of that. And then towards the end of my master's degree, I had the opportunity to investigate the Scrabble Habits of a fourth century Greek Psalter. It's a papyrus document held at the Museum of the Bible. you know, the chance came up to write my master's thesis on the Scrabble Habits of that manuscript. sure enough, I grabbed the opportunity, ran with it, and I, yeah. And then the PhD came up. I did not want to do a PhD. It was not in my plans, but Andy Smith was encouraging me. So I prayed about it. My wife and I prayed about it and consider it carefully and gave it some thought. And sure enough, everything happened and got accepted. Got the funding that I needed. And then for my PhD, I went more in depth into the text of the Greek lectionaries which we will talk a little bit more in a few minutes. But that's been my journey. Yeah, it's quite a fascinating journey in many ways. yeah, I think my friend Conrad also was on that transmitting, right, transcribing. think it was second Timothy he did. But yeah. But I started seminary to go, you know, to ministry and be a pastor. Of course, I wanted to pursue more education, but the primary role that I was envisioning for myself was, you know, an elder, a pastor somewhere. But then things changed a little bit along the way. And I would say that God now has me doing both and has helped me realize that it is possible to get a PhD, have this academic bent and put some time towards it while you also perform other duties. So I would say that the Lord is flexible and so should we be flexible too because He makes us grow different directions, right? And sometimes unexpected directions. And I would say that the PhD, even the center has been an unexpected direction, something that I was not envisioning at all. Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. This is a curious how God is leading us. Yeah. So as I've mentioned before, the podcast, I'm dyslexic and I have other learning disabilities as well. So like, it's not, it was not in like what I would expect that I would end up doing, but that's the story for another time I might do a video on that. Yes, I think your listeners would love to hear more about it. Yeah, sure. We'll see what I can do about that. Yeah. Yeah, but how have you experienced knowing the biblical languages and how have you experienced that opening up scripture? I get that question a lot. Of course, the New Testament more specifically, which is my field, pardon me, all the greatest and Hebrew Bible specialists, but the New Testament was written in Greek. So we should expect obviously that some nuances of the original language, you know, will not necessarily be transferred to the target language, whatever that language is. My mother tongue is Portuguese, so I'm aware that some elements of the Greek do not transfer quite well to Portuguese or to English to speak more universally. So we have to understand that there are nuances over there that we need to either know the biblical languages in order to engage with it at that level or rely on the work of those who... who know it very well, like exegetical commentaries, being very careful about, you know, choosing those. But there are so many options out there of very solid and scholarly works that we can rely on. So, of course, positively, I would say that the knowledge of biblical languages helps us better exegete and interpret the text, right? Know what the biblical authors meant. by what they wrote. Of course, there's also the world behind the text, all the background that is important for us. But speaking of the language itself, mean, knowing the language helps us capture stylistic nuances of the author, the word plays of Jesus, right? I was just reading John 15 the other day at church. The pastor was preaching on it and I was following the Greek and It's just fascinating the way that in Jesus' speech, I am the vine, he's just doing some wordplay over there that you don't capture in the target language. Those are just stylistic and interesting things perhaps, but there are deep morphological, syntactical issues, linguistic phenomena, even how to... properly perform a word study, a lexical study. So sometimes there are theological issues at play. One good example of how knowing the Greek might clarify issues is the issue of loss of salvation. There are several traditions in Christianity. or denominations that will advocate that believers can lose their salvation. But then you go to, you know, John 10, 28, right? Or John 11, 26. In John 10, 28, we have Jesus saying, I give them eternal life and they will not perish eternally. or they shall not perish eternally. In English, might not capture the strength of the negation over there. They shall not perish eternally. But when you go to the Greek, you see that it's the strongest negation possible in the language. It's the combination of two negatives, ou me, plus the subjunctive, the aorist subjunctive over there. So οὐ μὴ (ou me), ἀπόλωνται (apollontai). So it's the strongest negation possible that Jesus uses over there to tell that those to whom he gives eternal life, they will by no way, by no means die eternally. The same thing happens in John 11 26 and everyone who lives and believes in me shall not die eternally, will not die eternally. Again, it's the οὐ μὴ (ou me) ἀποθάνῃ (apothane). So it's again, the strongest negation possible that Jesus uses to tell the readers and the listeners