Tue Jun 11 12:02:39 1996
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Date: Tue, 11 Jun 96 18:00:37 +0100
From: schmiul@uni-muenster.de (Ulrich Schmid)
Subject: Re: Another set of miscellaneous replies
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On Sun, 9 Jun 1996, Maurice Robinson wrote:
[qoting Schmid:]
>> (a) First, they isolated a textual stratum which they call the
>>"Ecclesiastical" text ("the most popular text in MSS. of the >>tenth to the
>>fourteenth century") by meens of identifying four readings were >>almost all
>>MSS under discussion deviate from the Textus Receptus.
>They noted that the TR was equal to the Byzantine tradition in all >but
>four readings, where the vast majority of the 100 or so MSS >deviated nearly
unanimously. One should not regard merely these 4 >readings as the
Ecclesiastical (= Byzantine) text, but the 4 >readings plus the
>remaining entirety of the TR text in that chapter.
This is definitely correct. I may have stated this more clearely.
[again quoting Schmid:]
>>However, it seems important to me that not few of the readings >>may have been
caused independently by assimilation.
>Do you REALLY think this? Or are you just bringing in a >hypothetical
>possibility that the sharing of certain variants might be by >chance? I
>would allow the chance element were the texttypes clearly >distinct, with
>only a few isolated readings held in common; but when all MSS are >of the
>same basic texttype, and the shared readings are often among MSS >of the
>same sub-type, I suspect something more genetic is reflected, even >if we
>cannot determine the real interrelationship among the MSS.
Again, I may have stated the point more clearly. Assimilation in the Gospels is
very frequent. This is not text-type specific, but seemingly to be found in
virtually every MS. Therefore, assimilation may somehow affect clear patterns
and obcure them to some extend. I only thought of the smaller patterns within
the Byz. text-type, indicating Byz. sub-divisions. The point was: Assimilation
_might_ have obscured to some extend the clear genealogical relations between
MSS of the same text-type.
[again quoting Schmid:]
>>Therefore, the additional smaller patterns can be seen as >>representing a
>>broadly disseminated and very well known (at least to later >>scribes) pool
>>of variant-readings. If the constant threat of assimilation is >>taken into
>>account, it is to my mind not disturbing what can be found within >>the
libraries Lake-Blake-New have examined.
>I see the extraneous readings as reflecting "floating" localized >variants
>which were sporadically adopted, not necessarily a "broadly >disseminated"
>or even "well known" pattern. Certainly the readings in question >were
>known to the specific scribes in any case, but how widespread or
>well-known they may have been remains uncertain. The lack of clear
>genealogical connection among these MSS which existed and were >likely
>copied in those widely-separated monasteries remains the key point >within
>Lake's findings which should still send some "disturbing" signals >to those
within the eclectic camp.
Well, the readings of these smaller patterns (i.e. "broadly disseminated and
very well known pool of variant-readings") are regularly found in around 10 to
40 percent of the MSS Lake-Blake-New examined. These MSS stem from three
"widely-separated monasteries" and therefore, by consequence, if an argument is
built on the widely-separated monasteries, the smaller patterns are at least
spread exactly in the same "widely-separated" areas (i.e from Mount Sinai to
Jerusalem and Patmos).
I must admit that I do not completely grasp what "'floating' localized variants"
means. Do they originally belong to some sort of localized Byzantine sub-types
the local text-type like, or...? I may add that there are 22 of these
"'floating' localized variants" within the 33 verses of Mark 11. Even if they
are only "sporadically adopted", they can be found in MSS from "widely-separated
monasteries". If they are originally somehow "localized variants", the
probability of genealogical connection increases dramatically. Otherwise, how
were they spread?
"Disturbing" signals to whom?
Ulrich Schmid, Muenster
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