Sat Apr 6 18:17:20 1996
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Date: Sat, 6 Apr 1996 16:25:34 -0500 (EST)
From: Maurice Robinson
To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu
Subject: Re: Luke 12,58
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On Sat, 6 Apr 1996 schmiul@uni-muenster.de wrote:
> On Thu, 4 Apr 1996, Maurice Robinson wrote:
>> leading subjunctive. Am I being misunderstood on this point?
> I must confess that I am a little bit confused about this
> statement, because on Sat, 23 Mar 1996, Maurice Robinson wrote:
>> The Byzantine reading reflects the literary, if not the classical
>> perspective.
Oops!...If I wrote that, it was a "lapsus manus", and I must have typed
"Byzantine" instead of "Alexandrian"; I confess scribal error in that
case (or maybe I became totally confused and discombobulated). Please
correct any assumptions based upon this error.
My position _should_ have stated that, following what I read in Bl.-D., it
was the _Alexandrian_ text which followed the literary perspective, while
the Byzantine followed the normal "popular" or "normally grammatical"
framework.
>> All further clauses remain subjunctive under normal grammatical
>> patterns, since they remain dependent upon the initial condition
>> not being fulfilled (MHPOTE). This is classical usage and the
>> normal grammatical pattern one encounters in the NT. The case is
>> clearly conditional, and requires the normal use of the
>> subjunctive throughout the clauses (like the mathematical
>> distributive law).
> Again, there seems to be some misunderstanding. Wihch side gives the classical
> usage, and which side the more common vernacular?
I intend to state that the Koine of the Byztxt gives the "normal"
classical usage, in which all verbs subsumed under a subjunctive clause
remain subjunctive; this is also the "popular" usage. The switch to
non-subjunctive verbal forms in the clause would reflect the "literary
classical" form as opposed to either the "normal" or "popular" form. I
suspect that the error noted above or my own confused writing has caused
all this confusion; please adjust accordingly *;-)
Let me help reconstruct the scenario also:
> 1) In my initial post I judged the subjunctives (PARADW, BALH) as
> assimilations to KATASURH in order to fit the classical pattern.
>
> 2) Maurice agreed with respect to the classical pattern, but
> disagreed with respect to the secondary nature of the readings. He,
> on the other hand, provided a scenario mainly on grammatical
> grounds in order to explain the secondary nature of the Alex.
> future indicatives. Referring to Bl.-Deb. (< 11th ed.) he judged
> the Alex. readings as "reflecting common vernacular rather than
> normal literary style".
This is the opposite of what I intended. The Alex readings would reflect
the peculiar "literary style" rather than what would normally appear in
popular Koine or in normal classical style.
> 3) I in the main agree with the last sentence, though I dare to
> call the Alex. readings "common vernacular", simply because I do
> not no know exactly to what extend Bl.-Deb. (and Maurice) are using
> the terms "common vernacular". But, what I do know is the fact that
> these readings do _not_ reflect classical usage. And therefor, I
> judged them with respect to the lectio difficilior argument as
> secondary corrections in order to fit the classical pattern.
I agree that these readings do not reflect "normal" classical usage, but
only the ephemeral "literary" usage suggested by Bl.-D. If Bl.-D. have
later abandoned their suggestion on this point, then the variant unit
devolves into transcriptional rather than grammatical issues (which is
where I suspect it belongs in the first place).
> 4) I suspect that the lectio difficilior argument caused Maurice to
> rethink his initial claim, for now it is the "Byzantine
> text...which does NOT reflect the classical perspective, but merely
> the normal vernacular...".
Correction again, the Byz reflects the "normal vernacular" which also
coincides with the normal "classical" approach, but not with the
artificial "literary" approach. I am not intending to twist the matters,
but I believe this stems from an initial misunderstanding of what I
intended as I cited Bl.-D., plus the error of reading "Byzantine" when it
should have been "Alexandrian." I again apologize for the confusion. Did
I write that at 3AM?! I think that even _I_ have to go back and re-read
my own posts! *;-)
> On this outline of the discussion from my perspective I would like
> to comment:
> a) To my mind this last claim simply implies too much sophitication
> on the Alexandrian side.
I actually consider the Alexandrian text to exhibit numerous cases of
stylistic sophistication which are not present in the Byzantine text. I
would suggest the likelihood of an Alexandrian local-text recension
(contra Fee) which proceeded more on literary than upon vernacular
grounds, and which also may have been affected by Coptic grammatical
influences.
> With this example in mind the overall
> agreed reading in Heb 3,12 makes from an Alexandrian mindset no
> sense at all.
