Sun Jun 2 14:27:57 1996
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From: Maurice Robinson
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Subject: Re: "Alexandrian" Text
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I appreciate Bob Waltz' attempts to list the five major categories of
textual relationship. I think he did a fine job of categorization. I do
have one significant point of difference, however, and this naturally is
based upon my own transmissional theoretical perspective:
On Sun, 2 Jun 1996, Robert B. Waltz wrote:
> 5) The "text-type." These are related manuscripts that *do not* derive
> directly from a single common ancestor (other than the autographs).
By my own definition this would exclude the Byzantine from being a
texttype, which is indeed why I use the term "Textform" to describe the
Byzantine text.
> Another thing that needs to be noted in using these definitions is the role of
> the Byzantine text. No matter what one thinks of the origin of that text,
> Byzantine mixture is the single most important element in the history of the
> text.
The problem here from my perspective is the use of "Byzantine mixture",
when if looked at from a Byzantine-priority hypothesis, there is no real
"mixture" occurring, but merely cases where either (a) certain MSS did not
deviate from the Byzantine Textform itself or (b) such MSS were corrected
back to the reading of the Byzantine Textform. Certainly cases of the
first category would not reflect any real "mixture," but merely a refusal
or resistance to departure from the Byzantine Textform standard. Cases
of category (b) would not reflect "mixture" as much as "restoration"
based upon cross-comparison and correction in the normal course of events.
> 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.
This is a good assessment. I would add to this that the errors and
peculiarities of scribes do not account for all the family
idiosyncracies, but usually there is some influence exercised by a
non-Byzantine tradition involved as well. Bob may differ with me on
this, but I suspect much of the non-Byz influence comes from Alexandrian
readings as found in the Vulgate, with slight Alexandrian influence from
other non-Greek versions.
By the time most of these late MSS are copied, there is little question
that Alexandrian Greek MSS are any longer predominant, even in regional
locations, and I suspect therefore versional or patristic/versional
influence. This will account not only for certain idiosyncracies of the
"tight" families, but also for those later minuscules which are
consistently cited in the UBS edition as presenting a text which at times
differs significantly from the remainder of the Byzantine tradition.
The one thing that I would not want to claim in such situations is
"Byzantine mixture" when it appears the REAL "mixture" is that which
comes in at such a late date from wholly extraneous sources.
> We've already noted the classical work by Colwell. It does a
> good job of describing the problem and what needs to be done -- but then gives
> us the useless 70% definition.
Certainly Colwell's 70% criterion is hypothetical and selected basically
at random, but I would not concur that it is useless. There really should
be SOME basic criterion by which to assess texttype alignment, but it
might have to differ with each accepted texttype. For the Byzantine
Textform, Waltz is correct that really a 90% cutoff level would be
preferable.
Pickering and Hodges/Farstad lowered that to 80%; my own edition merely
accepted Colwell's 70% (which I still think is reasonably valid). But for
the Alexandrian texttype, one needs to lower the standard even further,
into the 60%-70% base, with some cases dropping into the high 50% range.
The Western text (or non-texttype) is in even worse shape, with often a
51%-53% amount of agreement to establish a reading as belonging to that
texttype.
I suspect in the case of the Western that some readings in the 40%-50%
range are still clearly of the "Western type" (whatever that might mean),
but in dropping below 50% tend to indicate that such were only
sporadically perpetuated rather than maintaining a dominant position
within the type.
> To sum up: If there is *any* reliable modern definition of a text-type, I
> can't find it. Basically people are still saying, "I know one when I see one."
I know the Byzantine when I see it. I know in general the Alexandrian
when I see what remains of it. I know the Western from some of its
individual readings, and I know the Caesarean only in certain patterns of
mixture between Alexandrian and Byzantine readings. I'm not sure that we
can move quantitatively beyond the qualitative in the search for the
definition of a texttype.
_________________________________________________________________________
Maurice A. Robinson, Ph.D. Assoc. Prof./Greek and New Testament
Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary Wake Forest, North Carolina
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