Fri Mar 29 00:02:10 1996

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Date: Fri, 29 Mar 1996 00:01:57 -0500 (EST)
From: "James R. Adair" 
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Subject: autographs and archetypes
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On Tue, 26 Mar 1996, Maurice Robinson wrote:

> As to the "fundamental question": can we reconstruct the archetype from the 
> MSS we now have, the issue revolves around the degree of certainty sought.  
> If you are looking for 100% certainty, then no one alive and no one MS can
> offer that certainty.  If you will accept 90% certainty (i.e., for 90% of
> the text we are 100% certain of the autograph reading), then that is
> basically agreed upon by all text-critical schools.
> 
> ...
> 
> Even when all this is taken into account, the remaining passages where 
> "certainty" is not present still divide into two or three primary readings 
> in each case, and we all know (barring those who would advocate pure 
> conjectural readings) that the autograph reading resides among those two or 
> three readings; so in theory 100% certainty is "attainable", though in 
> practice our attempts will always fall slighlty short of that goal unless 
> one invokes special revelation.

Textual critics need to maintain the distinction between the autograph 
(i.e., the "original" document) and the archetype (i.e., the ms that 
is the most immediate ancestor of all extant mss).  Though they may be 
identical, it is by no means certain that they are in every, or in any, 
case.  To assert that archetype=autograph is a faith statement.  I raise 
again the spectre of Hort's "primitive corruptions," because they always 
lurk behind the text.  It is irrelevant whether someone "advocates" 
conjectural readings, because in some instances, admittedly probably only 
a small number, the "original" reading may not be recoverable, and text 
critics have to admit that.

Do extant texts preserve all the original readings, so that the 
industrious scholar can theoretically piece together all the readings of 
the autograph?  I don't see any reason to think so.  Who is to say that 
several copies were made of every autograph?  Or who can say for certain 
that some ms family lines, like some branches on a human family tree, 
didn't play out after one or two generations?  The most textual critics 
can hope to reconstruct is the archetype, not the autograph, of any given 
book, at least if we claim to rely on any semblance of scientific model, 
but this archetype may lie one or more generations beyond the autograph.  
Reconstructed hypothetical "autographs" _may_ require conjectures, but 
these are hardly scientific.

(Note that I am leaving aside for now the whole question of "original" 
readings and if every NT book has a single autograph.)

Jimmy Adair
Manager of Information Technology Services, Scholars Press
    and
Managing Editor of TELA, the Scholars Press World Wide Web Site
---------------> http://scholar.cc.emory.edu <-----------------

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