Mon Nov 4 23:11:46 1996

From owner-tc-list  Mon Nov  4 23:11:46 1996
Return-Path: 
Received: by scholar.cc.emory.edu (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4)
	id XAA08681; Mon, 4 Nov 1996 23:10:12 -0500
Date: Mon, 4 Nov 1996 23:06:12 -0500 (EST)
From: Maurice Robinson 
To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu
Subject: Re: Uncials & majuscules et al.
In-Reply-To: 
Message-ID: 
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Sender: owner-tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu
Precedence: bulk
Reply-To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu
content-length: 1661



On Mon, 4 Nov 1996, James R. Adair wrote:

> but its value as a witness to the text would remain great.  Versional
> witnesses are secondary only in the sense that translation technique and
> similar matters limit to a greater or lesser extent the certainty of the
> retroversion into Greek.  They should not be considered secondary to the
> entire Greek ms tradition simply because they are not written in Greek.  A
> similar case can be made for the value of patristic testimony, although of
> course other factors are involved. 

I concur with Jimmy here, but it still must be remembered that the
versional testimony, even pruned and reconstructed, still reflects but
_one_ Greek witness, which (depending on the version) may well be early
and of proportionally significant weight, but also which may equally be
later and of less significant weight.

Of course, if it were known for certain that a version were translated
directly from the autograph of Mark, I would be willing to place far more
weight upon such than upon a versional text which might merely reflect a
"Caesarean" type mixture, which I consider to be late.  Since the versions
do not exactly help us in that regard, I would consider the strongest
versional testimony to be those versions which strongly reflect
Alexandrian or Western texttypes as equivalent to stronger ancient
testimony. 

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

Back