Fri Jun 7 12:00:08 1996
From owner-tc-list Fri Jun 7 12:00:08 1996
Return-Path:
Received: by scholar.cc.emory.edu (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4)
id LAA14884; Fri, 7 Jun 1996 11:58:47 -0400
Date: Fri, 7 Jun 1996 11:55:39 -0400 (EDT)
From: Maurice Robinson
To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu
Subject: Re: Another set of miscellaneous replies
In-Reply-To:
Message-ID:
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Sender: owner-tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu
Precedence: bulk
Reply-To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu
content-length: 9645
On Fri, 7 Jun 1996, Robert B. Waltz wrote:
> Also, about scriptures under Constantine. Obviously, since Christianity
> was now legal, there would be an increase in demand under Constantine.
> I just don't think that production would have risen all that much.
> This is only logic, but I think it has a certain validity. Remember
> that Constantine did not *enforce* Christianity, merely allowed it.
> So many scribes would have remained non-Christians. And I can't speak
> for anyone back then, but I wouldn't want a non-Christian copying my
> scripture! Maurice has told me he disagrees; he may be right.
My private reply to Bob was this:
The conversion of Constantine did not exactly make Constantine a
Christian either *;-) However, scribes were not necessarily selected
for their piety, but for the literacy, and grammatical and calligraphic
ability, so I would not think it peculiar for non-Christian scribes to
copy NT documents under contract to churches, though I do suspect that
this rarely had to be the case, so long as scribes who were at least
nominal church members (i.e. baptized for certain social and political
benefits) were utilized. A reading of Gore Vidal's "Julian" gives
interesting and generally factual insight into the socio-political
situation of this era.
> Remember also that no one could have been absolutely certain the Edict
> of Milan would hold. The Empire had changed its mind about Christianity
> several times before (and would change it briefly again, in the time
> of Julian). So scribes would have been cautious at first.
So long as they got paid for legitimate work during a time when such was
freely permitted, I doubt that they would worry too much. No one was
going to persecute a scribe (who would rarely sign his name to what he
had copied) ex post facto merely because the religious or political
climate might shift once more. That type of event might have to await
the Inquisition or the McCarthy era.
> My point was simply that, if Constantine's reign had
> any direct effect on scripture at all, it was not to promote the
> Byzantine text.
I would agree here, adding it was not to promote -any- specific texttype,
but merely "the" NT text and canon, in whatever form they might assume.
> Please folks, let's not use analogies to classical music.
I only addressed a faulty analogy, but to make a valid point to some
degree. The issue of theme and variations within normative classical
music would make the same point as Waltz' suggestion to move to folk
music. There still has to be an underlying original which gets distorted
or varied for whatever purposes, and this applies to any text-critical
theory as well, since the autograph has to be presupposed as a
stabilizing factor, else the variations would be unrecognizable as the
text of a particular NT book.
> Hymns, if not rigorously
> controlled by the printing press, can undergo amazing changes....
Too many hymns controlled by the printing press end up dramatically
changed for theological (e.g. the end of "Holy Holy Holy" as sung by the
non-Trinitarian Mormon Tabernacle Choir) or aesthetical reasons ("for
sinners such as I" instead of "for such a worm as I"). But I'll depart
this soapbox as well.....
> >The data and conclusions of Lake, Blake, and New need to be seriously
> >considered in formulating any hypothesis regarding the nature of the
> >Byzantine Textform.
> I'll admit to being slightly shocked by this. If this is valid, it
> implies that less than one manuscript in ten thousand has survived.
> Which seems almost unbelievable. What have I missed?
Lake, Blake, and New said only that there must have been thousands of MSS
existing before the 9th century which are no longer extant. I would not
necessarily multiply this into tens of thousands. However, I think that
the conclusions of Lake, Blake, and New are quite reliable and highly
significant.
There remains an underlying implication (following Hort's "theoretical
presumption") that those non-extant MSS would likely reflect a similar
proportion of Byzantine MSS as is evidenced in the post-9th century era,
and if so, any non-Byzantine views of transmissional history which engage
in the recent "revisionist history" claim that the Byzantine Text was not
in the majority until after the 9th century (e.g. Wallace, Aland), will
have to be seriously re-evaluated. The conclusions of Lake et al. point
at the minimum to at least the truth of Hort's claims regarding Byzantine
dominance from ca. AD 350 onward.