over there, the disciples, know, Martha, you shall not die eternally, by no way, because I am the one giving you eternal life. So this should cause anybody who advocates for the loss of salvation, that should cause anybody to stop and think more carefully about this because Jesus, seems to be pretty emphatic about the impossibility of losing salvation. Once you have received that eternal life that Jesus himself gives, the Greek construction that he uses here is pretty emphatic that that person will not lose that state of fellowship with him. Now that's a positive way I would say that we can exegete the text by knowing the biblical languages well. Negatively, I would say that knowing the biblical languages also helps us steer clear of incorrect interpretations of the biblical text, which also can be seen in the previous example, but I want to give a more obvious example. I don't know if you have ever come across this at all, but I remember years ago in North Carolina, I was in a Bible study which was being led by a seminary student. Not the same seminary that I went to, different seminary, just for the sake of clarification. And he was going through Ephesians 1 and he got to verse 6, right? And I have a Bible open here. Verse 6 of Ephesians 1. says it to the praise of his of his glorious grace with which he has blessed us and the beloved right to the praise of his glorious grace with which he has blessed us and the beloved. Now I don't know if you have ever come across this but the guy went on and on and on and on about how the Lord blesses us because we are because we belong to the church. Right. So he interpreted beloved as the church. Are you familiar with that, Daniel? have you ever heard Sorry to interrupt the episode, but if you're enjoying the content, please consider subscribing and leaving a like. It really helps the algorithm and helps the podcast grow. Thank you for your support and now back to the episode. Right. So he interpreted beloved as the church. Are you familiar with that, Daniel? have you ever heard I'm not familiar with that reading of this text. Yeah, it is problematic. Yes, exactly. now if you don't, if you don't know Greek, I can see why that is a possibility, right? I mean, especially, especially in the in the English language as an English reader, you don't have gender distinction. So beloved is just beloved. You don't know if it's masculine, if it's feminine, if it's neuter, you don't have those nuances in the English language. We do have those nuances in Portuguese. So I know that it is the beloved here is masculine. I don't know. I can't differentiate between neuter and masculine necessarily, but I can see that it's not feminine. anyway, when you go to the Greek, you realize very plain, right? It's very clear that the word beloved grammatically, it is impossible for it to be a reference to the church. simply because beloved in Greek is masculine and the word church in Greek is feminine. So grammatically it is impossible for beloved to be a reference to the church. Yeah. There's that grammatical element and there's the fact that there's no church in the immediate context over there in verse one. The word ἐκκλησία (ecclesia) is not over there. It's all about God blessing us in Christ through the Holy Spirit. That's what you have in chapter one, which is an amazing Trinitarian theology there and how we are blessed by the three persons of the Trinity in our salvation. You know, just knowing the Greek a little bit will help you just steer clear of those, even if they're silly, you know, but there's nothing silly about misinterpreting the Bible in the New Testament in this case. So we need to look for and put all the effort possible into interpreting the Bible correctly and knowing the biblical languages. will help you capture those nuances. And so they will help you exegete the text and interpret it correctly and steer clear of false teachings and erroneous and also help you with, you know, word studies. mean, who hasn't heard all sorts of fallacies? know, D.A. Carson has a wonderful book, just fallacies, know, that preachers and interpreters, they unfortunately commit all those fallacies when they're preaching. It preaches well, but it's not what the text says. Like the wonderful example in 1 Corinthians 4, all should see us as servants of God and servants of Jesus Christ. And then there's a whole movement of the under rowers of God because the word ὑπηρέτης(huperetes) was also used in the context of the naval context of servants rowing. and house of a boat. So we are under rowers of God. Really? Is there a boat over there? The context? Of course there isn't. It's assistant. Okay. Those who help, we're helpers, we're servants of God. So, but it preaches because you bring all those, the issue of totality transfer, right? You're bringing all possible meanings of words and overloading, that word in that context. Remember words. only have meaning in context. Otherwise, we would not be able to communicate, Especially in prose, right? That's why it's important to look at the genre that you're studying. If it's a poetic literature, there might be some wiggle room over there. If it's something like Revelation, right? You have more freedom when it comes to metaphors and allegories. But, you know, we're talking about a prose and 1 Corinthians, we have to be very careful. words have meaning in their context. Words have meaning when