Fri Jan 24 10:47:40 1997

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Date: Fri, 24 Jan 97 17:54:32 +0100
From: schmiul@uni-muenster.de (Ulrich Schmid)
Subject: Re: Post-modern textual criticism
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On Fri, 24 Jan 1997, Bart Ehrman wrote:

[Ehrmann]
>> >   I guess maybe one difference could be that scribes _are_ (how's that?)
>> >able to reproduce exactly what they inherit in their exemplars, whereas
>> >readers, I would maintain, can never reproduce exactly the meanings either
>> >of the author or of any other readers.

>[Schmid] 
>> I wish I could do the same with respect to your example. I have no
>> problems conceding theoretically that "scribes _are_ able to reproduce
>> exactly what they inherit in their exemplars". However, I fail to add
>> any evidence that this has happened practically. Now, if something seems
>> theoretically plausible (exact copy) that has, as far as I know, not
>> been practically achieved until the invention of printing, why should it
>> be theoretically implausible to assume exact reproduction of meaning? To
>> my mind, the crucial term in your example is "exactly".

[Ehrman]
>   I'd say that your statement about scribes is categorically false.
>There were hundreds and hundreds of scribes who copied John 1:1, to pick
>an example, *exactly* as they found it in their exemplar.

If someone can give evidence that there once existed an "exemplar" that solely 
"inherited" John 1:1, I would agree. The point is that when talking about 
"scribes" and "what they inherit in their exemplars" we are dealing with 
physical evidence. As long as we focus on physical evidence, we have to say that 
there is no indisputable evidence that GJohn ever was "reconstructed" in bits 
and pieces by scribes. Or to put it the other way, scribes who had to copy John 
1:1 usually copied John 1:2ff too. And, if they did, they for sure would have 
altered the text they had to copy sooner or later. This is due to human nature 
and, as far as I can see, the main reason for the existence of TC, and it does 
not affect the theoretical assumption of the one perfect scribe, who not only 
resisted to add further errors to the text, but also refused to correct the 
errors of his forerunner(s) ending up with "reproducing exactly what he/she 
inherited in his/her exemplar". 

	Now, everyone, of course, is free to isolate any concatenation of 
symbols (e.g., John 1:1) out of a much larger concatenation of symbols (John 
1:1-21:25) claiming both to be "texts" (plural). But this enterprise can not be 
paralleled with what real scribes did when they copied real texts. Therefore, I 
find John 1:1 as counter-example to real scibal activities not very compelling. 
Quite to the contrary, I suspect therein some categorical confusion.

Ulrich Schmid, Muenster

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