Att bevara traditionen i skrift : En jämförande studie mellan ”den västliga” kodex Bezae Cantabrigiensis och den Alexandrinska kodex Vaticanus

Sammanfattning: The field of New Testament textual criticism is a vast area with a multitude of manuscripts to examine. Codex Bezae Cantabrigiensis (hereafter referred to as D) is one of the most diverse manuscripts and has fascinated scholars for centuries with its many peculiar and notable read-ings. Where, in textual criticism, the Alexandrian text-type is the normative, D is a landmark within the “Western” text-type. This thesis examines D by collating it and one of the Alexan-drian text-type’s most attested manuscripts, codex Vaticanus (hereafter B). The collation is done using Nestle-Aland’s critical edition Novum Testamentum Graece 28 ed., because of its critical apparatus. However, due to the size of the critical apparatus the collation involves only the Gospel of John. The aim of this thesis is to search for readings in D that could indicate what context it was written in and, further, finding what tradition lies behind D. For this purpose, a database has been constructed, containing all differences between the manuscripts, classified according to types of differences and the parts of speech they involve.This thesis argues that D clarifies many of the readings of the Gospel of John with stylistic and narrative techniques, such as narrative explanations and the addition of prepositions, accu-satives, genitives and reflexive pronouns. Thus, implicit structures are avoided. Because of said clarifications this thesis argues that D was written in an environment where it was necessary to clarify uncertain aspects of the storyline. It is proposed that while Greek was the main language in the context where D was written it was not the first language of the scribe, and dialects may have affected the language in D.This thesis also argues that D reinforces the perception of the story. The Gospel of John uses the perfect tense more often than any of the other gospels, which results in the story often being perceived as ongoing rather than finished, as would be the perception of the reader. D has reinforced this tendency and also avoids theological utterances applicable to anybody, conse-quently keeping the perception in the gospel that of the story. Some passages in D also show that D has incorporated thinking from the synoptic gospels and created its own tradition.In summary, this thesis argues that some of D’s differences in comparison to B are related to provisions made for needs present in the context it was written in.