Subject: Itacisms

From: [email-masked] (Mark O'Brien)
Date: Wed, 15 Nov 95 13:37:02 CST

I haven't seen any mail rolling off this list since I signed up, so I
thought that I would throw a question out there for y'all.

After doing a bunch of collation in Sinaiticus, and noticing the great
multitude of itacisms, I was curious about the theories regarding 
these variants.  What is the concensus out there about how a 
manuscript like Sinaiticus was copied?  Was the scribe following an
oral reading of an exemplar, or was he following a written copy in
front of him?  Most textbooks seem to indicate that itacism was the
result of hearing errors (eg. Metzger), but there seem to be 
indications in Sinaiticus that it was not based on an oral reading of
an exemplar (occurences of haplography and dittography).  Hence my
question:  How do we explain these cases of itacism where there was
no hearing involved?  Was there in fact a stage in the development of
the Greek language where some of these itacisms were in fact the 
correct spellings of words?

I'm just trying to think through these issues and would appreciate
any insights.  Thanks.

Mark O'Brien
Grad. Student, Dallas Seminary
----
"We were put on earth to accomplish a certain number of things.  Right now, I'm
so far behind, I will never die!"