they're connected to other words. Otherwise, it would be impossible for us to communicate. I was just given a mug yesterday by one of my my coworkers over here. And I love this mug, you know, as a who studies the word of God and tries to preach it sometimes. But this is what happens, right? This is what happens when people don't pay attention to the context and don't handle the text responsibly. So yeah, I think knowing the biblical languages, I encourage anybody who wants to know scripture better, embark on the journey. There are so many tools available and you know, take advantage of them. Yeah, I like the pun on your mug actually, because that verse is often taken out of context. I can do everything through Christ, but they don't get that what Paul is referring to is his suffering. Yes. So it's in a specific context that he's talking about that God is enabling him to persevere through, like when he has had like been wealthy and had had all that he needed to be full. But there's also been other times where he's been starving and he doesn't mention naked in that particular context, yeah, and persecution and suffering and other things. And he's saying that God has enabled him to go through all these things. And that's why he says, I can do all things through him who strengthens. Yeah, it's issue of contentment, Being content with, you know, whatever the Lord has given you or not given you now, but remaining faithful through all, you know, those adversities and times of, you know, comfort as well and keeping your eyes on Christ, regardless of the circumstances here. Yeah. And I think the NIV actually add the word this in that context. And does not in the Greek, but in order to intensify the reality that Paul is not saying this as a universal statement. Yeah. yeah. So, and so that's sometimes that's where I think that that's very interesting. and that's, that's not just a like a grammatical fallacy in terms of like not understanding your Greek, but that's just an interpretational fallacy that we, if we take, we take things out of context in order to suit our own purposes, which everybody can do. Even people who know languages really well or not. Yeah. And we have to be careful that we're not taking the meaning for a verse that is actually not intended to be there in the context. That is a good point, Daniel, because knowing the biblical languages, and this is an important caveat, knowing the biblical languages doesn't mean that you will always, right, you will always interpret the text correctly, right? Well, if that was the case, then why would we still have so many differences among exegetes, right? But knowing the biblical languages will assist you and finding the meaning of the text. And I would say, let's say that you have a passage and you hear or you read that there are four possible interpretations here. But then when you go to the original language, if you know the original language, you might read out these first two. and say, actually, you know, based on the Greek or the Hebrew here, these first two interpretations are impossible. So you have only two options. So the knowing the biblical languages might not guarantee a correct interpretation, but they will definitely help you weed out the ones that are impossible on grammatical, syntactical ground, linguistic grounds. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's assisting us in knowing what, because as you mentioned earlier, there are certain things that not can like a language cannot be completely. For example, with your example about the gender of in Ephesians 1.6, does not all languages have like genders in that way? that, example, Danish. has like the female and masculine gender has collapsed together. It's the same. So there is a neuter, but there's no differentiation between male and female. And when did that happen? I don't know when it happened, I know that long ago, I think it definitely, maybe a couple of hundred years ago, I'm not sure. I've not looked into it linguistically when that happened. It is probably within the last 200 years because we do have genders in Norwegian, but you do not have any cases. in Norwegian. Something has happened because Norwegian and Danish were very close, almost indistinguishable, Norwegian as a former written language didn't exist a few hundred years ago. So it was the same language, but then it must have developed at some point, because they're very closely related, Danish and Norwegian. But that's a long story. Let's not go into that in many details. But the point is that you might see it make the same mistake in Danish or Norwegian. But because Greek has that denominator, you cannot make that mistake if you're actually looking to text. Yeah. Yeah, or I think I mentioned on the other, like, we know that it was actually the spirit that raised Christ, but it's not Christ's spirit that raised, but it was God's spirit. So it's the Holy Spirit that raised Christ in Romans 8 because of the way the genitive is formed. And there's lots of these kinds of examples. could like, there's basically an endless like basket of it. You have studied lectionaries in your PhD and why did you spend so much time looking at lectionaries? Cause they're awesome. no, I studied the election errors in my PhD. again, I was not anticipating that, but I was, when I was considering going on a PhD, going for a PhD, I had to come up with a, you know, research