Nor from a Byzantine mindset. So why did not one scribe alter the text
there to a subjunctive? Simply because the text was held to be
acceptable, for whatever reasons (grammatical, theological, etc.). If
that reading simply "cried out" for a subjunctive, some scribe at least
should have made the alteration. Maybe a "primitive error" exists? *;-)
> Note in Lk 12,58, where after MHPOTE there are three
> finite verbs, the Alexandrians drew "a fine line" between the first
> and the two others, and in Heb 3,12, where there is only one finite verb,
> they simply failed to realize the notion of will so plainly stated.
This is again supposing that Bl.-D. are correct on the notion of will
being involved. I do not think the "fine line" distinction in Lk can
hold, since the initial subjunctive remained such in Lk -- in Heb, what
should have been the initial subjunctive simply wasn't, and even the
Alexandrian scribes should have thought such peculiar; yet no attempts to
correct the "problem." I suspect we know far less about how scribes
perceived points of grammar than we think.
> > Alexandrian MSS may reflect a recensional mindset aligned in some
> > way with the classical restorations performed in Alexandria,
> > which mindset may well focus on peculiar items like the
> > indicative vs. subjunctive situation. There may also be a
> > reflection as to the way Greek grammar was practiced in Egypt as
> > opposed to elsewhere in the Roman world; also perhaps some
> > influence from Coptic grammatical structure.
> These are truely speculations, and, again, they portray the
> Alexandrians with respect to the "indicative vs. subjunctive
> situation" as partly hypersophisticated and partly foolish (c.f. Heb 3,12).
I do not see it that way at all. Most recensional activity would be
practices on the gospels. The disputed nature of the book of Hebrews may
have called for less activity. However, my claim in regard to Heb.3.12
is that such _is_ "grammatical", and obviously, since it caused no
problems to scribes of _any_ textual tradition, we have to rethink some
of our notions on NT Greek grammar. In Lk.12.58 on the other hand, if
transcriptional reasons alone do not account for the alterations (which I
think primarily the case), then there well may have been some fine points
of literary style which may have influenced the change. I only bring up
the grammatical possibilities in an attempt to possibly explain the
reason for alteration, even though I consider transcriptional cause primary.
> c) So I may leave speculation aside and return to the facts:
> Final MH(POTE) is usually connected with (mainly aorist) subjunctive. This can
> be called the normal, or "classical" pattern.
The issue is not with the normal use of a subjunctive following MHPOTE,
but whether all remaining verbs in a subjunctive clause will remain
subjunctive as well.
> On the other hand we have
> undisputed evidence of some readings in the New Testament, which certainly do
> _not_ reflect "classical" usage with respect to the grammatical features under
> discussion. Maurice already mentioned two of them, Mk 14,2 (though note, some
> later minuscules "correct" the fut.ind. to aor.subj.) and Heb 3,12.
Once more, I do not consider either Mk.14.2 or Heb.3.12 as ungrammatical
or as not reflecting classical usage. The scribes themselves did not so
consider, and it is erroneous for us to make those specific cases using
the irregular verb "to be" as normative for what will take place in every
case where MHPOTE appears. I brought up those two cases only to
demonstrate that, even in the Byzantine text of the NT, there is no
scribal proclivity to alter indicatives following MHPOTE into
subjunctives, which is what Ulrich claimed occurred in Lk.12.58.
> It is
> precisely from this point of view that the argument from lectio difficilior
> becomes valid. Because it is much more likely to assume that in the line of
> transmission the more _unlitterary_ features are prone to "correction" than the
> other way round.
But again, following Bl.-D. it appears that a peculiar _literary_ variety
of grammar is reflected in allowing remaining verbs in a subjunctive
clause to be indicatives. Both "normal" classical and Koine vernacular
would have the verbs within the clause totally in the subjunctive (the
verb "to be" perhaps being the only exception?).
> The later textual transmission (incl. Byz.)
> gives a higher proportion of classical usage, with respect to the grammatical
> features under discussion, than the other witnesses. A preliminary glance at the
> INA clauses seems to point in the same direction.
Kilpatrick in his article on Atticism in the Greek NT would differ
strongly from that conclusion, since he finds the primary problem in that
regard within the Alexandrian rather than the Byzantine text.
> Note, I am open to change my mind, but not on the ground of
> speculations like the above mentioned.
Since so much of what is done in text-critical theory is speculation
(including my own hypothesis), it seems difficult to think anyone from
any text-critical school will soon change his or her mind while following
the normal patterns.
I acknowledge that my own opinion changed radically from eclecticism to
Byzantine-priority after carefully studying all the data and developing a
history of transmission which takes all known data into account.
Is there anyone out there who has come to a _modern eclectic_ position who
was not initially trained in such and accepted such from the beginning?
_________________________________________________________________________
Maurice A. Robinson, Ph.D. Assoc. Prof./Greek and New Testament
Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary Wake Forest, North Carolina
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