Fri Jan 3 22:25:12 1997

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From: Maurice Robinson 
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Subject: Re: Byzantine editions (Was: Re: James)
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On Fri, 3 Jan 1997, Robert B. Waltz wrote:

> >The Oxford 1825 was used by H&F, so has become a convenient TR used by many.
> 
> The Oxford editions are the basis for most recent collations. And
> it's a good thing that H&F list their readings, because they aren't
> easy to find any more!

The problem is that for many years Dallas Seminary itself reprinted and
used the Oxford 1825 TR, and that is what H/F used.  Virtually no one else
(including myself) can find a copy of that specific edition anywhere,
since Dallas Seminary no longer prints it.  Note that the IGNTP uses its
own reprinted fascicles of the Oxford 1873 TR, which itself would be
difficult to locate apart from IGNTP making its own reprints for internal
use.  Probably the most common and continuing as available TR edition is
the Stephens 1550 text as found in the George Ricker Berry interlinear
Greek NT (originally published in 1897, but still in print from various
reprint houses). That is the specific Stephens 1550 TR edition utilized in
the Online Bible program, along with the artificial TR supposedly
underlying the KJV prepared by Scrivener in 1894.

> That's the number of differences that Wallace finds between the TR and
> H&F. But I would note that H&F is *not* the Majority Text; it's a
> preliminary edition. It's based mostly on von Soden.

I would count the H/F text as a final edition, despite their suggestions
to the contrary.  The second edition of the text (1985) merely corrected
some typos and oversights, and there have been no changes whatsoever since
that time, nor have Hodges or Farstad made any suggestions that any such
changes might be forthcoming. 

The Robinson/Pierpont text has undergone a similar revision process since
its 1991 appearance, but the status of two or three otherwise divided
readings (nothing of major significance) has been changed after some
reflection. The current R/P text should be available from Vincent Broman's
site, and any differences found between the text on the Broman site and
the printed edition or that found in the Online Bible should be considered
to supersede previous versions. 

> At this time, with so many manuscripts uncollated, we don't actually
> *know* the reading of the Majority Text at some points. There are
> probably a few places where H&F (or Robinson) print a reading which
> is not a majority reading. I would guess there are fewer than a hundred
> such, but there are undoubtedly some.

This applies more to H/F than to R/P, but it should strictly be noted that
even H/F do not "count noses" and actually print the numerically superior
reading at all times.  Indeed, their non-majority readings (predominantly
in Revelation and the Pericope Adultera) remain one of the sole elements
of praise allotted by Wallace to the H/F text.  In the case of the R/P
text, "majority" is basically a non-issue, since the primary issue is and
always has been "Byzantine Textform"; the R/P text in a number of places
where the Byzantine MSS are divided in fact _does_ adopt minority
readings. 

> >I think of the Byz text as a textual family or text type, ie the 
> >hypothetical text behind the majority of manuscripts.
> 
> I agree.

>From my perspective the Byzantine is neither a "family" nor "text type",
but is instead the archetypical "textform" which thus underlies the text
found in the majority of MSS (which coincidentally happen to comprise the
"Byzantine MSS"  group) 

> Want more loudmouthed opinions about textual criticism?
> Try my web page: http://www.skypoint.com/~waltzmn

Wow....I thought I was the only one offering such opinions. :-)

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