topic, you know, draft a proposal and also I needed a topic. And I was sitting in Andy Smith's class, one day. was a New Testament textual criticism. And he said something about the lectionaries. He said, well, after going through the different kinds of New Testament manuscripts, when he got to the lectionaries, he couldn't say much about them. The only thing he said was, well, we don't know much about them because we haven't studied them as we have studied the other kinds of manuscripts. So that... gave me an idea. Well, maybe I will be one of those who will investigate the lectionaries. So on the one hand, I'll say that it was primarily a very practical decision to study the lectionaries. And as a, you know, as a potential PhD student, you want to find the desiderata, right? That's the key word. And in the literature, what remains to be done? what needs to be done. So when you find a zitterata, you go for them because you're not going to write a New York bestseller in your dissertation. At least most people won't. I'm not expecting that mine will become a popular book at all. It's heavily academic and it's a research. So you want to be practical. You want to fill in the gap. You want to show that you can do this and you can make your contribution. I saw the opportunity over there, which the field remains wide open because there's so much to investigate in the Lectionaries. I just put a small, tiny dent on it when it comes to the Book of Romans, right? And there's much more for the New Testament. So I chose for that reason. It needed to be done. And I love... manuscript studies. I like the New Testament a lot and I like the Greek language. So I went with that and it was, you know, it worked. It was a success, I would say, at least from my perspective. Yeah, that's why I went with it. I was, I'm going to tell you, I don't come from the Greek Orthodox background, so it was a huge learning curve for me. Because when you're studying lectionaries, you can't just deal with the text, the biblical text. You have to understand how those documents function in the liturgical life of the Byzantine church. So I had to immerse myself a little bit in that world, for sure. so I went to a Greek Orthodox church in Edinburgh for It was not my church or the church that I was attending on Sundays, but during the week I would visit them and talk to the community, talk to the Father. We had wonderful conversations over there. So I wanted to understand the tradition and I came to love those people because they were so loving, so welcoming, so kind. Of course, there things in their theology that I disagree with because I don't think they're biblical, but... I have a huge respect for their tradition. And I needed to study more objectively, I needed to study the lectionaries within the context of the Greek Orthodox Church. Of course, they were producing the Byzantine context, but I wanted to understand the tradition a little better. I studied, you know, read more on Greek Orthodoxy. and Byzantine Church speaking historically of that period. yeah, so that was a huge learning curve for me to see all the function of those documents and the liturgy of the church in the year and the celebrations of the saints and how this works and Easter or Pactra. Anyway, it was a wonderful journey for me. Yes. Interesting. it's interesting. But why do you study Romans and not some other book in the New Testament, the Gospels? I guess when you pick up a lectionary, well if it's a gospel lectionary, or if it's a mixed lectionary, maybe you would start with John. But I wanted to tackle the first epistle. And the Romans is the first epistle in the reading cycle of the epistles. So you have the reading cycle of the gospels, and then you have... acts as a transition from the Gospels, right, to the Epistles, thinking canonically, for most of Western Christianity at least. And then you have the Epistles, which are the instructions of the Apostles to the churches. And Romans was the first Epistle to be read in the Byzantine tradition, not in the Jerusalemite tradition, but in the Byzantine, the Constantinopolitan tradition, Romans was the first one. Most of the lectionaries that we have, they come from that tradition, the Constantinopolitan tradition. So they have Romans as the first epistle to be read in the cycle. So it made sense for me to start with Romans. Yeah, that was the reason. I guess I sound very dry. There's no vision from heaven, you know, that I should study the election years and start Romans. I wish I had some some store like that more exciting to tell you, but I I was just very, you know, trying to be very objective in the way that I went about this. Sure. Yeah. So you mentioned these two traditions like Jerusalem and the Byzantine. So what is, if you're not familiar with this, maybe Lectionaries is very new to you. What does that mean? Well, it means that you have different locations, right, for Christianity, and in different locations churches would follow slightly different practices. So perhaps the liturgical year at this place would start with Epiphany, which would include, you know, the celebration of what we call today Christmas, but also the baptism of Jesus. So Epiphany would be the start of the New Year. Other traditions would say, well, the start of the New Year is with John the Baptist. Then later on, the start of the New Year is with the birth of Mary the Theotokos. So