Fri Mar 15 08:43:39 1996

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Date: Fri, 15 Mar 1996 14:40:16 +0000
From: Klaus Wachtel 
Organization: Institut f. neutestamentliche Textforschung
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On Wednesday 13 Mar, Maurice Robinson wrote:

> The overwhelming majority of post-10th century minuscules are secondary in
> cases such as 1 Jn.2:23 and 1 Jn.3:1, since that mere numerical majority
> is not supported by the earlier testimony.

May I ask, then, on which earlier testimony the decision for the Byz. text EK 
instead of XWRIS is based in James 2,18 (except the doubtful evidence of P54)?

> Had this been an error, producing a clearly "more difficult" reading, the
> question still remains as to why scribes would not act in accordance with
> their supposed tendencies and correct the reading to the "easier" and
> certainly clearer XWRIS. 

This is a most interesting question, although I doubt that XWRIS is "easier"; 
I would say that it -in contrast with EK- fits the context. I think, there are 
three reasons, why EK was not replaced with XWRIS.
1) Medieval Byzantine scribes were copyists, not editors in the modern sense 
of the word. Normally they effectively controlled themselves and were 
controlled by others, as is shown most convincingly by Kr. Besides, how can we 
be sure that scribes were able to compare mss. which had XWRIS in 2,18?
2) EK was in the right manuscripts, namely in the exemplars of the Byz. text 
minuscules.
3) EK doesn't offend a reader who doesn't attend to the context beyond 2,18, 
-what of course might happen to a scribe as well.

> I still maintain that difficulty of interpretation would be a primary cause > for scribes to alter the text to an easier reading, ...

Mere difficulty of a reading, of course, doesn't suffice to prove its 
originality. For example, the reading of codices Sinaiticus and Vaticanus in 
Js 1,17 results in an extremely difficult text, as is frequently the case with 
errors.

> Certainly the final clause containing EK caused no difficulty (DEICW SOI
> EK TWN ERGWN MOU THN PISTIN MOU; Byztxt); why then should it be thought
> nonsense to preface that clause with DEICON MOI THN PISTIN SOU EK TWN
> ERGWN SOU (again, Byztxt).  

I admit that "nonsense" is too harsh a word. More attentive readers may have 
understood 2,18a as a concession: "[I concede that] you have faith, [if you 
concede that] I have works [and now let's part as friends]". Under this 
condition 2,18b seems to make sense in spite of EK. But what about 2,19? V. 19 
is clearly directed against someone whose faith consists in nothing but an 
unclear notion of God. In my opinion it is very unlikely that the author could 
have urged the same person in 2,18b to show his faith by his works. V. 19 
requires an opponent who relies on nothing but his faith. 


Klaus Wachtel, INTF Muenster

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