Wed Jun 5 18:00:42 1996

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From: waltzmn@skypoint.com (Robert B. Waltz)
Subject: Re: "Alexandrian" Text
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On Wed, 05 Jun 96, schmiul@uni-muenster.de (Ulrich Schmid) wrote:

>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:

Thanks for the reminder. :-)

>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).

I obviously spoke too dramatically when I said there were *no* such deviations.
I would imagine that a detailed examination would reveal several. There will
always be a few deviations due to scribal errors or perhaps marginal comments.
Or even an occasional mixed reading. But the bulk of the variations in
family 2138
are cases where one set of manuscripts have a reading associated with the
Byzantine text and the rest don't.

By the way -- are you sure the alignment should not be 1505+2495 versus
1611+2138? That seemed to be what I found when I examined the data (though
I was consulting Richards and Merk for some of my readings, and neither
is particularly reliable).

>>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.

I suppose that I should have pointed out that any grouping can contain any
number
of lower level groupings. Thus the "loose" family 2138 contains at least three
much tighter families: 2412+614, 630+1799, 1505+2495.

In the case of the B tribe, p75-B go together at the family level. T may
also (I haven't examined the matter in detail). The sahidic is more distant,
and L more distant still.

The image I would offer is a familiar one of trees branching into smaller
and smaller branches. Except that, on trees, one can tell where one branch
begins and another ends. With text-types, it's not so obvious.

I would remind everyone that most people have started with the branches
(the text-types). I think we need to pay more attention to the twigs
and the leaves (families and manuscripts).

> 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.

I won't argue with this. I can't prove it without a collation of 2685, but
certainly there's no reason it can't be true.

>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.

I do not claim that p46 and B belong either to a family or to a tribe. I believe
they *do* share a text-type. But I would be amazed if anyone would claim they
are closer than that. p46, in particular, has a text which seems completely
unique. It has near-singular agreements with everything -- B, Aleph, D, G,
33, 1739.
However, it has many more near-singular agreements with B than with
anything else.

If B and p46 share only a text-type, then the question of Byzantine influence
does not come up.

I suppose I should admit that I compiled my list of levels of agreement rather
hastily (the disadvantage of e-mail). I should, perhaps, have argued for
five levels of agreement (I still feel that *that* is correct) without
mentioning
the Byzantine text.

But I also think that, in *most* cases, it *is* the degree of Byzantine
influence that separates family or "tight" tribe members.

To take an example from family 1739: I did a detailed comparison of 1739 and
1881 (1881 being the closest relative of 1739 cited in Nestle). In a set of
404 readings, the two differed 89 times. But in 80 of these 89 instances,
either 1739 or 1881 (usually the latter) was Byzantine. Clearly, almost
the entire difference between the two is caused by Byzantine influence.

>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.

With the above I have no argument. I thought it was obvious.

>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.

I agree completely. In fact, if my figures are correct, the Harklean is the
*worst* witness to the developed text of family 2138.

Although in assessing the Harklean version, one thing that *must* be remembered
is the marginalia. This is only a feeling -- I have not studied the matter in
detail -- but it appears to me that the Harklean is based on *two* texts -- one
Byzantine and one belonging to family 2138. Where the two manuscripts disagreed
on an add/omit reading, Thomas put the longer reading in the text in asterisks.
Where there was a substitution, one or the other reading went into the text
and the other (sometimes) in the margin.

>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.

Agreed -- although Byzantine manuscripts appear in large numbers in that
century (K, L, 049, assorted minuscules). That would seem to imply that the
text is at least somewhat older than that century.

This is perhaps not as important as it sounds; so far we have discussed only
one family (family 2138) and one loose tribe (tribe B in the gospels) that
have members that are possibly older than the Byzantine text.

If we return to the original subject of the discussion (the relationship between
the B tribe and the Aleph tribe), the question of Byzantine influence does not
arise, since these are both loose tribes.

>Generalizing influence theories tend to introduce
>texts (text-types) at times when the evidence therefore is not clearly
>settled.
>So, I plea for caution.

Conceded. The fact that Byzantine influence seems to appear everywhere, or
almost
everywhere, does not mean that we can assume it is always so.

Which reminds me of an interesting phenomenon I noticed in the Catholic
Epistles.
I can't prove this, but I offer it for what it is worth.

In general the Byzantine text is conservative; there are relatively few readings
of the text that are not found in some group of non-Byzantine witnesses. Sturz
has argued this, and this conclusion (alone among those he offers) I accept.

Except in the Catholics.

Take L, the earliest of the substantially complete Byzantine manuscripts of the
Epistles. In my sample, it has *no* semi-singular readings in Paul. In the
Catholics, out of far fewer readings, it has *eighteen.* K has six
semi-singulars
in Paul. In the Catholics, the number is *nineteen.* 049 has 21
semi-singulars in
the Catholics. And so forth.

What I am calling "semi-singular" readings are readings with no significant
support
outside of the text-type. From the above, it would appear that the
Byzantine text
usually agrees with *something* in Paul, but often stands alone in the
Catholics.
This is not proof, but it's interesting. Thoughts, anyone?

Bob Waltz
waltzmn@skypoint.com

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