feasts, to a certain extent, they depict the story of salvation and different locations would start the year, you know, based on a different feast or focusing on different feasts. So you have variation from one location to another. have, going back to the second and third century, you have the Alexandrian school of theology, right, with Origen, which would be more allegorical. So he was, pushed more for that, while others tended to be a little bit more literal in their interpretation of scripture. to the other side of the Mediterranean. it's just, traditions, they developed over time and many elements of the tradition were tied to that specific community. So in Jerusalem, the Hagia-Poly tradition, you have the Catholic Epistles appearing at the beginning of the reading cycle. Whereas in Constantinople, which became the main Byzantine liturgical tradition, Romans was the beginning of that. Yeah, it's just a matter of variation. these traditions are evolving through the centuries. We're not talking about through decades. It's through the centuries that these things are developing and evolving. So some elements from... The ancient past remained, others were ironed out and everything was conformed to the Byzantine, main Byzantine Constantine, constantinopolitan tradition. it's very complicated. but it's helpful to just like flash it out a little bit. So why would you say that we need to study the lectionaries? Because I think it's pretty well established that the lectionaries are not the best source for like finding out what is the original composition of the New Testament. Yeah. So your question is interesting because it's working with an assumption that I think it's important to discuss briefly. So they're not necessarily useful to establish the original text. So in New Testament textual criticism, that was the goal for a long time, right? Since... I'll say the inception of or the beginning of the discipline in modern times in the 18th century scholars will say that John Mill was the first text critic in modernity. So for the last 300 years, most scholars have pursued the goal of establishing the original text. Until recently, when scholars realized that, it is important for us to establish the original or the initial text, the earliest text that we can recover, but it's also important, it's equally important for us to understand the development of the text through the centuries. So the Editio Critica Maior, for instance, which is the major critical edition of the New Testament, which is still under production, we have some volumes out. But the aim of that critical edition is to recover the earliest attainable text, or the original text, and trace the history of that text in the first millennium. Going back to your question, I think it needs to, we have to kind of develop in our understanding of the discipline because the discipline has slightly changed over the years when it comes to its goal, right? It's not only the recovery of the earliest text, the original, but also tracing the history of that text. Now, when we're tracing the history of the text, well, the lectionaries have something to say as well. Now, I don't think that the lectionaries are useless for the recovery of the original text. We cannot say that because we haven't studied them as we have studied others, right? Now, we need to investigate them further to actually make those statements. But we can think of the importance of studying the lectionaries. Why study the lectionaries? In terms of numbers, for instance, right? The INTF, which is the Institute for New Testament Textual Research at the University of Munister and the one responsible for editing your NA text, NA 28, soon NA 29. So, INTF, shout out, INTF. Y'all do a great job. So, they have the official list of documents, Greek documents, right? extant. So right now we have 5,700 extant Greek New Testament manuscripts, okay? 5,700. Out of those 5,700, 2,422 are guess what? Lectionaries. This means that over 42 % of our extant Greek New Testament manuscripts are lectionaries. That is astonishing. Okay. Over 42 % of the evidence is lectionaries. So I say that the sheer number of lectionaries is a good reason for us to study these documents. If we don't study them, I'll say we're going to be ignoring almost half of the extant Greek New Testament manuscript edition. The fact that we have that many extents tells us that the church produced them a lot and used them a lot. So we can actually learn more about church through these manuscripts too, right? So first of all, the sheer number of manuscripts compels me to take a look at them. We can also think of about this question considering how lectionaries come into play in the feud of New Testament textual criticism, right? I just mentioned that at the beginning, there has been a change from a focus from the original text to the initial text plus the history of the text, right? And scholars engaged in the production of the ECM, the Editio Critica Maior, they are tracing the history of the first millennium. Now, Most of the lectionary evidence comes from the second millennium during the Byzantine era, right? So that's when most lectionaries were produced and used. But the ECM is stopping at the year 1000. So whatever, so the textual intricacies of the New Testament and the second millennium, they're not being investigated. in detail by the ECM. So if we want to understand especially the