Fri Feb 14 13:30:38 1997
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Date: Fri, 14 Feb 1997 10:26:20 -0800
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From: "Dale M. Wheeler"
Subject: Re: professional scribes
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Michael Holmes wrote:
>At 09:05 AM 2/13/97 -0800, Dale Wheeler wrote:
>
>>You know, that sort of sounds like the same question I asked about whether
>>we should assume that the state of the text in Egypt represents the state
>>of the text everywhere for the NT ?!
>
>The question of whether the extant textual data from Egypt is representative
>of circumstances elsewhere has been explored by E. J. Epp: "The Significance
>of the Papyri for Determining the Nature of the New Testament Text in the
>Second Century: A Dynamic View of Textual Transmission," in William L.
>Petersen, ed., _Gospel Traditions in the Second Century: Origins,
>Recensions, Text, and Transmission_ (Notre Dame and London: University of
>Notre Dame Press, 1989)71-103.
>
>Based on his investigation of the movement and transmission of secular
>documents (including the documented rapid movement of literary documents
>between Alexandria and Oxyrhynchus), he concludes:
>"The dynamism of life in the Greco-Roman world--even in the outlying areas
>of Egypt (where most of the New Testament papyri were discovered)--permitted
>relatively easy travel and rather free transmission of letters and
>documents, so that the earliest New Testament papyri--though they have
>survived accidentally and randomly--are generally representative of the
>earliest New Testament texts used by the Christianity of the time in all
>parts of the Greco-Roman world." (p. 101)
I have to admit that I've always felt that Epp was stretching the evidence
a bit to cover territory for which we have no apparent evidence. I'm
wondering if anyone has done any further studies on this topic, responded
to Epp, etc. For, with one stroke of the pen, Epp has thrown out the
long-standing idea that there was a certain geographically-based isolation
and inbred development in the "text-types". This, of course, lies at the
heart of the current "Egyptian priority" vs "Byz priority" debate currently
going on...was it all the same in the first couple of centuries througout
Christianity or not ?!
But even if we assume that Epp is correct, I've often wondered if
"christians" living in Asia Minor would have accepted texts done by
"professional" scribes (though Comfort seems to paint a picture of devout
Christians copying their own texts in early Egypt) from an area known to
contain pockets of heresy ? Or did the text only/primarily flow in the
opposite direction, from Byz to Egypt ? For if there was no ebb and flow of
the text to provide a basis of comparison and thus generate some
consistency, then are we not back at geographically-isolated inbred
development?
Just musing out loud (sort to speak)...
XAIREIN...
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Dale M. Wheeler, Th.D.
Research Professor in Biblical Languages Multnomah Bible College
8435 NE Glisan Street Portland, OR 97220
Voice: 503-251-6416 FAX:503-254-1268 E-Mail: dalemw@teleport.com
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