Tue Jan 21 12:06:01 1997

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Date: Tue, 21 Jan 97 19:10:16 +0100
From: schmiul@uni-muenster.de (Ulrich Schmid)
Subject: Re: Original Text and Limits of TC
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On Mon, 20 Jan 1997, Mike Holmes wrote:

>1) Literary criticism and textual criticism are inescapably inter-related.
>To be sure, the MSS provide, in a very concrete way, data (or, to use
>Waltz's term, FACTS), but facts do not exist in a vacuum, and their
>interpretation certainly does not.  That is, *all* interpretation takes
>place within some kind of theoretical framework, and in the case of textual
>criticism, that interpretative framework is "often" (I should probably
>insert a stronger term) influenced or provided by aspects of literary
>criticism.  This is esp. the case when we begin to discuss what it is that
>we have reconstructed by means of TC.  E.g, suppose that there is a
>concensus  that all surviving copies of a document are descended from X.
>What we then choose to call X--autograph? archetype? edited edition of
>earlier documents?--is sharply affected by literary-critical kinds of
>decisions and judgments.

Generally I agree with this assessment. However, I do not think that we have too 
much lit critical kinds of decisions and judgments to opt for in reality. That 
is, when looking for possible candidates for X our "interpretative framework" 
has, first of all, to do justice to textual tradition otherwise it's not TC. By 
this I mean, we have to adjust our framework to the requirements of the realia, 
and not to literary critical guesswork either ignorant of or even (un)conciously 
violating realia. Of course, from a literary critical standpoint one can still 
maintain a late 2nd century date for the final redaction of GJohn, as, e.g., 
Walter Schmitthals who tries to downplay the evidence of P 52 by either 
questioning its date or assuming it representing an earlier draft of GJohn. Now 
to my mind one of the most powerful tools in science comes into play, Occam's 
razor: non sunt multiplicanda entia praeter necessitatem. As far as I can see, 
the "necessitas" for TC is *not* to localize GJohn or some allegedly  
theologically or lit critically identified layers within the first two 
centuries. We have to identify and, if possible, localize the archetype of a 
textual transmission. [Now repeting what I recently stated:] When assessing the 
archetype of a textual transmission, we usually try to 
reverse the process of dissemination and corruption making our way back as far 
as possible. At a certain point we have to stop due to lack of further evidence. 
And precisely at that point we have to pause in order to outline, first of all, 
a theory of the archetype, again, not to be confused with the quest for the 
autograph. The whole matter, simple as it looks like in theory, is complicated 
by the fact that in Biblical studies we are dealing with collections of books 
subdivided into various subcollections. As far as I can see, within NT textual 
transmission we are lacking any substantial MS evidence prior to existing 
collections. Therefore, to my mind, the first thing we have to do is to work 
with one of the collections (e.g. the Corpus Paulinum) addressing the question: 
How far can we go back in identifying further subcollections that are either 
displayed by textual transmission or to be conjectured in order to make sense of 
it? 
The task of TC is to make sense of textual transmission. If it makes more sense 
to conjecture pre-GJohn, I am happy. But this should be handled as *ultima 
ratio* and not as starting point. We should not, somehow intimidated by or 
humbly devoted to any mainstream or *hot* literary theories, borrow our starting 
points elsewhere, but from the very heart of our discipline: the "necessitas" of 
textual transmission.
As Mike Holmes pointed out:

>   (Yes, the interaction between lit criticism and TC is certainly a
>two-way street.  More than a few literary theories collapse in the face of
>the historical realia of surviving MSS. 

To finally add some more fuel to the fire: I would like to develop a literary 
theory that fits the requirements of textual transmission, but I fear we are 
subconciously marred with all sorts of literary theories alien to it. Otherwise, 
I suspect, we would have been able to trouble our fellow literary critics much 
more than the other way round.

Ulrich Schmid, Muenster

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