Byzantine tradition a little better, how the text of the New Testament evolved after the year 1000, the lectionaries are extremely important. They are one of the main sources to do that because they represent a big chunk of the tradition. And we don't know much about the Byzantine text. We group them, know, we scholars tend to group them as one and just monolithic. Anyway, but there are differences. There are strands over there that we need to understand better. There are complexities that we don't know about, but studying the lectionaries will help us better understand that second part of our New Testament history. Finally, I would say that the Lectionaries are important because they contain more than simply the text of the New Testament. So are they a valuable source of study for their text? Undoubtedly, okay. But they're valuable for much more than that. They contain centuries of church tradition, as I mentioned, with their reading schedules. They have celebrations of saints, celebrations of feasts, liturgical elements along with the text. Many of these lectionaries have wonderful pieces of art with beautifully illuminated icons and miniatures, portraits and headpieces and everything. So this means that the Greek lectionaries are a treasure trove for various investigations. concerning the multifaceted tradition of the Byzantine Church, the New Testament text, and Byzantine art history. So, yeah, they are wonderful to study and they're not boring. They have a lot more than, for instance, your typical continuous text minuscule manuscript from the 13th century. Lectionaries have way more elements for you to consider. They're complex, they're quite challenging to study, but they are so rich. rewarding for that reason, I would say. Yeah, that's very helpful. think that opening up and understanding that, especially for understanding like these, like church tradition, what have the church done with the text? It seems to be quite significant, but which we completely overlooked in our, at least in our, we can say maybe Western study of the manuscript. Yeah, historically critics have dismissed the lectionaries and I see why because their goal was a recovery of the original text. But they also have some misguided assumptions about the quality of the text because they would say, well, the text has been adapted for liturgical reading. So they contaminated the main tradition, which is the continuous text tradition. But as one scholar, Scrivener said, those are so obvious that any novice in the discipline can identify those differences, lay them aside and deal with the undisturbed or the undisturbed text. Yeah... I think that scholars are now catching up with those nuances, I would say. It's emerging, it's refreshing. Yeah, and this is not just lectionaries that are dates after the year 1000, it also lectionaries that predates that. yeah, yeah, especially gospel lectionaries. There are epistles, acts and epistles, lectionaries before the year 1000, but you have, you have more gospel lectionaries dated to that period. But hopefully, you know, more evidence will surface that will help us even understand how the Constantine Neapolitan tradition differs from. the Haggaiopalite or the Jerusalemite tradition or the Sinaitic tradition in Egypt. We don't know much about those traditions because the evidence has been so fragmentary so far we cannot fully reconstruct reading schedules yet or liturgical elements. But, you know, hopefully as new evidence surfaces as we have seen over the last century or so. You know, more studies will be conducted and we'll be in a better position to understand the Christian tradition, you know, the Eastern tradition better. Not only the text, way more than the biblical text. That's the point. Like Catena manuscripts, right? The folks in Birmingham have done a wonderful job at showing scholars, hey, Catena manuscripts are awesome to study, extremely, you know. valuable, not only as carriers of the New Testament text, but carriers of a distinct tradition that should be investigated in their own right. And that is the same with lectionaries. They need to be investigated in their own right, not only for the sake of the text, but for everything else that they encapsulate. Yeah. Yeah, so maybe, but what are some of the benefits that they're looking at these lack of better words, old reading plans, Bible reading plans? maybe another way of putting it is, how do lectionaries reflect the way early Christians approach scripture in their worship and daily life? I think we could put those two questions together. I think I've talked about the academic benefits of studying lecturers, right? How academics can learn more about the lecturers and church tradition from investigating the lecturers. But in general, when we look at the lecturers, I would say that they reflect the importance of reading scripture. Okay, that's the first thing. The importance of reading scripture. These were designed for that purpose. There was a lot of effort putting into conceiving of those documents, organizing those schedules, structuring everything in a certain way, and perpetuating the tradition, just copying and copying more more lectionaries for the church to read, and monks and monasteries as well. So the importance of reading scripture, which every Christian should take to heart, right? The importance of being constantly in the Word of God. And, alongside that, not only