Thu Nov 21 12:27:45 1996

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Date: Thu, 21 Nov 96 19:30:16 +0100
From: schmiul@uni-muenster.de (Ulrich Schmid)
Subject: Re: Dale M. Wheeler's recent (untitled) post
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In assessing the various points of Dale's post (Tue, 19 Nov 1996) I am seriously 
restricted, since -believe me or not- currently I do not have access to 
either Hodges' Majority text edition or Aland's article; the Institute's library 
has been evacuated due to some painting work that needs to be done. However, I 
will try to address some of the points with reference to either Hodges or Aland 
from memory.

Dale M. Wheeler wrote (inter alia):

>I'm very sorry that Ulrich seems to be under the impression 
>(at least that's the way I read it...) that I was somehow 
>deliberately trying to misrespresent Aland's article...the 
>thought never crossed my mind ! 

I never suspected any deliberate misrepresentation of Aland's article. Sorry for 
giving rise to this "reading". I simply got the impression that Dale, while 
pursuing *his* own points of interest, somehow lost contact to *Aland's* own 
line of argument, and only thereby partly -in my view- misread Aland's article. 
Now, first of all, what caused this impression?

>First, regardless of his stated objectives, Aland didn't tell
>us where the rest of the quotes matched, or even if they 
>matched anything at all. I think that's a problem in his 
>presentation; and if they match the "Western" mss, AND his
>only clear demonstration of the existence of Alex *readings*
>outside of Egypt is in the West, then its even more inscrutable
>in my mind. Why didn't he just say that in the first place (and
>saying that we all should have just known that doesn't work for
>me, since, if that's the case, we should have known all these
>other statistics off the tops of our heads as well--but he
>goes to great lengths to point out that much of this data is 
>as the result of new research). I'm not sure how Ulrich figured
>this out; did I miss something in THIS article ?

Well, as far as I recall Aland introduced his statistics by pointing out that 
they refer to the *GNT (4th ed) apparatus*. Everyone familiar with the GNT knows 
that the presence of singular readings therein is very limited (at least within 
the Church Father testimonies). Therefore, Aland's statement: "2. Irenaeus (181) 
passages: 67% against the Majority text (24% of which show agreement with the 
"Egyptian text"), 16.5% common to both texts, and 16.5% with the Majority text" 
most likely should be read: "At 181 units of variation presented in GNT (4th 
ed.) Irenaeus testimony is extant and the alignments of his testimony with 
respect to the Majority text and the "Egyptian text" is as follows...". I 
consider this a very simple hermeneutical operation. 
To add just another hermeneutical guess: Aland presumably referred to the GNT 
(4th ed.) apparatus because everyone who owns a copy of this publication is able 
to check his calculations and their rationale.

Concerning the newness of the data Aland referred to the extensive revision 
taken place between the 3rd and the 4th ed. of GNT including the check of all of 
the Church Father citations.

>Second, he never tells us what his comparison base is; and it
>certainly isn't just the "Egyptian" mss mentioned by Hodges.
>It appears to be either the NA text or any reading in any 
>Alex mss; but who knows--can someone find a statement in the
>article that tells us ? If it is the NA text, then a comparison
>to the Majority text is, in my mind, fair but methodologically
>weak--for one thing the NA is not in toto found in any mss so
>far (is the Majority text ?). 

Dale, why are you so sure about Aland's comparison base ("it certainly isn't 
just the "Egyptian" mss mentioned by Hodges")? 

Just a small digression concerning the problem of MSS attestation of any modern 
edition "in toto": From the collation of almost every known MS containing text 
of the Catholic Epistles at 98 Teststellen Klaus Wachtel concluded that no 
single MS totally agrees with the majority of MSS at each and every of the 
Teststellen (orthographicals, itacisms, and singulars are not counted as 
deviations). If we refer to the Majority text in purely quantitative categories, 
it is an eclectic entity. What about the methodological implications of this 
result?

