Tue Jun 11 19:58:59 1996

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From: waltzmn@skypoint.com (Robert B. Waltz)
Subject: Re: Theories of textual transmission / Alexandrian text / etc.
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On Tue, 11 Jun 199, wlp1@psu.edu (William L. Petersen) wrote:

>As I have watched the various posts on these two subjects float by over the
>last week or so, I have been struck by one point.  It leads me to ask the
>following question:
>
>Why, in all these discussions, have NONE of the earliest witnesses to the NT
>text been mentioned?  Are they without relevance to the issue of how the
>text originated and was then transmitted?  Are they of no significance when
>discussing the "Alexandrian" or "Byzantine" or other families?
>
>By "earliest witnesses" I mean, of course, the extensive second-century
>citations which we possess:  Justin, Tertullian, Ignatius, the Didache, etc.
>Even the early third century citations in Clement of Alexandria, Origen,
>etc., are very important for the light they shed on both the text itself and
>how early "academic" Christians handled it.
>
>Quite frankly, I don't understand why one would choose to busy one's self
>with 4th cent. through 12th cent. evidence, while at the same time totally
>ignoring the 2nd through 3rd. cent. evidence.  Please enlighten me.

Let's take this in pieces.

You're right, of course, that early authors have advantages for researching
the textual tradition, since we know with fair precision *where* and *when*
they wrote.

But let's remember the caveats.

First, most authors did not cite precisely. This is particularly true of
the earliest: Ignatius, Justin, etc. But Tertullian wasn't overly precise,
either. And even Origen suffered occasional lapses of memory.

Second, the writings of these authors are often badly preserved. Irenaeus
and Origen, for instance, wrote in Greek but are preserved primarily in
Latin. And in the case of Origen, at least, Rufinus's translation was more
than a little biased.

And even when we possess the texts in the original language, our *manuscripts*
are generally recent, and often thoroughly corrupt.

For these problems, I refer you to Fee's essays in Epp & Fee. I'm not sure
I like Fee's solutions, but it shows the magnitude of the problem.

Third, remember that relatively few authors commented on entire books.
So in any given passage, we may not *know* what that author's text
read.

But suppose that, miraculously, we were to recover the autographs of
every writing by all of these authors. How does that help us? We don't
really *care* where the text-types came from. As for dates, it is
conceded that, with the possible exception of the Byzantine text,
(don't jump on me, Maurice, I said *possible*) *all* the text-types
are older than their oldest witnesses. Pushing the date back a
decade or two, or even a century or two, doesn't help much.

When we try to decide the relationship between text-types, all we
care about is the types themselves. Certain Fathers may be witnesses
to the text-types (the standard example is Chrysostom as a witness
to the Byzantine text, even though we are finding now that his text
wasn't *quite* purely Byzantine), but they do not tell us which
types are which.

If you can tell me how the use of the Fathers can resolve the
basic question ("What is a text-type?"), I'd be thrilled to hear
the proposal.

Bob Waltz
waltzmn@skypoint.com

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