Sat Aug 17 21:00:19 1996

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Date: Sat, 17 Aug 1996 19:52:35 -0700
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From: "Robert B. Waltz" 
Subject: Re: Announcing "The Encyclopedia of New Testament Textual Criti
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On Sat, 17 Aug 1996, nichael@sover.net (Nichael Lynn Cramer)

[ ... ]

>
>On the contrary, the essay in questions _does_ give a balanced,
>comprehensive examination of the topic.  It also demonstrates --quite
>thoroughly IMnsHO-- why it is all but impossible to take it seriously as a
>model.  Despite much protestation on this mailing list, these things --a
>balanaced discussion and demonstration of the errors of a method-- are not
>incompatible.

I should interject a comment here....

While it will be obvious to those who have read my previous posts that
I do not agree with Maurice Robinson, I *have* come to respect his
erudition and his viewpoint. It is by no means identical with the
King James First group, or even the Majority Text group. I would not
consider it crackpot, merely wrong. :-)

>> ... What we need is to look at the crackpot
>>theories.
>
>I'm sorry, but it's hard to believe that you are being serious here.  Why
>is this different from arguing that a text on Physics should give equal
>space to Hollow Earth theories or Alien Abductions?

To be picky, Alien Abductions have nothing to do with physics.

As for hollow earth theories, they deserve to be considered. Considered
and rejected, but *considered.*

Physics has an advantage over textual criticism: In most cases you can
conduct rigidly controlled experiments. So you can disprove -- or at
least give strong evidence against -- many theories. But until that
evidence is presented, *all* theories deserve to be listened to, whether
orthodox or not.

>> ... Most of them will prove to be worthless -- but chances
>>are that the next big advance is in there. Somewhere.
>
>No; chances are, the odds are --as demonstrated innumerable times before in
>every field imaginable-- that crackpot theories are exactly that.

Perhaps it depends on your definition of a crackpot. But certainly
conventional wisdom can be proved wrong. The examples in physics are
endless. A handful of examples:

* Aristotle said heavy objects fall faster than light objects. Galileo
  demonstrated that they don't, and Newton showed why.

* Ptolemy, and his predecessors, said the sun moved around the earth.
  Galileo, Kepler, and company proved otherwise.

* The Greeks generally considered the universe to consist of four elements,
  each infinitely indivisible. A number of scientists demonstrated the
  existence of other elements, and Dalton showed that those elements consist
  of atoms which cannot be divided.

* Conventional wisdom had it that light moved in an ether at a non-constant
  velocity. Michelson and Morley got rid of the ether, and the speed of
  light is constant.

And so forth, ad nauseum. We can find the same thing in textual criticism.
E.g., Hort had it that B, in Paul, was a slightly messed up Alexandrian
text. Zuntz showed this is not so; it belongs to another text-type.

>As many people have said before, open-mindedness is our primary asset.  But
>open-mindness doesn't mean checking ones mind at the door.

Agreed. Most "crackpot" notions are just crazy. But there is no law that
says conventional wisdom is always right. And where it is wrong, the
correct answer will be viewed as crackpot *until* it is proved right.

All I am saying is that we need to be truly open-minded. That doesn't mean
being feeble-minded.

It does mean being open to theories that are more than modernized versions of
Westcott and Hort.

Bob Waltz
waltzmn@skypoint.com

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