Wed May 29 13:57:13 1996

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Date: Wed, 29 May 96 19:57:01 +0100
From: schmiul@uni-muenster.de (Ulrich Schmid)
Subject: Re:  "Alexandrian" text
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On Tue, 28 May 1996, Robert B. Waltz wrote:

>...we have seen real progress in Paul (Zuntz; also, IMHO, me :-) >), in the 
Catholics (Duplacy), and in the Apocalypse (Schmidt).
>In all three areas, the scholars isolated text-types not found in >the WH 
system. There is also major work being done on Acts (though >I don't know the 
status of that).

>But in the gospels -- nothing. Gathering of data, yes (see the >IGNTP). But 
theoretical advances -- not really. We are still >working with the text-types
>of Westcott and Hort, which in fact go back to Griesbach. 

a.) When working on the textual transmission of the Gospels one is struck by the 
tremendous amount of data: MORE THAN 2300 MSS with Gospel text are known up to 
now (Corpus Paulinum some 780 MSS, Acts + Catholics some 650 MSS, Revelation 
"only" 287 MSS).

b.) Another striking feature within the Gospels, at least within the Synoptics, 
is the well known fact of "assimilation". Not only the Byz text testifies to it 
(cf. Wisselink) but virtually every MS is somehow affected by this tendency. 
Therefore a great deal of variation within the textual transmission of the 
Synoptics might be due to a tendency that independently produced partially 
identical text-type alignments with no "real" text-type relation underlying. Or, 
looking at this from the other side, the tendency towards assimilation might 
weaken "real" text-type relations, for some of the MSS originally belonging 
together may independently desert in some readings while retaining others.  

The combination of a.) and b.) might explain some of the problems "theoretical 
advances" in the Gospels have to handle. Therefore, "gathering of data" might 
not be inappropriate.

Bob further wrote:

>Long ago, Hoskier found (I believe it was) over 6000 differences >between B and 
Aleph. Most are trivial, and many of the remainder >are in the early part of 
John (where Aleph is accused of having a >"Western" text). But many are 
substantial, and not all are in >John. 

Hoskier (Codex B and its Allies, Part II, 1914) found 3036 differences between B 
and aleph (656 in Matt., 567 in Mark, 791 in Luke, 1022 in John).  
To assess the validity of Hoskiers's samples is not easy (I know that Streeter 
was not impressed). But the least one can say from a first look is:
a.) Hoskier includes not very few near-singulars of either B or aleph, which are 
in fact singulars to my mind -some of them are found only in one patristic 
writer, others only in one version. A very telling example is the randomly 
choosen "difference" at Matt. 16,17: ALLA hO PATHR aleph + sahidic + bohairic 
versus ALL hO PATHR B and the rest. 
b.) Most of the only-versional-support singulars, even if more than one version 
is involved, are of no value, since very often there are Greek composits or 
different tempora involved. 
c.) Quite a lot of the "differences" are only textual trivia mostly due to 
assimilation.

To be shure, Hoskier pointed out differences between B and aleph, but to what do 
they give conclusive or even probable evidence?

On Tue, 28 May 1996, Bob wrote in his second post:

>I think most changes in textual complexion are the
>result of correctors being more or less diligent. Take, for >instance, L. In 
the first part of Matthew it is mostly Byzantine. >Does this mean that part of L 
was copied from a Byzantine >manuscript and the rest from an Alexandrian? I 
think not. Far more >likely that the ancestor of L was heavily and carefully 
corrected >in Matthew and much more sporadically corrected elsewhere.

a.) From the manuscript tradition it is obvious that all of the Papyri, most of 
the uncials and quite a lot minuscules are mutilated at the beginning and/or the 
end due to mechanical break off. 
b.) The MSS 206 429 522 614 630 1292 1890 2200 2412 related to the 
Harklensis-Vorlage (1505-1611-2138-2495) in the General Epistles give ample 
evidence that the slightly changing textual character of these MSS compared to 
the Harklensis-Vorlage takes place in the last three of the epistles, where most 
of them desert. 

To conclude from the presented evidence: "More or less diligent correctors" may 
also be found within manuscript tradition, but exhaustive evidence points to 
mechanical corruption and restoration when dealing with changing textual 
character within one and the same manuscript, at least at its beginning and/or 
end (L being a perfect example of this feature). 

Ulrich Schmid, Muenster

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