Tue Mar 19 10:10:33 1996

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From: "James R. Adair" 
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Subject: Re: James 2:18
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On Mon, 18 Mar 1996, Maurice Robinson wrote:

> The illustration given of "faith without works" in vv.20-26 applies to a
> time of severe testing where clear risk is involved to either the one
> "having faith" or his or her intended recipients of the action in cases
> where loss of life can result (Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac and Rahab's
> protecting the spies from death at the risk of her own life).  
> 
> Rhetorically, I see two very distinct sequences here, each with a specific
> guiding term ("faith not having works" versus "faith apart from works"),
> and the terms need not overlap and, according to rhetorical structure, 
> should not overlap.   

Despite my attempts to do so, I can still see no difference in emphasis 
between "faith not having works" and "faith without works."  Of course 
the examples are different, and the wording changes slightly, but the 
variation is just for rhetorical effect, it seems to me.

> 
> Again, this may be the objector making the challenge and not James.

According to UBS4, the French version Traduction Oecumenique de la Bible 
treats Jas 2:18-19 as one quotation, although I don't know if it reads 
XWRIS or EK.  Maybe someone on the list knows.  I can see how these 
verses might be a single extended quotation, but I can't see how the 
hypothetical person can be considered an objector, regardless of how long 
the quote is.  The hypothetical person is claiming to have works, the 
_same_ position that James is taking.  Furthermore, if EK is read, the 
argument of this person, whether an opponent or not, seems to go 
nowhere.  I suppose it could be argued that James just didn't make his 
point very well, but I like to think that clarity rather than obfuscation 
was an important concern of the author.

> > Thus I conclude that the first EK in the Byz. text of 2,18 is an error, 
> > presumably caused by parablepsis (EK before TWN ERGWN in the next sentence).
> > (K.W.)
> 
> And I conclude that parablepsis might produce error in a single MS and a 
> few others copied therefrom, but I cannot see such error growing to a 
> dominant position within transmissional history without a word of protest 
> or numerous corrections by scribes.

Now this is the classic majority text argument (in this form of the 
majority text theory, as Maurice has differentiated them): errors 
introduced in mss will tend to be corrected by the overall process of 
cross-checking with other mss, especially when the diorthotes is 
involved.  This view assumes a controlled ms copying process from almost 
the beginning of the period of ms transmission, and I don't think that 
this was the case.  It certainly does explain, however, why there is such 
agreement among later Byzantine mss.

I have asked before whether Maurice (or anyone) can give me some examples 
in which the majority text (in the 9th/10th centuries) does _not_ contain 
what he considers to be the "original" reading.  If there are no 
examples, it leads me to suspect that the real criterion is the authority 
of the Byzantine text-type.  Those who see the Alexandrian text-type as 
generally superior are often accused (and not entirely unjustly, in my 
opinion) of twisting their arguments to make the Alexandrian reading 
appear to be original.  The same charge can be made against the Byzantine 
priority approach, unless, as I say, examples of "original" non-Byzantine 
readings can be produced.

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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