Fri Jan 24 09:21:14 1997

From owner-tc-list  Fri Jan 24 09:21:14 1997
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Date: Fri, 24 Jan 1997 08:19:20 -0700
To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu
From: "Robert B. Waltz" 
Subject: Re: The function of TC
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On Fri, 24 Jan 1997, ANDREW SMITH  wrote:

>As much as many practitioners of TC might want to classify it as a
>scholarly, scientific, or academic pursuit, I would argue that it remains
>primarily a religious enterprise. (I duck as bricks are thrown.)
>
>To support this statement, I point to the lack of TC activity on
>non-religious texts. For example, the Diels-Kranz collection of
>pre-Socratic fragments presents us with many interesting textual
>questions; yet only a handful of researchers here and there are working on
>these projects. Compare this to the thousands who are working on NT
>textual concerns, and the thousands who analyze the MT of the Tanakh, and
>one can only conclude that they are religiously motivated, even though
>they might not be aware of this motivation. (Who's more interesting: Jesus
>or Thales.) This includes a large number whose religious motivation is to
>"un-do" or "un-ravel" a given religion: an anti-religious motivation is
>still a religious motivation. Again, the comparison to TC work on
>non-religious texts hightlights this point.

Are we talking about the same subject? Textual criticism applies to
*all* ancient texts, though the form is different. E.g. Beowulf
and Tacitus exist only in single manuscripts (there are actually two mss.
of Tacitus, but they don't overlap). Obviously there TC consists only
of looking for aberrant readings and attempting to emend them.

But TC, as applied to the NT, also applies to works like the Iliad
(which exists in hundreds of manuscripts). And I have, on my
shelf, a critical text of Josephus.

Consider, too, that one of the most-quoted thinkers in the history
of TC was A.E. Housman, who worked on classical texts.

For that matter, I might point out that I was not brought up
Christian, and have at times practiced New Testament TC from
the agnostic's standpoint. You don't have to be Christian to
enjoy TC; it merely gives you more motivation (and, arguably,
distorts your viewpoint on some issues. IMHO, TC should be
approached without a religious bias).

As for who is a better writer -- if you've ever read
Suetonius, you'll realize that he's a lot better read
than the Vulgate. It may just be gossip -- certainly
I won't claim it's Higher Truth -- but at least it's
not boring.


Now you can all go after *me*. :-)

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-

                            Robert B. Waltz
                         waltzmn@skypoint.com

Want more loudmouthed opinions about textual criticism?
Try my web page: http://www.skypoint.com/~waltzmn
(A very rough draft of part of the Encyclopedia of NT Textual Criticism)

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