Tue Oct 29 09:51:25 1996

From owner-tc-list  Tue Oct 29 09:51:25 1996
Return-Path: 
Received: by scholar.cc.emory.edu (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4)
	id JAA04917; Tue, 29 Oct 1996 09:49:58 -0500
X-Sender: waltzmn@popmail.skypoint.com
Message-Id: 
In-Reply-To: 
 
References: 
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Date: Tue, 29 Oct 1996 09:45:53 -0700
To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu
From: "Robert B. Waltz" 
Subject: Mathematics and science (Was: In Defense of Robinson, etc.)
Sender: owner-tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu
Precedence: bulk
Reply-To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu
content-length: 4853

On Mon, 28 Oct 1996, Maurice Robinson  wrote:

>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).

I obviously can't argue with Maurice's statements. Although I might
argue that none of the important editors since W&H have worked on
a primarily external basis.

Even if they did, it should be noted that the results will be controlled
by the theory of the text. The fair test would be to compare the results
produced by two people who shared the *same* textual theory. To the
best of my knowledge, that has only happened once (in the collaboration
of Westcott & Hort). The two *did* disagree -- as their obelized readings
show -- but they agree more often than any editors since.

>However, the larger question is this: why should textual criticism from a
>given school of thought produce widely differing resultant texts?

The obvious reason being that both "rigorous" and "reasoned" eclecticism
contain a large subjective element. Colwell observed that a sufficiently
ingenious critic can find a reason to support almost *any* reading.

>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.

They obviously don't (see Aland and Aland, pp. 25-28, which shows the
rates of differences among the various readings).

I might incidentally note that some of these editions are closer to
the Byzantine editions than we might think. Based on Wallace, H/F
disagrees with UBS about 6000 times. Presumably R/P and UBS disagree
at about the same rate. But von Soden differs from NA25 (perhaps the
most Alexandrian edition of all) over 2000 times, and Vogels departs
from NA25 almost as often. Since the majority of these changes are in
the direction of the Byzantine text, these editions are about a third
of the way from Alexandrian to Byzantine. I would have to call these
"mixed," not "Alexandrian" (though the Alexandrian predominates).

>> 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.

Allow me to clarify: Not all sciences are equally mathematical. Physics
is more mathematical than chemistry, which is more mathematical than
biology, etc. Textual criticism will always be closer to biology, not
physics; it will never be possible to reduce it entirely to formulae.

The point is not that a science must be entirely mathematical; in many
cases (e.g. geology) it is primarily descriptive. The point is just that
a science must be *as mathematical as possible.* In the case of TC, this
probably means making the greatest possible use of statistics in
assessing the relationships between manuscripts. It might mean giving
mathematical weight to criteria -- but I would oppose this. The goal
is not to apply criteria according to some formula, but to apply them
consistently. It's not the same thing.

I would also repeat that it does not automatically follow that textual
criticism *must* be treated as a science. You can treat it as art, or
as one of the other fuzzy subjects. If so, you'll be doing it without
me -- but then, I doubt if many of you would miss me. :-)

Bob Waltz
waltzmn@skypoint.com

Back