Tue Mar 19 19:00:40 1996

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Date: Tue, 19 Mar 1996 18:57:54 -0500 (EST)
From: Maurice Robinson 
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Subject: Re: Different dating systems
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On Tue, 19 Mar 1996, Stephen C Carlson wrote:

> I'm thinking of Comfort's argument that the arrangements of the codices
> which contained P5 and P75 suggest a shorter, hence twenty-chapter, gospel.
> Is his argument persuasive among text critics?

>From what I know, Comfort stands alone and his theories are not very well 
received among any text-critical scholars.  I myself wrote a lengthy 
critical review of Comfort's theories which was published in _Faith and 
Mission_ about two years ago.  

Basically, Comfort's problem is his over-simplistic method of doing
textual criticism merely by taking the three oldest MSS of any portion of
scripture and allowing two out of three to decide the "autograph." 
Comfort's critique of N27 and his suggested "corrections" to that edition
are often laughable, even if one holds to the eclectic standpoint. 

How by any stretch of imagination the arrangement of the codices which
contained P75 or P5 would indicate a 20-chapter version of John when the
endings of both MSS are not extant, I do not know.  I suppose Comfort is 
arguing that John preceded Luke in those codices, and that the extant 
page numbers on the MSS when calculated by average line length and 
average lines per page would somehow indicate the omission of Jn.21.  If 
so, it seems strange that no other scholar ever seems to have urged this, 
including Martini in his monograph on P75 and B.


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

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