Mon Oct 28 20:54:25 1996

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Date: Mon, 28 Oct 1996 20:49:33 -0500 (EST)
From: Maurice Robinson 
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Subject: Re: In Defense of Robinson (Was: An Interminably Long Post.)
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On Mon, 28 Oct 1996, Robert B. Waltz wrote:

> But I observe -- and we all know this to be true -- that different
> critics can take *the same* manuscript evidence, and almost the same
> list of critical criteria -- and produce editions which differ in
> hundreds or thousands of places.

What is interesting here is that Bob's comment applies equally to the
_external_ evidence of manuscripts, versions, and patristic quotations, as
well as to internal criteria.  The result is demonstrable that such
criteria, even taken as a whole and applied "normally" by eclectic critics
still will produce texts which have significant differences (though I
would be swift to point out as did Colwell, Clark, and Epp, that the
resultant texts, though differing, still reflect more of a Westcott-Hort
text than anything else).  

However, the larger question is this: why should textual criticism from a
given school of thought produce widely differing resultant texts? 
Certainly within my own perspective, my Byzantine Textform is constructed
on different principles than the Hodges/Farstad edition, yet our total
number of differences in the entire NT probably amount to only 300 of so,
220 of which are in Revelation, where H/F specifically applied their
stemmatic approach.  I am not sure that the different eclectic approaches
will come so close even within their predominantly Alexandrian final text.

> All I am saying, in this particular context, is that textual criticism --
> *if* it wishes to view itself as a science -- must come up with repeatable
> rules, must formulate and test hypotheses (including mathematical
> measures for goodness-of-fit), and must place itself on the soundest
> possible mathematical basis.

I would concur to an extent with Bob here, though probably not in
regard to the specific mathematical precision demanded.  I do maintain
that rules for handling external evidence as well as internal evidence
should be such that a "normal" application of such will in any given
situation lead to the same result.  This I find greatly wanting in modern
eclectic praxis.


_________________________________________________________________________
Maurice A. Robinson, Ph.D.           Professor of Greek and New Testament
Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary     Wake Forest, North Carolina
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