Tue Dec 5 00:02:50 1995

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Date: Tue, 5 Dec 1995 00:00:29 -0500 (EST)
From: Maurice Robinson 
To: "Mark O'Brien" 
Cc: Bart Ehrman , TC-LIST@scholar.cc.emory.edu
Subject: Re: Collation against MT vs. TR
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On Mon, 4 Dec 1995, Mark O'Brien wrote:

> Dr. Ehrman,
> 
> I appreciated your comments.  However, I still have some questions
> about doing quantitative analysis against the TR.  Dan Wallace argues
> (and to some extent has shown in the classroom) that comparing MSS
> against the TR can be misleading when classifying them.  I believe that
> Tim Ralston also demonstrated this to be true in his work.  I'd be
> interested in your opinion here.

Although addressed to Bart (who can well speak for himself on this 
matter), I would fully concur that, for quantitative analysis, data based 
solely on a collation against the TR would be misleading.  But so too 
would collation data against the N27 or any other text, if taken alone.
  
Wallace himself knows or should know that the only way in which data
concerning the interrelationship of MSS to each other can be assessed is
to pair every individual MS against every other MS surveyed and then to
calculate a percentage agreement.  This however, does NOT reflect a mere
following of a collation, regardless of textbase, but the utilization of
common collation data to facilitate the comparison of MS-to-MS.  Only the
percentage-pairs of agreement can help in classifying MS relationships --
not the collation base itself; but the raw data for pair-agreements can 
readily be extracted from any collations, so long as the MSS were 
collated against the same base text.

(I should also stress the need for analyzing MSS not only book by book,
but even chapter by chapter, since MSS often change textual character
within a single book). 


=========================================================================
                       Maurice A. Robinson, Ph.D.
            Associate Professor of Greek and New Testament
              Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary
                      Wake Forest, North Carolina
                   
=========================================================================

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