Wed Jun 12 14:19:49 1996
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Date: Wed, 12 Jun 96 20:18:47 +0100
From: schmiul@uni-muenster.de (Ulrich Schmid)
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.
I too think that the earliest witnesses to NT text are highly significant "to
the issue of how the text originated and was then transmitted". Since a good
deal of the citations from the early fathers (and some of the early Papyri) do
not fit very well to the framework of text-types, I suspect their significance
is ruled down by most scholars (exceptions are for example Amphoux,
Boismard/Lamouille, and those devoted to Diatessaron studies). I personally
refrained from taking this type of evidence into account, because the discussion
started with "text-types" and how to describe them. Nevertheless, encouraged by
W.L. Petersen, I my express some textual criticism "heresy" (cf. Bob Waltz).
1.) The obstacle (in our actual discussion already emphasized by Waltz,
Robinson, and West) concerning the reliability of citations, to my mind, is
overemphasized. It is true that there was an uncritical use of church father
testimonies without taking into account context, style, preferrences, etc. to an
extend that one may well call this kind of use an abuse. But nevertheless,
things change, and there are recent methodological contributions in order to
evaluate the reliability of this kind of evidence (cf. for example B. Aland,
Petersen, Clabeaux, Schmid).
2.) When reconstructing Marcion's Corpus Paulinum (mid second century, our
oldest witness!), I found, though few, but striking _textual_ evidence (conflate
readings!) indicating that Marcion's text antedates all our known text-types at
least in their actual state of appearence. Our extant textual transmission of
the Pauline epistles in fact testifies to early contamination from two distinct
letter editions affecting all our known "text-types" ("Western", Alex., Byz.).
Those heavily focused on text-types should take notice that for the Pauline
epistles we are most probably NOT dealing with ONE archetype of textual
transmission.
3.) Therefore, theories of textual transmission based on the assumption that one
of the "text-types" must somehow equal the autograph, or that text-types are the
one and only decisive features do not hold water (at least not for the Pauline
epistles). Granted this situation, the focus on "text-types" will lead us
nowhere, at least not to the autographs. The initial stages of textual
transmission are found beyond the "text-types".
Ulrich Schmid, Muenster
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