Mon Mar 25 20:50:57 1996

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Date: Mon, 25 Mar 1996 20:48:05 -0500 (EST)
From: Maurice Robinson 
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Subject: Re: Mt 6:13
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On Mon, 25 Mar 1996, James R. Adair wrote:

> It's true that earlier is not necessarily better when it 
> comes to mss, but it is a factor in determining the preferred reading.  
> Probably everyone would agree that a reading that first appears in 3rd 
> century ms has a greater likelihood of originality that a reading that 
> first appears in a 12th century ms.  It's possible that the original 
> reading was preserved in a ms that served as the exemplar for the 12th 
> century ms, but most would give the reading very careful scrutiny before 
> allowing that it might be original.  In other words, date is not 
> determinative, but it is a factor to be considered.

I am certain that we would concur on the example given or on other 
similar examples.  But what do you do when a 5th century MS differs from 
one of the 4th century, or a 3rd century MS from one of the 2nd century.  
The wider the gap before the first appearance of a reading, certainly the 
less likely a reading to be original in the later MS; but when a short 
time period separates widely divergent MSS (e.g. A and B in the gospels), 
why is there so much stronger a presumption in favor of the earlier?

Scrivener wrote in the last century that it was paradoxical that the 
worst corruptions to which the text ever had been subjected occurred in 
the earliest centuries, and that the text after the fourth century 
offered a far greater chance to determine the original (Scrivener of 
course did not have the early papyri, but only patristic and versional 
testimony to make his statement; the papyri only serve to confirm the 
truth of Scrivener's assessment).  

So in such a case, there still remains a limit as to when "earlier" might 
necessarily equal "better".  

Bringing it down to the 2nd century alone, which of the three, P45, 
P66 or P75 is the "better" MS?  Only those who automatically confer a 
higher regard to B will immediately choose P75; but there is no inherent 
reason for such preference within the second century MSS themselves.  So 
even equally early does not confer anything as regards originality, any 
more than the quite Alexandrian MS L of the 9th century is of any less 
weight than Aleph of the fourth.  We are back to the original contention 
that age of a MS says little or nothing about the purity or originality 
of its text.


_________________________________________________________________________
Maurice A. Robinson, Ph.D.           Assoc. Prof./Greek and New Testament
Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary     Wake Forest, North Carolina
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