Tue Jan 21 15:56:50 1997
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Date: Tue, 21 Jan 1997 15:01:57 -0600
From: Jack Kilmon
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Subject: Re: Original Text and Limits of TC
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Ulrich Schmid wrote:
>
> 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.
This is exactly the type of information I had in mind when
my original post started this thread, essentially what role TC
plays in my interest in a "pre-archetypal proto-John." In the
case of the GJohn, an underlying "hyper-archetype" working back
from the realia is much more difficult (given the redactional history)
than some of the Pauline Corpus which may have less distance between the
autograph and the archetype.
This thread has been very useful to me in defining the parameters of TC
with the existing manuscripts vs the more
conjectural aspects (hopefully well reasoned) of literary criticism
in attempting to reconstruct the autograph. The search for the
autograph is always enticing and TC offers a "starting point" at
the best rescension. I realize, however, that earlier reconstruction
goes beyond the evidence into the gray erea of reasoned conjecture.
I'll continue to work on my "proto-John," however, because
it's fun! I thank all of you for your input. I learned much from
it.
> 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.
>
My impression is that such a "unified field" theory is going to
be very difficult but I sure will be interested when you get it
polished.
Jack Kilmon
JPMan@accesscomm.net
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