Subject: Re: Collation against MT vs. TR

From: [email-masked] (Mark O'Brien)
Date: Mon, 4 Dec 95 13:18:15 CST

Original message sent on Fri, Dec 1  6:28 AM by [email-masked] (Bart
Ehrman) :

> As the pay-off is not all that significant in the long run anyway, I'm 
> firmly of the opinion that we should continue using TR, simply
> for the sake of convenience and to avoid unneeded and unnecessary 
> delays in doing what needs to be done -- collecting all the textual 
> data at our disposal.

Dr. Ehrman,

I appreciated your comments.  However, I still have some questions
about doing quantitative analysis against the TR.  Dan Wallace argues
(and to some extent has shown in the classroom) that comparing MSS
against the TR can be misleading when classifying them.  I believe that
Tim Ralston also demonstrated this to be true in his work.  I'd be
interested in your opinion here.

Mark O'Brien
Dallas Theological Seminary

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From: Bart Ehrman <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 4 Dec 1995 19:19:42 -0500 (EST)

Mark,

   Certainly if one compares MSS *only* in places of variation from the
TR, the quantitative analysis will be skewed.  This was clearly shown by
Colwell and repeatedly by Fee and others.  THe problem with this approach
(typical of dissertations done in the 50s, e.g.) is that it fails to
assess the quantifiable agreements of MSS in places where they do *not*
differ from TR.  I hope, though, that Dan Wallace wasn't suggesting (in
fact, I'm sure he wasn't, since he knows all the literature on this) that
merely choosing the TR as the collation base could effect the quantitative
analysis.  In fact, the collation base is completely immaterial, so long
as one considers both agreements and disagreements of all mss with it in
readings that are judged to be genetically significant. 

   I have a reasonably full history of research on this question that I 
spun off my dissertation in the mid 80's, "Methodological Developments in 
the Analysis and Classificatin of NT Documentary Evidence," _Novum 
Testamentum_ 29 (1987) 22-45.

    Hope this is what you wanted to know.

-- Bart D. Ehrman

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From: Maurice Robinson <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 5 Dec 1995 00:00:29 -0500 (EST)

> interested in your opinion here.

Although addressed to Bart (who can well speak for himself on this 
matter), I would fully concur that, for quantitative analysis, data based 
solely on a collation against the TR would be misleading.  But so too 
would collation data against the N27 or any other text, if taken alone.
  
Wallace himself knows or should know that the only way in which data
concerning the interrelationship of MSS to each other can be assessed is
to pair every individual MS against every other MS surveyed and then to
calculate a percentage agreement.  This however, does NOT reflect a mere
following of a collation, regardless of textbase, but the utilization of
common collation data to facilitate the comparison of MS-to-MS.  Only the
percentage-pairs of agreement can help in classifying MS relationships --
not the collation base itself; but the raw data for pair-agreements can 
readily be extracted from any collations, so long as the MSS were 
collated against the same base text.

(I should also stress the need for analyzing MSS not only book by book,
but even chapter by chapter, since MSS often change textual character
within a single book). 

=========================================================================
                       Maurice A. Robinson, Ph.D.
            Associate Professor of Greek and New Testament
              Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary
                      Wake Forest, North Carolina
                   <[email-masked]>
=========================================================================