Additionally, Dale seems to be sometimes one or even two steps ahead of my own 
reading of Aland's article by introducing additional information, conclusions, 
and most of all hypotheses which I could not detect from within Aland's article.
Example:

[Wheeler:]
>>>But in the very next
>>>paragraph, it seems to me, he undermines that 
>>>argument by pointing out: "...p38 and p48 at least
>>>anticipate the so-called 'Western text' (its
>>>chief representative, Codex Bezae Cantabrigiensis
>>>[D], is now believed by Latin paleographers to
>>>have come from Africa. And both these papyri are 
>>>from the 3rd century!" While the conclusion that
>>>Egyptian readings can be found in Byz Fathers
>>>may be supportable, I don't see how pointing to
>>>Western Fathers helps the argument at all, esp.,
>>>if the type of text they are using is a 
>>>descendant of Alex.

[Schmid:]
>>This reasoning simply does not make sense to me. Please, help me to get to the 
>>point.

[Wheeler:]
>The point of this argument, which I am repeating here from others, 
>is that if the "Western text (-type)" is Egyptian in origin and 
>character--as *Aland* asserts; here he refers to D, but elsewhere
>he has said the same thing about p38, p48--, and this is the text 
>used by the Western Fathers (an assumption; and perhaps the heart 
>of the matter), then citing Western Fathers doesn't demonstrate 
>an INDEPENDANT witness to the Egyptian type of text outside of 
>Egypt, since the stream of transmission is so narrow.

Where does Aland "assert" the Egyptian origin of the "Western text (-type)"? In 
the above given quote Aland speaks of the 3rd century witnesses p38, p48 as 
anticipating the "Western" text. The broader context of this quote, as far as I 
recall, was the far more complex situation of the early "Egyptian" papyri Aland 
emphasized against Hodges' somehow uniform perspective. One shold not overlook 
that in Aland's view, though all of our papyri had been found in Egypt (due to 
climatic circumstances), the Egyptian *origin* of the papyri and/or of the text 
they display is far from being established to say the least. 
Now as far as I can see, the whole case rests on Aland's alleged "assertion" of 
the Egyptian origin of the "Western text (type), which I could not figure out up 
to now. In fact, if Aland could be convicted of this assertion, Dale's and some 
others' case could be valid. 

Now shall we pursue this case or shall we discuss the whole framework of the 
early (MSS and patristic) evidence with its implications for the competing 
theories? 

Finally, I would like to address some points where clarification is needed from 
my perspective.

[Schmid:]
>>Either way the conclusion is not sound, for (a) in the GNT apparatus
>>usually no 
>>singular readings are given, and (b) the agreements between Irenaeus and 
>>so-called "Western" witnesses (D F G it Tertullian Ambrosiaster etc.) against 
>>"Egyptian" and Byz. (cf. e.g., Gal 2,1.5) were not specified in Aland's 
>>statistics. Aland's reason for focussing solely on "Egyptian text" and Byz. in 
>>his article was Zane Hodges' assertion that "[i]ts [the Egyptian text's] 
>>existence in early times outside Egypt is unproved". 

>As I said above, this was a very helpful piece of information; perhaps I 
>should have picked it up myself (but I don't think I was the only one who 
>didn't make this assumption about Aland's unstated information and 
>connections...) If I understand you correctly, then you mean to say that 
>in general the percentage left over after doing the Egyptian and Byz 
>comparisons was in fact agreements with the KNOWN "Western" witnesses ? 

I fail to understand the capitalized "KNOWN" in this question. Who knows of 
*unknown* "Western" witnesses? All I wanted to do was to express as neutral as 
possible the agreements between Irenaeus and witnesses like D F G, lat, Marcion, 
and various other (mostly latin) Church Fathers, which are commonly labelled as 
"Western" witnesses. I did not want to predetermine whether these witnesses 
alltogether form a single text-type or if it is of geographically western origin 
or if it is locally restricted at all, etc.

>... to show that the Egyptian text 
>existed in the writings of the Fathers outside of Egypt one would need
>to quote from Fathers outside of Egypt, esp., Byz Fathers. 

Sorry, if insisting on a possible slip, but to avoid misunderstandings: Who 
would be a candidate of being a "Byz Father" (geographically speaking) in the 
second and third centuries?

My apologize for the long post.

Ulrich Schmid, Muenster

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