Fri Jun 21 15:30:32 1996

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From: Maurice Robinson 
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Subject: Re: Theories of trans.--continued
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On Fri, 14 Jun 1996, William L. Petersen wrote:

> (Just a question:  Why are we prone to say the early Fathers cite "loosely,"
> and that THEIR MS tradition has been corrupted, rather than that the early
> Fathers sometimes cite accurately, and that OUR NT MS tradition has been
> corrupted?  

Regardless of the remainder of Petersen's nearly-interminable post
regarding what I consider a more peripheral issue, this point above can
quite simply be addressed by asking the converse: Why should we assume
that the early fathers cite "accurately" from MSS before them containing
readings which are no longer extant or which are preserved in only rare
cases?  

A cardinal rule of examining patristic citation is to see whether,
after quoting a passage containing a specific variant, the Father then
proceeds to comment on that specific variant.  If he does not so do, the
variant quoted should be considered as suspect, and this, in my opinion,
regardless of which direction the variant might tend (others will
automatically reject only Byzantine variants in such cases; I obviously
would at least question any and all variants in this specific case).

Further, the demonstrable situation of multiple citations of the same
variant in differing forms by a single father give serious pause to any
consideration that he is necessarily using a manuscript before him.  He
might be quoting from memory, and this might drift into allusion or
misquotation, but then again, he might be using many different MSS, and
merely be totally indiscriminate as to the specific wording of the text
cited.  In that case, there would be little more to the concept of "the"
text of a Father than a myth which needs to be exploded.  

Basically, I consider patristic quotations valuable only for giving some
insight into the historical textual situation of the Father's own era.  I
do not think that patristic quotations should ever become significant or
primary determiners of the original NT wording.


_________________________________________________________________________
Maurice A. Robinson, Ph.D.           Assoc. Prof./Greek and New Testament
Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary     Wake Forest, North Carolina
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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