Wed Jun 5 15:30:00 1996
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Date: Wed, 05 Jun 96 21:28:51 +0100
From: schmiul@uni-muenster.de (Ulrich Schmid)
Subject: Re: "Alexandrian" Text
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On Wed, 5 Jun 1996, Robert B. Waltz wrote:
>Despite our disagreements on results, it should be noted that >Maurice Robinson
and I agree on at least one fundamental point: >that current eclectic
methodology is theoretically bankrupt.
Please, calm down and let us return to the question Bob initially adressed: What
about text-types in relation to various other MSS groupings (families, tribes)?
His long post (Sun, 2 Jun 1996) was devoted to define MSS alignments of
different quantity and quality.
First of all I would like to say that I appreciate every effort to describe MSS
alignments in a more sensitive way, without putting them into the Procrustean
bed of either text-types or families.
After defining five levels of relationship, Bob wrote:
>In "tight" families, there is no Byzantine influence at all. Or >more
correctly, what separates the members of the family is not >Byzantine influence;
the family text may be heavily Byzantine. But >all that separates the family
members is the errors and >peculiarities of scribes.
Fine point, though the problem to my mind is already lurking behind.
>In "loose" families, Byzantine influence begins to appear. In >family 2138, for
>instance, all members of the family seem to disagree with the >(hypothetical)
>archetype by about 10-20%. But in every case we find that the >divergence is
Byzantine. Either the manuscript displays the family >text, or it displays a
Byzantine reading. There are *no* instance >of other readings (at least, none
that I've noticed).
This point is simply not true. At least in the General epistles there are some
instances where the family text is split -usually 1505 + 1611 versus 2138 + 2495
(but sometimes only one MS deserts)- _and_ the deviation is NOT Byzantine (cf.
B. Aland/A. Juckel, _Das NT in Syrischer Ueberlieferung_, ANTT 7, 1986).
>In "tight" tribes, Byzantine influence becomes important, as do >the side
effects of many generations of copying. Still, there is >no sign of influence
other than the Byzantine.
>In "loose" tribes, we see evidence of mixture from sources other >than the
Byzantine text. Thus L, in the gospels, is mostly a >mixture of p75/B readings
and Byzantine readings, but has a few >readings that seem to belong to a
different non-Byzantine strain >(perhaps from the Aleph group, or possibly from
some later phase >of the Alexandrian text...).
Bob critized repeatedly Colwell's 70 percent criterion for it can not
adaequately deal with mixed MSS. To my mind he is quite correct in doing so.
Nevertheless, I suspect his grouping method offers only slight improvement. For
example, if he only had retained P75-B as belonging to one group, he would have
been able to place them under the heading "loose" or even "tight" family. By
adding the somehow "mixed" MSS T and L to the gene pool the otherwise presumably
"tight" family P75-B is to be removed and placed under the heading "loose"
tribe. The same is to be found when looking at Bob's example for a "tight" tribe
(family 1739):
>An example of this is family 1739 in Paul.
>Here we can say, for instance, that 1739 and 0243 are closely >related at a
level only slightly removed from the archetype (I >believe they are first
cousins, with their common ancestor being >about three removes from the
archetype). 6 and 424** are related >to each other within the family, but split
off at a slightly >earlier point and have both suffered extensive Byzantine
influence >(with 6 receiving more corrections of the late Byzantine type). >1881
split off at about the same point as 1739, but comes from a >different family
and has suffered more corruptions. And so forth.
If I may add MS 2685 in Romans (cf. _Text und Textwert_), it may well turn out a
MS alignment between 6 and 2685 which is closer than between 6 and 424**.
Therefore 6 and 2685 may well enter the major league "family", perhaps at the
"looser" stage.
Though this might look like quibbling on some MSS, to my mind it is essential.
In Bob's definition of "tight" and "loose" tribes we are dealing with compound
MSS groups, where one or two "pure" member(s) are together with "mixed" members.
The only difference between "tight" and "loose" is if there is Byzantine
influence (only) or Byzantine and other. But do these definitions by Byz. and/or
other influence still hold water, if we look at for example P46-B in Romans? How
is their alignment to be described in terms of families, tribes? Harry Sturz
gives in Romans two (admittedly not very impressive) alignments of P46 with Byz.
contra "Alex." and "Western", from Text und Textwert I know of at least five
near singular alignments of P46 and D F G.
If we do not subscribe to a pro-Byzantine viewpoint, which I shurely do not
intend to up to now, even slight Byzantine influence on P46 would be ruled out.
But the same is also true with supposed
"Western" influence, for the Old Latin does not seem to attest all of the shared
near singular agreements of P46 and D F G. Therefore it seems to me that all I
can say is, P46 and D F G share some rare readings which represent an early
stratum of readings presumably belonging to a common ancestor.
Shurely P46 in Romans is closely connected to B, but it deviates sometimes and
some of these deviations are shared by other MSS. (One part of these MSS,
sharing P46 deviations from B, are commonly called Byzantine, another part
"Western".) This may seem purely descriptive, but the advantage is that it
avoids anachronistic misconceptions of Byzantine and/or "Western" influence on
MSS which seem to antedate both Byzantine and "Western" texts at least in their
actual state of appearance.
Tough I do not say that the concept of Byzantine influence may not be valid for
some parts of (later) MS tradition, I hestitate to give it the significance Bob
does. Especially the crucial fact of the Harklensis Vorlage (family 2138) gives
us some hints, for, believe me or not, even the Harklensis (616 AD) opposes
occasionally readings shared by all members of family 2138 (11th to 14/15th
centuries) by giving Byzantine readings. But, does this imply that a full blown
Byzantine text in its actual state of appearance existed for the General
epistles prior to around 500 AD to serve as deus ex machina for our influence
theories? At least there is NO manuscript evidence to a full blown Byzantine
text prior to the 9th century. Generalizing influence theories tend to introduce
texts (text-types) at times when the evidence therefore is not clearly settled.
So, I plea for caution.
Ulrich Schmid, Muenster
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