the importance of reading scripture, but the importance of reading the entirety of scripture following a prescribed rhythm, because the lectionaries, they show us a, a specific schedule and they're pretty exhaustive. they, for the new Testament, the only book that they do not include, the book that was not included in the reading scheme was Revelation. And that's because of canonical reasons. Right? Revelation was not accepted in the Greek church for a long time. So when the electionary system was developed, Revelation was not seen as authoritative for public reading in the church. So Revelation was not included in the lectionaries. But aside from that, have from Matthew to the book of Jude, it's the entire New Testament over there. Again, One common misconception is that lectionaries only have excerpts of scripture. That's not true. I analyzed Romans in the lectionaries and I say there are two and a half verses that are not included in the lectionaries, in Romans, from Romans. But the entire epistle is there pretty much so You know, it's not it's not the case that you have just a few paragraphs or verses and then you know from chapter 1 then you skip to a few verses from chapter 7 and whatnot no they they reflect the The is the esteem that the Byzantine Church had for the entire testament As they understood it aside from from Revelation And going through the New Testament, following that rhythm, we all have rhythms of life, right? Even if you tell me I don't have a specific rhythm of life, I don't follow a liturgical calendar, well, you do follow a calendar, you do follow a rhythm, it might be all messed up, but you do follow a rhythm. The issue is what do you include in that rhythm? What do you include in that calendar for your life? But the lectionaries, I think they are a witness to the importance of including scripture thoroughly in your life rhythm, in your church rhythm. Again, they cover from Matthew 1 to Jude 25, everything. And they went through a lot of work to make sure that things, the schedule would be rearranged and adapted to cover more and more material from the New Testament because they, for practical reasons, the liturgy was evolving. So they had more, you know, services, can say, matins and vespers during the week. So they had to present more material, but they could have filled that time with something else and leave scripture reading for weekends only or Saturday, Sundays only. But no, they made sure to include scripture reading also for Matins and Vespers daily. So that is convicting, I would say. The importance of reading scripture within the context of other liturgical elements that draw our attention to the Lord. When you pick up a lectionary it's not in the void. It's not in a liturgical vacuum. I would say. It is surrounded by other aspects of the liturgy, and everything is geared towards making us focus on Christ. So what we do in church life should not be done in a vacuum, right? It's connected to other things. So I would say that the Lectionary is also testify to that. And finally, the importance of reading scripture as a community, both locally and globally. Okay, locally, because you have the lector or the reader or the an agnosticist over there, the reader, reading from the lectionary to the entire congregation and everybody is receiving the same portion of text at the same time at that congregation. Now, in the Byzantine society, everybody followed that scheme. Everybody followed that schedule, which meant that everybody in the Byzantine world, with minor exceptions in some places, the vast majority of the Christian community in the Byzantine world was reading the same portion of text on the same day. Now, churches... Today still practice something similar, right? The Greek church does follows the lectionary and it is rather amazing that the schedule for the epistles, know Romans it's remained virtually the same since the you know the the year a thousand, know the 10th 11th century the schedule has remained the same and for weekdays, it's remained the same from before the year 1000. So the Greek church has been reading the same biblical passages on weekends, on Sundays at least, for over a thousand years. And the same passages for daily liturgy for about a thousand years. So that's pretty astonishing. that is, you are from a tradition that has a specific... reading plan. If you come west, more Latin tradition, you have a three year cycle of reading scripture. That's the more common arrangement. But the Byzantine church that was done in one year, it's an yearly Bible reading plan. It's every year you go through the New Testament at least, but you also go through chunks of the Old Testament. So locally in your congregation and globally, the importance of reading scripture. So, as in your tradition, you have Lutheran churches all over the world. And if they're following the same lectionary, they're reading the same text on the same day. So that's pretty cool because that gives you a very practical hook, right? To say, man, I belong to a wider community of believers. I'm not saying we need that for it to be a reality. I'm just saying that as human beings, we like the concrete. We like to have that perception. And the lectionaries provide that physical hook. Yeah, yeah, I think that that's, I think that's. connectedness with the believers is that even though you might not know who they are, you're still connected