> I would imagine you are much more expert on this than I am. To me it
> seems that the flood of full-blown Byzantine manuscripts that continued
> until the time of Erasmus began in the ninth century, and that manuscripts
> such as E-F-G-H in the gospels and K-L in the epistles are typical.
I will agree that the multiplication of MSS increased dramatically from
the 9th century onward, and that the uncial MSS cited are typical of the
Byzantine Textform. But I would not suggest a sudden or major explosion
of MS copies at that point, but only a continuing multiplication of what
had previously been occurring (following the reasoning of Lake et al. on
this point).
> Agreed. Though W is of about the same date as A, so it doesn't change
> things much.
But A and W (not the root beer), with their early date and substantially
Byzantine texts, do imply the existence of earlier complete exemplars (at
least of the gospels) with a substantially Byzantine text in their
respective regions of copying (and I see a clear Egyptian hand in A, with
a more Armenian-style hand in W).
> >Since there are two competing "Byzantine" or "majority" texttypes in the
> >Apocalypse (Andreas and Q), I would not claim any specific MS as "the"
> >substantially Byzantine example.
> As an aside to Maurice -- how do you feel about those two types?
> Which one do you consider the original Byzantine textform?
I have a suspicion that the Andreas group might be influenced more by
certain preferred readings of that Father (whose commentary accompanies
almost all MSS of that group). The Q-group of MSS generally is
continuous text without commentary attached, and I would suspect it to
likely be closer to the original (but due to the smaller number of MSS in
the Apocalypse as compared with anywhere else in the NT, there is no easy
"Byzantine methodology" which can be applied there: readings where An + Q
agree are obviously "Byzantine," and this covers probably 95% of the
book; where An and Q differ, there is usually an approximately equal
quantitative division among the MSS, and internal principles have to
predominate in such cases).
> When I referred to a "mindset," I meant (say) a tendency to add
> superfluous pronouns, or delete them, or fix certain grammatical
> constructions. I agree with Maurice that most scribes were doing their
> best to copy what was before them, and that each scribe made
> idiosyncratic errors. But idiosyncratic errors will hardly create a
> text-type!
Most definitely agreed. This is why I would argue for localized
variations which would come together in local text forms. Some of these
local variations may have arisen from accidental alteration which then
became perpetuated within that given region; other readings may have come
about due to deliberate local recensional activity (which I would
maintain especially in the cases of Alexandria and Caesarea).
> It will often happen that a folk song
> will exist in various forms, and then someone creates a "superior"
> form (e.g. one with an improved melody or an easier set of words).
> The "improved" form will then gradually sweep all other forms away.
> (I could cite examples, but they probably wouldn't mean anything
> to the people on this list.)
Not wanting to get into the music analogy again, but Luther's taking a
drinking song and turning it into "A Mighty Fortress" or the same
happening with the tavern tune "Anacreon in Heaven" becoming "The Star
Spangled Banner" might serve as common illustrations. This analogy,
however, still remains outside the realm of NT textual transmission,
since it moves within the framework of the pre-existing autograph, where
the basic autograph text is NOT altered beyond recognition.
> It could certainly be argued that this has happened with the NT text
> as well. The best example is the ending of Mark. Without saying which
> is original, it is clear that two major forms circulated -- with and
> without 16:9-20. But the longer form clearly prevailed because it
> was *superior* -- i.e. it looked complete.
The question of "circulated" is debatable. With only 3 Greek MSS omitting
the long ending entirely, one has to wonder as to how extensively this
form ever did "circulate". Even the forms with the shorter ending appear
in only a handful of Greek MSS, and then in conjunction with the long
ending, so it may be questioned whether even that ending (which would
also have "looked complete") really had much independent circulation
beyond it-k or possibly some few Old Latin companion MSS. My view is
much simpler: the longer form prevailed because it was in fact part of
the originally-circulated form of Mark, and later competing readings
never really gained much popularity, let alone any ascendancy.
_________________________________________________________________________
Maurice A. Robinson, Ph.D. Assoc. Prof./Greek and New Testament
Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary Wake Forest, North Carolina
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Back