Wed Oct 23 12:49:26 1996

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From: Maurice Robinson 
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Subject: Re: Textual Criticism Theories
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On Tue, 22 Oct 1996, Robert B. Waltz wrote:

> First, the majority of those who prefer the Byzantine text prefer
> it on theological grounds ("God must consider the Byzantine text
> right, of (s)he would not have made so many copies") or on numerical
> grounds ("it's the majority; it must be right"). There are, of
> course, exceptions (so don't say it, Maurice), but this is how
> most Byzantine prioritists feel. The proponents of the other text,
> by contrast, make their choice based on some perceived "inner
> excellence" (obviously a subjective matter).

Do what you will with "majority text" people, but please do not claim that
Byzantine-prioritists defend the Byzantine text primarily or even at all
on theological grounds.  Leave that to Pickering and his crowd.  Neither
myself nor Hodges/Farstad would argue from either statement in quotes
above.

> in approach. Unlike the other text-types, it is possible to do stemmatic
> work, and certainly historical work, on the Byzantine text. This
> inevitably will affect the final text (note the differences between
> Hodges & Farstad and Robinson on this very point).

Again, note that I have no objection to stemmatics as applied to the
Byzantine Textform.  My objection is to the stemmatic method of
Hodges/Farstad, and noted previously. A proper stemmatic approach,
focussed on shared error as stemmatically significant is indeed a valid
methodology.  However, aside from family relationships which have already
been established, most MSS of the Byzantine Textform do _not_ show any
stemmatic links which would help in genealogical analysis.  

> preferred the TR was beyond my comprehension. By my standards, Robinson's
> text and the TR are almost equally bad -- but Robinson himself is a
> knowledgeable and insightful scholar.

At least good scholars can prefer bad texts, is that what you are saying?
I myself have thought precisely the same about most rigorous or reasoned
eclectics.  *;-)

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