with them in some way that especially if you're following these like particular prayer patterns as well, for example, that they know at this particular time of day, someone else would be reading this text with me. Or today, or just Just today someone will read this text as well. I think it helps us with structure in a world where we are basically capable of doing whatever we want in many ways. That's right. And when you you stop and think that a tradition goes back, you know, if you the I believe that the based on the evidence so far, I would say that the the epistle lectionary system probably arose in the eighth century, seventh to eighth century. And the gospel came earlier than that. You have Justin Martyr and others talking about, you know, reading the memoirs of the apostles. Already in the second century for that specific Sunday when they gathered. So I'm not saying that was a lectionary. That's what I'm saying. But from very early on, you have the practice of reading gospel passages in the gathering. Yeah. At which point that became a system and encoded in a book that needs to be further studied for the lectionaries for the gospel lectionaries and acts. Uh, of course, for the epistles, more work can be done and should be done. Um, yeah, but especially for the gospels, which is the, that's the more ancient tradition talking about at least, you know, the fifth century, I would say, because we have some Greek manuscripts that, uh, seem to be gospel lectionaries, they did to the fifth century. So that gives you what I'm saying is that gives you, um, a sense of. connectedness, right? And being rooted to a tradition that is more ancient than this. With all due respect, it's older than the 16th century. I went to Protestant schools and unfortunately the trend is to study the first three or four centuries of church history and then everything becomes the dark ages and then all of a sudden, out of nothing, ex nihilo, you have the 16th century. you know, church history resumes at that point. Yeah, which is extremely unfortunate. No, it's sad. but the lectionaries give me they they give me personally like, wow, I'm even though I'm not a Greek Orthodox, but you know, I'm reading a New Testament that has been copied by the Byzantine monks and scribes throughout the centuries and God's providence, they were the reason, they are the reason why we have the Greek New Testament. It's the Byzantine Orthodox, we can say, scribes who worked faithfully, right? So it's just amazing to think that you can be connected that way, right? through these documents that carry the testament. Yeah. Yeah. I think that that brings us to like ask a question about how can this be practically applied to the listeners and viewers of the podcast today and for the everyday life and walk with with God. Yeah, I would say I can just highlight once again. mean, the lectionaries were conceived, you know, and they were created so that people would be exposed to the Word of God. They were the primary means through which Byzantine society would receive the New Testament. OK, so in general, Daniel. You would not own a Greek manuscript. I would not own a Greek manuscript. You know, if I'm living in the 12th century, 13th century, I don't own my own pendact with, you know, Old Testament, New Testament, and then some additional books that are profitable for reading, like the Epistle of, you know, First Clement or whatever, Shepherd of Hermes. We don't own that stuff. Right? No. I have a library today, you know, of physical books. I have my own library in Logos, Accordance, whatever platform you use. That was not the case in the medieval times. People would not own books. So if you wanted biblical content, you would hear that biblical content read aloud daily in the church. Okay. That's why churches were so visual as well, right? Because you have... you'd have depictions of the scenes all throughout, murals and stained glass windows. So people were limited to receiving God's Word that way. Now, we are not. Right? That's a major contrast. That's a major development that came in the 15th century with the invention of the printing press. We are so fortunate to own as many books as we want and be able to engage with the Word of God daily on our own whenever we want. without depending on someone else to read that for us. So the lectionaries have shown, have showed me how scripture was so central for the Byzantine society. And the question is, even when they didn't have their own copies, the question for us is how central is it for you in your own life, given that you have at your disposal as many copies as you want? and you probably own several copies of the Bible. Yeah, I think that's a good way of ending a good challenge. And try to think through what do we do with all the available knowledge we have of the Word of God and the access to the Word of God. Thank you for joining me on the podcast. Of course, thank you for having me, Daniel. It's been a joy to share a little bit about my life, my journey, and my geek side studying these lectionaries. Yeah, thank you and God bless. You too. Bye bye. And see you over there. See you in the next one. But before you go, if you enjoyed this podcast and you want more people to see it, please subscribe and leave a like. It really helps us create more episodes like this one. I really appreciate it. Thank you. Have a great day and I'll see you in the next one.